So basically I’m a freshman in highschool and I’m really satisfied with my gpa. The school years ending and I’m most likely finishing with a 3.48 Un- weighted gpa. Here are my grades:
Physics Honors: A
English Honors: A-
History Honors: A-
Math Honors: B
Spanish Honors: B
So my question is will this poor, in my sense freshman year affect me a lot when applying to college lets say if I get a 3.8+ gpa the next 3 years. I am targeting schools such as Tufts, Ucla, Duke type schools. Will it be possible if I get a good sat and do extracirriculars (which ones do you reccomend) I also played football and am not a minority what are my chances. Thanks
You are only taking 5 classes???
Most people take at least 7.
Anyways, make sure you do better for the next 3 years and you will get into those schools.
Test scores and grades are the most important for colleges. Extracurricular don’t matter all too much.
Many schools pay much less attention, or none at all, to freshman grades. This isn’t a bad start. If you feel you can do better, do so and don’t worry. You’re unlikely to be handicapped by this.
First of all, that isn’t bad at all. Second, many colleges don’t look at your freshman grades.
@Ballislife23mjs at least 7? Most of the schools in my area only have 6 periods, and the only way to take 7 is to take a zero hour. The ones that have 7 periods don’t offer zero hours. Also, extracurriculars do matter- how do you think high stat people get rejected from college? There are many skills that one needs to learn that aren’t taught in school, this is why extracurriculars are important.
What is zero hour? @annana
Colleges do look at freshmen year grades. It may not be as important as junior year but it is still important and matters to your GPA.
No schools in my area have 6 periods. We don’t have homeroom or study hall, and a rather short lunch(30 minutes).
Duke is significantly more selective than Tufts and UCLA.
Duke is more selective, but I don’t know about "significantly " to the point I’d put it in a different class of school! Tufts accepted 14% this year, and I think the score ranges are similar. I know unhooked kids who have gotten into Duke but not Tufts and vice versa. I think the OP was mentioning these schools as an illustration.
@Ballislife23mjs My districts’ high schools all start at 8- a zero hour is a class offered at 7 AM, mostly for fine arts kids who can’t fit all the grad requirements in their schedule.
And some schools like Stanford and the UCs recalculate GPA without freshman grades, although they probably see them on your transcript
Most colleges calculate gpa with freshmen year grades, the UC’s are the rare exceptions. They still “look” at your freshmen year grades though.