<p>New to the forums so this has probably been asked around a thousand times but I get worried thinking about it. So I'm ending my freshman year of high school with about a 3.1-3.4 (depending on how I score on my finals), I took 3 honors classes, but highschool took a while for me to get used to, with the large workload. My second semester scores are mainly A's with a few B's but I messed up badly in first and second quarter. I took a practice ACT and SAT, scoring a 33 on the ACT and somewhere around 2260 on the SAT. I really would hope to get into a good school like UVA, UC Berkeley, or possibly an Ivy League. What worries me though is will this bad freshman year kill my chances of getting into one? Furthermore, will they view an upward trend (3.2 freshman, 4.0 Soph, 4.1 Junior) positively? Sorry again, I'm just having lots of anxiety build up because of this.</p>
<p>Yes, upward trends in GPA are important if you start off slow. It is very understandable that people start off high school poorly. Finish as strongly as possible this year, and be sure to get your mind straight for next year. Next year, try and take more honors/AP classes (that you feel you can do well in, if your predicted scores are right, you’re obviously bright) to help bring up the GPA from the previous year</p>
<p>Next year I’m either going to take 1 AP and 1 Honors, or 1 AP and 2 Honors. More leaning towards the second option. (World History 2 AP, Chemisty HN, and English HN)</p>
<p>I would strongly suggest taking more than that if you want to get into an ivy or a UC school.</p>
<p>I can only do one more honors class that year, which would be precalculus honors, but I’d rather get the solid A in precalculus regular. I’m doing three APs Junior year, Biology, Calculus AB, and History. My two electives are Orchestra and Japanese.</p>
<p>The UCs don’t consider freshman grades for admission.</p>