<p>I got bad grades in my algebra II and biology classes in my freshman year.
I ended up with B+s both semesters for Algebra II, and then an A- and a B+ in biology. I had a few extenuating circumstances (work and taking care of siblings) during freshman year. Since then, I only had one B+ in Chemistry first semester. I got two As in Calc I, an A- in Chem second semester of sophomore year, an A+ in Calc II, an A- in APComp Sci and an A- in AP Bio all during first semester junior year.
This question is for anyone who is fairly knowledgeable about admissions. Would Caltech ever overlook those abysmal grades in freshman year after seeing an improvement throughout high school? Would they see it as "oh, he didn't do that well freshman year but he is obviously very capable due to his sophomore and junior year grades," or would they view it as "oh, he slacked off freshman year, and he must not be very good in Algebra II."
Any help would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Upward trend is good. Your grades aren't stellar (lots of A-'s) but neither are they the sort of grades that would sink an otherwise promising application.</p>
<p>So the short answer is that an upward trend and a decent reason pretty much erase freshman year grades. In practical terms (i.e. the way the admissions committee considrers it), your grades put you about the 30th percentile of the applicant pool, grade-wise. Not great, not terrible. The rest of the application will matter, and would have to contain something quite compelling to merit an admit -- no phoning it in.</p>
<p>Thanks Ben. I am just glad that there is still a chance.</p>
<p>There's always a chance. Or so it would seem. Just win a nobel prize, that'll help you get in no problem.</p>
<p>On a more serious note... expect to have some research to go along with your application if you're hoping to leap up from the lower percentiles of Caltech's applicants.</p>
<p>And then just wait and see if anything thinks it's good research.</p>
<p>I'm going to be a little bit more negative than Ben. Your grades freshmen year aren't end of the world (they look a lot like mine), but if you wanted to erase the shadow that they cast on your applicaiton, I think you really needed to have A's for the rest of the time. So, while it is possible to overcome the hurdle, it would require something pretty exceptional (really cool research, off the charts recs, doing well in national/international competitions), along with a very strong remainder of application (1500 at the very min on SATs, lots of 5's on APs, preferably in the subjects where you had trouble early on, and so on/so forth).</p>
<p>Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>galen</p>
<p>Yeah, actually Galen said what I meant somewhat more precisely.</p>
<p>Ah I see. I understand that it would be incredibly difficult for me to get in. I have another question, I had previously thought that A-'s don't matter in admissions, and after asking parents and kids at other elite schools, they say that their children got in with A-'s. Is Caltech different in those respects?</p>
<p>"I had previously thought that A-'s don't matter in admissions"</p>
<p>This is quite a mysterious sort of universal claim, and somehow the answer should be clear. Obviously, for someone who wants to be a chem major, has a perfect application and a few A-'s here and there in history classes, that won't matter. On the other hand, say somoene is a "math person" but has an A- in most math classes. Certainly that suggests a less than stellar school record in math. On the borderline, it would make a difference. (I could imagine a comment along the lines of "well, this is his field of interest, he has no outstanding research or activities in it, and he rarely gets above an A- when we pretty often see kids who get an A+ at comparably difficult schools... what gives?"; that would be a strike against)</p>
<p>So of course there are plenty of people who got A-'s and got in. (Heck, there are people with much worse grades than that who get in with unusual circumstances.) But could it make a difference in a borderline case? Of course. Like every other piece of information in the application, it's relevant sometimes and we couldn't care less in other cases.</p>
<p>The general goal is to make your application ferociously good so that those borderline things don't enter into the picture. But it is quite obvious that sometimes the borderline stuff does make a difference.</p>