<p>I believe the dip in my sophomore and freshman year grades were because I was being bullied at school and didn't feel comfortable with any of my teachers or fellow classmates. Now I feel like I've found my niche, and am doing pretty swell in my APs this year!</p>
<p>Here are my questions.</p>
<ol>
<li>How do I figure out my cumulative GPA?</li>
<li>Which is more important to colleges, the cumulative or junior year GPA?</li>
<li>If I keep up my junior year GPA, will colleges like that/take that into consideration?</li>
<li>If I write about my experiences of bullying in sophomore/freshman year, will colleges understand that as a reason for why my GPA wasn't so great?</li>
<li>I do A LOT of ECs (horseback riding, running a business, model un, vp of environmental club, hospital work, internship, etc) will they like that if I have a decent (not perfect) GPA?</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Cumulative GPA should be the average overall GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>I can’t really answer this question, but I’d imagine that cumulative would be a bit more important since it spans a longer time?</p></li>
<li><p>Yes! Upwards trends are great, and I know UVA explicitly states that they like seeing that.</p></li>
<li><p>Bullying’s a valid reason for the dip, though I would caution against writing just about bullying in your college app essays next year. If anything, discuss it but focus on the positive changes you’ve experienced.</p></li>
<li><p>Your ECs look great. While colleges won’t disregard a lower GPA, excelling in all of the other areas will definitely help you. I’m pretty sure all colleges like it when students are engaging in a lot of ECs as long as it’s consistent.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Best of luck, and I’m glad to hear you’ve found your niche!</p>
<p>Pretty much what he ^ said, really.
Your GPA would be (3.7+3.67+3.98)/3= 3.78333…
It’s important to note if this is unweighted or weighted, as unweighted is almost always lower and some schools look for that.
Schools often look for positive upward trends, like you have. Even if you start weak, showing higher grades in later years shows that you’ve changed your ways and began to work hard and become more driven.
You may write in your essays about the bullying, but do not focus on using it as an excuse. As chacha said, focus on how you changed and turned into a better person because of it. Hope this helps :)</p>
<p>Wouldn’t the cumulative GPA be [3.7 + 3.67 + (.5)(3.98)] / 2.5 = 3.74, since junior year is only half over?</p>
<p>(That’s not necessarily accurate either, unless you earned the same number of credits each year. To calculate your GPA, you add up all your grade points and divide by the number of credits earned. In a one-credit class, A = 4 grade points, B = 3 grade points, etc. In a half-credit class you divide those by 2.)</p>
<p>This is your unweighted GPA, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They care about your grades throughout high school (though some colleges don’t look at freshman year), but junior year is considered the most important year and they will take upward trends into account.</p>
<p>Same situation, kid. Nice to hear that people can pull through.</p>
<ol>
<li>Cumulative GPA would be what Dartgenero posted,. If you really want an accurate number, you can go in and add up classes by hand.</li>
<li>No one year is important to colleges, so I’d say cumulative. That being said, they like the upward trend.</li>
<li>See #2.</li>
<li>I wrote my frist scholarship essay on this (resiliency, overcoming a challenge. Bullying was the main focus of the essay, and I spent a sentence, nothing more, on how my grades dipped due to what happened. Most of it was how I bounced back. I could PM it to you if you’re really interested.</li>
<li>Yes, they will. You can’t go cure cancer AND ace AP Calc BC, now can you?</li>
</ol>