<p>So, here's the deal. Freshman year I had some bad grades, like a 65 in Global History (96 on the regents exam), but my overall GPA was around 3.5. Sophomore year I went to a private school and got straight As with a GPA of around 3.8. Junior year I had some REALLY crazy grades, like nearly failing 2 classes (one was AP Chem, my teacher marked me as a lab failure, long story, but ended up averaging a 0 into my final average as a 5th quarter, brought my AP Chem grade from an 89 to a 67, ended up getting a 4 on the exam), but I also refused to sit for half of one of my AP Spanish 4 exams which resulted in a 59 on a local midterm, as well as a 58 on a precalc midterm, which both show on my transcript. Yeah, I know it's bad, but my overall GPA is around a 3.6, my class rank is around 28%, and I'm getting straight A's so far senior year (first-quarter). Do my crazy grades look MUCH worse than a student that's achieving straight 3.6es all through highschool, instead of getting a 3.9 in one class and a 3.2 in another? How bad will this effect me? My reach schools are like NYU and U of Rochester, SATs are around 1300, SAT II Chemistry 700, Math IC 620, my guidance councilor also wrote in my evalutation that my grades aren't representative of my overall ability, will colleges even care to read that with my grades?</p>
<p>People love to talk about upward trends, which I'm sure are useful at less than top colleges. But think about what's important: consistency. Grades on an even keel as rigor increases year after years. SATs/ACTs that make sense along side the gpa. ECs that build on the ones before. Progression of interest, effort and excellence.</p>