<p>hey, i've been receiving a mixed bag of opinions on this topic at my school. some people say that colleges look at your weighted GPA while others are saying that they look at only your unweighted GPA, regardless of the AP and honors classes which you took. Also, I heard that colleges don't look at freshmen grades but i'm not sure because some people have been telling me that they do. i'm kinda worried about this point cuz i received an F in spanish 1 during freshmen year for the first semester and received an A the next semester. All my other classes were As and Bs. I'm a junior right now so all this info is pretty important to me. thanks for your help! :D</p>
<p>It depends on the college. Colleges can set their own admission policy. Once you have some idea of the colleges you are interested in, you can look up those colleges admission policies specifically.</p>
<p>If you had one really bad grade or bad semester early on and everything else was As and Bs, you could perhaps explain the cause/extenuating circumstances and it wouldn’t make much of a difference to most colleges</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it look good if you had a HUGE improvement? Well, I don’t know how it would look for a grade jumping from an F to an A though…</p>
<p>High schools have huge variations in grading – some weigh and some don’t; some grade conservatively while others are more liberal with their "A"s; some grade PE and similar “subjects” while others don’t; etc. College admissions attempt to normalize the grades based on their knowledge of the schools, and the rigor of coursework at the school.</p>
<p>Freshman year grades are considered by some colleges but not others. For example California UCs do not consider them.</p>
<p>So there isn’t a recipe for how your freshman grades would be viewed. That said, the “F” in a core subject may stand out. It’s far back in your high school career and it’s not clear to me whether or not you or your GC should mention it, and note the circumstances that led to it. Perhaps this is a case of saying nothing is best, since your subsequent record speaks for itself, and bringing attention to it may not be helpful. Ask your GC.</p>