I go to a pretty competitive school district and I’m currently a high school junior there. I’ve been looking at my transcript so far and I’ve taken all honors and/or AP classes in HS (on track for 14 APs by the end of senior year). However, I got a B in my Spanish class in freshman year (also honors) because my teacher was incredibly difficult. My unweighted GPA, as a result, is a 3.93 (3.95 by senior year hopefully!). Will this hurt my admissions chances at any Top 10 school? For reference, my weighted GPA is a 4.8.
No. No. No.
Nope. I would be more concerned with my SAT score (>95%-ile) and passing the AP exams for credit.
Everything “matters” - it’s a question of degree. One grade Freshman year (from the GPA calculation, I assume it was for the full year, not just one grading period), is not going to significantly impact an application, but I’m not going to say it’s zero. At top 10 schools, thousands of applicants will have 4.0s (Harvard reportedly had 8,200 for the Class of '19).
But plenty of 4.0s aren’t admitted and plenty of non-4.0 are. Though I wouldn’t recommend piling them up.
It was two school years ago and it is what it is. Focus on what you can control going forward.
NO! And I would stop worrying about it. You have a very good number of AP s and I hope your grades and scores are a real reflection of the type of student you are. Additionally you should focus on your SAT /ACT scores. I sat through a few ivy presentations with my kids and my interpretation of what they said is just that.
It makes me sad when I read how concerned students get over getting a B.