Does the notion of "upward trends" hold true?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I was wondering - do colleges really take account of upward trends throughout high school? For me, freshman year was awful. I was a varsity cheerleader, acrobatic gymnast, and worked a part-time job to pay all of those. As a result, my GPA freshman year was around a 3.3. However: sophomore and junior years, I did pretty well. Freshman and sophomore year I took 1 AP class (AP Gov, APUSH), in addition to doing the MYP program (complicated..) </p>

<p>Anyway, junior year I did really well. I took 4 AP class (Lang, Enviro, Psych, World) as well as IB anthropology and calculus, and got a 4.0 that year.
Factoring in junior year, my cumulative unweighted GPA is a 3.65, with my weighted GPA being a 4.35. On my ACT, I scored a 31.</p>

<p>My extra-curriculars are also pretty impressive; I did a sport called acrobatic gymnastics (look it up!) for 8 years. I was national champion for 4 years in a row, as well as a 4-time national team member. In 2010, I went to the 2010 World Acrobatic Championships in Wroclaw, Poland and placed 7th representing the USA.</p>

<p>Anyway, with all of that being said, I'm going to have to ask: what are my chanced at these colleges?</p>

<p>So far, I have applied to:</p>

<p>Tulane, Northeastern, University of Maryland - College Park, Rutgers (School of Criminal Justice), George Mason University, and Penn State University Park.</p>

<p>My potential major is criminology (pretty rare!), so if anybody knows any other schools that would be a good fit, please let me know!
Thanks so much!</p>

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<p>Your GPA and ACT score make both Penn State and University of Maryland matches, you don’t have to worry about GPA for them. I can’t speak to the others, though I think Northeastern will be a reach.</p>

<p>As for whether or not a college cares about upward trend, it varies by school. Some top tier schools want you to have strong grades all throughout high school, so an upward trend won’t help you. When you stop looking at the super competitive it will start to help more, especially if your grades put you close to the 25th percentile for the school in question. Though remember it really varies by school.</p>

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<p>Upward trend is very important. I disagree. Great shot at Northeastern!,</p>

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<p>Criminology – You might want to look at U-Mass Amherst. Proabably a safety school with your stats, but never hurts to have another good safety school, right?</p>

<p>Upward trend – it can matter. However, in your case, given your overall GPA 3.65 unweighted and your excellent ACT, I think you’ll have a competitive application at all of the schools you’ve listed even without considering this.</p>