<p>These are my GPA (unweighted):
Freshman Year: 3.333
Sophomore: 3.7
Junior: 4</p>
<p>Every year it has increased significantly but if you include Freshman year my GPA is a 3.67 by not including it my GPA is a 3.85 (which seems a lot nicer haha)</p>
<p>So does USC consider freshman year GPA to calculate total GPA???</p>
<p>USC considers your entire record and has no complicated GPA calculation in the way the UCs do. The published GPA figures are simply the unweighted 9th - 11th grade GPA. Most universities, USC included, do not put much as much weight on freshman year as on the VERY important Junior year (which looks GREAT for you). Your upward trend is impressive and will be a favorable point in your application. USC asks many students for a mid-year grade report, so be sure your first semester of senior year looks like your great junior year. Good luck!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/faq/admission_standards.html[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/faq/admission_standards.html</a></p>
<p>ok I have a little sister that would like to attend USC but her GPA was 2.0 for her freshman year. She has made extreme improvements her 10th, 11th, and 12th grade year. I mean like 3.8, 4, and 3.9 is there a chance they would except her regardless of her 2.0?</p>
<p>alamemom, so USC takes whatever the school’s GPA calculation is? Too bad for my dear uncoordinated son, because his school grades and counts PE (while many high schools don’t). And sorry, I don’t believe anyone who says PE grades are based solely on effort. You just try showing obvious effort when you’ve had a lifetime of athletic boys and bad-ass PE teachers making fun of you! Grrrrrr. If it weren’t for PE, my son’s GPA would be considerably higher.</p>
<p>the application specifically says do not list courses like PE in academic history, college prep classes only.</p>
<p>^jazz: This isn’t really an answer but in P.E. my freshman year, my class got a new teacher after the first semester who took ten points off my final grade because I “talked to the girls too much”, even though I was putting the same effort in. The first semester I had an A+, second semester I had a B. It’s ridiculous how much P.E. ruins grades; on the other hand, the first semester teacher always split us into two groups: “Those who like sports” and “Those who aren’t very good”. It made P.E. a lot more fun for me (in the “not very good” group).</p>
<p>And alamemom, do you know if there’s a specific date I need my mid-year grades in by? My school won’t give out report cards until the week after President’s day (we’ve been blizzarded-out)…</p>
<p>jbusc, the application may say that, but the school’s transcript, where GPA is given, lists PE. And if USC just goes by the application self-reported course listings, there’s another problem, because my son is a musician… and there wasn’t nearly enough room for him to put all his music theory and upper level performance courses in their (2 per year per category!) list. Plus he also had college level music courses - no room for those either. Furthermore, naturally he received A’s in all of these courses.</p>
<p>Admissions rep told him to write it into the additional info section. But who knows if it bears the same weight all the way down there.</p>
<p>
No, USC uses unweighted, academic GPA (as jbusc mentions above). They use the GPA that results from your self-reported academic history. If a student includes non-academic courses, USC is quite accustomed to that and can quickly eliminate those courses from the calculations (remember, USC gets 35,000+ applications each year - they have done this a few times).</p>
<p>As for how USC looks at Freshman year grades, this is from the USC admissions website:
<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/apply/fresh_standards.html[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/apply/fresh_standards.html</a></p>
<p>Alamemom,</p>
<p>If USC basically calculates from the self-reported academic history, then how can they not leave enough spaces for all courses? For example, music theory IS an academic course, btw, as is Music Theory II. At some schools, it’s even an AP course. Do you think they really go into the “additional information” section (where my son was advised to put the “overflow” courses) and add those in to their calculation?</p>
<p>Another weird anomaly, my son was told not to include plusses in minus in his self-reported grades, but the mid-year form says TO include them. Any idea why?</p>
<p>Yes, I think they really go into the additional information section and calculate the academic GPA to your son’s best advantage - for two reasons:</p>
<p>First, I have met and spoken with the harried admissions reps at my DD’s Explore session. One told me she was reading an application that had come in that morning. (This was the first week in March.) I couldn’t believe they would even consider an application that was months late! She said they read every application that comes in, and she wanted to be sure that applicant got the benefit of the doubt. In other words, the admissions reps are real people, they are former college applicants themselves, and many of them are parents. They really do try to look at every applicant in their best light.</p>
<p>Second: Rankings. The higher the average GPA of the overall applicant pool, the higher the ranking edges up. It is to USC’s advantage to find the very highest GPA for every applicant. And USC is known for making best use of any advantages offered to them in terms of rankings.</p>
<p>Oh man i feel you jazz !!!</p>
<p>hurtado,
This is an old thread. The good news is jazz/shredder’s son is now a highly successful USC student in the Thornton School of Music. He has a list of accomplishments which I will not post here for privacy reasons. Perhaps she might post here soon and update us on his successes in the field.</p>
<p>Haha. How funny it is to relieve the stress of those days. I hereby apologize for all that I didn’t understand, and for the tone of my venting. </p>
<p>Indeed USC clearly took everything into account that they should. PE didn’t matter, and my son found a place to include everything (with the help of the USC counselor, who clearly remembered him when we met at Explore).</p>
<p>Son is now a junior at Thornton and thriving in the LA music scene.</p>