I’m currently a sophomore in hs and my GPA right now is realllyyy low because I made a bad schedule decision, however I’m planning on taking all APs and dual enrollment courses jr and sr year (except civics, a required honors) which, if all goes to plan, should boost my gpa to a 4.8-4.9 on a 5 point scale. Now, that’s a pretty good gpa in my book, HOWEVER with NHS apps happening now, I’m pretty sure I can’t get in with my current GPA. I personally don’t care because NHS at my school is filled with some of the most arrogant people you’ll ever meet and I already volunteer hundreds of hrs outside of school and have other leadership positions, but will colleges freak out if I’m only in NHS sr year? Also, if I’m applying to colleges sr year, then my gpa will only be a 4.7ish which is pretty average, so will they even see my final GPA? Or do colleges just not care about GPA at all anymore… someone please help me haha I am very worried.
You need to try to take classes where you can reasonably expect to get A’s. If you have a low GPA now, then you are not ready to take AP classes. If you take all AP and dual enrollment courses, then you are likely to find yourself with C’s and F’s and headed for summer school.
Take classes that you are ready to take. This probably means CP classes. Then work very hard in them and stay ahead in your course work. Try to get as many A’s as you can, and try to get nothing lower than a B. If you can get mostly A’s for the last half of your sophomore year and for your junior year, then there will be good universities that you can get accepted to.
Particularly in math, but also in languages and other classes, what you study next year is going to depend upon what you studied last year and what you are studying this year. You cannot jump ahead and expect to do well. You need to take classes that you are ready for.
Yes, I totally agree. That’s where I made a mistake this year by ending up with year long AP calc and AP chem (the hardest classes offered at my school) at the same time. I didn’t even choose to be in year long AP calc, they just put me in it and didn’t let me switch. All of that aside, I’m doing great in all my other APs, and I’ve always been a really diligent student, which is why I know I’m ready for difficult classes. More importantly, the difficult classes I’ll be taking next year are classes I actually enjoy like lit/environmental/us history/etc (so in other words… not math or math based sciences lol)
P.S. I got a B in 1st semester chem, a C in 1st semester calc (I got a 79 ugh), and for 2nd semester chem and calc I should be able to get Bs.
I don’t know if any of this changes your response, but I still think I can handle hard classes even if this year played out badly.
“I’m doing great in all my other APs,”
This additional information is very helpful. It appears that your definition of “realllyyy low” is not quite as bad as some other people’s definition of really low. This would moderate my advice somewhat. There are two things that come to mind.
One is to take the hardest classes in subjects that you believe that you can do well in.
The other issue that I see is that calculus is important for a variety of subjects that you might or might not want to take in the future. Calculus is pretty obviously needed for a math or engineering major. However, math is also important for computer science. I am pretty sure that calculus is a prerequisite for premed and pre-vet studies. Also, law school cares about the ability to think logically, and math in general is seen as a strong hint of a person’s ability to think logically (although it is not the only possible “hint”).
Thus it seems to me that you should make sure that by the time that you finish high school you are strong in the prerequisites for calculus, on the basis that you might need to retake calculus in university (whether starting with regular or multivariate or something else). I will note that I did take calculus for a first time my freshman year in university, and this did not stop me from being a math major at a highly ranked university. What you might want to take in the future in math is probably a better subject for your other thread.
“the difficult classes I’ll be taking next year are classes I actually enjoy”
This does seem to me to be the way to get a high GPA.