Hi Guys,
Just as some background information, I’m currently in my sophomore year and I have been doing fairly well in my classes this year, but I performed super poorly during my freshman year, ending with an approximate 3.2 gpa. So far this year I have a 3.7 gpa (total cumulative gpa of 3.45) and am taking the maximum amount of honors and ap courses available to me. I really want to go to a competitive college like northwestern university or williams college. I was given the impression by a former admissions officer from Harvey Mudd that although a slightly low GPA with an extreme upwards trend in performance looks good, a high cumulative, unweighted GPA looks much, much better. In order to try and remedy my poor performance as a freshman, next year I’m planning on taking 5 courses(4 APs and 1 Honors) in my school and 2 APs through an accredited online school. My counselor said that I’d be sending two transcripts to colleges when I’m applying to them. Would colleges factor the online courses into my GPA?
Thanks for any responses
At my school, online courses are not factored into GPA, but students are allowed to add them into their resume, etc. I’d probably be best to ask your counselor or someone from the admissions office at the colleges you want to apply to, but if your counselor told you that you’d be sending colleges a second transcript I don’t see why colleges wouldn’t factor them in.
I talked to my highschool’s dean and he said there’s a small possibility of me adding the online courses to my primary highschool’s transcript, but he said that the grades from the online courses would probably not be factored into the gpa that my school calculates, and that the course would be listed as pass/fail; this probably won’t happen knowing my school. I’m actually thinking of taking a 3rd online course, but I’d start it 2-3 weeks before my normal high school year starts and I’d get ahead a lot in the online course and would proceed to just work on that course during my holidays and other times when I’m low on stress(this would probably be some sort of honors course in chem since I’m planning on taking AP Chem senior year, but my school doesn’t offer a chem pre-AP). Could you give me your opinion on my academic plan for next year? I want to know if i’m on the “right track” to becoming a competitive applicant academically.