On the high-school transcript that was sent to my schools, my freshman-junior year unweighted GPA is a 4.0 (weighted: 5.5 on a 6.0 scale). I, optimistic idiot that I am, constructed my senior-year schedule so that it looks something like this:
–AP Physics 1
–AP Statistics
–AICE Spanish (my fourth year of Spanish)
–AP Human Geography
–AP English Literature
–AP Microeconomics
First quarter, I wound up with B’s in Physics and Stats, and although my weighted GPA remained pretty much the same, my unweighted is a 3.6. I’m aware that the semester’s not over and that I have time to raise my GPA, but if I were unable to do that, how adversely would an average like this affect me?
List of schools for context:
–UMiami
–JHU
–Stanford
–Harvard
–Brown
–Columbia
–Princeton
–Yale
–Some in-state safeties
@T26E4 At the risk of sounding like a braggart, I had this weird notion that my previous grades would make up for these two B’s, but I was just curious as to what other people’s opinions would be. I mean, a 3.6 is nothing to cry over.
They will have an impact, but nothing insurmountable in the grand scheme of your application. The most selective schools may not be as compromising, obviously, unless you have quality ECs that can vouch for you.
You need to put this in context. The 3.6 would only be for the semester; however, your average over your high school career still would be more than 3.9. Will the selective schools notice a slight drop? Probably, but I can’t see it sinking an otherwise-strong application.
@higheredrocks I’m aware of that, but I’m just worried about the fact that if I do wind up with a 3.6 this semester, that will be the GPA on the mid-year report that gets sent to my schools.
EC’s are extracurriculars (clubs, sports, leadership positions,etc.) Without including those in your post, it’s near impossible to comment on your chances. However, the colleges you say you applied to draw straight A students with very impressive ECs. Do more research on what percentage of students with your stats/ECs gets in and make sure you apply to some safety schools for sure.
@NorthFLmomof2 I was just curious as to what @dblazer qualified as “quality”; I have a thread that enumerates all of my EC’s and test scores (although my SAT is a bit higher now and I have actually taken my AP Exams and Subject tests).
Wait, did NOT realize it was senior year, assumed junior year. It will have little to no impact on your chances. Very sorry to cause unnecessary worry.
I screwed up my midyear grades much more than you did after a mostly all As (a B-, B, and 2 B+ in APs) and still got into my top choices (Dartmouth, Duke). May have gotten me off a couple waitlists but clearly was not a deal breaker for the most part even though such a performance would have been unacceptable in soph/junior year.
