<p>Okay, so I did decently freshman year, however, my schedule had no AP or Honors classes, and I ended up with a 3.818 GPA. By the way, my school does not weight, and they go on a 4.0 scale. Then sophomore, I moved into Pre-Calculus, French 4 (one year advanced), and Honors Chemistry. I ended up with a 3.934 GPA. Now Junior Year, I took two AP Classes per quarter, and one duel enrollment. First quarter I took an Honors Class. My GPA was horrible, a 3.5. However, none of my grades were below B+'s. Also, at the beginning, a 20-year old that my family knew pretty well happened to be hiking in India and fell off a cliff, therefore ending his life. Also, a friends mom died of terminal cancer at the beginning of second quarter. Did I say my school grades by quarters? They go by the block system. This semester, first and second quarter I had French 5, AP Calc AB, and APES. First quarter I had Honors Writers Workshop. Next semester, my advanced classes are Honors Physics, AP Calc BC, and Honors Global Lit. Assuming I was able to raise my GPA to 4.0 for both quarters, would colleges view it as a huge improvement over the course of the year and give me a thumbs up, or a thumbs down? Also, should I explain my extenuating circumstances since normally I would have A's, but my AP Classes are at B+'s?</p>
<p>Your grades are fine. Obviously, improving your GPA to a 4.0 is a good thing. However, any deaths that don’t involve members of your immediate family don’t excuse a negative grade trend and it might even be slightly offensive to “blame” your grades on the deaths of two people you don’t really know that well. Just don’t make any excuses and get your grades up, because it won’t sound very convincing when you try to explain that the reason you got a 3.5 in your classes classes was because of two distantly-related individuals dying rather than the increase in workload.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with Azwolg. DO NOT bring up the death of your friend’s mom.</p>