Grades, is rising good enough for ivies?

<p>OK heres my situation. I have gotten mostly B's and a few A's in my freshmen year and the first semester of my sophmore year. During the second semester of my sophmore year, i got a 4.9/5 weighted grade point avg. im pretty sure, as a junior right now, i can pull that off again. I have had all honors classes, and many ap classes. my class rank is 32 of 360. bassically what im trying to say is that i had a lot of B's in Honors clases, but now im getting straight A's in AP classes. is that good enough? i know colleges like to see improvement, but is that not good enough for ivies? do they just want to see perfect grades for all years, or is it ok to have bad grades at the begining but then improve them drastically? my rank is most likely not going to change. i have a 4.1 cumulative gpa (honors classes are out of 5, and as i already said, all my classes are honors)</p>

<p>anyone? this is my first post, and it seems like no one noticed. sorry if this has been answered already</p>

<p>Ivies will look at your grades in context with the rest of your application. What that means is that we cannot tell you what is "good enough" but I can tell you that working hard as you have been and continuing to get good grades as you have been will provide you with many open doors when the time comes to appy to college. They may or may not be ivy-covered doors, but they will be doors to wonderful places where you can get a great education. </p>

<p>My advice to you would be to stop worrying about "Ivies" because there are hundreds of excellent colleges and universities and if you keep getting A's in AP classes, you will be welcomed into some of the best-- perhaps even an Ivy, but really, they are not the Magic Kingdom or anything. Trust me, I have a child who is a Stanford grad. It is a great place, he learned a lot there, but he has not cured cancer yet or even figured out how to walk to work in the rain without ruining his shoes.</p>

<p>1Down</p>

<p>"or even figured out how to walk to work in the rain without ruining his shoes."</p>

<p>LOL!!!</p>

<p>That's something similar that is happened to me.. my freshman year for each mp I had 1 or 2 b's now I'm a sophomore and the first mp grades that are coming up I'll probaly only get 5 A's and 3 b's. I'm taking AP/Honors as well. Right now I have finally realize to step my up grades/work ethnic. So I'm hoping to get straight A's for the rest of my years in HS.</p>

<p>Wait what's your weighted average in 1-100 scale?</p>

<p>I went up from a 3.3 GPA up to a 3.73 in school. My grades rise like crazy, so I'm hoping it looks good. It's funny freshman year I had like a 3.45 GPA and sophomore, junior, and senior it is all 4.0. Plus, I'm taking advanced classes like Multi-variable Calculus to balance some Bs in math. And I must say, the A+ in that class should look sweet!</p>

<p>basically i used to get mostly b's in honors classes, but now im getting all a's in ap classes. my overall rank/gpa for all years is bad, but my rank/gpa for just the last 2 semesters is excellent. im wondering because i got bad grades as a freshmen do i not have a chance? or are they going to say "wow this kid really improved, lets admit him" </p>

<p>i have a medicore (for ivies anyways) sat (2000) but great ec's and a lot of ap classes (ill have 10 tests at the end of the year) thanks</p>

<p>"im wondering because i got bad grades as a freshmen do i not have a chance? or are they going to say "wow this kid really improved, lets admit him" </p>

<p>In general, the upper ivies are not likely unless you have some sort of really compelling hook (e.g., recruited athlete). Cornell and Dartmouth would be reaches - but it will depend on the rest of your application, scores, and so on. UPenn gives preference to legacies in the ED round - so if your folks attended, that is a possibility.</p>

<p>Instead of dwelling on schools that reject 9 out of 10 applicants (more, RD) why not think about some great schools that are not insanely competitive? Certainly, apply to an ivy or two if they are a good fit for you - but don't base your list on it.</p>