horrible sophomore year grades- repost

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>i may or may not have put this original post in the incorrect forum...so i will try it here.</p>

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<p>Hi,
I am a sophomore and school has not ended yet for me, but it will soon. I am having Semester 2 finals next week and currently my semester grades are</p>

<p>Honors English B+
History B
Spanish A-
Chemistry B+
Honors Math B-</p>

<p>w/ a weighted GPA of 3.40.</p>

<p>This is pretty bad for me because in Semester 1 I had straight A's/A- with a decent GPA of 4.162, so it is a big drop. Also compared to my freshman year grades, because I had straight As except for Math in first semester (B+) and PE in 2nd semester (B+) , which I don't think they will care about.</p>

<p>I just got rejected from AP Biology, so I won't be taking that next year, and I might get kicked out of Honors Math because of my B- (needs a B to stay in I think). I applied to AP Chem and AP Physics, and their placement tests are coming up, so hopefully I do well and get into one of the classes. But I'm not sure if I will get in because of my poor math grades.</p>

<p>I had many studying problems/time management/confidence/focusing issues that I struggled to fix during second semester. Also I know this sounds really stupid, but I was scared of asking for help and was not proactive in saving my sliding grades :P (Sorry, this situation is kind of difficult to explain)</p>

<p>But if I have straight As on my transcript next year (junior year) and I explain what happened to me during this semester on my app, will it save me just a little bit? I am set on improving myself and my study habits after what happened this year.</p>

<p>Also, I don't know if this will help, but next year I'm planning to take AP Language, AP US History, Spanish, AP Chemistry OR AP Physics OR Regular Physics (depends), and Honors Pre Calculus OR Regular Pre Calculus.</p>

<p>(Random note-Back in freshman year, I thought I could apply to Columbia because I had a strong academic record, but right now I'm looking at University of Washington due to what happened this year in 2nd semester.)</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Colleges will look at general trends as well (aka hollistic admissions). Do your absolute best on your finals and see if you can switch into the classes by talking to the teacher/guidance counselor. And from the looks of your schedule, it seems pretty rigorous, so I don’t think they’d hold it against you. Do whatever you can to raise your GPA for this semester.</p>

3

<p>With your current grades, University of Washington seems OUT OF REACH. Trying to justify your poor performance with excuses such as: studying problems, time management and confidence will not be tolerated by any college admission office. These are qualities that top tier students are supposed to have AT ALL TIMES and your lack of them only show that you slacked during second semester. You are competing against students who have straight A’s in honors/AP courses every single year of their high school career. The only thing you can do is man/woman up and LEARN from your mistakes. I hope this slip fall does not detract you from any goals you had before, but you definitely have to lower your college expectations -universities DO look at sophomore year grades.</p>

4

<p>It doesn’t seem like you have a legitimate reason for your grades this year. Just try to bring your GPA up for next year.</p>

5

<p>Being blunt, you probably won’t have “Straight As,” in junior year, if you mean having solid As in every single class.
That seems to be a delusion most students have going into the next year… they dont seem to realize the difficulty of an A in EVERY class unless most of them are regular, and/or they do little ECs.</p>

<p>One of the top students at my class (top 5%) had only 1 B+ throughout all of 9th and 10th grade. But in 11th, with 4 APs, he is about to end with 2 B+s.</p>

<p>And study habits dont miraculously wait for your grades to be at an ideal position, like an A-. In any case, hope you survive the “trial by fire” which is probably going to be 11th.</p>

6

<p>How is your GPA that low? I used your given grades and got like a 3.8.</p>

7

<p>@Apollo11‌ No idea, it’s just what my counselor told me.
@Jarjarbinks23‌ Yes, I know that, but I’m only doing one extracurricular next year (cello).
@shawnspencer‌ @SugarBubbleTea‌ @consultur‌ Thank you for all of your advice.</p>

8

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<p>I’d disagree. The difficulty of getting straight A’s is time management. If you have that under control, then you’ll do well. If you don’t, you won’t. That is, considering by your previous grades, which are good, it seems that the time factor’s the limit. There’s no way to say that you “probably won’t get straight A’s” because there’s no way to tell.</p>

9

<p>Thanks everyone for the responses! I finished up my year last Thursday and I have 2 Bs, 1 B+, and 2 A- for my semester grades. I pulled up my GPA to a 3.67 & hopefully next year will be better.</p>