<p>3.55 UW gpa. This is after a major freshman and sophomore year screw up. If I maintain a very high average next year, junior year (which I am preparing to do with extra summer prep work that I'm assigning myself), how significant can a junior year gpa improvement be? Basically, I plan to earn A+s consistently next year to raise my gpa. </p>
<p>Now I am aware that gpa is definitely the most significant factor on an application, but what if every single other factor on my application is great? Target school would be Cornell CALS, and target major would be "Natural Resources". I'll list how the factors would stack up:</p>
<h2>-BAD (3.55) overall UW GPA </h2>
<h2>Versus:</h2>
<p>-Good overall upward trend in grades
-Exceptional grades junior year in harder classes than the other years of high school (For ex. an A+ in AP Biology junior year would possibly/ somewhat "overshadow" a B+ earned in regular Biology sophomore year)
-Great ECs, including a clear passion for something exemplified in volunteering and internships, and a published book
-Great SAT/ ACT score (2250+/ 33+)/ Great AP test scores
-A great essay to follow up on the "passion" that was exemplified in the ECs
-Really good rec letters
-Applying early decision
-Hispanic/ White
-Target major is less competitive than most other majors offered at CALS</p>
<p>I am aware that many if not most of applicants applying to schools like Cornell will have a lot of these factors plus a good gpa, but they wouldn't be stacked up like this.</p>
<p>I don’t know how your school calculates GPA, so I can’t really answer that question for you. My suggestion is to find out how your school does GPA and calculate for yourself how much you can bring it up (based on your projected grades junior year).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that different universities place emphases on different things; GPA is not always the most important thing. Just keep doing things you enjoy and do your best at them. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Thank you! I guess I wasn’t clear enough about the 3.55 gpa though. My gpa can’t be any higher than the 3.55 by the end of junior year (unless I get a 98.75+ average for junior year which I’d love to do, but it just won’t happen-then it’d be a 3.6).</p>
<p>3.5 admits are, for the most part, legacies, faculty kids, disadvantaged kids in difficult environments, etc, none of which apply to you (based on what you said). You can apply but you have about as many odds getting in as you have winning the lottery. Everything stands on your “passion” and even that leaves you with perhaps a 1 in ten chance if you are truly exceptional. Do apply but keep in mind that you probably won’t get in (if you can, come back here when you hear back to let us know what happens). In the meanwhile, focus on schools where your GPA will not be a liability, and there are lots of them.</p>
<p>It really depends on what schools are you applying to. GPA at 3.55 could be well within the mid 50 range for many schools around top 50. In addition, many schools do not count freshmen grades that you may bump up the GPA to 3.775 after junior year for application.</p>
<p>If you manage to hold a 4.00 junior year all should be good. Freshman year is the least important one, and while you did fail sophomore year a good SAT shows you can do well. Did you really just screw up in those two years or did something happen? It won’t look as bad if you can explain it.</p>
<p>If that graph is where I think it’s from, they’re self reported. Meaning I could go and say I got into Cornell with a 3.2 and a 21 ACT and there would be my green dot. Don’t put much stock into them.</p>