How much does your Freshman year of High School count?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hey everybody,
I ended my freshman year with a 3.4 unweighted GPA, taking two honors classes.
My sophomore year I took two APs and two Honors and got something like a 3.95 unweighted, along with 5's on both APs.
My junior year was very similar, although my GPA dropped just a little bit to a 3.89 unweighted. I took 3 AP's as well as sophomore Calculus at Georgetown.
I'm a rising 2011 senior and I'm hoping that my freshman year grades don't cost me admission into any of the schools I'm applying to. I have a 2280 SAT and a 35 Composite ACT. </p>

<p>The schools that I'm considering applying to are:
Penn
Rice
Columbia
UVA
Yale
Hopkins
Stanford (loooong reach)
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>I'm sure I'll keep my senior grades up but somebody please tell me if my freshman year is going to be possibly be detrimental to what I think is a decent resume?</p>

2

<p>Your GPA displays upward trend, which is very favorable to your admissions chances to aforementioned schools. I don’t think your freshmen GPA will break your application. Your strong GPA from AP/Honors courses will make up for sub-par, for the Ivies that is, freshmen GPA.</p>

3

<p>Just so u know, stanford, hopkins, and carnegie mellon all disregard your freshman grades</p>

4

<p>Woah, I didn’t know Stanford and Johns Hopkins would not take 9th grade GPA into consideration… Where did you get that info from?</p>

5

<p>I don’t think Princeton does either, but I could be wrong.
You should probably double check the admissions info on all of the websites…</p>

6

<p>I heard from somebody that your Freshman GPA would almost dictate how well you would do as a freshman in college; in other words, some college admissions officers would look to see how well you transitioned into high school as a marker to how well you transition into college. Of course, he could be wrong.</p>

7

<p>It counts, but it’s looked upon with a moderate degree of leniency to account for adjustment. Your track record shows improvement of grades, which goes against the common trend of most high school students. At schools like Columbia or Stanford, they might look more favorably towards applicants who have extremely high GPAs all four years (just because of the sheer volume of ridiculously qualified applicants these schools get). At the other schools on your list, it is very possible that your extracurriculars and your essays could outweigh an iffy freshman year. Make sure those are good enough to clear any doubt in the adcom’s mind that the school wants you.</p>