<p>I’m applying to Barnard next year, but am a bit worried about my GPA. Freshman year, I had a 96 UW. Sophomore year, it dropped to around a 90/91, with lots of B’s. This was due to severe medical issues that caused me to miss a lot of school, the guidance counselor will write about it though. Junior year I am doing much better, and maintaining a 95 GPA in all honors/AP, and no B’s. If I keep this up next year with a full schedule of AP’s/college courses, will that be ok for Barnard?</p>
<p>I know they care a lot about GPA, so I’m really worried.</p>
<p>Also, what would my GPA be out of 4, I have a 95, someone said thats around a 3.5/6, which is low for Barnard?</p>
<p>If your guidance counciler is going to shine some light on you academics, I don’t think you should be reasonably worried about the admissions office holding anything against you, especially if you are doing great with what you have right now. </p>
<p>The fact that you WENT from many B’s (with medical issues) to a 95 can also work in your favor by showing that you can overcome and improve your gpa. Getting good grades in your junior is much more important, I would argue, than getting ok-ish grades sophmore and freshmen year. Ending strong your senior year would be great, so definately aim for it! </p>
<p>Once your AP exams and your first SAT are out of the way, you can better determine what you may or may not need to work on. A strong standardized record will help convince Barnard that you are ready to handle their school. </p>
<p>Also, try not to freak out about Barnard (or any other school, really) too much for the next five months or so. You’ve still got a full year of highschool left and college confidential has a way of sucking your life out of you if you aren’t careful. :P</p>
<p>However, you might want to take into consideration about how many students supposedly declined in their GPA due to “medical issues.” Your guidance counselor sending a letter won’t really have much impact on the truthfulness of it. I’m not calling you out or anything, but I just want you to consider that college adcoms get tons and tons of medical excuses and are generally skeptical about most of them, factual or not.</p>
<p>Its factual. I’d rather not disclose it. I took my second SAT’s, and my score will probably fall within the 2150-2200 range (2200 is target). Is this too low for Barnard? I’m also taking the Math II and US History Subject Test and will get in the 700’s.</p>
<p>CalvinTBOD, where exactly are you getting your info on this? Are you on an admissions committee or something?</p>
<p>I believe that if someone has overcome significant medical issues and then improved after that, the admissions committee will definitely look upon that with favor. </p>
<p>I am NOT an admissions committee member, nor have I seen any statistics to substantiate either “side” of this. Just my humble opinion, which is all any of us have here, as a matter of fact. So take all of this, of course, with a big old grain of salt. </p>
<p>Thanks, all. I do worry, though,that the adcom will defer me to RD to see my midyear report, because next year is the year when I am taking my hardest courses (AP Bio, Stats, and Lit, and 2 dual enrollment college courses.)…even if I have a good GPA the first marking period, would they probably still defer me?</p>
<p>Because I’ve seen kids do it all the time. Low Freshmen grades? Hey, I had Depression! Don’t have good scores? Hey, I had ADHD! This world is full of liars and people who want the easy way out. If you don’t trust my personal observations, just take a look at CC. Do you realize how many students here make threads about their GPA and how they’re not as good because they were “depressed?” I’m not singling anyone out, and I’m not trying to generalize anyone. But with the amount of crap admission offices get, I’m making a very reasonable inference that they’re skeptical about most medical excuses.</p>
<p>As for the OP, hopefully the adcoms see through your medical difficulties and come to respect your ability to overcome such adversities.</p>
<p>Depression would be the least of my worries. I was in the hospital, etc. Should I even bother applying ED because I would be defered, or do I have a chance of acceptance ED? I have legacy, so that counts more in the ED round.</p>
<p>If you are 100 percent sure about Barnard AND don’t need financial aid, then I would go ahead and apply ED regardless. It can’t hurt your chances, and if they really want to see more grades then you would be deferred. I don’t see a negative aspect of applying ED (again, only if you don’t need financial aid).</p>
Then don’t.
There are three possible outcomes from ED: acceptance, deferral, rejection. </p>
<p>Obviously no one wants to be rejected, but many students are very happy to work with a deferral. But if that’s not an outcome that you would be happy with, then I don’t think ED is for you.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if by that statement you mean you don’t want to put in the extra work for an early app, or if you mean that you would give up Barnard entirely and apply ED somewhere else where you were more certain of admission – if it’s the latter, then it seems to me that Barnard is not such a clear top choice for you.</p>
<p>Well your average for your grades for all three years comes out to about a 94, which is probably higher than a 3.5 GPA. You said that you have one 88 and one 80. How many grades under a 93 (A-s) have you gotten?</p>
<p>That’s good…so you would weigh the A-s as 3.7s, the 80 as a 2.7, the 88 as a 3.3, and everything else as 4.0s. My school actually doesn’t do GPA like this (they have a different system), but this is how college board says to convert your GPA to a 4.0 scale, which can be helpful in seeing where you stand. Hope this helps :)</p>
<p>Hmm…I’m not really sure. I don’t think colleges care about those grades when they see your transcript but my schools adds them in when they calculate GPA their way.</p>
<p>I know they don’t care,I threw it in anyway, but I just calculated from Collegeboard’s formula: cumulatively, I have a 3.8, but my junior year is a 3.92, which I heard colleges look at the most, and freshman year is a 3.9. So its not too bad.</p>
<p>Same, actually…but I had a 3.714 freshman year, a 3.812 sophomore year, and so far I have 4.0 junior year. My cumulative is about a 3.84. The Barnard website says the average UW GPA for admitted students in the class of 2014 was a 3.83 so I think we’re okay :)</p>
<p>Ok guys…bumping this up. I got my SAT’s back and got a 2290. Will this score help a bit to show my potential ability, and make up for the bad year? I know Barnard doesn’t really look at SAT’s though.</p>