How would this look to colleges..?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hey CC,

I am currently in a dilemma. My freshman year, I took 0 honors courses (even though 3 were offered). And this year (sophomore) I am taking two honors courses (Algebra 2/English 2) when there is a possiblility of 3 honors and 1 AP. I did not find AP World interesting, so did not take it.

Anyways, I feel like I need to make up for the lack of honors courses that I missed.

Next year, my junior schedule will look like this.

AP Physics 1
AP Comp Sci A
AP Literature
Pre Calc Honors
Spanish 3
US History
Religion (Catholic school)

I actually got a couple of questions, if I can get an answer would be great.

  1. My freshman GPA was a 3.3 :(, how would that affect me? (Sophomore year got one A- rest As)
  2. How is GPA calculated at USC admissions? Is it the scale were a "+" is a .3 and a "-" is a .7? (Totally random, but I'm a legacy there and have my eyes set out for it, but with my bad freshman year, not sure how it will play out.)
  3. Would 7 APs my entire HS career cut it? (3 junior, 4 senior)

GPA is definetly a weakness of mine, I just hope next year jumping from 0 APs to 3 will turn out ok. BTW I got a 31/32 on that PLAN test so I’m hoping my ACT will help balance with my GPA.

Thanks for the help!

2
  1. Most colleges don't care too much about freshman GPA, UCs even disregard it. As long as you improve your GPA, you'll be fine.
  2. No clue :)
  3. That's normal for most selective schools. The law of diminishing kicks in at 8 APs

You’ll be fine, quit worring and focus on being your awesome self

3

Thanks!

4

Usually an upward trend is good…at this point take control of what you can (taking challenging courses and doing well) and don’t worry about the past. There are 3000 schools out there…you will find one that meets your needs.

5

Every college calculates GPA differently. As does every high school in the country. When you submit your application to USC, they will take your “transcript GPA” and convert it into their own for standardizing measures against the rest of the applicants.