<p>How much do admission officers value GPA improvements? On my freshman, I had a slow start and got a GPA of 3.0 in the first semester and 3.5 in the second, both of which are out of 4.3, and only the 3.5 is shown on the freshman transcript.</p>
<p>At the beginning of my sophomore year, I moved to a different country and was at a brand new environment. Adjusting to the new environment took a while and my GPA was around 3.0. Halfway through they year before I could have settled down, our family made another move to a whole new country. The move was disastrous. I hated the new school and suffered greatly socially and academically, and ended up with a GPA of 2.6. None of my classes were honors.</p>
<p>Things got much better in my Junior year as I spent a lot of time studying. I took 3 APs=AP Bio, AP Chem, AP USH, and self-studied AP Psych and AP Comp.Gov. In addition to that I took honors Physics which was a weighted class. I finished the year with a 3.98/4.00 UW GPA. Not sure what I've gotten on the AP exams yet but hopefully not too bad. </p>
<p>That was my progression over the past three years. My average overall GPA is pretty low, around 3.4-3.5, which colleges will definitely notice when they look at my application. Is my improvement in my junior year, when things were finally settled down, going to benefit me much? I'm told by so many college counselors that colleges like seeing improvements. However, mine is rather inconsistent, even though I suppose I have a legitimate excuse. How should I go about my college application process? Do I still have a shot at some the most selective colleges? Thank you so much for your replies.</p>
<p>I’m starting college this fall, so I definitely see where your concern is coming from in this whole situation. What’s most important to admissions officers is that no matter what environment you were in, you were challenging yourself. It certainly sounds like you’ve had a lot on your plate, and schools will do their best to understand that. Obviously, GPA growth is awesome to see, but it’s better if it doesn’t mean anything like “junior year I started caring about my grades for the first time so they went up.” It doesn’t seem like that is the case for you at all. What’s important to consider throughout what you have left of the college process is that you need to find areas or topics or things that you are really interested in and passionate about. That will help you with focus in and outside of school, and will make interviews and writing essays a thousand times easier. Hope that helps a bit!</p>
<p>Thanks for your response. And yes I’ve always cared about my grades it just that I never truly had a chance to study without outside distraction until my junior year with all the moving. I will definitely work on the areas I’m interested in. My interests are in science and medicine but is that too cliche for colleges?</p>
<p>Quite a lot actually…I mean obviously for colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, you definitely have to be top of your class-but those are really the exceptions.
To see that you’ve tried and improved lets colleges know that although you didn’t achieve the first years, you have the potential and the will it takes to improve your GPA.</p>
<p>will colleges like Princeton, UPenn, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, MIT appreciate this GPA trend??
Freshman: 3.81(Weighted 4.60)
Sophomore: 3.87(Weighted 4.67)
Junior: 4.00(Weighted 4.96)
Cumulative: 3.89(Weighted 4.74)
I know freshman and sophomore year were pretty weak, but does junior year make up for it??</p>