Are there really colleges that ignore freshman year grades? I did terrible freshman year, 3.3 GPA, but 10th and 11th I got straight As. Do they ignore just grades or freshman year as a whole, including EC. I feel much better hearing this but it sounds too good to be true.
I dont think I have a chance at Ivy League (without freshman year, my weighted GPA is
Also, I wrote my admissions essay about how dumb I was freshman year and how I drastically changed as a student and beasted 10th and 11th grade. Is this a bad idea for schools who ignore freshman year? Is it a bad idea in general? I want to stand out from everyone else, and I dont think there are many applicants who raise their gpa from a 3.3 to a 3.85.
forgot to add GPA without freshman year
weighted GPA: 4.06
unweighted: 3.79 (i only made two natural As in AP classes one semester, the rest were natural Bs)
weighted GPA with freshman year: 3.85
unweighted GPA with freshman year: 3.66
Some schools may omit the freshmen grades when they recalculate the GPA, however, they will receive the full transcript so you still cannot hide those grades. Having an upward trend would help but it may not make you standout from the crowd that have little room for improvement.
What about my essay topic. Is it ok to write about my improvement. I’m connecting it to an interest.
Do you know if GA tech looks at freshman year grades? Are they focused more on overall GPA or individual course grades.
It’s true that some colleges don’t “count” freshman grades.
All the UC’s are like that. Emory is like that - that’s what the admission officer said when I visited.
I know it means they don’t calculate it in their GPA. But those grades will be on your high school transcript, so they will see them. But my sense from the Emory admissions office was that they don’t give the freshman year grades much weight.
Don’t write about your improvement. They get your transcript, the improvement will be obvious. Don’t be redundant.
California publics do not use 9th grade course grades to recalculate GPAs, but they still count for the purpose of fulfiling subject requirements (English, math, etc. – C or higher grades needed).
In general, holistic admission schools will tend to put more weight on more recent courses and grades; an upward trend in grades and rigor is better than a downward trend (but a 4.0 in rigorous courses every semester beats an upward trend).
If there was a particularly unique journey or some impressive obstacles in your way that you overcame to improve your GPA, then the colleges will certainly want to hear it! Especially if by explaining it, you can somehow reassure them that you will remain the student you were in your latter years of high school rather than the student you were your freshman year.
A .55 increase, while significant, may be small enough to ignorable though if there’s no great story behind it, particularly since they are aware than 14/15 year olds sometimes have a difficult time transitioning between junior high and high school.
Thanks for the info everyone. I was afraid of being redundant BUT there is a unique story about how I improved my grades. By that I’m assuming something other than “I studied really hard”. It might sound weird but summer before sophomore year, my dad taught me how to drive one day, and he said that if i didnt start improving my grades, I wouldnt be able to drive. I know it sounds dumb but driving was the one thing I enjoyed that i was good at so I was obviously motivated. Driving led cars, racecars, motorsport, my dream of becoming an engineer, etc. Would this be a good story? I feel like it would be somewhat boring. Should I just talk about my love for driving and cars and how that influenced my decision in wanting to study engineering at _____? @Scrippsie @YogSothoth
PS I’m writing the first prompt on common app: background, identity, interest that i feel should be added. Please let me know if it could potentially fit another prompt better.
Hmmm…the connection to engineering is really good, but the one major problem is that being able to drive is an external motivation, and colleges are going to want to find students who are internally motivated to work hard in college. Particularly since that same motivation wouldn’t work a second time.
So if you found some way of writing it which shows that you are now capable on being motivated on your own and really played up the love of engineering, then you have a good chance of making this work for you.
thanks! i wrote about how i had a dream of one day building my race car and to do that I needed to become an engineer, which grew on me as career choice, since I loved math and physics. That dream of mine was my motivation to do well. Something like “ill do anything to achieve that dream as in im academically motivated and ready to face any challenge, I developed a new persective, and changed as a student completely” would this count as internal motivation? Something that i am passionate about motivates me to do whatever i have to do.