<p>Well, unless your high school is a top 100 high school [America’s</a> Best High Schools: Gold Medal List - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html]America’s”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html), I don’t think you even have a chance to say that 3.6 is an indicative trend that will improve in umich. I know rankings don’t mean much but since it does base the rankings on college preparedness, I’m using it as an argument here. If the high school is college-oriented, then MAYBE we might see a trend. You’re telling the admission officers to theorize you’ll improve from a 3.6 in high school to 3.6+ in a totally different environment? That’s most likely not going to happen when they have people with 4.0s challenging to be the graduating with honors at Umich. </p>
<p>You may be improving, but since your GPA is 2.9 with a few 3.5-3.6 averaged in, I can’t image what your freshmen GPAs were. You better have an amazing essay to explain what happened and an even better story to explain what changed you (albeit the change wasn’t that impressive, you went from below average to slightly average in umich terms). I know college admissions like to see an upward trend but that is being weighted too heavily when it’s from a 2.0 GPA to a 3.5. Maybe if you got a few 4.0 and a great essay to explain this you might inspire them that you’ll do well in college.</p>
<p>See I had a bad freshmen year too and can relate. I never studied or paid attention in class but I considered a 3.6 (90/100 converted) horrible and I got myself up to 95/100. So clearly we have different views on what horrible is. I would start looking for other schools and consider Michigan a deep reach, especially if you’re OOS. Maybe if you had say a 3.5~ GPA with all those other stats it could be a reach/high target.</p>