<p>I was wondering if it's okay to not have a 4.0 throughout all of high school. I'm going to get an A- in AP Human Geography and a B+ in English this semester. I know I can just try harder next semester, but knowing freshman year is supposed to be the easiest, I'm getting worried that my grades will be worse in the future.</p>
<p>Is it okay for what?
No college will reject you for having a B+ and an A- instead of two As, in your freshman year or any other year. </p>
<p>It is completely OK to not have perfect grades. But it is absolutely crucial to try your level best and have the most positive attitude about all subjects that you are in school to learn. If you are doing the latter don’t worry about the former too much. Everyone gets a poor grade every now and then. If it becomes a pattern then ask for help from your parents and teachers.</p>
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Outside the insular world of College Confidential, an A- or B+ is not considered a poor grade.</p>
<p>Yes. It’s fine. I don’t know why people want 4.0. I know people who got into prestigious colleges with less than perfect grades. In my opinion, anything other than a 4.0 shows that you’re human, and also shows that you actually challenged yourself in high school. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>@skeiurope lol thats so true </p>
<p>no it is not okay. you must take 16 AP courses, get all 5’s and As/</p>
<p>jkjk</p>
<p>of course it fine to mess up your first year. colleges expect the change to be difficult. some colleges even disregard what happened freshman year. if you learned all the material , and if this doesnt affect cumulative learning, you’ll be fine</p>
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<p>Or that you goofed off instead of studying.</p>
<p>@AndreiTarkovsky You must be fun at parties :P</p>
<p>I am a parent. I don’t have to be fun.</p>
<p>On CC, it might seem like the 99% consists of people with 4.0s, but in the “real world,” the 99% consists of those who have a 3.99 or below. Seriously, very few people keep a 4.0 UW GPA throughout high school. There’s no reason to be ashamed or disappointed for not having a 4.0. There are many reason for not having a 4.0. Don’t beat yourself up over it.</p>
<p>@skieurope it depends on what school you go to. At my school, a B is inferior; if you have a C, it’s unimaginable.</p>
<p>But no, it’s not the end of the world. Especially freshman year (which most colleges barely glance at). And especially in an AP course. </p>
<p>@LosingCrayon and anyone else reading this thread and thinking the same things,</p>
<p>I know it can seem like the end of the world to not be a “perfect” applicant, especially when you frequent CC. You start to get the idea that a 3.5 is an “awful, terrible, useless” GPA and that you basically have no future if you’ve got anything below a 3.8. But human beings aren’t perfect - we try and sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, and we’re all a bit flawed and chipped and messy and if you adopt the idea that you need to be perfect all the time, you will never truly be happy. Even an acceptance letter from Yale can seem “not good enough” when you’ve been telling yourself that a 3.9/2360/35 is “average”.</p>
<p>Colleges want to see you, not a carbon copy of any other student. It’s more important to show them that you’ve pursued your passions and contributed to your community than it is to get straight As.</p>
<p>(sorry for the preachrant)</p>
<p>Forget what college want to see for a moment. You should try your level best in any course you take regardless. If despite your best effort you got a poor grade then that’s fine. But you have to ask yourself whether you put in your best effort. This attitude will serve you well in life.</p>
<p>I definitely would not say that freshman year is the easiest and therefore your grades this year indicate some kind of future downward trend. Looking back, freshman year was definitely my lightest workload (and yes probably the easiest in retrospect), but it was also the biggest and most difficult adjustment (personally, I came from homeschool) and the year with my lowest grades. After freshman year, I learned how to manage my time much, much better and how to be an effective studier and what not and my class rank went up 20 spots within a few months. </p>
<p>So many freshman absolutely BOMB freshman year. The fact that you’re not failing any of your classes already places you well above many freshman. Don’t stress too much about it.</p>