I am a junior who’s going into his third trimester and long story short is that I messed up relatively hard in my freshmen and sophomore years. Freshman year I ended with a 3.71 GPA, yet it was all because of a single C in Mandarin, whereas EVERY one of my other classes (including 5 APs, all 5s) were As. The story was the same for my sophomore year, wherein I took 6APs (bringing the high school total to 11) and got As on all them (all 5s except a 4 in Physics 1) except for, yep, another C in mandarin.
Junior year, things took a turn, both in my mindset in that I got a lot more serious about that mandarin grade and in the class structure. I think our teacher realized that the class to that point was absurd in the expectations and the way it was run. On top of that, a large portion of our grade in the class was and is based on “participation,” which as everyone knows is a codeword for whether or not the teacher likes you, and I have a particularly poor relationship with her freshmen and sophomore year.
Long story short, I turned it all around and ended with a very solid A in mandarin every trimester thus far, bringing my GPA this year to either a 4.0 or 3.96. Essentially, my YTD GPA is now a 3.8, and the only non-A on my transcript was mandarin, twice. Our school DOES NOT calculate senior grades into the overall GPA, but will submit them anyways (I anticipate to continue the trend of all As). I will have taken 16 APs by the end of junior year, anticipating 15 5s and the 1 4 in AP Physics 1, so the highest possible rigor courseload.
Does the fact that I got an “A” in AP Mandarin offset the fact that I got C’s in the class before, or is the fact that I got a C both freshmen and sophomore year so grave that the A this year won’t do much for me? It just feels incredibly nervewracking to see a near perfect transcript except for such glaring inconsistencies.
If it matters, my ACT is a 35, I’m a national merit semifinalist, and I have a very coherent and extensive list of decent to great ECs and leadership positions.