<p>How do colleges evaluate a kid who got off to a slow start in high school but did really well later on? My son had a pretty mediocre freshman and half of sophomore year but then blossomed into an outstanding student beginning late sophomore year. He finished junior year with a straight A average in a challenging course load including two AP classes. He also did very well on his SATs, getting a 2140 score. Unfortunately, because of his freshman year grades, his GPA just isn't going to be very good. Are colleges willing to look at a kid's improvement over time and not just their overall GPA? Thanks for your input. </p>
<p>Well, upward trends are highly looked upon. But how bad was his freshman year? Was he below 2.0? Because it’s hard to recover from that. But why type of schools is he aiming for?</p>
<p>They will penalize him for Freshman and the first half of Sophomore year. You can’t recover from your previous mistakes, unless it was a serious medical condition that interfered with schooling. I’m sorry, but they won’t look past it. Make sure he takes more AP’s to try and raise his grade point average. They may look past it if he does more clubs, and more challenging courses.</p>
<p>His freshman GPA was probably 2.9</p>
<p>What’s his overall GPA right now? </p>
<p>1 number is the difference between Community College/C-point Average College and Ivy’s.</p>
<p>Actually taco, some colleges do not take into account your freshman year grades or weigh them less than subsequent years. Marfou, below is a link to a CC thread that addresses your question directly and lists those colleges that posters believe do not consider freshman year when evaluating a candidate. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1267498-colleges-that-don-t-look-at-your-freshman-year.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1267498-colleges-that-don-t-look-at-your-freshman-year.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks so much, HarvestMoon1. My son’s weighed GPA going into senior year is 84.01. His junior year GPA was 93.8, sophomore 82.1, freshman 78.3. </p>
<p>marfou: the answer is some will hold it against him, others won’t. It depends on the selectivity of his target schools.</p>