<p>Do colleges actually look at the courses you took or will the low GPA be counted against you because they simply looked at your GPA</p>
<p>By the way, my unweighted is 3.5, but I took 5 APs my junior year and just had too much workload. My SAT is 2080, and I have ECs that I have been committed to since freshman year.</p>
<p>They look at your courses in context of what your school offers along with your GPA. They rather see a bit lower GPA with tons of challenging courses than a 4.0 with all the lowest-level courses.</p>
<p>Colleges will look at the rigor of your high school courses and compare you to your fellow HS students and to the other applicants. If you are taking more AP classes than your classmates, that will only benefit you and admissions will take that into account.</p>
<p>Hmm, okay that provides a bit of reassurance. I took pretty hard APs and realizing my GPA is a lot lower than the average GPAs of the colleges I’m applying to is kind of freaking me out.</p>
<p>Depends on what college you are talking about. Top, elite schools will expect you to take AP or IB courses AND get A’s n all of them.</p>
<p>Yeah, which colleges specifically?</p>
<p>@GA2012MOM What do you consider top/elite? Do UCs go into that category?</p>
<p>I don’t think UCs are as selective/strict as HYPSM</p>
<p>@nagintapls well I’m applying to most of the UCs and some other privates, but I’m more worried about the UCs</p>
<p>@OhMightySmiter Since you can’t do much about your GPA right now, I would recommend re-testing and getting that SAT up to 2150+</p>
<p>@nagintapls Would that significantly improve my chances or just a bit? Though I guess every bit counts…</p>
<p>It would be pretty significant. Even so if you could hit a 2200.</p>
<p>@nagintapls dang, okay. Would the essays be a big factor too then?</p>
<p>@OhMightySmiter Essays are very important</p>
<p>@OhMightySmiter: UC’s are unfortunately more about the UC GPA than test scores and essays. They will view your UC GPA in the context of your course rigor and type of HS school, but in the end, I found it usually comes down to GPA. Have you calculated your UC GPA, here is a link: <a href=“GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub”>http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/</a> ??
You can still be competitive depending upon which UC’s you are applying. UCB/UCLA/UCSB seem to be more holistic in their admissions versus the other UC’s which focus more on GPA and Test scores. If you have a great story to tell, your essays will definitely help. </p>
<p>@Gumbymom hmm, would the essays and ECS help enough to make up for the lower GPA? If they were good enough, that is.</p>
<p>@Gumbymom ECs*</p>
<p>Yes, EC’s and essays could help but it can be very subjective depending if the reader likes what you have to say or not. My older son wrote very good essays which I think help overcome his low ACT score of 26 (GPA 4.2) to be accepted to UCI and UCD. You just never know what will “tickle” the ad coms fancy…</p>