<p>So, I have always had very good grades, until this year, junior year. </p>
<p>Freshman year: Nearly straight A+'s, took 5 honors, 3 non-honors (Electives and gym)
Sophomore year: Straight A's, took 6 honors, 2 non-honors (elective and gym)
Junior year: A's and 2 B's (one B in an AP class, the other in an honors), took 3 honors, 3 AP's (but 1 AP takes the time of 2 classes so its grade counts as 2 classes), and 1 non-honors (gym)</p>
<p>As you can see, during high school, my grades have dropped, but my course work load has also increased each year. On the AP exam I will definitely be able to get a 4 on each exam, if not a 5 on all of them. The AP class I have a B in is APUSH, and the teacher is known for being the hardest in the school, and the work to get a B in her class takes the work of getting an A+ in another. The B in an honors class I have is in physics, and I may be able to get an A in the next 2 semesters, but due to my schools Finals being worth 25% of your grade, my chances of getting an A as a final grade are very slim. Class rank wise, I was 1st freshman year, and was 3rd junior year. SAT wise I should be able to get above a 2000 easily (based off of my PSAT scores from last year). </p>
<p>My extra curriculars are:
3 clubs: Lit mag, Lead and seed, and drama club
Sports: 3 season varsity runner, good enough to be recruited
Other: NHS and SNHS member (get a decent amount of community service)</p>
<p>So, since my grades have a "decreasing" pattern, will my chanes of getting into an Ivy League or other highly competetive college be ruined? Or will schools be able to see that my workload has increased significantly (especially this year) and take that into count?</p>
<p>You are only 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into your junior year. You have a lot of your junior year left – and I would focus heavily on improving your grades to mimic your prior years. Remember, you could pull high As the next two trimesters or semester and get a strong grade on your final and still pull As for the year. But it will be a lot of work.</p>
<p>Yes, if your junior year continues to decline, it will hurt your chances of getting into a “highly selective” college. However, there are something like 3,500 colleges in the US so I am sure there will be a fit for you somewhere… it just depends on what you want and how badly you want it.</p>
<p>Sexual orientation doesn’t get you URM status, so strike that as a consideration. Low middle class family will impact your FA status, but that’s about it, unless you’re first in family to attend college.</p>
<p>As for grades, no one is expected to maintain all A’s through high school, despite what you read here on CC. The fact that you came out of sophomore year with a 4.0 UW is great. Even if you got the two B’s you’re still in line to have over a 3.9 UW, which will get you in line for consideration at most schools, especially if you have a challenging curriculum and combine it with a decent test score and recruited athlete status. And what I’m really talking about is Top 25 on the National and LAC lists, which anybody except HYPSM snobs should be happy with.</p>
<p>The best advice I could give you is try to at least get one if not both of those B’s to B+ and you’ll be fine if everything else is still A. If you can get A’s, all the better, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. My thought has always been if you have A’s all the way through, you never really challenged yourself, or your a genius, in which case you really haven’t challenged yourself.</p>
<p>I know that I can get the B’s to B+'s if that will make any difference (a B+ in my school is an A- in others). Thanks for the advice! The only reason I did mention the sexuality thing is because I am part of my schools “gay” club, and some of the other lgbqta kids in the club were able to use their experiences to their advantage. If my weighted GPA goes up but my unweighted goes down, will that appear as an increase or decrease in grades to most colleges?</p>
<p>*and I am the first in my family to attend college if that helps at all.</p>
<p>I think you are worrying about miniscule differences that are unlikely to make much of a different for you practically. When people talk about “downward trends” they mean going from As and Bs to Bs and Cs - big changes. Going from straight or nearly straight As to two Bs isn’t a change to be concerned about.</p>