Question about GPA

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>So my freshmen year I have very bad grades, but since then I've been doing pretty well at school. My GPA increased by ~0.5 points in the following year and I'm doing even better this year (junior year). I have a legitimate reasons why my grades were sub-par.</p>

<p>A) I just moved states (NY to Colorado) and transitioned from a small private school to a large public school. Went from classes of 15-20 to 28-35.</p>

<p>B) I was sick for a large part of the year. 20+ days sick (I have documentation of a diagnosis and the days I missed) and sometimes I had to take tests after missing half the unit with no real time to catch up (I was given as few as a one day at times).</p>

<p>C) I was still recovering from the death of my older brother which affected by greatly (had to see psychiatrists and such.)</p>

<p>My school counselor knows this and will be mentioning it for the reason of my poor grades for freshmen year in her letter of recommendation. How much will this effect me when applying for schools and will they be willing to more-or-less "ignore" my freshmen grades because of the circumstances?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>You’ll be fine, for two reasons:

  1. Freshman year grades carry little weight compared to those of sophomore, junior, and senior years. Even if you didn’t have legitimate excuses for your bad grades, it would probably still be okay, as long as yur grades have improved visibly over time.
  2. If your school counselor talks about this in her rec letter, and she presents the causes as serious and impactful, admissions committees will understand. Obviously those things were out of your control.</p>

<p>If you need any more advice, feel free to message me :slight_smile:
Good luck! </p>

3

<p>If you can afford California state schools as an out-of-stater, then they won’t take freshman grades into account at all. And neither will Stanford (if the rest of your application is otherwise Stanford-caliber).</p>