Hey guys. I really messed up my first year of high school which is this year. I am going into Sophomore year with a 2.31 unweighted GPA and a 2.54 weighted GPA and 6.5 credits. I am trying to get into UMD CP or UMBC. Courses that I am taking next year are: Honors Biology, Chemistry, Symphonic Orchestra, Algebra 2, Honors English 10, Honors Chinese 4, Honors Government. I am going to self study Bioology, Chemistry, Algebra 2, Government, and Chinese over the summer. I am also taking SAT and general writing classes. I have decent EC’s. I don’t think I am in a good place right now… Anyone have any suggestions to getting into these colleges? I am a Freshman going to Sophomore year in High School
Ok, thankfully for you, freshman year doesn’t count for many colleges. You should focus on pulling that gpa up sophomore and junior year. Take challenging courses, but don’t overload yourself. Know your boundaries. Make sure you keep at whatever ecs you’re doing now. Run for eboard next year. Don’t waste your summer. Go find a job, internship or service project. Start thinking about careers and build ecs off of that. (Shadowing always good.) Find out what you’re super passionate about and make that your differentiating and driving force throughout high school. Make sure your teachers like you for the next two years, especially those english teachers. They can end up helping you with college essay editing. Honestly, high school’s all about time management. It’s just a competition to see who has the best time management and played the right cards. Good luck! Hope this was somewhat helpful!
Here’s the thing – Many colleges don’t care as much about the freshman year, but it still counts. If it’s down to you and another kid who had identical careers from sophomore year on but he did better as a freshman, then you will lose out. The REAL good news is that you have time to turn things around. I will caution you though that students can use that as a crutch. If you don’t change your behavior going forward, then you will get what you’ve been getting. Right now your grades are steering you toward community college. Time for some As. Good luck.
The above posters are correct somewhat in that they look at the freshman year differently. If you show an upward trend and do VERY well next year and even better junior year that will actually shed a positive light on you as a candidate. Had this happened during your sophomore or junior year, they wouldnt see that upward trend and view that negatively. If you truly work as hard as you and I both know you can, you really can succeed and go to your choice schools. GPA isnt the only factor in admissions, though it is an important one.