Ok, I slacked a little freshman year and it’s coming to an end and I’m finishing with a 3.40 not weighted all honors classes. Lets say I get a 3.85+ gpa (unweighted) with AP’s the next three years, will I have a chance to go to schools like UCLA, Duke, Tufts (etc.) if paired with a good sat and good extra cirriculars. By the way what clubs look good on applications.
You are in luck in that UCLA does not use Freshman grades in their UC GPA calculation. They will however, look at your grades to make sure you have passed any a-g courses required to apply.
Hey 19High8,
I think that you could absolutely get to that 3.85, but you just have to absolutely bear down on your work. I will admit as well, I think that I slacked a little bit (3.7 weighted). However, I think with some schools like UCLA and Duke, their average GPA’s are ridiculously high (4.39 for UCLA, 4.17 for Duke, but duke’s is an estimation) and the kids who get into those schools are obviously crazy smart.
I also have a few questions for you. 1. Does your school only use unweighted GPA? 2. Do you live in Cali (I’ve heard that UC schools are almost impossible to get into if you’re out of state, but I could be wrong) and 3. What do you plan to major in, because the AP courses you take could play into what you major (which colleges like because it shows that you’re serious about one “area”.)
Hope this helps and I wish great luck for you!
- Yeah my school only uses un-weighted gpa. 2. Ucla isn't a specific school I want to get into I just want to get into a school around that 20% acceptance rate mark. 3. Maybe something business related. My school only offres ap chemistry or physics in 11th which I will be taking, and will take Ap spanish in 11th, along with History. I'm not doing Ap math and my school doesn't offer Ap english.
Ok,
I might sound like I’m very negative, but I’m a fellow freshman and so I don’t know everything about hs or college and please understand that I am trying to help as best as I can.
I think that if your school only uses unweighted will make it A LOT harder to get your GPA up to a 3.85. Also, unless your not that good at Math, I think that you should absolutely try AP math because in my opinion, it will probably be the most useful AP course if you want to be in business. Also, with you taking a variety of AP courses has its ups and downs.
The ups are that 1. the courses will make you a very well rounded student 2. It can show your proficiency at many subjects and 3. Show how smart you are.
The downs are that 1. Since you plan on taking a lot of AP’s, you run into the risk of destroying your GPA 2. It shows colleges that there isn’t one thing that you’re committed to learning and 3. Some, but not all of the AP’s you plan to take are not relevant to business.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the input. Keep in touch through the next three years and let’s see if our dreams pan out 
“2. Ucla isn’t a specific school I want to get into I just want to get into a school around that 20% acceptance rate mark.”
This makes no sense to me. There are so many other criteria that you should be worried about. The acceptance rate of the college should be the absolute last thing on your list of importance, if it even makes the list. What if the perfect college for you has an acceptance rate of 40%? You’re not going to go because it’s not “prestigious” enough?