So i am waiting to apply to UA as an out of state student for fall 2017. I need a presidential scholarship but i dont know if i am screwed or not.
My GPA right now is 3.4 and my ACT is 33. I still have my senior year left to boost my GPA up to over 3.5 and i will. But i dont know if my chances for a presidential is zero right now? It says that you need a 3.5 GPA to apply and you need to apply before December. What if i apply this fall with a 3.4 and graduate with an GPA over 3.5? I did really bad first year in high school which is really neagtive for my GPA, this year i received a 3.9.
Am i screwed guys?
I believe you need to have the 3.5 at the time of application.
There are other flagship public universities that will gjve you generous money for your present stats. Look at LSU & Ole Miss.
I believe @GMTplus7 is correct. From what I’ve heard UA looks at 9th, 10th, and 11th grade only.
I agree with @GMTplus7 and @STEM2017. The only way to know for sure, is to call, But I do believe it is from 9th-11th grade.
You can try two things: 1) if your GPA is not yet weighted, have counselor write in (and sign) the weighted GPA somewhere on your transcript. UA will take either weighted or unweighted, as long as it is listed somewhere on the transcript. 2) you can write to UA and explain your situation, once applications start to be processed. Be honest and polite. Don’t sugarcoat the situation if you yourself were the one who ‘screwed’ up. Take responsibility.
I tell new 9th graders all the time that the recovery from a very poor freshman GPA is extremely arduous. Same applies to college freshmen: starting well your first semester is vital to your continued success. It’s just so much easier to start strong to stay strong. The law of averages is not on a poor GPA’s side, unfortunately.
I’m think Bama uses UNweighted GPA.
I just read on the site that is only your 9th-11th grades that count.
Alabama uses weighted or unweighted GPA from your transcript.
The thing is that i am an international, the requirements for internationals are the same but the big thing is that high school is 3 years in my country. Which means I have only attended 4 semesters to get that GPA while the US students have completed 6 semesters. But i guess that wont make any difference? I would like to call the office but as i am in another country the call will be pretty expensive, i saw that there was a tool free number but i dont know if its free to call that number from my country. Ohh and can internationals have weighed GPA:s?
Thanks for your answers!
Bama WILL use the WEIGHTED GPA on your transcript…even if the GC hand-writes it on there.
Is that your unweighted GPA? Does it include ALL classes including PE, electives, and (if applicable) religion classes? Bama includes EVERYTHING.
If that is your UW GPA, then calculate what the weighted is, and have your GC write it on your transcript.
To confirm what’s been posted above:
b** The GPA is 9th - 11th grades ONLY.
b** Bama will use weighted or unweighted GPA and, if both are provided, will use the higher of the two.
However, your situation is different, in that you don’t have grades from 9th-11th grades. So, you MUST contact the UA scholarships office and ask if, under these circumstances, they would consider your senior year grades in calculating your scholarship eligibility. You do not need to call - you can contact the office by email: scholarships@ua.edu
If they’re not willing to consider your senior year grades, perhaps they’d allow you to include your grades for the year before you started high school. (That year would be equivalent to 9th grade here.) Don’t know if that would help, but you can ask them that also.
Just in case you’re not clear on what it means, a weighted grade gives you a certain amount of extra credit for a more difficult course, such as, for example, an advanced placement (AP) course.
@dodgersmom Thank you very much! I mailed the scholarships office and they told me that i should also send my grades from the year before i started high school, that way they have 6 semesters to evaluate. Awesome! I have no idea how they are going evaluate them though as those grades are subject grades from 7-9th grade and not class grades like in high school but im sure they have got their ways.
^That could be a $100,000 email! Good luck!
Please also explore whether any of the classes you took this past year could be eligible for weighting. I’m not at all sure how you’d figure that out, but if you want to provide a list of the classes you took, we can at least take a look at it for you, and perhaps provide some advice.
Yes! Int’ls can have weighted GPAs. What is yours?
Also…we can find out if Bama will make an exception because you are essentially “graduating early” compared to US students. I believe that Bama has made exceptions in THOSE cases where the student is only attending high school for 3 years.
@dodgersmom
I have been trying to figure that out but its super hard. I asked my high school if they knew but they had never had a student that went to the us before so they knew nothing.
I take the “hardest” math classes and things like that so i hope that I could have a weighted score of some sort.
Lets take the math example. There are basically 3 diffuculty levels for each class, as i attend the technology program I take the C classes which are supposed to be the most difficult. Pdf here http://www.skolverket.se/polopoly_fs/1.174554!/Menu/article/attachment/Mathematics.pdf
So I took math 1c math 2c and math3c. 4 and 5 are for senior year.
Could that mean that my grades in these classes are weighted and worth more? I have no idea myself and it is so hard to find out.
@mom2collegekids
I have no idea about my weighted score, our school system is so different. I will try to call “Skolverket” to see if I can get an answer.
What kind of exceptions are those? Thanks!
Please provide a list of the courses you took this past year - with a brief (very brief) description of the subject matter for each.
As for the Math 3c course that you took, someone with greater knowledge of the AP exams needs to look at the subject matter for that course and see if it would qualify. (Math 3c is at p. 31 of the 44-page .pdf file provided above.)
Weighed GPA and grades 9-11. GMTplus7 is right…Ole Miss gives quite the generous scholarships too for stats.