Hello, I am a senior applying to some schools on early action in a couple days. Somewhat related to my previous thread, I was wondering how helpful an upward grade trend would be for selective schools. My high school is very competitive, and I started out with a mix of As and Bs in freshman year and fewer Bs sophomore year and all As junior year. Also, i took many APs in junior year. My GPA is a 3.75 UW and 4.20 W. Does the upward trend help, possibly offsetting the initial negative impression of the mediocre cumulative GPA?
Our guidance counselor always talks about the benefit of an upward trend. This is from a big public school in Massachusetts.
It’s better than a downward trend or flat low grades. It’s not as good as all high grades. How it compares to other applicants depends on how “selective” the schools are.
3.6/3.7/3.8/3.9 is probably more attractive than 3.75/3.75/3.75/3.75. It’s probably not more attractive than 3.85/3.85/3.85/3.85