<p>Hey all, I wanted to know if universities, particularly U Mich and U Penn look favorably or at least not badly upon an upward trend in school. I go to a highly selective school in Australia which would be equivalent to a lot of feeder schools in USA (25% come in the top 1% of state, 60% in top 5%, 80% in top 10%) and my grades haven't been great and are worsened a lot by going to a better school. In the last examinations I did quite well, 20th in Maths, 25th Science and once i drop my bad subjects my class rank will hopefully be in the top 50 (top 1.25% of state).</p>
<p>So will these universities look badly on that? I will have solid recs, ECs, SAT scores are looking good (2200-2250+) its just my class rank in 9th and 10th that will look bad. </p>
<p>Doing consistently well > Upward trend
Upward trends are good but they aren’t as good when you’re competing against thousands who have done consistently well.</p>
<p>There are some schools that don’t consider 9th grade at all. Others discount it. Also, some students are just late bloomers – things just don’t click academically till later.</p>
<p>This being said – if you don’t perform up to expectations in the early years, an upward trend is the best you can do.</p>
<p>My one piece of advice, if both 9th and 10th were below standard, you may want to think of NOT applying ED or EA. You really want to do well your first semester senior year and to have the colleges see these grades when they look at your application. Discuss this with your guidance counselor.</p>
<p>thanks for the help
I think i’ll still apply ED because the deadline for that is November 1 and i have summer break from start of December. By the time i apply i should have all of 11th Grade to back me up which should be ok i thinkkk.</p>
Not necessarily, it depends on the student. If, at the end of the upward trend, you have established yourself as an excellent student, then it will make little matter. They don’t evaluate your transcripts to reward you for your high school grades, they do it to see how well you will do in their university NOW. And if two students have been on equal footing for the past year, does it matter that one rose to the academic challenges three years ago, while the other started doing well two years ago? It’s about the present; trends are helpful in that way. Of course, most people with an upward trend may not be able to convince the admissions committees that they’re just as good now as the consistently high grade students, but the problem is in the specifics, not the general state.</p>