Upward trend?

<p>How much does UCLA value an upward trend?</p>

<p>My parents went through a really messy divorce spanning my freshmen and sophomore years of high school so my grades during that time period were less then stellar (pretty much all B's with a few A's here and there, but nothing lower). I got almost all A's junior year and plan on straight A's first semester senior year.</p>

<p>Do you think UCLA will be able to see past low GPA (~3.3-3.5 UW) because of this trend. I have always taken the most rigorous course offered (all honors, pre-IB, IB and AP classes) so it is not like I was slacking off. I can try to post all my classes with grades if it would help.
I also got a 2010 on my SAT in June and a 29 on my ACT but I plan to retake both for higher scores, would this help any?</p>

<p>Upward trends are always good but they don’t necessarily completely make up for poor grades. UCLA doesn’t count freshman year grades, so hopefully your sophomore year grades were a bit better. </p>

<p>They will take into account the rigor of your class schedule… so if it’s really that rigorous then they’ll probably expect a less than perfect UW GPA. What’s your weighted GPA? </p>

<p>Your SAT and ACT score is either average or a little bit below for UCLA, so if you have the time I would try to raise your SAT to 2100+ or the ACT equivalent. I realize that 2100+ is above average but in your case it would certainly help to have a high SAT to show that you’re an intelligent student that the low freshman/sophomore year grades don’t accurately depict. (I would focus on either SAT OR ACT, no point on re-taking and raising both. You only need one)</p>