<p>I know that Stanford only takes into consideration Sophmore and Junior year grades, and on that scale I have around a 3.85 in mostly honors/ap classes (unweighted; weighted, more like 4.3). My freshman year grades were horrible, however, and my class rank is in the gutter (well, comparatively; i'm in the top 25%). Assuming all else (SATs, ECs, etc.) were fine, how would Stanford look at this? I'm a junior, and between this year and next, I should have somewhere around 9-11 APs (some self-studied).</p>
<p>why dont you ask your GC if you could get a rank based on 10-11 only. </p>
<p>stanford has said they prefer that anyways</p>
<p>Frankly, I wouldn't worry about your freshman year grades at all. Stanford cares about what kind of student you are, not what kind of student you were. And furthermore, all that low grades freshman year says is that you had difficulty adjusting to high school - which the adcoms definitely won't hold against you.</p>
<p>So what if you have bad 1st semester sophmore grades also? I had a terrible (well mostly B's few A's and no C's) first 3 semesters of High School, and then I got a 4.9/5 W and a 4/4 uw for the next 2 semesters (and continuing).</p>
<p>So I had 3 semesters worth of B's and then Straight A's. I am ranked 22/365 and have taken the hardest classes at school. What do you think?</p>
<p>you should be fine, just keep doing well on the stuff you can control</p>
<p>sorry to deviate the topic for a sec, but stanford adcoms only see 10+11 grade grades? so whatever you took in 9 or 12 it doesn't matter?</p>
<p>they see ninth grade but its not calculated in the gpa.</p>
<p>they will see 12th grade in your mid-year report. </p>
<p>**How bad is it to put your unweighted gpa and your rank based on your unweighted on the stanford application? since they say they prefer weighted for both.</p>
<p>to elliott and sharkbite:</p>
<p>As one of the posters mentioned, try to have your counselor use your 10-12 rank if this is possible. I am one of you guys w/ bad frosh grades (ranked 60/702 for 9-12 and 19/702 for 10-12). As Stanford requests 10-12 rank, my Counselor was willing to use that one. </p>
<p>Class rank is a critical part of the application, and not being in the top 10% will hurt you (elliott) badly, even if you are ranked near the top for 10-12. That is where hopefully the 10-12 rank will put you back in line.</p>
<p>Sharkbite, I assume you are ranked quite high for 10-12. That rank will help. If that isn't possible, I would suggest that you suggest to your Counselor that she write a note mentioning that say, for example, "Sharkbite is one of three students to have earned all A's the last three semesters in our most rigorous curriculum. Due to a slow start freshman year, Sharkbite's class rank isn't quite indicative of his performance; since the second semester of sophomore year, Sharkbite has consistently been (one of the top 5 students) or (performing in the top 1% of his class)." </p>
<p>Just an example but maybe you get my drift. This is something you could also use even for frosh-inclusive schools. My counselor did something similar for me, as I have an upward trend of grades. In my midyear, I was the only person in my class to earn a 4.0uw/5.0w. I made a point to remind my counselor to mention this explicitly.</p>
<p>As to whether or not those things help, I would think so. As to how much, I guess it's impossible to know. I will be receiving 13 decisions in the next 10 days or so, so perhaps I can send you a PM once they come in (or if I forget, you can remind me).</p>
<p>stambliark, i hope you get into to top schools, because i will be in the same situation as you next year</p>
<p>Stambliark41, that is the best advice I've heard on this subject from anyone on this website. Thank You. Good luck with you applications! Thanks for offering to send me your decisions. That would be great. Good luck.</p>
<p>I sent this to a few people via PM, but I thought it might be of benefit to others as well.</p>
<hr>
<p>I will give you the link to my stats and results at the end here, but generally I was extremely unsuccessful at schools that included freshman grades and quite successful at schools that didn't include freshman grades. I think what you have to consider is that there are so many Valedictorians, 4.0's, etc. that even an upward trend isn't quite as good as it is made out to be.</p>
<p>That being said, I got into Stanford and was very very lucky; the only other acceptance from a top school was UChicago and the only waitlist was from Amherst. Both of those places tend to look at the person more closely than the numbers, so those may be ones to look into as well.</p>
<p>And finally, I don't mean to instill any false hope by sending you news that I was accepted to Stanford. I had a very strong application outside of grades and even then I easily could have been rejected due to the randomness of it all.</p>
<p>With that in mind, please make sure to find lots of other great choices. Here is a list of top schools that I know of that do not look at freshman grades (but keep in mind a low 9-12 rank still hurts badly regardless): Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, all UC's, University of Michigan, & USC.</p>
<p>And finally, here are my stats (take the spaces out of the main link):
<a href="http://www.p%5B/url%5D">http://www.p</a> r s t a t s.com/display.php?user=stambliark41</p>
<p>If you have any more questions about anything feel free to PM me. Good luck to you!</p>