What do colleges think about improvement?

Applying to College
1

<p>Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but it's related to applications...(and is a little long, i'm afraid).</p>

<p>I'm a junior in high school and I want to go into Nursing. My HS just gave out "two-and-a-half" transcripts, with calculated class rank and GPA. My GPA is 3.0/4.0 (uw/w) on a 4.0/5.9 (don't ask, I don't understand it either) scale, and i'm in the top 55th out of 217 students (class rank is based off of wGPA). </p>

<p>My freshman year, I had an uw of 2.7. I took "Upper College Prep" (most of our classes are leveled 3, 4, and 5; 3 is "college prep" on my transcript and 4 is "upper college prep". I don't know what 5 is on a transcript) for 4/5 of my core subjects (foreign language was plain level 3, Spanish III.) I pretty much floundered my freshman year and had little help, but I somehow pulled it out in the end.
My sophomore year i'm not entirely sure, but I think my uw was around 3.0 or 3.1. I took level 4 for 3/5 of my cores (Geometry/Spanish IV was just level 3.) Less challenging from a purely level-based perspective, but I did much better in my classes. </p>

<p>Junior year...a much different story. Currently between 3.5 and 3.6 uw, but i'm taking a more rigorous load this year. No AP's (due to the levels there are almost no AP classes and many of them aren't available for juniors), but all of my cores (5/5, still taking foreign language) are level 4 (including the highest leveled biology besides AP, which is a senior course). I'm doing very well, I feel confident, and senior year i'll be taking an even more challenging load, but again, no AP's, but all level 4's and a level 5. I have no intention of slacking off now.</p>

<p>I know that my underclassmen "career" isn't that great and kinda ruined my GPA, but I try not to let it bother me and i've just resolved to continue working hard. I've been told by guidance counselors that colleges generally favor "continued improvement", but is such as drastic improvement "good" enough, especially so late in HS? I think if I keep at it I can definitely get into the top half of my class, maybe just under the top 30%, but I still worry that a lot of places won't be happy with what'll probably work out to be a 3.3 uw GPA.</p>

<p>Sorry about the really long read. Huge thanks if you read/give advice!</p>

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<p>Colleges love improvement but prefer consistent top performance. Talk to your GCs and see what kind of schools students with similar records have been accepted to, and make sure you include a safety you can afford and are willing to attend.</p>

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<p>

Most colleges accept most of their students, so you should have plenty of good choices. Ivies and the like are off the table, but so what? You will still have a choice of thousands of colleges; although, to be sure, the selection is smaller for those offering an RN degree. </p>

<p>You have not mentioned any work or volunteer experience in nursing, but most schools with a BS in Nursing require a supplemental application in which they ask about this exposure to the field. Take a look at a couple of colleges that offer nursing and you’ll see this. So the most important thing for you to do now, in addition to continuing your performance in school, is to get some exposure to the field.</p>