<p>I have a pretty good GPA throughout my Sophomore year to Senior year.
(10th: 4.00, 11th: 4.13, 12th: 4.13)
But the problem is my Freshman GPA because it is low.... (3.00 and 2.50 for each semester)</p>
<p>Would this hurt me a lot?
And which year of High School grades do most Colleges look at?</p>
<p>junior year</p>
<p>My genuine reply would be that there are two a priori factors:</p>
<p>1) General Improvement:</p>
<p>Clearly, if your grades improve over time as you advance in grade level, colleges will recognize your diligence and your determination, as workload generally increases as well.</p>
<p>2) Emphasis on Sophomore & Junior:</p>
<p>I would assume that colleges would focus a great deal on the middle two years of your high school attendance, simply because these are the “eventful” years. Freshmen year is more like an introduction and some UCs or UNs or UAs etc. completely ignore it. Senior years 1st semester is important, but honestly, they cannot see the end result unless they are that curious, so I would hypothesize that 10th and 11th grade are de facto.</p>
<p>Most? Junior year and the first half of senior year, if applicable. They look at all years, though (except a couple who ignore freshman year, but those grades factor into GPA/rank).</p>
<p>Some schools (e.g. Stanford, Princeton) don’t even consider freshman year grades. Of course your frosh grades will still be reflected in your GPA and class rank.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure schools like Stanford and Princeton do consider freshmen grades. I was under the impression that the State University or U(something) system doesn’t.</p>
<p>It is true… Stanford and Princeton do NOT look at Freshman year grades… in CA none of the state schools look at Freshman year. Thankfully for my S… our school does not rank and only computes GPA from 10th grade on… the colleges will see the grades on the transcript but the GPA will not reflect it. I think overall you do get somewhat of a pass for Freshman year grades…</p>
<p>Individual admissions policies can be found on the specific schools’ websites.</p>
<p>UC gpa is made up of your soph and junior years. they might glance at freshman year and as far as Senior year goes, most schools just require you to keep up a B average (3.0) i think you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I would say most selective schools look at grades several different ways. Most look at unweighted GPA, in context (does your school have a lot of grade inflation, or grade deflation? What’s the average GPA at your school, and how does yours compare to the average?) They also look at class rank, again in context (is it competitive to get into your HS? What fraction of your graduating class goes on to college?) If you’re at or near their benchmark figures for what they’re looking for in GPA and class rank, they’ll look more closely: did your grades improve over time, or deteriorate, or stay the same? Improvement is better than deterioration even with identical GPA and class rank; consistent excellence is even better, among other reasons because it’s likely to give you a better GPA and higher class rank. But if you had one sub-par year, it’s best that it was freshman year because many schools will discount freshman grades pretty heavily, and some don’t consider them at all. That means sophomore and junior grades are very important; as are, sometimes, first-semester senior grades, especially if you’re on the bubble at admissions time. Second semester senior grades are less important because they don’t come in until after you’re admitted, but colleges do reserve the right to revoke their offer of admission if your grades fall precipitously in the second semester of your senior year, and it does occasionally happen.</p>
<p>So basically…</p>
<p>Junior > Sophomore > 1st Sem Senior > Freshman > 2nd Sem Senior?</p>
<p>Or is it</p>
<p>1st Sem Senior > Junior > Sophomore > Freshman > 2nd Sem Senior?</p>