<p>For some schools it does and for some it doesn't but I still don't understand why it wouldn't. It is part of high school, right? It is on your transcript, right? You take high school level courses, right? You know it will affect your GPA, right?</p>
<p>I don't think it is fair to people who work very hard freshmen year (like me with my 4.1 GPA) while others don't try and do horribly and then it may not even matter if you worked hard that year or not.</p>
<p>Your thoughts?</p>
<p>For some students, the transition from middle to high school is a big one and maturity levels vary tremendously in that year-just note the number of boys who look (and act) like they're in elementary school and the girls who look like college students. A year later, the discrepency is still there but not quite as extreme. Also, even schools that do include 9th grade are much more interested in the trend-and what happened most recently-than in what you did when you were 14 years old. </p>
<p>If you were an outstanding student in 9th grade and continue to be outstanding, you won't lose anything if they don't count that year. If you were outstanding in 9th grade, and then slumped, your 9th grade experience isn't going to count for much.</p>
<p>Your point about maturity is a good one but I think that the work gets harder each year and most people at my school had no problems transitioning. </p>
<p>It doesn't seem fair to me that if you did great freshmen-junior year and bad senior year, it is much worse than bad freshmen year and good sophomore- senior year if freshmen is super hard because of the transition.</p>
<p>Plus I think that the transition from high school to college will be much harder and the colleges want you to do good freshmen year of college. If you can't handle freshmen year of high school how will you handle freshmen of college?</p>
<p>Here is what I posted on a University of Michigan- Ann Arbor thread:</p>
<p>Well I completely disargee. I myself find my freshmen year far better than sophomore, so that may play a part in my position as well as yours. Though I do not agree to the point where many universities, such as California, has decided to exclude freshmen year in part take of grades, etc... I think the whole high school proccess is crucial, and needed so to look at freshmen year just like sophomore and junior year.</p>
<p>I'm even surprise Princeton does so (exclude freshmen year).</p>
<p>Thread: Will edit to place thread link</p>
<p>"the whole high school proccess is crucial"</p>
<p>I agree completely with you and I am surprised about Princeton too!</p>
<p>I agree completely with you coolbrezze and I am surprised about princeton excluding freshmen year too!</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>It is part of high school, right? It is on your transcript, right?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Not necessarily. The Middle School/High School model is not universal. Some school districts still have Jr. High/High School. And Jr. High in some places is grades 7-8 and High School grades 9-12. But in other places Jr. High is grades 7-9 and High School is grades 10-12. So the 9th grade is not always part of high school. I've seen it both ways.</p>
<p>With relatively few exceptions (UCs and UMich), Frosh year DOES matter. Sure, some colleges say it doesn't, but then they turn around and use class rank as an admission factor. The only way to rank high is to do well Frosh year. An upward trend is always better than the reverse, but an upward trend is not better than all A's all the time. </p>
<p>btw: According to its Common Data Set Princeton counts Class Rank as Very Important.</p>
<p>Wait, I knew UC does not count frosh year, but UM too? I know UM recalculates to A=4, B=3, etc...but they also disregard freshman year? This may benefit me a little bit...</p>
<p>Because when you are in ninth grade, you are 14.</p>
<p>Fourteen is a very long way away from 18 and a college freshman. It doesn't seem like it...but it is. Predicting your performance at ages 18-21 from your performance at age 14, when you are brand-new and just adjusting to high school, is not always a good move.</p>
<p>It's the same reason why graduate schools weight freshman year grades much lower than your junior/senior year grades when deciding on admissions. No one cares if you got an A in PE or Intro to Computers or American history, unless those are your major courses. They are interested in how you performed in your major and in cognate courses.</p>
<p>Stanford doesn't include your freshman year either.</p>
<p>In Californian public high schools (I just love adding the letter n... makes you scratch your head doesn't it?), freshman year is normally prescribed courses of equal difficulty taken by all students together... geniuses, straight A students, C students from middle school.</p>
<p>10th grade sees three roads emerge... mostly "regular" curriculum, mostly "honors" curriculum, and for a very few (less than 2%), "mulitple AP" classes along with honors.</p>
<p>So, performance in CA at least in 9th grade doesn't have much differentiating power. Probably 25-35% of the kids (those headed for 10th grade Honors track, and the early AP kids) will get zero or one B in 9th grade. That information doesn't tell a college adcom much.</p>
<p>In a lot of suburban middle class high schools in CA, a regular class A is equivalent to an Honors B and an AP C. The university of CA only corrects an AP grade with +1, but in reality the correction should be +1 in comparison to the equivalent Honors course, and +2 to the equivalent "regular" course. And even that might not be enough correction.</p>
<p>So, to summarize, in 9th grade you're barking with the whole pack, and only starting in 10th grade do you start attempting to bark with the big dogs.</p>
<p>Replying to post 11</p>
<p>To state that age 14 makes a hudge influence on why freshmen year is not counted by universities.... if at age 14/ freshmens are allowed to be in the high school environment etc... there is no reason to exclude freshmen year. Yeah I know there are districts ( like my own) that are moving towards a 9th grade academy, but until so... while majority of high schools are 9-12th, at age 14 your in the high school environment like everyone else.</p>
<p>"So the 9th grade is not always part of high school. I've seen it both ways."</p>
<p>Yes but it is still on your transcript and worth college credit</p>