<p>Hi, my grades were average when I was a freshmen: I made 2 high Bs, 4 low A's and an A+ (1 AP, rest honors)</p>
<p>Sophmore year, my grades fell even worse with a B, and 2 high B's, and 3 A-'s (I took 2 AP classes and 1 honors.)</p>
<p>Junior year, my grades rose to all A's: 1 A-, the rest were A+ and sometimes above a 100, weighted GPA for the year was 4.7 (took 4 APs and 2 honors)</p>
<p>Do you think that colleges like Vanderbilt will look at this as a positive and overlook my poor results freshmen and sophmore year? </p>
<p>Do you have extenuating circumstances? Though it is good to be trending, you have to keep in mind that at schools like Vandy you are competing with students that have been on their game all four years. All you can do now is try to make the best out of every other aspect of your application (ecs, essays, test scores, maintaining GPA) and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Yes it will be a perk that you have a “positive trend,” as they do weight junior and senior grades more heavily, but I do not think they will “overlook” certain grades. It will certainly play a factor as most schools use “hollistic admissions” but the good news is if you have good ECs, essays, and recommendations, that will be almost as huge a factor. But it also important to note, if they have two similar applicants, they’d likely pick the one with consistent good grades. I definitely would not count you out, but work hard and see what happens! </p>
<p>By years, my gpa was:
Freshmen: 4.05 (1 AP rest honors)
Sophomore: 3.9 (2 AP rest honors)
Junior: 4.7 (4 AP rest honors)
Senior: Im starting after summer (all AP)</p>
<p>I have a 32 ACT, tons of leadership in EC.
I will guarantee a 10/10 essay
My dad works at Vanderbilt and he has donated some money to Vanderbilt
I am doing Vandy PAVE this summer.</p>
<p>After looking at this info, do you think I am a match?</p>
<p>@T26E4’s question was What is your UW GPA? Colleges will use the UW GPA and either their own weighting system or their own way of evaluating what your class difficulty is.</p>
<p>While it will certainly help that your Dad is a faculty member at Vanderbilt, unless he has contributed LARGE sums of money (new library or science building large), his donor status probably will not help you that much.</p>
<p>I think that you are in a pretty good position, regardless. You have an upward trend, impressive course rigor, and, according to you, very good ECs, and your Dad’s faculty connection will probably get you placed in a “different pile” so to speak. Do well senior year to have a good mid-year progress report to send them if you should need it. </p>
<p>No school that does not have a policy not to even look at, say freshman grades, is going to OVERLOOK two years worth of grades. Absolutely not. Yes, they’ll look long and hard at them, and it’s not good that you went down sophomore year, as a lot of school will low weight a freshman year slow start and look at the overall trend. You don’t really have a trend. You went down. However, your grades seem to be within Vanderbilt’s accept range anyways and if you are taking the difficult courses, it may not have that big of an effect.</p>
<p>So in your case, Vanderbilt is still fine. Had your grades been lower freshman and sophomore year, what they now are probably would not rescue you from your late start. Though trends are noted (not ignored), when the other kids applying were good all the way through, two years of playing catch up without a very good back story is unlikely to cut it. Say you had 36 ACTs and straight As junior year with your freshman and sophomore grades as is. The chances fo getting into HPY are still much lower than had you had the same grades as junior years, like it would likely be a reason for a quick dismiss.</p>