question about GPAAnswered
Hi! I am a freshmen in highschool and I think i will have 3.69 UW and 3.92 W cumulative GPA ( I took 1 AP and 1 college course). is this a good start as a highschool student?
Also, I started my first semester of HS as 5As and 1 C (I got a C in AP class.)
But during my second semester, I raised my AP grade to B, But, I got a B in math.(or I think I will)
Will this effect negatively in my admission chances? If so, how can I be improved during my sophomore year?
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3 answers
Hey! Great question. That is a great start, and it's very impressive that you are taking an AP as a Freshman. However, if you found it really difficult and are not able to get good grades in AP classes, maybe hold off on them and switch to Honors instead.
You don't really need to be told that you should try to get A's lol. Of course anything lower than an A will weaken your admission chances. However, you still have LOTS of time to improve.
One of the things you can do is to just manage your work load better. It looks like you probably took too many hard courses your freshman year and overburdened yourself. I did the same thing my freshman year and barely got any sleep. I regret that a lot. So maybe hold off on the APs and college courses and really focus on getting better at math. Then your Junior year you can add some more difficult courses.
I hope this helps, and good luck!
Great start! That will put you on track to getting accepted to most public universities! To improve just make sure to put in more effort in AP classes.
Hi, thank you for asking your question! This is an incredible start, congratulations. For this response to your question, I will include statistics that we have arrived at through our data analysis over the years. In particular I will give you information for selective school admissions (Top 40 schools in the US) to give you targets to aim for.
Firstly, schools look at weighted GPAs; each school will weight your classes differently based on rigor so I wouldn't get too caught up in this at the moment. By the end of junior year, aim to have at least a 3.75+ overall weighted GPA (meaning 3.75+ in AP/IB HL classes, 3.85+ in Honors/Dual Enrollment/IB SL classes and 4.0 in CP level courses). Now this is minimums and definitely would look better if you can exceed these for the AP and Honors level courses.
Secondly, universities will look for students who have an upwards trend in their grades. This mean that over the four year of high school, you are increasing your GPA and course rigor steadily overtime. Getting one B in math class will not be the end of the world, but if you are aiming for a STEM major, then potentially it can impact your STEM GPA which can have a tiny impact that still can be overcome by other elements of your application.
Third, I will add that there are many parts of your application. In fact, grades and standardized test scores are only 25% of the weight to your application. Please refer to this livestream below to learn more about how to become a holistically competitive applicant to the schools that you are interested in!
Here it is:
https://www.collegevine.com/livestreams/434/the-ultimate-guide-to-elite-college-admissions
Hope this helps!
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