Do colleges care about your grades or GPA more?

Answered

I have a similar problem just like you, I have a 3.1 GPA currently because I got really bad grades during my sophomore year and okay grades during my freshman year.

One thing you can do if you really want to get into a ivy league schools is that you can first go to a easy target or safety college for 2 years, get exceptional grades and then apply to these big schools as a transfer student. This way you have more chances of getting into ivy schools or T25 schools.

It depends on the type of school you're aiming for. To be honest, Ivy league might be out of reach but for most schools in the country, that is a very GPA and you should be proud of yourself for making better grades.

I'm applying to schools now and I made terrible grades in my freshman and sophomore years but I brought my GPA up to a 3.5 unweighted and my ACT was a 23. I've been accepted to SO many schools because I did extracurriculars and got leadership positions to offset my grades.

When applying, you should highlight your good qualities because schools love to see growth. Also, If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Apply to a bunch of places because you never know if they will accept you unless you try. I applied for fee waivers and only paid for 2 schools and since so many places do require ACT/SAT scores, I just didn't send them.

Finally, look into your state's schools because many of them want students from their own state to go there. You might have a better chance compared to someone 100s of miles away who might not go because of the distance.