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So here's my problem. I did pretty poorly my freshman year and it continued a little into my sophomore year. I know that colleges will look for rising gpa's, but will it help out dramatically?

Freshman
Unweighted: 3.25
Weighted: 3.625
3 out of 3 honors possible
Rank: 64/280

Sophomore
Unweighted: 3.875 Cum:3.5625
Weighted: 4.25 Cum:3.9375
3 out of 4 honors possible
Cum Rank: 34/260

Junior (Here's where everything changes)
Unweighted: 3.75 (d'oh) Cum:3.625
Weighted: 5.125 Cum:4.333
5 out of 5 AP's
1 out of 1 honors possible
Cum Rank: 17/242 (40+ dropped out, WTF!!!)

Senior (Predicted for first semester)
Unweighted: 4.000 Cum:3.679
Weighted: 4.75 Cum:4.393
French 3H
Spanish 2S
AP Physics B
AP European History
Cum Rank: easily top 10th

If you drop my freshman year completly, my GPA would be 3.8125 unweighted and 4.6875 weighted for sophomore and junior years. With my (predicted) senior grades, they would be: unweighted 3.85; and, 4.800 weighted. Would Columbia (and other top schools) notice this huge leap in grades? Would it help as much as simply having a 3.8125 and 4.6875 or would the freshman year still stick out badly in their mind? Sorry that this is so long. Thanks for reading and responding.

By Crazybug (Crazybug) on Sunday, August 15, 2004 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Adcoms would much rather see grade appreciation than depreciation.

By Godis (Godis) on Sunday, August 15, 2004 - 09:42 pm: Edit

how can you predict your grades?

By Ivyman1 (Ivyman1) on Sunday, August 15, 2004 - 11:12 pm: Edit

You would still be competetive IF you have a relatively high SAT to go with it, You'll want that one-two punch. But if you took a good deal of relatively difficult classes (which it seems you have, looking at your weighted gpa), the AdCom will notice this, and notice the maturation of your record. They tend to focus mostly on 10th-12th grades, noting that freshman year is a transition period for many students. You are competetive if your SAT score is high, as that tends to be the best (as in more objective) indicator of performance for the school.

By Yugekorb (Yugekorb) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 06:22 am: Edit

Godis, I would easily place out of Spanish if we were able to. French class isn't too bad. My speaking isn't so good, but it's not the worst in the class and I'm working on that. Last year I had APUSH and was one of only 3 in our class to get an A in a class of the top 13. That is our school's toughest class with one hell of a tough teacher. European Hist is by a new teacher and half of the students are sophomores who have never taken a AP class. Most have only had a couple of honors. Plus I know alot more about Euro Hist than APUSH from prior knowledge. Physics is the only one I am worried that I'll get a B in. When a junior, I had the highest grade in Calc AB in a class of 27, mostly seniors. I'd say I have pretty good reasons to consider myself getting all A's this semester. At the worst, I don't see myself getting more than one B.

Ivyman, I'm working on SAT I and II's. I had 1370 (630 v) and I hope to get it at least 1450 but shooting for 1500. I didn't study that much for the SAT I the first time (Jan '04), so getting a higher score shouldn't be too hard. Just work out my silly mistakes in math and read more in the next few momths for my verbal and do practice tests.

By Godis (Godis) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 10:07 am: Edit

that's just the way to set yourself up for disappointment. don't rationalize.

By Yugekorb (Yugekorb) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 04:25 pm: Edit

We already in our third week of school (yeah, I know) so I have a pretty good assessment of my classes and how well I'll do in them. I should definately have A's in all but Physics, which is the only one I figure I might get a B in. But I understand if you don't want to go with what someone says on the internet so you can just drop my predicted senior grades. Would that bad freshman year stick out or would they pretty much see it as just a bad year, (nearly) completely ignore it, and just focus on my 10-12th grades?
Thanks for the responses.

By Irock1ce (Irock1ce) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 02:54 pm: Edit

man.. whats with people giving "projected" stats and scores... people setting themselves up...

By Edmoney (Edmoney) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:10 pm: Edit

give yourself a projected admissions decision

By Yugekorb (Yugekorb) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 07:39 pm: Edit

Ed, What?!?! I'm asking a simple question about admissions, not about chances.

Irock, if I could change the "predicted" to "current" then I would. Besides, I said that you can just drop what I said about senior grades. All I wanna know is if they will pretty much exclude my freshman year, or if it will still hurt me in my cum. gpa.

By Edmoney (Edmoney) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 09:43 pm: Edit

they dont care about freshman scores, seriously. I had two C's and a D first semester freshman year.