Does college admissions care about your HS freshman & Sophmore grade?

[Anonymous]

I have a 17 years old son who is currently a HS junior. His freshman and sophomore GPA was abysmal, close to 2.0. He wanted to be a musician like his uncle and wasted his freshman and sophomore. He finally recognized that it will never happen. His uncle always needs help with $$$ from me. Thanks god I make more than enough to support my brother.

Anyways, he is getting straight As in his junior year and he will be taking 5 AP courses in his senior year. He has his mother's DNA to do this. Wife is a beltway bandit, attorney for a big government contractor. I think he will get straight As in his senior as well. He took the SAT in Dec 2017 and got a 1590 score.

He would like to attend UVa. Will the UVa admissions office hold the GPA in 9th and 10th against him? Will they accept him based on his SAT score and GPA in grade 11th and 12th?

TIA

[Anonymous]

They will definitely take his 9&10 grade gpa into account but they will see the stark shift in performance and if he writes a compelling essay to explain the mind shift he has a very good chance. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

There is a space on the common ap to discuss extenuating circumstances.

Yes, they will take the grades into account. No, they won't be a deal breaker.

If worst comes to worse, he can do a gap year so that his final GPA is what they see (two great years) instead of a GPA that is 2/3 fresh and soph.

[Anonymous]

Did you check the Naviance scattergram for his school? My son's FCPS HS has had exactly 2 kids with weighted GPAs under 4.0 accepted to UVA (and plenty of kids rejected with mid1500s and GPA above 3.5). My son with a 3.9+ GPA and 34 ACT won't bother applying. He is also interested in being a musician, fwiw

I don't know if they would treat low grades due to "wanting to be a musician like his uncle" the same way they would treat "low grades due to undiagnosed ADHD/anxiety/depression/learning disability" that has since been addressed. Presumably, he has safer options that match the GPA he had at the end of junior year.

Did he apply to any of the UCs? They don't consider freshman year grades and he would have a higher weighted average. There are certainly other schools out there that love high scores and would probably be more likely to overlook the GPA given the strong upward trends. I'm not sure UVA is one of them.

[Anonymous]

OP, colleges will definitely see his grades for all 4 years. However, if he does extremely well in 11 and 12 grades, get great SAP/ACT, I think he will be in much better position than the kid with straight As. I had a straight A kid from FCPS who was accepted to UVA. But i felt like her application was just meh. Your son will have a story to tell that can take him to UVA. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Carnegie Mellon also does not consider 9th grade grades.

[Anonymous]

My 9th grader has straight A’s. They’d damn well better count.

[Anonymous]

You are lucky that you had a kid slack off so much for the first 2 years of HS and then was able to turn it around, get straight As and a near perfect score on the SAT. That is really amazing.

I don't know how the colleges will view that but that SAT score is a standout for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are lucky that you had a kid slack off so much for the first 2 years of HS and then was able to turn it around, get straight As and a near perfect score on the SAT. That is really amazing.

I don't know how the colleges will view that but that SAT score is a standout for sure.

OP here. Thank you for your kind words. My kid went on tour with his uncle over the summer and saw first hand how hard it was as a struggling musician, except for hanging out with lot of women. He came to the realization that is not how he wants to live. My wife and I spent A LOT of $$$ with private tutoring in the past 7 1/2 months to get him to where he is now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are lucky that you had a kid slack off so much for the first 2 years of HS and then was able to turn it around, get straight As and a near perfect score on the SAT. That is really amazing.

I don't know how the colleges will view that but that SAT score is a standout for sure.

OP here. Thank you for your kind words. My kid went on tour with his uncle over the summer and saw first hand how hard it was as a struggling musician, except for hanging out with lot of women. He came to the realization that is not how he wants to live. My wife and I spent A LOT of $$$ with private tutoring in the past 7 1/2 months to get him to where he is now.

This alone should be enough to get him admitted into some good schools. How many kids have such real-life experiences where they learned life lessons and chose the right path to write about?

[Anonymous]

the importance of grades:

least MS grades for HS credits
9th grade
10th grade
11th grade.

They will downweight easy classes (PE, Band, etc) relative to classes in the core disciplines.

[Anonymous]

Senior year grades are not really taken into account because the student typically applies early in the fall of their senior year. Certainly, the test scores are stellar, but with the lower GPA, there will be hurdles. Explaining away a bad GPA will be difficult. APply broadly and don't expect too much merit because the GPA is a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 17 years old son who is currently a HS junior. His freshman and sophomore GPA was abysmal, close to 2.0. He wanted to be a musician like his uncle and wasted his freshman and sophomore. He finally recognized that it will never happen. His uncle always needs help with $$$ from me. Thanks god I make more than enough to support my brother.

Anyways, he is getting straight As in his junior year and he will be taking 5 AP courses in his senior year. He has his mother's DNA to do this. Wife is a beltway bandit, attorney for a big government contractor. I think he will get straight As in his senior as well. He took the SAT in Dec 2017 and got a 1590 score.

He would like to attend UVa. Will the UVa admissions office hold the GPA in 9th and 10th against him? Will they accept him based on his SAT score and GPA in grade 11th and 12th?

TIA

UVA is out unless he does the community college guaranteed admission route. However, there are plenty of other schools out there that would consider him, including other state flagships.

[Anonymous]

If he continues to do well and shows that he has matured he’ll do fine in his apps I would think.
Maybe he should sign up for the optional interviews?
He should apply widely and visit the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Senior year grades are not really taken into account because the student typically applies early in the fall of their senior year. Certainly, the test scores are stellar, but with the lower GPA, there will be hurdles. Explaining away a bad GPA will be difficult. Apply broadly and don't expect too much merit because the GPA is a factor.

I don’t think so. When it doesn’t work is when they are the Junior year grades that are bad.
And they definitely count the senior year first set of grades.