Do Colleges Look at Your Freshman Year Grades? The Honest Truth:

When you start school college seems really far away. You are trying to find your classrooms get used to a place and figure out your schedule. It is totally normal if your grades were not that great during your freshman year.

 

As you get to your sophomore and junior years you start to think about college more. You wonder if colleges actually care about your freshman year grades. Did you mess up your chances of getting into your dream college because of a freshman year?

 

Let us be clear: yes most colleges do look at your freshman year grades but they do not matter much as you think.

 

The people who decide if you get into college do not just look at one thing. Make a decision. They look at how you did in all of school. Here is how colleges look at your freshman year grades and how you can do better.

 

The Facts: Your GPA Includes Freshman Year

 

First let us look at the numbers. When you apply to college your high school sends them your transcript. This paper shows your Cumulative GPA, which's the average of all your grades since freshman year.

 

Unless your high school does not include freshman year grades in your GPA those grades are part of the number that colleges see when they first look at your application.

 

Some Colleges Do Not Care About Freshman Year

 

It is important to know that some big colleges do not include freshman year grades when they decide if you get in.

 

Colleges like The University of California The California State University and Stanford University do not look at your freshman year grades.

 

For these colleges they only care about how you did in your sophomore and junior years.

 

What Colleges Care About Most: Getting Better

 

For colleges that do look at freshman year they are not looking for grades. They want to see if you got better over time. They know it takes time to get used to school. They expect you to get better.

 

They care most about seeing that your grades get better every year.

 

Let us say you got all As in freshman year. Your grades got worse in junior year. That is not as good as if you got grades in freshman year but then got better and got all As in junior year.

 

Colleges like it when they see that you can handle classes and that you are ready for college.

 

How to Make Up for a Bad Freshman Year

 

If you did not do well in freshman year you cannot change that now.. You can control how you do from now on. Since you have classes, in sophomore and junior year if you do well now your GPA will get better.

 

Here is what you can do:

 

1. Take classes

 

If you got a bad grade in a regular class try to get a good grade in a harder class. This shows colleges that you can handle work.

 

2. Explain yourself

 

If you had a freshman year because of something that happened to you you can explain that when you apply to college. Colleges want to know what happened. They will understand if you had a hard time.

 

3. Use a calculator to see how you can improve

 

You can use a calculator to see what grades you need to get to make your GPA better. This will help you make a plan to get the grades you need.

 

Your GPA is not the end of the story

 

Just because you did not do well in freshman year does not mean you will not get into college. You can still do well. Get into a good college. Go to CalcGrade.com. Use their calculator to see how you can improve your grades and get into the college you want.