What colleges look at in the application process, and how they assess different elements, tends to feel pretty nebulous to most students.
In particular, how grades from different years of high school are evaluated can seem murky.
So we wrote this post to answer all your questions about things like, “Do colleges look at freshman year?”
Enjoy.
In a word, yes: Even though freshman year comes with a huge learning curve for a lot of students as you transition from middle school, colleges do still look at your grades for this year. That might seem kind of unfair, since you’re trying to get used to more homework, meeting a lot of new people, figuring out where the best place to eat lunch is, AND taking classes that now have the potential to impact college admission decisions.
But here’s the good news … that “yes” doesn’t mean your freshman GPA makes or breaks your chances of getting into the college or university of your dreams. It just means that your freshman year grades are part of the whole picture you’ll present to colleges when the time comes.
So, maybe we should say “yes-ish” instead of the simplistic “yes, freshman grades matter!”
Here’s the thing about 9th grade when it comes to college applications … universities are generally more concerned with which classes you take than they are with the grades you earn in these classes. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to skate into college if you earn a lot of C’s and D’s in freshman year, but if your grades aren’t quite where you would like them to be, there are a lot of ways to recover from that.
Think about your years in high school as a building (your choice … the Empire State Building? The Eiffel Tower? The Space Needle? They all work for this metaphor). You need a solid foundation for your building before you add anything else, right? You couldn’t START with the Needle! (Or I guess you could, but that seems like a really bad idea…) You need something strong and sturdy first.
This is how you can think about freshman year—the courses you take, and the activities you participate in, are the foundation for the rest of your time in high school. If you take rigorous courses in freshman year, that opens up the chance for you to take Advanced, Honors, or AP courses later on. And this, in turn, allows you to build a strong transcript for when you get ready to apply to college.
So, does freshman year matter? Of course it does.
If freshman year isn’t your strongest, does this mean college is out for you? Of course it doesn’t!
Holistic admissions: how US schools look at applications
The vast majority of colleges in the US use a holistic approach to admissions. This means that they assess things like your experiences and background in addition to things you’d expect like GPA or test scores. Schools do this because they really want to get the full picture of who you are as a person and student, what your values are (here's a cool values exercise we love here at CEG), and how you can contribute to their community.
So your GPA, while important, is just one piece of the much larger puzzle that is you!
Take a look at Stanford's explanation of how they approach admission decisions … a student’s GPA is part of this complete picture, but so are things like intellectual curiosity, the things students devote their time to outside of class, and the individual experiences that make someone different from the person next to them (your personal statement is a great place to share this information).
Colleges and universities that take a holistic approach to admissions want to learn your whole story, so they look at your freshman grades as one page in that book.
With grades and classes, context is also important:
What courses did you choose from the options you had available to you?
If you had the chance to take a more rigorous course, did you do that?
What about your extracurricular activities? Do you spend time in service to others? Do you somehow supplement your interests if those options aren’t available to you at school?
And yes, what kind of grades did you earn in freshman year?
Colleges will also have a clear picture of your school’s course offerings (this information often comes from your school’s college counselors if you have them, or from your guidance counselor) so they’ll know if AP Chem wasn’t an option for you because your school doesn’t offer it. On the flip side, they’ll also know if you had the chance to take more advanced courses and you didn’t. Just something to keep in mind.
Ok, so maybe you’ve completed 9th grade already and it just didn’t go the way you planned. It could be that shifting into high school mode took you a little longer than you thought it would. Maybe you didn’t know which classes to take so you did the basics because that made the most sense. Or maybe you had some stuff going on in your personal life that really impacted how you could show up your freshman year.
We beg of you … don’t worry! All is not lost! There are some pretty clear and decisive ways to improve upon your freshman GPA.
The key is to show progress.
Let’s say you didn’t take any classes that really challenged you in 9th grade. From 10th grade on, make it a point to take classes that are more rigorous AND (this is important) that you find interesting and engaging. Maybe this looks like AP or IB classes for you. Or perhaps you opt into an Honors class instead of going the non-Honors route.
Did you miss a prerequisite in 9th grade that you need for an advanced class in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade? If you have the time and the means, see if you can fulfill that prerequisite over the summer.
Taking steps like these will show colleges that you’re approaching things differently than you did in 9th grade, and that’s part of that holistic perspective. They’ll be able to see that you challenged yourself in 10th grade in ways you didn’t in 9th grade. When 11th grade rolls around, they’ll notice that you’ve made a big leap from 10th grade. And when 12th grade is upon you, well, you get the picture. Believe us, college admission officers will be so happy to see this trend.
And we want to remind you again that your GPA is just one piece of your college application. If you didn’t really commit yourself to extracurricular activities in 9th grade, try to do so in subsequent years. And make sure these activities are things you really enjoy and care deeply about (instead of just things you think will look good on your resume) because they will do a lot to show colleges what you value.
If, for some reason, you don’t have the time to participate in hours and hours of activities outside of school (maybe you have to work or take care of a family member), that’s ok! You can use your personal statement, your supplemental essays, or your UC Personal Insight Questions to give colleges that information. This is just another page to your story!
For more on “good” GPAs and how weighted, unweighted, and cumulative GPAs work, check out those guides.
If you’re applying to any of the schools in the University of California system, a few things will be different. You won’t use the Common App, you’ll respond to Personal Insight Questions (here are some tips, by the way) instead of writing a personal statement, AND your freshman grades will not be considered as part of your UC application.
The UCs look at your GPA starting from the summer after freshman year to the summer after junior year, so no freshman or senior grades are part of this grade calculation. But (there’s always a “but”), they do pay attention to the courses you take in freshman year, so just something to keep in mind when you’re thinking about what classes you want to take!
As a side note, we’d highly recommend taking a look at applying to the UCs, especially for any California residents. Some of the UC colleges' reputations as Public Ivy League schools is well-deserved.
Jessica has a Ph.D in English from the University of Southern California and teaches English at a Los Angeles-area independent school, where she has also been English department chair and a class dean. Sandra Cisneros is her hero, and she loves books, her awesomely-sarcastic family, the beach, cozy sweaters, and more books. Oh, and her sweet pitbull/lab mix named Ruby.
Top values: Curiosity, equity, wonder
