Do most highschool students have upward trends in GPA, not do as well freshmen year but better in later years, downward trends, or have a consistent GPA throughout highschool? How are these trends in college?
My kids were fairly steady in HS. The college side depemds. One of my kids attended her safety (by choice, she liked it as well as her higher ranked options). Her grades were higher than HS. She was Phi Beta Kappa, close to a 4.0 all 4 years. The other attends a school known for its rigor. Her grades are lower than her HS grades by quite a bit (not unexpected, she is also in a very rigorous major). She has had some improvement throughout college, but never back to her HS level.
My kids were very consistent in HS. Once they went to college their grades were/are also consistent and similar to their HS grades. One of my kids attended a college that was an academic safety/match, and the other attends a school that is a safety (?) on paper- her scores and GPA were above the 75%- but Is an admissions reach due to being OOS.
I don’t think there is a “most” for those three subsets. You’ll find a pool of each. Illness, home issues, inattention during certain years, they all come into play.
Agree 100%
Often students have a tough transition to college in their first year. It is typical to see much lower grades in the first year of college, followed by a steady upward trend as students figure out how to study, mature, adjust to college, and select a major that they are interested in (and perhaps stop trying to force themselves to be pre-med when it’s just not working). Of course, some students do well from the start and some never seem to get it together–but a bad first year (i.e., a much lower GPA than in high school) is pretty common.
Freshman year was the only year where I did as well as I wanted. The classes got so much more difficult.
Frosh year can be a high risk year, particularly if there are high GPA thresholds to renew essential scholarships. Some students do not handle the transition to college academics that well, or may find that college social life is too distracting. On the other hand, some other students do just fine in college, sometimes better than in high school, due to being more suited to the college format and choosing courses more closely aligned with their interests.
I was a straight A student in high school, and I’ve been almost a straight A student in college for the past two years (with the exception of 3 B’s). I would say I’m doing just as well as I did in high school.
I was a B- student in high school, but have improved to a B to B+ student in college. The social atmosphere at my college is a million times better than that of my high school, so I think that may have something to do with it. I also am a generally harder worker now than I was in high school.
I don’t think there is consistent trends because college is not like high school. In college you can decide how many classes you take in a semester at a time. You can also decide to put your harder classes in one semester, or spread them out more evenly. For some majors it becomes harder as you go on, others it does not. You can take easy classes that help your GPA or you can focus on mostly classes that pertain to your major. Some students learn better time management skills later on, others see it drop in later years.
In short there is no general experience for college students and to an extent it matters less because each semester can be so varied like described above. No one is going to be looking at your college transcript and looking at trends the same way a college application counselor might, unless you are considering graduate school and such.