<p>I just finished my freshman year of high school and I have a bunch of questions about getting into college. I go to a charter public school, but it just started last year and its very small (~100 kids total) with only two grades (there will be three next year), so there aren’t many opportunities to boost my application there. My grades are ok:
Geometry: A
English: A-
Ecology: A
History: A-
Spanish: A-
German: A
Theater (semester): A
Visual Art (semester): A</p>
<p>My school has decided not to give out A+'s… Will that hurt me? Also, how do i calculate my GPA? It wasn’t on my report card. My grades are pretty good considering that I was very sick for the whole first semester, though. I came to school as much as I could, but I still missed a lot. I even came to school one day after I had been in the ER the whole night before. I think all of those absences must have hurt my grade. </p>
<p>Another thing is that my school doesn’t have AP or honors classes. Is that going to look bad on my application? How do I show that I can handle the rigor of an AP class? The school says that all of their classes will prepare us for AP exams, but I think that’s just administrative spiel.</p>
<p>As far as extracurriculars go, I’m not involved in many. I take a pottery class, go to a church youth group, and occasionally volunteer at a farm, but that’s not a lot. My school only offers one extracurriclar (Model UN), and I might do that next year, but I wish there were more options. I would love to play music, but my family can’t really afford private music lessons or instruments and there is no music program at my school. I am not really an athletic person either… I have a nervous system disorder in my knees and all of the sports at my school (soccer, basketball, softball/baseball, and cross country) are high impact, so that’s out of the question. I might be able to do swimming outside of school though, I’ll have to see if my knees get any better.</p>
<p>I realize that my r</p>