During this past year (my sophomore year) I had a few mental health struggles and I got a few Bs in AP physics and pre-ap chemistry which dropped my UW gpa from a 4.0 to a 3.88, which is really bad for our school because we have crazy grade inflation. Without considering any other factors (ECs, essays etc) will these Bs significantly hurt my applications to top schools or cause me to be autorejected? I’ve heard a ton of different things from my parents and my friends and counselors so I have no idea how this is going to affect my chances.
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This is one year of grades. Just do your personal best for the rest of high school.
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It’s wonderful you are aiming high, but I would suggest you spend some significant time finding two sure things for admission, that you would be happy to attend, and that are affordable. Do that FIRST. It’s very easy to find reach schools…but your two sure things are the most important colleges on your application list, in my opinion.
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At this point, you don’t have an SAT or ACT score and many of the top schools are now requiring them.
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Once you have your mid year 11th grade grades, you will have a better idea of which colleges are realistic applications for you. And it IS alright to have some reaches in the bunch.
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Please read the thread I’m linking here. It’s an older one but the advice is the same. This was a tippy top student who applied to all high end colleges. He was NMF, class val, excellent LOR, excellent ECs. No one expected him to NOT get accepted everywhere he applied…but that is what happened. He did land well on his feet after a well crafted gap year, but his senior year of high school was not fun getting rejection after rejection…after rejection.
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At my kids HS (which was considered to have one of the top science and math departments in the area) AP Physics is a senior year class. My kids took it AFTER doing well in calculus, with a rigorous math teacher. I can’t imagine tackling it as a sophomore.
Can you reach out to your guidance counselor and make sure your acceleration isn’t causing you undue harm? You should be challenged-- but if your performance is frustrating you, maybe you need a different program for next year.
and I agree with Thumper.
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Colleges don’t review hw grades or weekly quizzes etc. They will review your semester or year grade only.
That being said, for any college where acceptance rate is below 25%, more than 3-4 (annual/final) Bs total would be a problem at a school with grade inflation.
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I would assume the OP took AP Physics 1 which is algebra based. At my kids school both that course and Calc BC (as a pre req or co req ) were required before they could take the Physics C classes. Most kids took Physics 1 sophomore year,so I don’t find that unusual.
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There’s no exact answer to your question. At the same time straight As provide no assurance.
Be the best you that you can be - that’s what you control.
Good luck.
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You are a rising junior. Please focus on your MH issues and not overloading yourself with what could cause more stress. You have time to pull grades up, but your personal and mental health comes first. Please remember that.
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As others said, there is never going to be a precise answer to this question because everything is contextual. Indeed, the Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth was describing how their version of an initial academic review was experimenting with AI/big data methods, and he was describing models using dozens of different input factors. Without direct access to that model AND all the other data they would be using, there is no way to predict with accuracy what effect different hypothetical variations in your particular transcript would have when it came to Dartmouth’s initial academic rating of your application. And that is just one university!
But as others are also pointing out–even taken together, the colleges you named are just a tiny fraction of all selective US colleges in terms of enrollment. Necessarily only a tiny fraction of kids can therefore be accepted to such colleges. Of course some simply choose other colleges–there are many reasons they might do that, because those particular colleges are not necessarily the most desirable type of college for a variety of kids. But even among the kids who would theoretically want to attend one if they could, only a tiny fraction would be able to get an offer.
So it really does not make any sense to see success or failure in college admissions as depending on being admitted to one of that handful of schools. Defined that way, almost every college bound kid will fail.
And yet, most of those kids will end up getting a lot out of college, and indeed many will go on to very successful business management and professional careers. Far more than can possibly attend those colleges. It is big economy, and management and professional services is a big sector, far too big for that tiny subset of colleges to supply more than a tiny subset of the future successes in that sector.
So as others are saying, just focus on doing your reasonable best going forward, which includes making sure to do everything you can to stay physically and mentally healthy. Then assuming going to straight to college is the right next step for you–it definitely is not always–you can carefully pick a great list of colleges, all of which would be comfortably affordable and give you far more opportunities than you could ever use as a single individual to get a great undergrad education and go on to whatever makes sense for you after that. And if you pick a wise list, you will have multiple offers, and you can pick your favorite.
And if that path goes through one of those colleges, cool. If not–and the math dictates it probably will not–then also cool. Seriously, nothing particularly important depends on that being your next step after HS. But a lot does depend on you maintaining healthy habits and ultimately picking a path that actually makes sense for you as an individual.