I’ve never been that great of a student for a multitude of reasons, but last year I decided to work harder and ended up improving my grades for several classes. My math/science grades remained mediocre - I’m stronger in English/social studies/etc. type classes - but my math teacher really liked me and wrote a positive recommendation letter explaining that I worked extremely hard but struggled to show that in tests and quizzes. Anyway, the small improvements I made brought up my GPA by a couple of points and I ended junior year feeling pretty confident about senior year.
To make a long story short, I’m worried the efforts I made during junior year will be completely overshadowed by my senior midterm (first semester) grades. I wrote great essays - my counselor said they were exemplary and said I had very little to edit - and got a decent ACT score, but I struggled a bit with my math/science classes (again…). I haven’t checked my exact scores yet, but my parents told me they want me to work harder next semester, so I’m assuming they’re not as high as I hoped they’d be.
tl;dr - I struggled during freshman/sophomore year but raised my grades and overall GPA in junior year by a couple of points. However, I’m worried my senior midterm grades will negatively affect how colleges see the improvement I made in 11th grade. The only thing giving me hope (?) is the fact that my counselor said my essays + ACT score were great and would probably give me a little boost.
+) I already got into two of safety schools and am waiting for decisions from 8 other schools.