Upward trend? Hmmm....

chocolatelover12
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:55:54 +0000

Hey guys,

It is my dream to go to Harvard University and my peers at my school say you need near perfect grades (don’t where they get their information though). We have class sizes of about 1100 (yes you read that right, class sizes) and I am somewhere in the top 2-4% in terms of ranking (based on weighted GPA). Extracurriculars, standardized test scores and other factors isn’t what my question is about, just GPA.

So here goes: I have pretty good grades freshman and sophomore year (a couple A- 's and B+'s sprinkled in) but my grades in junior year first semester took a little dip-- as in three B+'s and one B. Before you judge me, I am taking almost all AP’s. If I manage to pull of all A’s second semester and all A’s first quarter senior year and my UW GPA is 3.9 or above (without the fluff required classes) would that technically be an upward trend? Or would those first sem jr year grades have too much of a negative impact? If I applied SCEA, would grades deter me from getting accepted (assuming that other parts of my application are pretty good).

I know most of this is hypothetical (lol) but I’ve never fully understood what upward trend really meant, and there’s those kids at school who say that getting into Harvard with anything less than a 4.0 is highly unlikely. I just need some confidence

Thanks in advance