What are my potentials and ceilings?

bigbag
Sat, 27 May 2017 11:22:50 +0000

Hello there! I’m currently an upcoming junior in high school and I am wondering where my current grades will take me and how I can improve to go to the schools I want. Let me start off with my freshman year. I slacked off at times and didn’t really take school seriously and ended the year with a 3.0. Same can be said for the first semester of my sophomore year. However, I started focusing and studying more because I realized that education is vital for my future success. I’m projected to end with a 3.8 in the next couple of weeks. I’m starting to look at some colleges and my goal is to get accepted into UCR,UCI, CSULB, or UCLA (mostly because I live near there). My backup plan that many say is a definite lock is CSUF simply because I live very close there. Next year, some notable classes I’m taking are Pre-Calc and AP Chem. Unfortunately my counselor didn’t have faith in me and prevented me from taking too many classes I wanted to. I am currently in my school’s Key Club and an out of school program called Youth Leadership America. Here are some questions I need answers to.
Do colleges look at freshman year GPA and add it up?
Do colleges look at senior year GPA? I am expecting to be taking many hard classes then.
Do colleges like improvement?
Assuming I get a 4.2 next year and my projected SAT score is 1350-1450( I got a 1300 on the PSAT and am using that for reference) what colleges I mentioned earlier are in reach.
If the above answer is yes, what are my chances?
Is UCLA out of reach? If not, what can I do to make myself a considerable applicant?
What matters more? SAT or GPA? I’ve been hearing that SAT score matters more b/c GPA can be inflated
In case I was being too vague, when colleges ask for my GPA, do they want my career GPA or soph/junior year.

That is all. Thanks for spending your time reading this!