not-so-good freshman GPA... Forum

[bisonpower27]

OP I had a 2.2 GPA after my first year. I ended up with ~3.7 GPA (Granted I needed to take a fifth year because of my failing grades but still). Almost everyone I know had their grades increase dramatically over the course of their college career.

[Snape]

Everyones GPA goes up 7.8% from Freshman to Senior year of college...do the math and you will know your final gpa...

[PokemonMaster12]

3.6 first semester, only partied once or twice a week with minimal EC's.

3.85 cumulative now with multiple 4.0 semesters, have partied 3-4 times a week and got very involved in EC's. Not only did I have a much better time, but my grades skyrocketed since I was stressed so much less.

[512]

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[Ex8]

Most colleges start off freshman on hard intro classes and then weed them out, so things get easier. The exceptions are Physics, Math, and Engineering majors, which start hard and get harder. Since you mentioned you're taking Physics (major or minor?), be forewarned about this. Unless you absolutely love and rock at physics, you may want to change it out to something easier.

[FantasticMrFox]

Everyones GPA goes up 7.8% from Freshman to Senior year of college...do the math and you will know your final gpa...

this isn't true. Your GPA won't just go up miraculously. I also think taking classes with the same professors (who gave you As) is a great idea. Perhaps you can also take an extra class that you are definitely sure of getting an A in (like elementary math) to further boost your GPA. You can also go take a summer course if you are that worried about your first year GPA ruining your chances (I doubt it, if you focus your next two years--if you are applying to go directly from UG)

[fatduck]

Everyones GPA goes up 7.8% from Freshman to Senior year of college...do the math and you will know your final gpa...

THIS IS TOTALLY INACCURATE AND I HATE YOU

[TheFutureLawyer]

I have been over-involved during my freshman year, and some classes. I ended up with a 3.72 GPA.

I am hoping to get into top6 law schools when i graduate.
Since I have heard that the learning curve is pretty steep, I am worried that my GPA will still go down over the course of college.

Did your GPA increase or decrease through the course of college?

I'm not going to a t6, but I don't think that you should stress out too much. 3.7 ain't bad. Just do your best without killing yourself. At least you're worried about your grades. I had around a 3.8 at the end of my first year without trying, but then I continued to not put much effort and my gpa sank, and only got it back up a little during the last year (I am just below my law school's 25th %ile for gpa). If you're sure you want law, I'd advise you take easy classes (though my major wasn't that hard, I did always take the hardest classes I could, just cause they were the most interesting). Get some decent softs, but don't let your gpa suffer for a soft.

hth

[expelliarmus]

I have been over-involved during my freshman year, and some classes. I ended up with a 3.72 GPA.

I am hoping to get into top6 law schools when i graduate.
Since I have heard that the learning curve is pretty steep, I am worried that my GPA will still go down over the course of college.

Did your GPA increase or decrease through the course of college?

Absolutely it increased over the years. And I can tell you, I came back from a much worse deficit than you have right now (i.e. a .8+ GPA climb) and now will be happily attending a T6 in the Fall. As mentioned above, intro courses are steep. Just choose your classes and professors wisely from now, and look for any opportunity to grab an A+ (this is what ended up saving me). Don't hesitate to retake professors that you know give out A+s. I had two professors I knew gave them out and I ended up taking 3 different classes with one and 4 with the other, nabbed quite a few A+s to fix my mediocre first quarter grades.

OP, does you school hand out A+s?

No, my school does not give out A+s. The best I can get is a 4.0

[expelliarmus]

Everyones GPA goes up 7.8% from Freshman to Senior year of college...do the math and you will know your final gpa...

this isn't true. Your GPA won't just go up miraculously. I also think taking classes with the same professors (who gave you As) is a great idea. Perhaps you can also take an extra class that you are definitely sure of getting an A in (like elementary math) to further boost your GPA. You can also go take a summer course if you are that worried about your first year GPA ruining your chances (I doubt it, if you focus your next two years--if you are applying to go directly from UG)

I am not so much saying that 3.7 will ruin my chances. But my dilemma is that I don't want to take easy classes for GPA's sake.

[expelliarmus]

Everyones GPA goes up 7.8% from Freshman to Senior year of college...do the math and you will know your final gpa...

Interesting, where did you get this data from?

[Ford Prefect]

Geez. When I was a freshman in college, I still wanted to be an astronaut. And I certainly WAS NOT attending Astronaut School.

[PinkCow]

Protip: Drop the physics and do philosophy or your original history if you really want the end goal of law school. As someone who did both physics and philosophy, I'll be the first to tell you physics is an ugly mother and definitely gets worse after your first 3 semesters of intro. I'd take 20 page papers over freaking gradient proofs any day.

Do philosophy, get 4.0 all semesters, ???, profit.

[ThomasMN]

I have to chuckle at the take philosophy comment as my college's philosophy department has a reputation for destroying GPAs.

[zanzbar]

I will just go ahead and give my story it might sound a little elitist so I apologize, but its TLS, and its 4 AM here so its not going to be elegant. I went to college with my core group of friends from high school, so I never joined any clubs or did any extracurricular activities, but that doesn't really matter because they don't really care about that stuff anyway. As for the resume since I wasn't doing nay extracurricular activities I managed to keep a 4.0 which I used to get into some of the more prestigious honor societies, and I also used it to get an internship at my state legislature so my resume actually looks pretty good compared to most so my advice is get high grades load up on some academia societies and then use that to get a nice summer or semester long internship so your resume looks really nice, and if your into volunteering then do some of that as well. Also after having a discussion with the general counsel and recruiter for the company my dad works (Its inside the Fortune 150 so I take it as good advice) he told me that when I get into law school to not bother doing any of the extracurricular activities like journals, mock courts, or any of that if all I really cared about is wanting to go private sector because at the end of the day your GPA is the only thing connected to your starting salary. And I think we can all agree we want that number to be way higher then our LSAT score .

[Moxie]

Enjoying college (ex: partying, doing extracurriculars you're excited about) is worth not having a perfect GPA. Ideally you'll get your GPA as close to 4.0 as possible, but why the hell are you freakin' out about a 3.72?!

Take classes you enjoy, you'll probably do better in them since you're engaged with the material (vs. "easy A" classes where you don't care and likely won't put in the same effort).

[bhan87]

I am not so much saying that 3.7 will ruin my chances. But my dilemma is that I don't want to take easy classes for GPA's sake.

The decision is totally up to you, but chivalry won't score you any kudos from adcomms. Really question of which is more important.

I will just go ahead and give my story it might sound a little elitist so I apologize, but its TLS, and its 4 AM here so its not going to be elegant. I went to college with my core group of friends from high school, so I never joined any clubs or did any extracurricular activities, but that doesn't really matter because they don't really care about that stuff anyway. As for the resume since I wasn't doing nay extracurricular activities I managed to keep a 4.0 which I used to get into some of the more prestigious honor societies, and I also used it to get an internship at my state legislature so my resume actually looks pretty good compared to most so my advice is get high grades load up on some academia societies and then use that to get a nice summer or semester long internship so your resume looks really nice, and if your into volunteering then do some of that as well. Also after having a discussion with the general counsel and recruiter for the company my dad works (Its inside the Fortune 150 so I take it as good advice) he told me that when I get into law school to not bother doing any of the extracurricular activities like journals, mock courts, or any of that if all I really cared about is wanting to go private sector because at the end of the day your GPA is the only thing connected to your starting salary. And I think we can all agree we want that number to be way higher then our LSAT score .

You really shouldn't be emphasizing these two things equally. One is about 1000x more important than the other.

[zanzbar]

I am just saying join them all and then put the 3 best ones you obtain on your resume, and it literally takes no extra work and its an easy resume filler. It was meant that if you have a high GPA then you can easily fill up a resume to where its average to above average.

[minnbills]

I have to chuckle at the take philosophy comment as my college's philosophy department has a reputation for destroying GPAs.

This is credited, that philo. dept. is going to bring down my GPA by about .5

Although, I felt the prof was unduly harsh on me due to political/religious differences between us.