-- Posted by Anonymous at 1:07 pm on Dec. 20, 2008 I had a bad freshman year, finishing with a 3.3 GPA (mostly humanities and social sciences). Since then, I've kept up a respectable 3.6 GPA. In applying to post-graduate schools, does it matter if your grades are on an upward trend, or does that below-average first year count just as much as my other years? -- Posted by showgirl xx at 1:08 pm on Dec. 20, 2008 3.3 is bad? Then I did God-awful with a 2 something... -- Posted by filo freak316 at 1:08 pm on Dec. 20, 2008 they average all your gpa's from each highschool year [wat you finished with] -- Posted by Event Horizon at 1:21 pm on Dec. 20, 2008 Quote: from Anonymous at 4:07 pm on Dec. 20, 2008 I had a bad freshman year, finishing with a 3.3 GPA (mostly humanities and social sciences). Since then, I've kept up a respectable 3.6 GPA. In applying to post-graduate schools, does it matter if your grades are on an upward trend, or does that below-average first year count just as much as my other years? A lot of times, graduate programs look at how well you did compared to the rest of your class. For instance, I go to Rensselaer Polytechnic, and I keep up a respectable 3.4 GPA. Now, for me --a kid who got 4.3 [95 = 4.0] all through highschool-- a 3.4 seems really low. However, a 3.4 in the Aerospace program --and indeed my graduating class-- is Dean's list and top 20%. Also, graduate programs are focused studies in the field that you've chosen. A 3.3 gpa during the first years of basic, non-related, crap doesn't really matter to them as much as your 3.6+ in actual field related studies. [for instance, from my experience, A graduate program could care less if I got a 4.0 or 3.0 in differential equations; They are much more likely to look at my gpa in classes like "Space-flight dynamics" and "air-craft capstone design", which actually pertain to the field I will be studying/practicing.