Do colleges look at freshman year?

A sinking feeling sets in among many high school students as they embark on the college application process. Some might think, “I messed up freshman year of high school” and, with it, any chance of acceptance at their dream college. But how much do colleges look at freshman year?

Colleges closely evaluate freshman year grades and activities, but not in the ways you might think. Here’s how ninth grade does matter: freshman year is the foundation for the rest of your child’s high school career.

The courses your child takes early in their career, as well as their performance in them, determine the rest of your child’s high school course load. If they join extracurriculars freshman year, they may become a leader in those extracurriculars as an upperclassman. If they take honors physics at the start of high school, they may enroll in AP Physics senior year. Most colleges consider your child’s overall high school GPA, meaning the grades they receive freshman year do have weight.

Here’s the nuance. Many universities follow a “holistic admissions” process, which means they’re not simply looking at grades or your child’s SAT/ACT scores. They want a sense of your child’s narrative. Has your child made the most of the academic and extracurricular opportunities available at their school? Did they improve or grow during high school?

In that vein, admissions officers consider both your child’s GPA and their freshman course load in the context of their overall high school transcript. That means that excelling later in high school can balance weak academic performance freshman year. If your child recovers from a weak freshman year, admissions officers will see this as positive evidence of their ability to adjust to new academic demands and expectations, an ability that will come in handy during college and beyond.

This applies to extracurriculars as well. Admissions officers look for depth rather than breadth in your child’s involvement. If they don’t participate in many activities freshman year, your child can still go on to lead or excel in a couple of extracurriculars.  

Admissions committees will be more excited about a student who had mediocre grades freshman year and went on to receive stellar grades. Admissions officers want to know who your child is as both a student and member of their community. They recognize that your child is not defined by their freshman year. The best way to recover from a “weak” freshman year is to give admissions officers a full picture of who they are now.