Do Colleges Consider Middle School Grades? What Students Need to Know
Many parents start thinking about college for their children as early as middle school, guiding them towards specific courses or extracurricular activities. While it's commendable to be proactive, it's important to understand what aspects of middle school truly matter in the college admissions process.
The Truth About Middle School Grades and College Admissions
The plain fact is that college admissions committees generally do not consider middle school grades. Colleges primarily focus on a student's high school record, including GPA, course selection, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, essays, and letters of recommendation. Middle school is simply too far removed from the college application process to provide a relevant assessment of a student's current academic capabilities. A student can change and mature significantly between middle school and the time they apply to college. Penalizing a student for something that happened years ago would be unfair.
Why Middle School Still Matters: Building a Foundation for Success
Even though colleges don't look at middle school grades, it doesn’t mean they don’t matter. Middle school is a chance to lay the groundwork for a successful high school academic career. The middle school years are formative, and the habits and skills developed during this time can significantly impact a student's future academic performance.
Developing Good Study Habits: Children who develop good study habits during their middle school years are more likely to continue those good habits in high school and college. Students should focus on time management and organizational skills in addition to developing good study habits. Getting in the habit of using a planner helps students manage their own time and keep track of deadlines.
Cultivating a Love of Learning: Middle school children who enjoy reading and who read a lot develop reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking skills. These benefits apply whether your child is reading Harry Potter or Moby Dick.
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Exploring Interests and Passions: Middle school is an ideal time for your child to experiment with extracurricular activities in music, sports, or in various clubs. Trying several different activities until he or she finds the right one is perfectly acceptable. The earlier a student can identify their strengths and passions, the longer they can build on them.
Preparing for High School Coursework: What the student takes in middle school really does set the table for the trajectory they're on starting in ninth grade. Students are often placed into different class levels in high school based on their middle school grades and teacher recommendations, and some join clubs and explore extracurricular interests in middle school that will continue as they enter high school. Starting an advanced or honors-level course track in seventh grade can set them up well for taking other high-level classes in high school.
Addressing Academic Weaknesses: Students should use their middle school years to shore up any academic weaknesses before getting to high school. Students who earn B's and C's in middle school typically do the same in high school if they don't make efforts to improve. Low performance "can be addressed through tutoring or programs outside of school focusing on those areas. Students "need to make sure they have no academic weaknesses in any of the core courses going into high school. Once you get to high school, everything counts."
High School Coursework Taken in Middle School
Some middle schools offer 9th-grade classes to students excelling in their regular classes. These opportunities allow students to take more advanced courses when they get to high school. Some middle schools allow students to begin taking a foreign language starting in seventh grade. Doing so can either help them earn their foreign language credit earlier and free their schedule up for electives during their junior and senior year, or it can put them on track to take an Advanced Placement or dual-credit foreign language course. These classes count as high school courses and will appear on their final transcript for college.
The Importance of High School Grades
Although most college admissions committees don’t consider middle school grades and achievements when making decisions, they do consider ninth grade. Colleges look at grades starting in the first year of high school. As part of their application, students submit a transcript with the grades and GPA from the first three years of high school. Most colleges will ask for the fourth year, but they typically use the grades from the first three years to determine admission.
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Freshman Year: Colleges understand that freshman year is a time of transition and generally give students a little leeway when it comes to their grades in 9th grade. To be clear, they don’t IGNORE your freshman year grades but if your grades in 9th grade aren’t stellar, this alone won’t prevent you from getting into an amazing college.
Sophomore Year: Colleges tend to be less forgiving when it comes to sophomore year grades. This is usually also the year you can start opting into more advanced courses (like AP courses, for example), so things ramp up in general in sophomore year.
Junior Year: From an application standpoint, grades in 11th grade are generally the most important. This is the year you start the application process, and colleges figure that by this point you are well-established as a high school student. Additionally, your junior year grades will be the most recent ones on the transcripts colleges receive, so they consider them an indicator of your readiness for senior year and college. Your junior year grades show your trajectory as a student (i.e. your academic progress), so colleges consider these an important sign of where you’re headed.
Senior Year: Colleges consider these grades (along with your junior year grades) as an essential clue about how ready you are for your college classes. In terms of second semester senior grades, colleges check these out to make sure you’ve kept things up after getting admitted.
What Colleges Look For Beyond Grades
While grades are an important piece of the college application puzzle, they’re still just a piece. Colleges also really care about who you are beyond your grades, so they’ll consider a number of different puzzle pieces to get the full picture. Colleges also look at your overall course load and course choices and weigh how much you’ve challenged yourself.
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How you spend your time outside of school (e.g., your extracurricular activities such as volunteering, sports, or your interest in the arts) all weigh into your admission decision. If colleges see that you've stuck with an activity since middle school, it'll show them you're passionate about it and can really dedicate yourself to an activity.
The letters of recommendation you get from teachers are also an important piece of the “you” puzzle since your teachers can give colleges insight that goes beyond what transcripts reveal.
Because colleges recognize that a student’s transcript often doesn’t provide the whole picture, they tend to rely on your application essays quite a bit to learn more about who you are (that personal statement is pretty important).
It’s often important to demonstrate your interest by doing things like filling out an inquiry card at a college fair, meeting with college reps if they come to your school, reaching out to alumni or current students, or visiting the campus if you’re able to.
Choosing the Right High School
Perhaps the most important task for eighth grade students and their families, some experts say, is taking time to make sure students enroll in the best high school for them. Families should weigh all the options, including the public school in their district, private and parochial schools, boarding schools, charter or magnet schools and online schools. Picking the wrong high school “will negatively impact their child’s college admissions odds,” he says, especially for students seeking admission at top schools. Students should attend where they can succeed and stand out.
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