As I watched the Olympics, I was struck but how critical a good start was. In races that were decided at the end by hundredths of seconds, getting off to get a good start seemed so important. I suppose the same can be said for high school.
For high school, that start means freshman year. That sounds obvious, but I think it is lost on many of them. To a 14-year-old, graduation four years later can seem so far away. It’s nearly a third of their lifetime over again. They may feel like they can screw around a little longer then kick their post-high school plans into gear down the road. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
The key underlying principle I want my freshman to understand is that freshman year counts and here is the reason I give for that. Students apply for college in the fall of their senior year. That is before they’ve earned any senior grades of substance that actually factor into their GPA. Thus, the grades a college reviews for a student in determining their admission is from their freshman, sophomore, and junior year. Therefore, freshman year is a third of the determining factor in what decides a student’s college fate and is really more important than senior year. I tell my students as long as you have a 2.0 GPA which is the minimum required to graduate at my school, I don’t really care what your GPA is when you graduate. The single most important GPA you’ll have in high school is the one you’ll have at the end of your junior year. That will be the one you present to colleges the following fall and will be the one that represents you on your applications.Do you understand now why that freshman year is so important?
For the record, colleges do expect a final transcript upon graduation and do expect that you had a senior year with an outcome similar to your other three years. Stumbling at the finish line could result in a letter of recension where a college reverses their admission decision and denies your acceptance. In truth, those are not very common and most students hold up to where they have been. That just makes my point further that getting off to a good start and creating good habits during freshman year is quite valuable.
I should note too that the transition to high school is not easy. I never expect it to be
seamless. Adolescents have a lot of things they’re dealing with outside of school, the format is usually a little different than middle school, the subject matter is harder. It’s different and it’s normal for there to be some bumps in the road in the early goings of high school.
Usain Bolt was off the lead in the early goings of that 100 meter dash. He probably expected that though. He didn’t panic and knew his start was good enough that once he really got going, he was going to win. Still, he only won by less than a tenth of a second. If his start had been much worse he would not have had time to catch up before the finish line, not matter how fast he is. The start counts, make sure your freshman is in the blocks and ready to run.
