Do Colleges Look at Freshman Year? What Grade 9 Really Counts For

Last updated: September 10, 2026.

Quick answer:

Yes, colleges see your freshman grades. Your full transcript goes to every school you apply to. But most admissions offices weigh 9th grade the least of all four years, and focus instead on whether your grades trend upward through to grade 12. The UC and Cal State systems are among the few to exclude 9th-grade grades from their GPA calculation entirely. What matters most if not grades? Exploring, building skills, and establishing a strong academic foundation.

Starting high school is a big transition for many students. Suddenly, grades start to carry more weight, and college seems to be creeping up on you. No matter if you’re in grade 9 or grade 11 and looking back, you’ve likely wondered: Do colleges look at freshman year? The short answer is yes, but not in the way you may think. In this blog, we’ll break down the significance of 9th grade and what really matters to colleges. ​

Do Colleges Look at Freshman Year?

Yes. Colleges receive your entire high school transcript, which includes your grades from freshman year. However, admissions officers are mostly concerned with your more recent performance and recognize that 9th grade is not only a transitional period for students, but also less important to who they are when they apply to college. ​A rocky start won’t be why a college turns you away, but they will question your progression in grades 10 and 11. From grade 9 onward, college admissions officers are looking to see if a student is demonstrating an upward trend in their academic performance. This means they’re taking challenging courses (Dual Enrollment, Advanced Placement (AP), or International Baccalaureate (IB)), expanding their studies and interests, and preparing themselves for college-level coursework. ​

Do Freshman Grades Matter?

Not necessarily. It depends on which colleges a student applies to. Freshman grades do not determine how well a student will do in college. College admissions officers are more concerned with your performance in the more recent years. Rest assured, if you didn’t perform as well as you would have hoped in 9th grade, you will not be penalized for it. ​The exception to this rule comes when a student is aiming for a highly selective college such as Harvard, UCLA, MIT, or other Top 20 colleges. As our College Counselor, Renee Roush, a former application reader at Columbia University, explains:​“As selectivity increases, freshman year matters more. At the most selective schools, everything matters, including grades from 9th grade.”​For highly selective colleges, the grades you receive and the courses you take in grade 9 set the tone for your entire college application. While a small stumble in grade 9 won’t make or break your candidacy, a significant setback may raise concerns from admissions officers. ​

How Do Colleges Treat 9th Grade in Holistic Review?

“Reading” a transcript and “counting” a transcript are two different things, and the difference matters more than most families realize. ​Admissions officers read all four years—the courses, rigor, and the story of how a student grew. But when it comes time to calculate a GPA for comparison against other applicants, some college systems recalculate that number using a narrow window, and freshman year is the most common year to get dropped. ​

• The University of California (UC) system calculates its admissions GPA using only grades after 9th grade through the summer after 11th grade, so freshman year is not included in that calculation.
• Many private, holistic-review colleges such as Harvard, UChicago, or MIT continue to include 9th grade in the transcript and to calculate GPA.
• International universities have different GPA models entirely. The UK’s University of Oxford evaluates international applicants by their final school-leaving qualification, not a year-by-year transcript average.

The practical takeaway for a 9th grader (or a parent of one) isn’t “freshman year is a free pass.” It’s that the system is built with room for students to recover, but still emphasizes the importance of foundation building. ​

Colleges that Don’t Consider Freshman Grades

While most colleges and universities in the United States consider all four grade levels, there are a few that do not consider freshman grades or do not consider all freshman grades:​

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What If You Get Bad Grades in Freshman Year?

Got one or two (or a few) bad grades in freshman year? All is not lost. Colleges respect resilience and a student’s ability to recover from a small setback more than a student who has a perfect transcript. Not only does this show character development, but it speaks to the type of student you are as you approach college. ​If you got a bad grade as a freshman, here’s what you need to do:​

1. Evaluate your performance. You may have to ask yourself some hard questions in order to understand why you performed badly. Did you take the wrong courses? Do you need a tutor? Identify the root of the problem.
2. Identify your interests and strengths. Improve in areas where you struggled, but focus more on your interests and where you can demonstrate strength. This may mean lessening the maths and sciences, or doubling down on them.
3. Focus on demonstrating an upward trend. Strong performance in 10th and 11th grade outweighs weaker performance in 9th grade. Identify ways to improve.
4. Seek academic support early. Speak to your school counselor, work with a college counselor, or hire a tutor if you’re in need of help.

Tips to Improve Your GPA After Freshman Year

You may be looking at your freshman year and thinking, “I know I can do better.” That’s step one to improving your GPA. Step two is identifying which subjects you need help in, and step three is coming up with a plan to achieve your desired outcome. ​Consider these:​

• Hire a tutor.
• Establish better study habits.
• Be more strategic about course selection.
• Space out your courses (ie., summer school)
• Scale back on the extracurriculars.

This is also the point where course selection starts to compound: a strong sophomore schedule can offset a shaky 9th-grade GPA, but only if the courses are rigorous enough to matter. ​See our guide to weighted vs. unweighted GPAs and dual enrollment for how to build that schedule. ​

What Does Matter from Freshman Year?

Colleges understand that a student evolves in high school. Who you are in grade 9 is not who you are when you’re applying to college. And in this marathon, you will have your ups and downs. So what matters? Setting habits in freshman year is more important than perfect performance. ​

Skill Building

Grade 9 is the time for you to widen your horizons and learn what you like and dislike. It’s also the time to start developing lifelong skills that will not only help you perform better in the second half of high school, but in college as well. These include:​

• Time management
• Study techniques and how to test better
• Stress management
• Adaptability and communication skills

Spending time to develop hard and soft skills early can be what makes or breaks your performance in high school and your ability to gain admission to the college of your choice.

Setting a Strong Academic Foundation

Each year, we have a few dozen students who come to us in late junior year and say, “I wish I could go back in time.” And through the work we do with students, as early as middle school, we reduce the number of students who apply to college regretting their decisions and the choices they made in high school. We don’t want you to be that student who limits their options early on. Grade 9 is the perfect time to start laying the foundation for the future you want. Missing out on prerequisite courses now can make it difficult (sometimes impossible) to catch up later. And without showing genuine interest in a subject throughout high school, it’s much harder to be admitted into selective programs in that field.
So whether you’re in 9th grade today or just looking to make small improvements before it’s too late, use this time to explore. Take courses you’re curious about, even ones you’re unsure of. Every class you try gives you more opportunities down the road.

Confidence Building

A strong start in grade 9 sets up a more successful process when it comes time to apply to college. Not only will this open more opportunities for you, but it will also give you the confidence boost you need to juggle college applications, exams, and extracurricular commitments during senior year.

How to Set up a Strong Freshman Foundation

There are specific things you can do to set yourself up for success in high school as early as grade 9. ​

1. Take as many core classes as you can. By doing this, you’ll be able to identify what you enjoy and hopefully get a sense of what you’d like to major in.
2. Evaluate how AP, IB, and Dual Enrollment courses fit into your academics. Students shouldn’t take all of these, but it’s a good idea to learn the differences between these academic courses and what is feasible for you.
3. Take electives that inspire curiosity and spark genuine interest. This doesn’t mean you need to tailor them to your potential major. Do something you enjoy!

For Parents: What Matters For Your Recent 9th Grader (and What Doesn’t)

If you’re the parent of a brand-new 9th grader, this is usually the first real admissions question you’ll ask–and the timing isn’t a coincidence. The families who get the most out of high school tend to start thinking about college long before senior year. ​

What matters right now:​

• Course selection that keeps future options open.
• Building study and time-management habits before the stakes get higher.
• Building executive functioning skills needed for high school, college, and beyond.
• Encouraging student exploration.

What doesn’t matter yet:​

• A college major or a finalized list of potential colleges.
• Having a comprehensive list of extracurricular activities.

There is still plenty of time for your teen to work on their college application. Now is the time to help your teen transition to freshman year and guide them in building a foundation for the future.​

Start your college planning in 9th grade with a Collegewise counselor. By partnering with a trusted advisor, your teen can tackle course selection, academic strategy, skill-building, and more with ease.