Will I be rejected from ivy league colleges since...?

Question

I had a job during my freshman & sophomore years in high school as a bagger at Safeway because I wanted to take piano & art lessons (my family was in a tight financial situation). As a result, my GPA wasn't so great...but in junior year I quit my job since my family earned more money...& I got straight A's with 5 AP classes & i raised my cumulative GPA to a 3.64 (4.43 weighted).

so... will it look bad that I kind of sacrificed my grades for painting & piano classes (which I enjoy & am good at)

Answer 1

well... if you can explain all of that in a well written essay then it shouldn't be a problem. Especially since you did so well junior year. But, it does depend on how bad your grades were before though. If you got majority C's then that's hard to make up for. You'd have to make sure your essay will make the admissions people cry. If you got some mostly A's and B's then that's not a problem. Especially if you could show them on the application how good you are at painting and piano and how dedicated you are to those 2 fields. examples: winning competitions, show you've been taking classes for a very very long time, and having official documents (from a piano/art school/board/institution saying you did well etc.)

good luck with applications!