<p>My son was ecstatic at his recent admission ED1 to the school of his dream a top tier LAC.</p>
<p>What is concerning me is that he is talking about "going easy" after working so hard getting b's instead of A's While I would like for him to have a gooid senior year I am concerned that this sought after school can rescind there offer if his grades go too low. Have parents heard of this happening. If he was accepted in top 10% can they not take him if his final grades have fallen?</p>
<p>Well, I just got ED at Penn but in the back of my mind I know I have 7 AP tests to take at the end of the year. Also, my school offers a bunch of scholarships, so I’ll have to keep up grades if I want to have a shot at them.</p>
<p>But, it is natural for senioritis to set in.</p>
<p>This was waaaay back in 2002 (gosh, I feel so old!): One of the top students at my prep school got into Dartmouth early, slacked off in the last semester and guess what? Dartmouth withdrew the offer with the argument that they expected him to keep up his level of performance. As it was a boarding school all of us had to witness this kid having a mental breakdown over it. It all ended well as someone at the prep school knew someone who knew someone who vouched that the student caved under excess stress of extracurriculars and separation anxiety or something of that nature, and he got to go after all. In other words: if he is serious about keeping his spot he shouldn’t slack!</p>
<p>Swedefish’s story is the first time I have ever heard of a college actually withdrawing an admission over bad grades, and in the end that didn’t happen. Recently one college withdrew three admissions over drug-related suspensions, but it didn’t withdraw the admission of a fourth student suspended in the same incident who had been accepted ED, because the college recognized that he had no other options. Instead, it made him defer for one semester and do some therapy.</p>
<p>There are lots of stories, of course, about colleges sending letters asking for an explanation of poor grades so they can consider whether to withdraw admission. But they don’t, really.</p>
<p>This should not be keeping anyone awake at night.</p>
<p>I do not know personally of cases where admission has been revoked. But I do know of cases where students slacked off in their senior year and began their college careers on academic probation.</p>
<p>In most acceptance letters colleges state that they will expect the student to “maintain the academic level upon which you were admitted.” A slight dip is probably OK. But I would not want to test them because they have applicants waiting in the wings on the waitlist. Why risk it?</p>
<p>I would tell my child it will be to their advantage NEXT year in college if they don’t slack off on study skills - grades this year. New habits are easy to form - especially bad ones. So if he gets out of the habit of high standards and methods, August is a long way away and it might be a shock to his brain when he gets back to the rigor (and likely MORE intense rigor) of a good school.</p>
<p>The reward is in this great acceptance! I would say gloat and enjoy it for Christmas break and then get back to having a great, successful senior year.</p>
<p>I shared my d’s story on another board, but the upshot is, if your child has a particularly time-consuming and/or spirit-breaking class, it may be OK with the admitting school for the child to drop the class. In my D’s case, she had worked very hard for a lot of years, and getting rid of the class that was causing her the most stress allowed her to finish strong in all the others, and have more time to do the things seniors in HS want to do in the spring. Good luck with all that, by the way :)</p>
<p>I know personally of two students that had their admission revoked because of bad grades. One was an Ivy, his dad was an alumni that was still volunteering a ton of time at the school. Despite his dad’s involvement, he was dropped from the school. Enrolled elsewhere, and I believe he graduated just last year. Oh, and the dad dropped all involvement and charitable giving to the school, as he felt the school could have let him in on probation. I don’t know the specific grades, but the kid must have passed the classes, as he did graduate.</p>
<p>The second child was a relative, it was a state school, and again I don’t know what the grades were, but I do know her mom was extremely disappointed. Again, the grade was high enough to graduate from high school. She did not attend college, and has had a very challenging post high school life. </p>
<p>When my daughter was accepted to a UC she got a letter stating exactly what she needed to do to keep her admission. I don’t remember what the grade cutoff was, but it was stated in the letter. So read the whole “Congratulations” letter.</p>
<p>small aside, but don’t assume that senior grades were ‘good’ just bcos they graduated. For many kids on the all honors/AP track, HS graduation requirements are essentially completed by the end of Junior year. In our HS, for example, the only remaining graduation requirements for seniors is ‘civics’ and english which can be passed with a C- – every other course could be an F and they would still complete the requirements and graduate.</p>
<p>I recall some posts about this last year on the Yale thread. I think the poster was to respond in writing about why he’d received 2 “C” grades after acceptance. I do not believe, however, that his acceptance was rescinded. You may want to do a search for this thread.</p>
<p>Although it is extremely unlikely that an ED school will rescind admission (though I’ve heard that it does happen when grades fall by a whole lot), it is very unwise to really slack off. Good scores on AP tests may provide some valuable credits at some schools, and it’s a generally bad attitude to work just to get into college. </p>
<p>For some reason many kids feel like “getting in” is all that matters. Top colleges (and top LACs in particular) require A LOT of HARD WORK. If you don’t like working hard, and only did it to get in, you might find yourself in a place where youl be pretty unhappy next year.</p>
<p>My advice would be that if he’s motivated to do well in college, he needs to keep his grades up in high school. A semester of slacking off senior year resulted in a rude wake-up call once I got to college. College is very tough, more so than high school, and he should work on maintaining high grades to prepare for whats to come.</p>
<p>I got accepted EA to Chicago and I got 2 As 1 B and 2Cs on this last report card. I was a little worried and I called and they said they would like for me to keep my grades at their prior level but they have only rescind admission once in the past 5 years. The lady told me that Ds are a red flag but they wont just automatically rescind if its a D.</p>