<p>Rutgers NB is my dream school. Everything is absolutely perfect about it. However, I am cutting the bare minimum as far as credentials are concerned. Thus, I was thinking that applying for early action might higher my chances, and maybe make up a bit for the fact that my credentials aren't amazing. I did some research and they have accepted people of my stats, so it is possible, just not as common. I spoke to my guidance counselor about this and she suggested that I should just apply for regular decision, since if I apply for early action, I will be among a very small number of students, and my so-so grades will stick out more. But if I apply for regular decision, they probably won't notice my grades as much since I will be one among many.</p>
<p>Stats:
GPA: 3.1
SAT: 1650 (taking it again)
Taking AP Spanish, pre-calc (considered an honors course in my school, since we don't have to take a math senior year)
I live in New Jersey</p>
<p>What do you guys suggest I do? Apply for early action and higher my chances? or do you agree with my guidance counselor in that I should apply for regular decision?</p>
<p>Since you’re on the bubble, your best course of action would be to knock out spectacular grades this semester to boost your GPA and then apply RD. That would assist your admission much more than any supposed boost from applying EA.</p>
<p>blacklite, I don’t understand why your counselor says that gpa goes up “the most at the end of the year.” Most high schools give grades at the end of each semester, and fall semester grades count equally in GPA to spring semester grades. Another general rule is that the slate is cleared at the start of the new semester. In other words, if you receive a C in English during the fall, that doesn’t influence your grade for the spring semester at all. If you do A work during the spring, then you receive an A at the end of that term. </p>
<p>How does your school’s GPA calculation work?</p>
<p>I agree with T26. I’ve seen on other posts that while ED may get you a bump in admission that EA does not see the same. I don’t know about Rutgers.</p>
<p>Actually, in the county where I live, the public high schools do it differently. In year-long courses, the schools report only one final grade for the course, at the end of the year. It takes into account the four quarter grades, the mid-term exam grade and the final exam grade. But only this one course grade appears on the student’s official transcript. (This turns out to be a huge benefit for kids who coast and cram. And a lot of kids wind up tied at the top of the class because they move their B’s around from quarter to quarter. Get a B in English and science first quarter, math and Spanish second quarter, history and math third quarter, and science, English and Spanish fourth quarter, and you can end the year with straight A’s.)</p>
<p>But even if this is how the OP’s school operates, I don’t think it negates T26E4’s advice. Even if your school won’t be recalculating your GPA at mid-year, they will be sending in a mid-year report that lists your mid-year grades. If those grades are stronger than the grades you’ve earned in the past, admissions committees will notice.</p>