If I apply somewhere, in say, November and I send my transcript will my current senior grade report be sent and factored? Will the school consider the grades as final for the semester and factored into admissions? For example, if they get my mid semester grade report and I have all A’s will they consider those my final grades for the semester? How does it vary by school? The reason I ask is because I would really like to show some improvement towards GPA in the first semester of senior year and I want to know if I will have the same opportunity for EA/ED schools.
No. Perhaps for ED2. If you want to show improvement then don’t do EA/ED.
Many ED/EA schools will look at your first quarter grades, but they will not recalculate your GPA to include those grades. Here I am assuming that your school operates on a semester system where the quarter grades do not appear on the transcript.
You seem to have spent an inordinate amount of effort simultaneously explaining away glitches in your record and repeatedly taking test after test and/or fretting about how schools will view your credentials with the hope of looking like a candidate that a highly competitive school will think is a highly competitive candidate. That approach is the antithesis of what the most competitive schools hope you will do and they can tell.
The most competitive schools (say IVY +) are looking for the students who fully involve themselves in scholarship and associated activities. And then, as a bi-product of efforts (not the motivation for the efforts) over a sustained period of time (say 12 years), they have established themselves as the best candidate of their city/town, etc. They are the students that everybody would point to as the top student in their school, community and sometimes city-not because they gamed the process and took the admissions tests more times then everyone else but because they have the combination of the best intellectual prowess, motivation and resilience. Those schools that are not as interested in choosing that candidate have lower criteria that does not necessitate repeatedly taking tests or spotless grades. So the entire enterprise of gaming admissions is not really very fruitful.
@lostaccount I understand youre referencing another topic as well and I respect your advice. I am not trying to game the system by taking tests. My dad nearly forces me to take these tests. The reason I took the SAT so many times was because I was in the alternative entry program for national merit (which you cant just ask to be in) and you can take the times as many times to increase your chance of making it. I was stuck in a bad period of where the SAT was just changing. Besides that, I am not trying to make excuses and I understand where youre coming from. I’m just trying to provide as much background information as possible to take the best courses of action. I am fully aware that who you are as a person is extremely important in admissions. I respect your insight but I feel like there is a misunderstanding. I just want to know the best courses of action to take.
I am ranked top 5% (20/461) in my class but my GPA UW is just under 3.7. I am unsure if that is low for these schools.