<p>So I'm a senior in high school who has been admitted under the Early Action plan to such colleges as Fordham, Providence, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and am still waiting to hear from Marist.</p>
<p>The thing is, I've done very poor academically this first semester. I have 3 or 4 C's (one such grade is verging on a D) in my classes and only 2 or 3 B's. I am terrified that my acceptances will be revoked when these schools get my midyear report. I feel like writing them and explaining my situation. I have gone through some things in the past six months which have made my life very stressful and induced some very deep depression; these things have precluded me from really committing myself to schoolwork.</p>
<p>Should I write them and say this? Also, if I pull all my averages into B-range, do you think I'll be okay?</p>
<p>Take responsibility for your actions and email the school before they receive your midyear reports. If the things affecting your mental health are tangible (ie, a parent or close friend died), let them know. Unexplained depression, however, will need to be medically diagnosed.</p>
<p>Many colleges require you to notify them if your schedule changes or you get any grade lower than a C. And by notifying them promptly you do a few things that work in your favor. You show maturity, and you let them know in time to work out some alternative should this be important to your admission. One thing I can guarantee you: there will be far fewer options left if you freeze and do nothing, waiting until they find out the middle of this summer when they get your final HS transcripts.</p>
<p>The people who know the right answer to your question aren’t on this forum, they work in admissions at the colleges you mentioned and you should be talking with them. Tell them want to provide this update in case it has an impact on your admission and that you’d like to hear from the adcoms if they think there is any action you need to take to mitigate its impact (summer school, take a class at a CC, etc).
To put it bluntly, this is the attitude that drives adcoms mad. They are going to see your grades when they get your final transcript, and they’re not going to miss the change. Furthermore if you wait until summer they’re going to see from your transcript that you knew full well about the situation for months but chose to ignore it hoping it would go away or something. Colleges are looking for students that are mature and face their problems squarely. If this grade drop puts you on the fence then your choice to ignore it instead of stepping up and seeing what could be worked out is going to count against you bigtime.</p>
<p>And I don’t think this is just my opinion about maturity. Here is what a verified Tufts rep wrote (albeit in a different context)