Do colleges look at Final Report grades?

Some of my colleges and universities I applied to requires me to send them my “Final Report”. However, if they send out decisions during March (or earlier) and most students typically get their final report in May how exactly do your final grades factor into consideration for admission? I applied to ED 2 to a university and they said that they will send out their admission decision by mid-February, then why do they still want my Final Report?

If you do bad on your final report or you have a lot of absences or something they can take back your acceptance

I suspect there are a couple of reasons. Colleges report GPA’s of enrolled students so it is in the college’s interest to have the student bring with them to campus the highest overall GPA that they can achieve.

Also, most colleges are concerned that applicants can do the work there. I think they recognize senioritis as a legitimate phenomenon, but they want to know that even slacking off a bit you can still maintain B’s in your courses.

My D was accepted ED1 to her top choice. Her acceptance letter states in part: “Our offer of admission is made with the provision that you maintain your record of academic achievement and personal integrity. We will review all final transcripts and ask that you have your school forward transcripts at the end of each grading period this academic year and send a final transcript confirming your graduation and good standing at the end of the school year, but no later than July 1, 2015.” In other words, the offer of acceptance is conditional on her not slacking off and suddenly having a significant drop in grades, or dropping classes, etc. D actually asked her admissions rep if it would be okay to drop one of her elective classes 2nd semester and the answer was NO.

Every school wants your final transcript to be sure there is no huge drop off in grades, that there were no other problems noted (ex. suspension etc.), no classes were dropped, that the applicant graduated etc. As noted above, every acceptance letter I’ve seen has a line that the acceptance is contingent on continuing the same level of work as has been displayed as of the acceptance (although some level of “senioritis” seems to always be tolerated)

has anyone ever heard of someone getting their acceptance overturned due to second semester senior grades?

^ Yes. It happens all the time in the UC and CSU systems when you get a D or an F.

The UCs also tend to explicitly tell admitted students that they need to keep a 3.0 GPA with no D or F grades in senior year.

They also use the final transcript to verify self reported courses and grades since transcripts are not used at application.

Every year our HS guidance department sends seniors a group of letters prior students received (names blacked out of course) either rescinding an admission, asking for a written explainable of why their grades dropped, putting them on academic probation to start their college career, making them take a class or two over the summer to keep their admission etc. just to be sure everyone knows that these things are real possibilities if they let things slip too far.

Yes, colleges do check final grades and can rescind your admissions if you don’t keep them up. I’ve never heard of it happening due to absences (unless severe) though. One of the substitute teachers that often came to our high school often talked about students he knew that got into Fordham and Brown, but got their admissions rescinded because they stopped caring about school.

Some schools, such as William and Mary, are very upfront about how they view final report grades. (http://blogs.wm.edu/2008/07/16/you-cant-spell-calculus-without-2-cs/) and they specifically state that students who receive 2 C’s, a D, or an F would get a stern message requiring an explanation, which may cause admissions to be rescinded, but other schools may view it differently.

There is an additional, but often overlooked, reason undergraduate schools require a final secondary school transcript. It is the only authoritative documentation that one has graduated from high school, which is evaluated in the periodic regional accreditation process.

I’m not talking about anything severe like going from A’s and B’s to F’s or D’s. I am talking about a “downtrend” I guess.

See the quote in post #3. Your final semester should be at least within shouting distance of your previous record.

As everyone else has stated, your final grades (or any other grades that come out after you’re app has been considered) do not, as you say, “factor into consideration for admission.” But if your grades drop significantly with no acceptable excuse, your admission can be rescinded. Colleges don’t want students who stop trying once they have a college acceptance in hand, so they want to make sure you’ve kept up the level of performance that got you into the college in the first place. Slipping from an A to a B isn’t a big deal - happens to a lot of seniors - but slipping from an A to a D would be cause for concern.