F in English senior year

My niece got an F in English first semester. Her school is on a 4 semester schedule. She applied to all of her schools EA and has already been accepted at 4 of them. Her GPA was a 3.85 when she applied. She is applying to T50-T125 schools, all matches or safeties. Will the colleges ever see that F or will the college she ultimately selects just see her final transcript?She thinks she can pull off an A for the rest of the year in English. Her grade was based on a paper she didn’t complete (reasons for not doing it are complicated). She got a B- in AP Euro and A’s in all her other classes this semester.

She is waiting to hear from 5 more schools. She does realize she could be deferred to RD and they could request her mid term grades in which case she realizes she’s screwed. Luckily, she is happy with the 4 acceptances she has already received.

What grades show on her transcript…All 4 semesters? 2 semesters? One final year grade?

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Only final year grades are on the transcript.

Does her HS require that she pass all 4 semesters of English to graduate? This might also be a concern.

No, she just has to pass it for the year.

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Some EA colleges do ask for first semester grades. If any of her schools do an F in English would be a notable negative in her application.

If there was a valid reason for not being able to complete the paper (ex. major illness, family issues) she might ask her guidance counselor to send a note with the transcript explaining the issue.

For schools that do not ask for first semester/midterm grades she should be OK assuming she pulls the final grade up to the B range.

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If there was a legitimate reason for the F (medical, psychiatric, family stress etc.)- and it seems it is a very different grade than she usually gets- is it possible she should have had some sort of accommodation or extension or incomplete? Did she talk to the teacher or guidance counselor? Is it possible to withdraw retroactively? Is the semester over already?

Is there any way that she can do the paper, submit it, and get a C instead? She was a good student until now - something happened, and maybe something can still be done about it.

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So apparently her school sends first semester grades to all colleges whether or not the student or the colleges request them. She found this out when she got an email from one of her schools asking about the F. Since my original
post she has gotten into 2 more schools EA so she was waiting on 5 more when she got this email. She met with her guidance counselor and her guidance counselor said she would send a note to the AO’s just saying that my niece had some “personal issues” last semester (which she did) and she now has an A in all of her classes for second term. My niece also responded to the AO as well. Since that note went out, she was accepted to another one of her schools with a great scholarship. She hears back from the school that reached out to her about the F tomorrow, so that should be interesting to see if she gets in.

I’ll keep updating in case anyone is looking for this info in the future. I guess one bad grade isn’t going to ruin these kids lives forever.

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