Hello College Confidential,
I applied to UPenn ED. I asked my counselor to send my grades for the first quarter of my senior year. It is not required, but my grades this year are very strong, and I think it can make the difference since I’m applying ED and no senior grade report is required. Is this the correct way of doing this? I know it’s kind of late, but should I send them an email asking if they received my grades? Thank you.
I don’t believe they encourage sending updates to your application. I don’t know if it will hurt, but there’s a chance they’ve already made their decision and your update will not influence it at all
I sent my first quarter grades during the first couple days of November, so if they got them, they’ve had them for a while and probably considered them.
It’s unlikely to make a difference; even if the qtr GPA was 4.0, it won’t move the needle appreciably on a cumulative GPA.
That said, many HS’s automatically send updates for ED applicants regardless if the college requests them. You should assume that this is not the GC’s first rodeo and s/he correctly sent the update. You can send them an email if you want, I guess.
Thank you for the response. The way my school calculates GPA, however, does make a large difference in the cumulative GPA. The GPA present for a given year is weighted for that entire year, regardless whether of how many quarters have passed. This is so significant that it caused my rank to jump from 18th to 9th just from my first quarter senior year grades.
I think you’re right in assuming that my guidance counselor did send it correctly; sending first quarter grades is a standard practice for her. Thank you for your response, I think I’m just worrying too much.