first semester senior grades for ED applicants?

I’m wondering how important first semester senior grades are to Tufts ED and any ED/EA schools in general. Is it really bad if your grades drop a good bit? I have an UW 4.0 for my first 3 years of high school, and I’m pretty much used to getting A’s. However, it looks like my first quarter of senior year will be around 3.5-3.6 range, averaging about a B+. I also moved up in a couple classes and am taking 4 AP’s, and my course load is clearly tougher than past years. Is my drop in grades from my 3 year gpa to now big enough to be concerned by? Or will colleges recognize the rigor of the classes and understand?

I was actually concerned about this since my school changed its whole grading system this year in which 40% is test and 30% counts for quizzes and the rest is hw and classwork. We take 8 classes and 6 of mine are APs and 2 are dual enrollment (at school) and my grades dropped (I got 2 Cs in Calc BC and AP gov) and called Tufts and they said that it is weighted equally. My counselor told them that there was a possibility that my government teacher could change my C to a B so fingers crossed.

That’s good to know you called Tufts and they said they weight classes equally. Since a lot of us go up in courseload senior year and are writing apps at the same time, I’d like to think schools recognize this and have sympathy. Best of luck