How badly will Senior Year grades affect me?

Applying to College
1

<p>Ok so I just received my report card today.. and it was frightening.</p>

<p>I go to a reputably challenging college prep private school in Hawaii.. The first 3 years of high school I managed to sustain a cumulative GPA of 4.03 W and 3.88 UW. However...</p>

<p>My grades dropped first semester. </p>

<p>My courseload:
AP Biology
AP Calculus
AP Spanish
English (No AP Option)
Roman Studies (No AP Option)</p>

<p>For the semester, I received a B- in AP Biology and a B in AP Calculus..
and let's not forget an A- in English. </p>

<p>The sad thing is, I received a B+ first quarter in Calc and an A- second quarter, but I did horrible on the midterm and that dropped me to a B.</p>

<p>I'm applying a lot of schools such as USC (top choice) Emory, Duke, Chapel Hill, Tufts, etc. How badly will this midyear report affect my chances? I am also a National Merit Semifinalist and now I'm worried I might not become a finalist. </p>

<p>Please let me know what you think. Thank you!</p>

2

<p>I feel your pain! I had a really rough semester and got a B in AP Micro Econ and possibly AP Gov (still don’t know yet). EVERYONE gets As in those classes. Definitely going to bring down my already crappy class rank :frowning: Really disappointing.</p>

3

<p>Those grades won’t prevent you from becoming a NMF so rest easy on that. Certainly the drop in grades will not look good to highly competitive schools but I’m sure you’ll get into one which is a good match for you.</p>