Late Grad App -- uh oh?

Graduate School
1

<p>Many of the schools I'm applying to have application deadlines of December 1st or December 15th. (I'm an engineering student, btw. I plan on going to school for my master's in mechanical engineering.)</p>

<p>The problem is the Fall 2012 semester ends a whole WEEK after the application deadline of December 15th. Will my application be considered "late" if I send my transcript after my Fall 2012 grades have been posted? Because this is so close to winter break, I bet my transcript won't be sent until January 2nd or so at the bare minimum. That means the schools I'm applying to will get my grades anywhere between January 5th to the 10th.</p>

<p>I am currently enrolled in two graduate courses and 2 undergraduate ones. I am maintaining an A in all of them now. But you should know that my overall GPA is about a 3.0, and I kind of botched up last semester (spring 2013) because I fell really ill. (Got a 2.7 -- yikes.) So naturally, I want to show my new grades to the admissions committees.</p>

<p>In fact, it is to my advantage to show my new grades to them, but I've read that some schools don't accept late applications. So does a late transcript = late application? I have everything else done, statement of purpose included. So I plan to submit that.</p>

<p>What should I do? I'm really interested in RPI.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>

2

<p>You should call up the school(s) you are applying to and see what their thoughts on this matter are. I can definitely understand you wanting to utilize this semester’s grades, so see if they will let it slide. They will be the ones to know better than any of us, obviously. I hope that you are fortunate enough to have them work with you because finishing off strong the way you seem to be could be a nice boost on your application.</p>

3

<p>Usually a late transcript doesn’t mean a late application altogether - many times the transcript does arrive a bit after the deadline. And yes, if your winter semester ends December 22, then your grades won’t be sent until after New Year’s. Your application will be incomplete without a transcript, although typically speaking they will accept it because it’s not the application itself that’s late, just some supporting documents that aren’t within your control.</p>

<p>Best thing to do is go ahead and send your current transcript. Then, after you receive your winter grades, send them an updated transcript with the new grade, and shoot the departmental secretary an email appraising him or her of that fact. If your applications aren’t due until December 1-15, most programs won’t be reviewing them until after the break anyway.</p>