<p>Hey cc, I'm really worried about the quality of my midyear report. </p>
<p>Duke says they will use the midyear report after reviewing the application to admit/reject someone.</p>
<p>My first three years of high school GPA was a 3.93uw. This included three APs
Two B's freshman year, 1 B+ junior year. AP US history sophomore year with ap chem and gov junior year.</p>
<p>HOWEVER.</p>
<p>I am looking at close to three B's for first semester!!!</p>
<p>My Senior year courseload looks like this
AP Calc AB
Weight training
AP Physics B
AP English
Symphony Band
AP Bio
AP Spanish 5
Jazz Ensemble (yay for taking GPA boosting course senior year!)</p>
<p>So far I'm looking at B's in Calc, English, and Bio. (hopefully not physics. I have an A now, but that could change).</p>
<p>I know this looks really bad. English is a guaranteed B because our english department likes handing them out.</p>
<p>Should I have my counselor say that I had to manage two varsity sports in the fall on top of being a drum major in the marching band? (this as an excuse for low grades).</p>
<p>Calc and Bio are 87.4%s and the cutoff is a 90% for an A.</p>
<p>Am I completely screwed? Will duke reject me if they see multiple B's?</p>
<p>IMHO (and this is purely my perspective on things) you should not have your counselor explain anything, especially not in that way. The reason I say that is that such an explanation could be viewed as a sign of immaturity and inability to prioritize or manage your time and limited resources. </p>
<p>In other words, college is a very liberating and laissez-faire environment, even more so than high school. If you could not effectively juggle your EC load and your academics and failed to recognize and address the situation in time, then it reflects negatively on how you might respond to such challenges in college. By asking someone else to make excuses for you, it compounds the problem and can raise serious red flags for adcoms. </p>
<p>On the other hand, plenty of people are admitted to Duke with B’s on their transcripts. And IMO, grades are not the be all and end all in admissions (though they are certainly important). If you can somehow signal that you are comfortable with the effort that you’ve made in both EC and academic areas and that you feel that you have no regrets and have faced the challenge to best of your abilities, then I don’t see a problem at all. </p>
<p>The key issue here, that I’m trying express, is if those A’s are that important to you, you should have prioritized them over your ECs and cut back on your commitments. But if you felt that they are equally important, then you should have no regrets in how you chose to commit yourself. You win some, you lose some. </p>
<p>Sorry for being so harsh, but as I said, this is how I would view such things.</p>
<p>As long as they are not all C’s, I don’t think you’ll get flat out rejected just because of mid-year grades. But I’m not AdCom, so what do I know?</p>
<p>Getting a B, or three, is nothing to worry about. In the grande scheme of things, it affects your overall GPA by very little. Also, your midyear report is only one thing in a sea of many things that the adcom looks at. I wouldn’t be too concerned.</p>