@chb088 Congrats on the great gpa! We’re hoping to keep the streak going as well.
@VickiSoCal So sorry to hear about the news. Is there any way to bring up the GPA by the end of the school year? Tutors, counseling, changing around schedule?
Do colleges consider semester grades or final grades or is it a mixed bag?
Hope everyone is staying safe in the inclement weather.
DS got his license. So happy for him. He’s growing up and I’m not sure how to feel about it sometime. Went super fast. In 18 months he’ll be gone. :((
Definitely going to have a bubble to explain, here. And all schools he’s looking at will want to see grades from first semester of senior year. Which, in this case, may prove to be a good thing? :-? We can hope.
@bigmacbeth - yes! For us one of the perks of chasing merit is less stress senior year. S20 will have mainly auto-merit schools on his list and they really don’t factor in senior grades at all.
@janiemiranda - I imagine it varies - but all of the websites seem to indicate if mid-year senior grades are required or not. Some schools are very specific in stating they will only factor 9-11 for scholarship purposes - again on admissions site and/or scholarship page. In general, both S19 and S20 targeted schools where they are in the tippy-top and that generally give solid merit - these are not elite schools but generally in-state and OOS publics.
FWIW - I am not advocating blowing off senior year. S19 is currently taking 5 AP/DE classes in addition to Spanish 4 and he is working very hard because he is demanding of himself. But it is nice to know that his grades are not impacting his admission/merit decisions in any way.
She has 5 ap classes with 4 B’s and an A. Semester grades are technically final and separate from spring grades. But in APUSH if she gets a 5 on the test the teacher will bump 2 Bs to 2 As. If you get a 4 he bumps one.
There is also a rumor in AP Calculus that if you end up with a year long average of 90plus she will bump. But who knows.
She is happy and learning and will likely ace the AP exams but grades and homework are not her thing.
She barely squeaked the A- in AP Physics with a D in homework and a high A in exams.
@VickiSoCal - sounds like a heavy load! Junior year can be challenging. She sounds like she knows the material and tests well so maybe those bump-ups in APUSH are in reach?
Last year she got 5’s in Euro and Comp Sci A and said they were easy. On the practice AP lang test they took as a final she got the highest multiple choice score in the class.
Hey @SoccaMomma, don’t want that license achievement to go unnoticed - congratulations!
And yes, @VickiSoCal - that sounds great. How nice that your teachers factor in good AP scores. That’s a nice incentive/reward. Fingers crossed for your D.
And I agree with you that happy and learning are the most important. This year cannot just be about the college path.
We are in CA, too, and D will be applying to a few UCs/CSUs. She just slid by this semester with straight A’s. One of her grades was on a curve and that saved her GPA. Her classes are rigorous (IB) and the workload has been crazy.
Hey I have a question about timing. A vacation opportunity has popped up for next Christmas break. I’m wondering, do you think we’ll be free to have a vacation then or do you think S20 will be busy with applications? We’re still in the visiting/test prep stage at this point, so I’m not sure where he’ll be applying or if it will be EA, etc.
@NYC2018nyc as long as he’s filing ED/EA and/or rolling admission, enjoy the opportunity. Otherwise, RD apps are due afterwards and that would be a cramp on his enjoying the vacation.
My kid will be done. 5 EA Applications and 2 RD that will be done by then. There’s no rule on RD that you have to wait until the last minute. Do them early and enjoy vacation.
My kids work on apps during the summer and submit as soon as they open. (They have had a few instances where the essay questions have changed between when they wrote it and apps opened. A simple contact with admissions has told them, no problem. Obviously. it isn’t the precise question has mattered.)
My goal is for them to have everything done by Sept. They might add the odd school during Oct, but I have never had a child submit an app later than Nov.
