<p>Due to a horrible first semester junior year, my gpa is not on par with others at my school.
I have a 4.04 Weighted GPA (Honors and APs 5.0s, A-'s 3.7s, and etc)
If you're interested as to why: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1352883-bad-first-semester-junior-year-sick-family.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1352883-bad-first-semester-junior-year-sick-family.html</a>
And maybe you can answer my question of whether or not how mercifully colleges will look upon me considering my situation.</p>
<p>Now my question regarding Early Action is:
If my first semester senior year grades will boost my gpa substantially, should I just opt for RD over EA? And for schools with rolling deadlines, is it better to apply after my Senior grades come out?
After first semester senior year, I'm looking at a 4.1 or higher.
Thanks!</p>
<p>First, since all schools calculated WGPA differently a W GPA doesn’t really mean anything. What is your UW GPA? </p>
<p>Second, your GPA up to now will be what is considered in an EA app. If you don’t think it’s good enough then go with RD. If your school has Naviance it may help in that decision.</p>
<p>My unweighted GPA is about a 3.65. Without that first junior year, it would have been about a 3.75, and if I had done well, close to 3.8.
That one semester really hurt my GPA.</p>
<p>I guess my question is:
Will the increase in my GPA if I wait (at least .06) outweigh the benefits of early admission?</p>
<p>It’s not so much that your overall gpa will rise by a few hundredths, but rather that you are showing improvement over not so great jr year grades. When you apply EA, your jr year will be the final thing they see, there’s no indication that that was a one time event and that you are going to pull it together in the future.</p>
<p>It also depends on where you are in the EA applicant pool, if it’s a reach for you, I’d be more inclined to recommend waiting for RD and first sem sr grades.</p>
<p>Apply non-binding EA to your safety school(s), and wait until RD for the more selective ones, where a 3.65 won’t cut it.</p>