<p>well, these days i'm devoting a huge chunk of my time writing my SOPs and studying for the biochem GRE, while sacrificing the time i usually spend on my classes.</p>
<p>however, do my grades really matter after my junior year? i'll have sent all my apps before my first senior semester grades are released. i think i read somewhere that your grades from senior year really don't count for anything, but i just like to confirm that that's true.</p>
<p>but then again, there are a significant number of pre-meds in my classes who seem to be slacking off like they've already been accepted to their med schools...</p>
<p>The biology programs to which I applied last year didn't ask for grades after first semester -- they all made interview offers pretty soon after the new year anyway, so there wouldn't have been time for them to review first-semester grades. (This did not click for me until after I had worked my tail end off for my first semester grades, alas.)</p>
<p>They do ask for a final transcript after you graduate, though, so just make sure that you're not going to jeopardize graduation or anything. :)</p>
<p>thanks mollie for your always informative posts. i'm confident that i won't fail any classes, but it's just that i'm worried about whether your gpa has any other uses for other things, like fellowships. is there anything else you know of that uses your college gpa as a criteria for something?</p>
<p>Well, if you decided to apply for a fellowship next year, you might have to send your college transcript. I know the NSF fellowship program requires this, although I don't know whether or not other programs do.</p>
<p>It was really weird for me not to worry about grades during my last semester, and to be honest, I wasn't very good at it, even though I tried.</p>
<p>(Pathetic biology nerd confession: Everytime I see your username, I read "C-smad" -- like the protein -- even though I know that's not what it means, nor how it's in fact spelled. I guess some thinking patterns are impossible to eradicate.)</p>
<p>lol that's actually pretty awesome (coming from an aspiring biology nerd).</p>
<p>coincidentally, i've been working with the smad proteins during the summer, so maybe there's an unexplained basis for this phenomena...</p>
<p>c-smadforever</p>