<p>Can anyone tell me what's so important about senior year grades? I feel like i'm stressing out too much for this year. I know that colleges don't check your senior year grades until June because you send in your application before the grades come out. I know that you could get rescinded for failing classes with a D or F senior year. My questions are: How bad do your grades need to be in order to be rescinded? Is the purpose of senior year grades just to determine whether you'll be rescinded or not? Will colleges not rescind me as long as I pass my classes with a C or better? Will your senior year grades be used to compete with other applicants?</p>
<p>Many colleges and universities will ask your school to send a mid-year report before the make decisions about regular decision applications. In the mid-year report, your school will verify that you have continued enrollment in the classes that you reported on your application for admission, and they will also send an updated transcript with your first semester grades. This means that colleges are considering these grades while they are making their decisions.</p>
<p>That’s why senior year grades matter.</p>
<p>Do you know if SDSU requires a mid-year report?</p>
<p>I don’t even know whether you mean San Diego or South Dakota. But whichever one you mean, their admissions office has a web site. You can see for yourself what they require.</p>
<p>Just call and ask! </p>
<p>proptip: UT doesn’t, hehe</p>
<p>EDIT: if you be applyin’ to scholarships in the spring, you best believe you be getting them grades up this semester</p>
<p>Most colleges will use your full seven semesters to judge your app. Most colleges have deadlines of Jan 01 – plenty of time to wait for transcripts including your first semester grades. But since you’re asking about the floor level before recission, perhaps you’re not applying to those types of colleges. You’re already in a bad way if you’re asking about how much you can blow off this year.</p>
<p>As the admissions rep from one of my daughters’ college stated it: “You don’t prepare for a marathon by walking around the block”. If you are going to any kind of rigorous college, you don’t want to get into slacker mode in high school. Keep up the study skills and determination to do the best you can. Otherwise the first semester at college you might justify extensive partying and slacking by saying “it’s okay to blow the first semester while I get used to the place and make friends”, and then the next semester have another excuse…</p>
<p>It’s not that I want to blow it off. It’s just that I wanna know my safety nets. I am taking all classes including a zero period this year and all of them are weighted. I really wanna drop 2 AP’s next semester but I don’t know if this will harm my chance of admission. I know that some seniors my gradeonly have 4 classes this year.</p>
<p>It’s not how many classes you are taking senior year - it’s what you are doing with the time when you aren’t in school. D had a job 20+ hrs per week with a lot of responsibility. She took 4 classes at school and one on line. No problem from any of the hyper-selective schools because it was clear she wasn’t slacking. If that’s your plan - then fine. If you are cutting back because you don’t want to work as hard, you could be doing yourself a major disservice.</p>
<p>Likewise, dropping an AP next semester because you have a schedule conflict or something more important you want to do isn’t a big deal - but if you drop two AP classes, then it starts to look like you signed up for them just to game the system and make it look like your transcript was more rigorous than it actually is. It starts to suggest ‘slacker’ unless the schools can see that despite fewer classes, you are still powering through.</p>
<p>You have colleges that require the mid-year report and those mid-year grades are used for admission. Then you have colleges that do not require senior year grades until after you are admitted and you submit a final transcript in June, SDSU among them (as are all CSUs and UCs), and those use senior year grades to validate admissions given and if grades are bad they can withdraw your admission. In other words, for either type of college, senior grades can affect your admission.</p>
<p>Also, you have a different issue. Dropping two courses may not have an impact particularly for CSUs if you still have an average load and grade well. However, in your application for admission for the CSUs you must list the courses you are taking and intend to take senior year and they rely on that information to determine whether you are continuing to challenge yourself for purpose of deciding admission. Showing that you will be taking those courses when you intend to drop them can have the same result as getting bad grades because if your final transcript is different from info provided in application, they can also withdraw your admission.</p>
<p>Moreover, what M’s Mom says about dropping classes part-way through them is fair and appropriate.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities want to admit or deny you based on who you really are: what kind of student you are, what kind of character you have, what kind of things you do outside the classroom, etc. It’s totally fair for you to do everything you can to present the best possible version of yourself for their consideration. But when you enroll in demanding classes in the fall with the intention of dropping them by January, that’s not what you’re doing. You’re trying to gain admission based on a picture you present that’s really somebody else. That isn’t fair on Match-dot-com, and it isn’t fair in college admissions, either.</p>
<p>Now, maybe you’re saying something different. Maybe you’re wondering whether you can drop an AP class or two mid-year if it turns out you’re just overloaded. Yes, you can. But if you do, the colleges that you apply to will want to be informed. And when they admit you, they state, as you seem to know, that their offer of admission is contingent on your completion of your academic program in a way that is satisfactory to them.</p>
<p>(x-post with drusba)</p>
<p>Most colleges have a line somewhere that states you are expected to keep up with your rigor and performance, through senior year. If you are taking an overload, if you truly can justify it, sometimes it’s fine to drop an AP 2nd semester. </p>
<p>I think our issue with your question is the way you worded it- as if you haven’t planned to do whatever it takes, want to know how low you can go. There’s a lot of ground to cover between now and app date. Make yourself proud. Even a state U is an expensive investment. There are tons of kids vying for a spot at SDSU or its sister schools.</p>
<p>also cross posted</p>