Senior Year Grades

I have heard from a lot of people that senior year grades don’t play a role in admissions but i have also heard the complete opposite from others. I currently have an A in American Democracy B in AP Calculus and AP Psychology and a C+ in Honors British Literature and AP Biology. I’m kind of freaking out because there is only two months left in this semester and i don’t know if i have time to get it up please help

Not true. Get those Cs up. A couple of Cs may or may not make a difference but do you want to leave it to chance?

Ok but the overall GPA of my first semester isn’t significant? If i end up with Bs in all my classes i will have a 4.0

All Bs is a 3.0

Many colleges require, for regular admission, that you to submit first semester grades after you have applied and those grades are considered along with other grades, and a decrease in grades from prior years could have an impact. There are then a lot of colleges, including the majority of publics, that make admission decisions based upon grades through junior year. Senior grades provided in the final high school transcript in June are also used by both groups to determine if an admisison granted should be withdrawn.

OK, but if you have already been accepted, and there is no mention of maintaining your grades or receiving your mid-term or final grades in your acceptance letter, what does this mean for the student?

Admissions are conditioned on your completion of high school with grades acceptable to the college. You must submit your final high school transcript, and if senior grades on it are bad, you face a risk of having your conditonal admission withdrawn.

First semester senior year grades also come into play before acceptance when a student is deferred. For UCs that primarily use 10-11 grades, a deferral or waitlist decision will usuallly include a request for first semester grades. Deferred/waitlisted students for my kids high school got into UCB and UCSB last year.