Hello, I just had a quick question about mid year reports. Throughout my freshman-junior year I have had all A+'s, A's, and A-'s. However, I have struggled a lot this year and have 3 A's, 1 A-, 1 B+, 1 B, and 1 C. Is this drop in grades bad enough to affect my RD admission and will it have any affect on my EA admission. In addition, what should I do to show colleges I am slowly improving my grades this year specifically?
Hi Jeff I hope you are well, answering your question, you can improve your GPA by showing a strong result in SAT/ACT exam. The process is holistic in this form, the colleges/universities will see your effort to improve your academic marks.
It depends on which tier of colleges you are aiming for. If you are trying to get into a Top 20 school then, this drop in grades is going to affect your chances. If you are hoping to get into a Top 50-100 school the drop means less as long as you can recover and show an upward trend.
I would never recommend to anyone to apply EA with a drop in Junior class grades. If you are not an ALDC or hooked applicant, only the strongest candidates should apply EA or ED.
The logic behind this is that during ED and EA sometimes 50% of the admits are ALDCs or hooked applicants (eg. Questbridge Matches). And the other 50% are really strong applicants. So you are going to risk getting flat-out rejected if you are not on your "A" game.
Rather than applying EA or ED, I highly recommend that you use the extra time and runway to improve your GPA and show AOs that you have an upward trend. If you apply ED/EA then the freshest grades are going to be your junior grades.
Good luck.
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Thanks for the response, my junior year grades are good but it’s only my senior grades so far that aren’t. Is there any way I could explain my situation or circumstances that have caused my grades this way or would they not be lenient about it? Also if I have already been admitted to a school via ea would the revoke my admission due to my drop in grades? Thanks.