SkyHigh

I'm a sophomore in high school. My friends told me next year will be the only year to impress colleges, they won't look at my senior year. Thought?

Moonracer

far from it, senior year is one of the most important years in hs

jojodevka

well, your first half of senior year. They don't really see the other half until you're in, but the first half definitely counts.

arachnophobia12

i'm pretty sure my midyear grades were the tipping factors that got me waitlisted instead of accepted at my top choice :/ (well, that's conjecture, of course). just do as well as you can during senior year.

ruca

First semester counts, especially if you're on the cusp of acceptance somewhere. Usually second semester counts for less.. but it depends where you got accepted: top publics usually say you can let your GPA drop to 3.0 with no D's or F's and idk about top privates or lesser (blah blah word choice) schools.

milden13

Im still a sophmore but some of my senior friends are telling me that senior year is not what they had expected at all. That they have been doing a lot more work than in junior work although they thought otherwise. Not just the worklode has been extreme but the work is a lot harder and more group work is being done. Do colleges look a your senior year grades even if u have alread been accepted?

swimcatsmom

Yes - they will want to see a final transcript.

Hahastupidme

yeah they'll look at ur final transcript but think about it, if they have already accepted u, then they can't "unaccept" you...u know?

worried_mom

On the contrary, top schools can -- and do -- "unaccept" students.

Nearly every offer of admission contains some sort of clause indicating that it is contingent upon continued high performance and successful completion of high school. If they accepted you with a GPA of 3.8+ and you suddenly start slacking off and get C's and D's your senior year, they can indeed rescind your acceptance and/or require you to take remedial classes before enrolling.

Just check the CC archives and you will see plenty of threads about this.

Shrinkrap

My D world say first semester senior year was a lot tougher then I promised. Not just because of some sort of inevitable class choices (there is mostly just honors and AP's left), but also because of applications, interviews, and say testing you still want to pursue. A big difference from what we anticipated. It's a little better now but the extracurriculars (which she never picked for college apps. and still remains devoted to), the choosing, the last minute visits, and scholarship applications reduce the "cruising".

HisGraceFillsMe

worried_mom-not just top schools. Even the State Universities that I applied to held the same "Your admission is contingent upon X, Y and Z" clause.

First semester of my senior year was VERY difficult...lots of projects and group work that we didn't have before. Added to that, as Shrinkrap said, you have applications and tests you have to take to get into your college of choice (now granted, my "one true love" school was a safety, so I didn't have much to worry about, but still...you get the point).

Senior year is VERY important...it has been my favorite year in high school, and I've had some experiences that I wouldn't give up for anything.

ruca

"unaccept"

It's called rescinding.