<p>Yes, I think they really go into the additional information section and calculate the academic GPA to your son’s best advantage - for two reasons:</p>
<p>First, I have met and spoken with the harried admissions reps at my DD’s Explore session. One told me she was reading an application that had come in that morning. (This was the first week in March.) I couldn’t believe they would even consider an application that was months late! She said they read every application that comes in, and she wanted to be sure that applicant got the benefit of the doubt. In other words, the admissions reps are real people, they are former college applicants themselves, and many of them are parents. They really do try to look at every applicant in their best light.</p>
<p>Second: Rankings. The higher the average GPA of the overall applicant pool, the higher the ranking edges up. It is to USC’s advantage to find the very highest GPA for every applicant. And USC is known for making best use of any advantages offered to them in terms of rankings.</p>