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Which Grades do Admission Committees Consider?

Written by Sally Rubenstone | Feb. 1, 2011

Question: I am in eighth grade and I am an A/Bstudent. I was wondering if colleges look at the final, semester, or quarter grade.

Colleges will not look at any of your middle school grades, unless you are currently taking classes for high school credit. (Typically, these include only algebra and foreign language.) However, admission officials won't pay very much attention to your 8th-grade transcript, even if you are in credit courses. In addition, the vast majority of high schools do not include these grades when they calculate your GPA or class rank, even if you do get high school credit for the classes.

Once you are a freshman (and thereafter), the grades that admission folks actually see will vary somewhat from high school to high school. Most transcripts include everything—the quarter grade, semester grade, and final grade. This is the approach that is most helpful to admission committees.

Some high schools, however, send out only the semester grade and final grade or, occasionally, just the final one. Admission officers only “count” the final grade, but commonly they will look at the others, too, to determine if they raise any questions or “flags.” For instance, the admission officers may find that a student who ordinarily earns all A’s has one marking period that is full of C’s, D’s or even F’s. This might prompt a call to the guidance counselor to ask what torpedoed the student’s report card during that term.

So, although the emphasis will be on the final course grade, admission officials like to give students the benefit of the doubt. A “B-“ for a final grade might be the result of a B- in every term, or it could be the average of three quarters with A’s and then, out of left field, an F. That’s why the admission folks prefer to see the big picture, regardless of which grades are the ones that they count.

(posted 2/1/2011)

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.