As the second Marking Period winds down, I want to remind everyone the procedure for sending out mid-year senior grades. Every college is different in their application processing. Some require grades from the first semester of senior year to be sent. Others do not (you can find this out by checking the college Admissions website, if it lists mid year grades as a requirement, you know they need them. If they don't mention it, you can assume that they don't). Some students want their senior performance to be included in their application because it is stronger than their previous years. Others still are deferred from Early Action or Early Decision, and need their mid-year grades for evaluation in the regular round. No matter the reason, here is how the process works at ElRo:
Students must let me know, either directly on the original Transcript Request Form or via email, that they want their senior grades sent. For students in the Regular Decision round, the grades will be sent as soon as the MP2 report cards are released. That report card falls in the middle of the year, hence the "mid" in mid-year grades.
Some students may only be proud of one Marking Period and not the other. Unfortunately, if a school is asking for mid-year grades they typically are expecting to see both Marking Periods. This is why I've said from the start of the year that Senior classes count.
Right now, I have 516 individual report cards that need to be sent. If you are unsure if I have you on the list, please feel free to email or drop by my office. If you know for a fact that you already emailed me, no need to do it again, I promise you are on there.
Why not automatically send semester grades everywhere for all applicants? First reason: there are over 1200 applications currently filed by this senior class. I'm only one person. Sending non-required items that don't add something new to an application isn't an effective use of time and resources. Second reason: I've already discussed the world of the college application processing/mail room. The chance of mid-year grades actually reaching a student file is definitely not 100%. Schools get better at sorting loose documents every year, but in the triage of finding missing items, Senior grades are normally at the bottom of the list. If the school doesn't require them, many senior report cards end up in a pile of papers that never even make it into the reader's hands so it is better to focus our efforts on the places that really need the items.
Sometimes colleges will also specifically reach out to me if they feel they need to see Senior grades, in that case, the first semester grades will be sent. If students requested senior grades for an Early Action round, the report card was sent after the first Marking Period since those decisions came out last month.
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