The Stress is Real: Senior Quarter Grades

For our seniors, applying “Early Decision” to college is an incredibly hard choice and commitment to make, especially when quarter grades have to be submitted, and students are already being negatively impacted.

“Early Decision” is a binding process where an individual can apply on the first of November to a school and, at the cost of increased admission chances, has to attend that school if they are accepted. 

However, due to the early deadline, these schools only see first quarter transcripts from 

students’ senior year. That is around two months of school, and for many classes, that can be two exams worth of time. 

Many factors can contribute to a bad first test, and the fact that this data point can strongly affect your quarter grade has upset many students. Simone Gilbert, a senior at the School, comments that the necessity to submit quarter grades is “stressful because it’s only a snapshot of the start of your year” and thinks that “it doesn’t demonstrate the full picture of your academics.”  

Gilbert and many other seniors have even had to drop or have considered dropping down a level in a class after one test in order to be able to submit a competitive quarter grade to their Early Decision school. Gilbert shares that she’s “considered dropping a level for just a quarter grade” and that “these quarter grades used to be interim checks to let you know where you stand, but now that it matters for college admission, it’s looked at differently.”

However, pressure for quarter grades only seems to apply to students who intend on applying Early Decision. Senior Tara Pabla, who is not fully convinced by the Early Decision system, claims that “kids who aren’t applying Early Decision have less stress over their early quarter grades and probably wouldn’t drop classes so easily since they can treat it like a proper interim and have more time to improve.” Nevertheless, she finds it “sensible that colleges need your quarter grades so that they can track progress and know that you’re not slacking off.”

Despite this, Pabla sympathizes with students applying early, stating, “the process isn’t fair because you have such a short period of time and assessments, which leaves practically no room for error.” 

Pabla also raises a valid point, noting that “the quarter grades won’t be make or break data to determine your admission, but they will just be used to make sure you’re still staying focused.” While Pabla is correct that these grades are not an essential part of the application, it is serious enough for many people to drop down an entire class level for the entire year after only one bad test in order to get an easy “A” for the quarter. 

The general consensus is this: while it is necessary for colleges to see that students are taking their classes seriously, it is an unrealistic standard for students to achieve perfect grades in such a small sample of assessments. Additionally, it is very unhealthy for students to drop a class they could be taking the whole year just to look good on an interim grade.