In fact, it's not unheard for colleges to revoke admission offers, especially when grades slip as the calendar moves toward June. Your grades are audited by the mid-year grade report, a staple of most college applications. To admissions officers, slumping grades indicate a waning interest in education and an inability to handle distractions from schoolwork.
Even if poor 12th-grade performance doesn't cause a university to rescind their admissions offer, you may be required to take remedial courses that cost money and don't count toward your degree. That's extra college tuition for high school classes. It makes more sense to take those courses seriously in high school.
The financial ramifications don't end there. Not only are most acceptance offers "contingent upon continued academic success," but so are some forms of financial aid. When you compromise your grades, you often compromise scholarship funds. If gift aid is the factor that makes your first-choice college affordable, losing the money jeopardizes your ability to attend. If your financial aid package falls apart midsummer, you'll have to submit a late application to another school, which will be unimpressed with a less-than-stellar senior year grade report.
Get used to the concept of revocable financial aid now—even Federal Stafford Loans depend on satisfactory academic performance and can be discontinued at any time over your college career.
The spoils of senior year are enticing, so it is beneficial to have strategies that help keep you focused on your grades.
- Have a stimulating course load: To admissions officers, filling a schedule with study halls shows more interest in spring break than scholastics.
- Keep a structured extracurricular schedule: One of the most arduous challenges college freshmen face is time management, so maintaining a full—yet controllable—schedule helps prepare you for the rigors of college work.
- Treat senior year of high school as if it were freshman year of college: Start a study group, contribute more in class, and take a course at a community college.
Senior year is a time to have fun and make memories with your friends, but not at the expense of your future. If you're committed to taking your senior year seriously, get answers to your financial aid questions and more advice for preparing for college.