CCO to Send Interim Grades to Colleges

By  Otto Do, Jeannie Eom and Andrea Luo

The College Counseling Office (CCO) notified seniors via email on September 24 that fall term teachers will be providing interim grades. These assessments will be based on completed work more than traditional midterm grades. The office plans to send these interim grades to colleges before regular end-of-term grades.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, colleges across the United States have modified their application process to ensure an equitable application experience for prospective students. One significant change from prior years is many American colleges’ removal of standardized testing requirements. 

A large portion of the class of 2021 are expected to apply early, just as senior classes have done in past years. Interim grades are designed to fill the dearth of standardized testing. In her email to all seniors, Dean of College Counseling Elizabeth Dolan wrote, “we hope that having some form of ‘interim grades’ will help Early applicants in their admission process.” 

Dolan added that the interim grades are expected to be released on November 4th for all seniors who have elected to apply early for college.

Somes seniors are grateful for this opportunity to showcase their academic capabilities. “It’s different and a little scary, but I think it will be really helpful because we don’t have grades for last spring,” senior James Manderlink said. “With no SAT scores, schools will only have our upper year winter term grades to look at.”

Senior Zofia Kierner agreed. “I would argue that [interim grades] are fair . . . these won’t be like regular midterm grades that usually seem to be on the lower end of the spectrum. These grades will be based on completed work and will hopefully be beneficial to all seniors,” Kierner said. 

Stress and high performance are a permanent part of senior falls, senior Alicia Gopal expressed. Since students already have to balance classwork and extracurricular commitment, Gopal does not believe that interim grades add a significant amount of additional worry to the average senior. 

Senior Leila Herman noted that interim grades, for better or for worse, “count for a lot more than previous years’ grades.”

Although CCO stated that a major factor in the implementation of interim grades was the lack of requirement for standardized test scores, Senior Sam Gallagher said that it doesn’t change much. “Most of us have already taken a standardized test anyways, so very few people will see this as a substitution for the SAT or ACT or an excuse not to take them,” Gallagher said.

However, some international schools have not removed the requirement for test scores. As a final opportunity for seniors, the Academy hosted the SAT on September 23, and the ACT on September 12 and 19 on campus. The Academy will host another round of testing in October.

As the majority of American colleges are not requiring a standardized test score, many seniors shared that they will only submit their scores if they are satisfied with their performance.