Midterm Exam Schedule 2023

• Students may arrive late or leave early on midterm days (but are only allotted the same testing window).

• If a student has three exams on Monday, 12/18, they may reschedule one of them to a Make-up period by communicating with their classroom teacher.

• If a student needs to take a midterm prior to 12/18, they must first get it approved by Mr.Patti or Ms. Moeschberger. Once approved, it will be communicated to their teachers.

• Students may not leave the school and return on the same day. 

• Students who are present in the building without a scheduled exam or are waiting for a ride before leaving early must report to room 124 for study hall when not taking an exam. 

• Students must remain at their exam site during the entire exam period.

• Bus transportation will continue as scheduled during midterm exams (leaving at 2:15 pm).

• If students do not have a ride home after finishing their exams, they must wait in room 124 until their bus arrives at 2:15 pm. This time will be used as a study hall to prepare for their upcoming exams.

• Exams (or a culminating project)  will be given in every class. 

• Exams are 90 minutes each (same as last year). 

• Midterm exams count for 20% of the semester grade.

SENIORS WORKING THROUGH THE COLLEGE APPLICATION PROCESS!

As we are continuing the college application season, please be aware that counselors will not be sending WGHS documents to your colleges over the winter break. Please plan ahead, keep your counselor informed, and understand that if you have placed a school on Scoir that has an application deadline over the break, your school documents will be sent beforehand. Also, be sure the colleges that are listed under the "Applying" column match the colleges in your Common App account. Know that we return from break on January 8th.

We always want to be able to send your WGHS documents in tandem with your submitted application but we do not want to risk there being a late submission. Also as a reminder, once you hit submit on your common app or college website application, please move the college over to the applied column in Scoir that gives us the green light to send in your West G documents!

As you start hearing back from colleges or universities, please update Scoir with the decisions as this will save you time in the spring when we celebrate Senior Decision Day on Wednesday, May 1st!

FAFSA Changes

The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced that the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), also known as the Better FAFSA, will open by December 31, 2023.

Although the announcement’s language of “by December 31” implies that the FAFSA could launch sooner, the NCAN recommends that for planning purposes, our member organizations use December 31 as the effective opening date.

Unfortunately, the Better FAFSA launch will come with some implementation changes and delayed processes referred to in the announcement. Notably, although students will receive a confirmation email with their Pell Grant eligibility and estimated Student Aid Index, colleges and universities will not begin to receive Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) until later in January. We anticipate that institutions of higher education will then need multiple weeks to load the data, test systems, and begin to generate financial aid offers, likely reaching students in mid- to late-February at the earliest.

The announcement outlines other changes to the 2024-25 cycle, including the fact that direct connections to state financial aid applications will not be available. These connections will return with the 2025-26 FAFSA. There will also be a delay in the processing of institutional corrections and paper FAFSAs, scheduled to begin in February. All of these factors complicate a year in which we are already implementing comprehensive changes for the better including direct data exchange with the Internal Revenue Service and a new process to create FSA IDs for those without Social Security numbers.