if you apply early you could be accepted well before the end of the fall semester. They start interviewing in august and september with most schools giving out acceptances shortly after (THis is DO schools im talking about). In these cases, your fall grades wont help you and they wont hurt you unless you fail everything. Even for MD schools they give out the first acceptances starting mid october, which is still well before the end of fall semester. So to answer your question, dont count on your fall GPA to be a significnat factor in the admissions process. Its not going to be. Unless of course you wait to apply until after you graduate college (aka you are taking a year or more off). Schools will see your fall and spring grades eventually b/c you will need to send in a final transcript, especially if you are still completing some pre reqs. But this is just so they can see you met their requirements and not really to evaluate your GPA.
Now if you apply really late, then maybe you cuold get your fall grades in there. But this isnt very smart b/c the consequences of applying that late far outweigh whatever benefit would come from your fall GPA.
