So to give some background-
I'm a rising senior at a large R1 state school (decently ranked in engineering) majoring in bioengineering
I had an absolutely horrible past semester, and my GPA dropped from 3.74/3.81 (cumulative/major) all the way down to 3.59/3.63 (cumulative/major). The rest of my semesters (including first semester junior year) were consistently higher- this one semester was considerably bad in comparison.
I have a decent amount of research experience, with 2 first author publications in an on-campus lab and 1 summer at another school, as well as an internship in a well known pharmaceutical company (one of the COVID vaccine makers). Not really any awards except for Dean's list and a merit scholarship to my undergraduate institution.
Considering my recent dip in GPA, would I still be able to apply to top programs in my field of interest?
Also, I have a strong reason to believe that I would perform much better in my fall semester of senior year (compared to the previous semester). Would it be possible for me to update schools with these grades after they come out (generally a couple weeks after applications are due)?