<p>Dominar – just re-read your post more carefully. Your Ds’s VA school sounds a lot like our local school in NoVa. My advice to NoVa public HS students not at TJHSST, is that one should strive to be in top 5% for UVa – certainly not a hard and fast cut-off, but seems to mirror the admissions results in large high schools. That said, even with the new grading scales, I am surprised a 4.5 GPA in a very diverse HS would put one outside the top 10%. </p>
<p>If you are inclined or have younger ones who will face the college process, I recommend a meeting with your school’s guidance department. First I would want to know if there is some insight they could provide to help explain your son’s response from UVa. Assuming there is nothing new from that conversation, I would move the conversation – and maybe include the school principal in this – to talk about whether your school needs to do a better job explaining the school’s demographics and strengths of the student body to colleges such as UVa.</p>