Admissions considerations?

My son will be applying to UNH next year for fall 2018 entrance. We are out of state but his aunt and her daughter (his cousin) are both alumni. Does a large state university such as UNH consider or care about these connections? My ds has good grades (currently top 5% of his class but I expect that to drop with some hard classes coming up). He is a current junior. He is an Eagle Scout and has some nice activities but not the long list you often see on CC. Some honors classes and only 1 AP class but only 2 years of high school foreign language. He had 3 years at his private middle school which was quite a rigorous department and honestly he was just sick of it and wanted to take an elective when he transferred to a large public school junior year.

Also, is there an admissions advantage to applying EA?

Any thoughts are appreciated regarding admissions. It seems the private schools are a little easier to “read” in terms of what they want but when I see on a post below that a strong student was rejected from UNH it concerns me a little.

@Empireapple I appreciate your concerns as a mom of a slightly above-average kid who did not hit his SATs out of the park (best explanation for this is he has never had common core education and the entire test has been reorganized now to reflect common core curriculum). My S has an unweighted GPA of 3.45 with advanced classes/honors etc in a very rigorous private school, sports his entire life, high school and club (lacrosse and baseball), tons of volunteer hours, National Honor Society, Cultural Clubs, National Honors Conference in DC, went to school and training for 3 months while in high school to be an official baseball umpire for the minors and works - you get it, very well-rounded kid. In any event, he didn’t get into Ohio State, in fact, got rejected very quickly. There is no doubt in my mind that he could have taken Ohio’s academics by storm. Based on this rapid response, I’m pretty sure most of the big, popular publics do not really look past test scores (unless you are being recruited as a D1 athlete of course - and then even Cs and Ds are fine). I suppose it’s a little frustrating but it is what it is so to speak. I know legacy is a big thing at the privates but not sure about the publics. Your concern is UNH. My S did get accepted EA to UNH. The test score mean is a little lower than Ohio State and they don’t get as many applicants according to both profiles. My S’s SAT score was right at the mean for UNH, again, leading me to believe that test scores are everything for these publics unless you have something really unique they need like a sport or theater piece. So, my advice to you is to get a tutor for your son for the SAT/ACT and/or a good review program. It seems to me, the higher the SAT/ACT the better your chances, despite any other attributes (unfortunately). I’m happy to give you more feedback if interested.
Good luck to your son!

Thank you so much for your reply. We are in the same boat with no Commom Core until transfer to public school for junior and senior year. It’s tough because the test optional schools tend to be private but we really need the public university tuition and it does seem that it will come down to the SAT scores. Very frustrating when my son has a consistent and strong GPA. All he can do is his best and see what happens. Thanks again.