<p>I concur with mom3. My nephew had 2300++ SAT and almost 4.0 gpa from private prep school, he went to Cornell engineering, took the hardest course, but he was overwhelmed and he is taking a gap semester at home.</p>
<p>I am not sure what is the problem with OP’s nephew, but instead of spending big $$$ to goto a private school, I think a CC will test the water for this kid, if he turned around in CC, he can move on very fast. Maybe he is not mature, maybe he had some other deficiencies, we reall cannot tell.</p>
<p>I would seriously NOT recommend Cornell for this student. Besides being in the middle of central NY, and centrally isolated, it is generally a place with an extreme work ethic. I keep in touch with some recent grads that I know, and many hardworking bio majors do not do as well as they would have liked despite knocking themselves out. These were straight A high school students who scored very well on standardized tests.</p>
<p>There are many colleges out there for this student, but I think it would be a mistake to go even try to go to a tippy top school where other students generally really knocked themselves out getting As and scoring 5s, 800s etc etc. What would lead someone to think that if he was at Cornell or Hopkins he could just turn it all around in terms of GPA?</p>
<p>On an encouraging note, I truly believe that for someone who wants to go to grad school, getting a really good GPA at almost any college in the top 100 national or LAC is much more important than whether you went to a tippy top school (especially if you don’t get a great GPA at that tippy top school). There are many schools that one can major in bio or sciences, and it is a whole new start in terms of GPA in college. Better to perhaps be at the top of a pool of students, than perhaps struggling among those used to really working hard.</p>
<p>Mommathree, my comment was not intended for your post. That is why it had two carets (^), to show the post it was commenting on. I agree with you about Cornell. My wife’s nephew attended there and it is challenging, with no hand holding.</p>
<p>^I wondered that as well, maybe he should apply to all top 10 or 15 schools. Why just Cornell…the school that is known to have the least ammount of hand holding in the Ivy league.</p>
<p>I wonder how the 3.1 GPA is calculated. If a student is taking seven courses and getting Bs or B-s in 4 and A-s in three, you could end up at 3.1 pretty easily, and the record could actually be pretty good for schools that recalculate the GPA, if the B-s were in gym and art, for example.</p>
<p>My son was in that pretty much that situation when he applied to MIT from his junior year in HS and got in. Waitlisted at CalTech. He had a mix of As, Bs, and one C. Great scores. His work on stuff outside of school demonstrated his ability to work and work hard, and the colleges saw that, and also saw that he was bored silly by easy classwork. </p>
<p>We don’t know anywhere near enough about this student to judge if he would appeal to the admissions committee. What’s his core GPA–his GPA in academic subjects only? What kind of school does he go to? What’s the school’s history with the Ivy League? Does the valedictorian have a 3.5 or a 4.5? What kind of ECs does he do? Was his biology research original and published? Did he spend 60 hours a week on the bio research while doing just barely enough schoolwork to take the tests?</p>
<p>If it were my kid and I had reciprocal tuition payment agreements with other schools, I would make sure my kid applied to pretty much every single school that had such an agreement and that he was interested in, whether or not his stats were a perfect match.</p>
<p>Floored when we heard back around the holidays.-- but I forgot to update this thread.</p>
<p>He got into Cornell ED – full pay no financial aid was applied for.</p>
<p>I guess the Professor he worked for had some unbelievable connections or impact. No other hooks - white male. So there you have it-- research does matter.</p>
<p>Not making this up-- yep, He has the Cornell 2015 tshirt - saw him this weekend.</p>
<p>Let’s just say if it’s genetic…good chance-- I never did figure out why nephew had terrible grades in high school. My S waited until college to get those-- but now we are clear it’s b/c of emotional issues at the very least. Maybe nephew is heading in the same path. Who knows. If I were betting, I don’t expect much out of him at Cornell at all-- and it’s not by money.</p>
<p>That is great news. He will probably flourish at Cornell. When he has options to take classes in subjects he is actually interested in, he may do quite well. And having a middling GPA doesn’t always mean someone is “lazy” but potentially bored and unchallenged, not interested in grade grubbing, or playing the game the way the teachers want him to, purely to raise his grades.</p>
<p>I have known a number of people with just amazing grades. But those are not neccessarily the ones who will solve the problems of the world and do something exceptional with their lives.</p>
<p>Stories like this makes this forum so addictive. Your nephew may be an outlier case but it’s nice to know that it can happen despite conventional wisdom. Another story to tuck in the recess of my mind since I know a few with similar stats who may need advise. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Congrats and hope he’ll make the best out of a wonderful opportunity.</p>