Can strong LOR's offset lack of course rigor?

Applying to College
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In high school, no, but colleges typically have their own way to recalculate GPAs where some would include only 10th and 11th grades.

You can definitely do that to explain lack of rigor, many students in CA do it because 9th and 10th grades at public HS anyway are pretty set in what you can take and most courses are not honors or AP.

“Honors Courses included in the totals below are taken in grades 10–12”

Did you get that from the UCLA website? For the GPA calculation for UCs, it’s only grades 10-11, for reviewing transcript it would be 9-12.

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And there it is. Done with this thread.

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You have a learning disability. Your rigor is sub-par. You have no test scores. Your rank is average. Your EC’s are average to good (according to you but I don’t think you have listed them).

There is a distinction to be made with my rigor. It may be subpar compared to kids with 18 AP’s, but it was the most rigor available to me. My school doesn’t offer many AP’s to begin with. In my course track, I did the most I possibly could - and as for the rank, I would need to use the additional info section to explain freshman year and being withheld from hard courses for two years because of it. All I hope is that this is reflected in my CC’s letter. My EC’s are also quite good, I’d say even for T20’s.

What is it about your application that makes you think you are going to get in ahead of kids who have the rigor, the grades, the test scores, and amazing EC’s?

Who thinks I’m going to get in? I certainly don’t. The odds are completely against me. All I know is that if I did get in, it would not be because of any one of these factors. Rather, it would be because my essays told an interesting story, and my stats were looked at in a greater, explanatory context. You miss every shot you don’t take.

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When contemplating “tactics”, I would suggest you consider how successful (or not) you have been in persuading the adults that have patiently responded to you throughout this thread.

An attitude and strategy that is “urging” educators to write a “favorable” LOR and suggesting you are somehow entitled “to be heard” based upon how much you (your parents) pay will end poorly.

Based upon how much we pay, I would expect more attention to detail from my college advisor, and for them to at least acknowledge my circumstances, even if not for a T20. You should see both how much the tuition at my school is and the lack of quality they provide in their resources. It is a common complaint.

Your advice here is being considered, but again – I am getting different advice in parts of this thread, on other platforms, and in real life. I don’t see what the harm is in applying to a T20, even though I am almost certain to be rejected. There is always a chance, and depending on the way one views my application, it is possible that I am admitted.

As long as I have targets and safeties that I am content with, which I have made clear from the very outset of this post, stretching for a T20 will do no harm. I am expecting disappointment, and if/when I don’t get in, there will be other options. What this post has made me realize is that applying to a T20 ED/EA, as I once considered, is almost certainly not a good move. So I won’t.

I think we are done here. Thanks for the advice. It may not seem like it from the thread, but I am absolutely heeding it and taking it all into consideration.

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You shared up thread that your advisor suggested you consider Marist.

This is a school that offers meaningful support to students with learning disabilities and IEPs. The school has a beautiful campus and a very engaged study body. It also provides a top notch education and has a proven track record of successful career placement.

I would consider the counselors advice both because Marist is a great school (or other similar support conscious schools) and or because that is the environment that your CC thinks will provide you the resources needed for you to thrive academically.

It might not check your prestige box but would likely be a better fit. You still have not displayed the capacity to academically succeed without support and that is likely reflected in the way your counselor is advising. You are much better of excelling at a good school then failing out of an elite school!!

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Indeed, Marist has a very scenic campus. It’s right on the Hudson up in Poughkeepsie, which also has proximity to NYC. I visited two weeks ago and will consider applying.

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I think your school has done very well by you so far.
When they put you into the lowest track in ninth grade, you managed a GPA below a B average for that year - with support. After your having effectively failed two grades in your prior school, what else were they supposed to do? In a higher track, you might have failed out again.

10th grade, you managed an A average - with support. Great, so they put you in honours classes for 11th grade. And you managed a A average, again with support. (Was it all honours btw? Or just a few classes?

That might explain why they felt you needed a mix of honours and one AP as opposed to more APs for senior year, especially as your learning support will go away.

I understand that they offered you a chance to skip into a higher math track by talking precalc over the summer - which I assume would have meant AP calc AB. You didn’t take it.

You also needed quite a lot of persuasion to consider taking an ACT test in two months - you initially balked because you would have had to work hard and weren’t sure about the outcome.

Two opportunities for “show, not tell” and you balked. With your history, it’s understandable, but it means you need to take a good long hard look at yourself.

How many of your peers applying to top 20 schools do you think will be applying with that mindset? How many of them do you think will be saying “I want this, but I don’t want to work extra hard or take a risk”?

You think your school, that you pay so much to (you? Really?) has an obligation to support you in your application to super reaches. Guess what - they are not in the risk taking business either. They have a stake here. They know their risk free candidates they can recommend and you are not one of them.

And guess what - the top 20 are not in the risk taking business either.

You can say it’s unfair that you are the only one required to take risks here, but you are aspiring to move into shark infested waters.

Being full pay, you have a great chance at an excellent ED outcome at schools that are need aware, do not expect calc AB und like your literary spike. Are you going to throw away your shot?

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Colleges will look at your rigor in context of your high school. They won’t expect to see lots of APs if your school doesn’t offer a lot of them. They will compare you to kids in your school in terms of rigor. They will look at which rigor box your school checks for you.

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What OP wants them to recalculate is his class rank, not his gpa.

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Does anybody else feel like this is Groundhog Day?

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I understand my school placing me in lower track courses. I am in many ways grateful that they did. If they put me in honors from the get-go, I’d have failed.

Be that as it may, I don’t think that them putting me in this lower track should, on its own, diminish my chances of being accepted to college. When there was an opportunity for me to take a rigorous course, I always took it.

You mention pre-calculus over the summer, but my parents legitimately refused to pay for it. It was very expensive, and they along with an out-of-school advisor believed it wouldn’t matter given my prospective literature major. Do I regret this, in hindsight? Yes, but I don’t know that it will hurt me given the fact that it isn’t really an “available” course, seeing as there was a major price tag on it.

I will apply ED1 to a slight reach, and ED2 to a lesser reach/probable if ED1 falls through.

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Your chances at going to college aren’t diminished at all. There are a lot of colleges for you to choose from that will want you.

Your chances of going to a T-20 college are diminished because your class rank isn’t at the top and your counselor will most likely not check the ‘most rigorous’ box on your application. You didn’t take the most rigorous classes. It is not a case of your school not offering AP classes, it’s that you didn’t take them. The reason is that you weren’t prepared for them, but the fact is you didn’t take them.

T-20 schools are looking for top 1% applicants.

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So, in retrospect, you appreciate how you benefited from being tracked into a level with the appropriate balance of support and challenge, and provided with a path for further growth.

What I don’t understand is why you’re not looking for the same in a college.

Yes, you’re adjusting your expectations, but only because you’re reading the odds, not because you see where the best fit lies, and where the admissions process should appropriately sort you. As twoinanddone says, your chances of being accepted to college aren’t diminished in the slightest. Your chances of being accepted to an excellent, well-chosen college are vastly enhanced.

You’re describing your situation as if you’ve gotten the short end of the stick, when in fact it has taken a huge amount of advocacy and investment on the part of others to get you to where you are. How did you even get into a high-end prep school, when you were failing in a special ed program? Who assembled your support team and got you past your earlier difficulties? Imagine, for a moment, what happens to kids in under-resourced school systems, who have the same kind of LD issues you have and don’t have families with money and connections.

Sure, you have worked hard and deserve credit for your accomplishments; but you were also born on second base, worked hard to get to third, think you hit a triple, and are grumbling about not having it rounded up to a home run.

Apply at your current level of achievement and ability. Keep accepting challenges and working toward your long term goals. We’ve covered all the Kubler-Ross stages in this thread, over the death of a dream that shouldn’t have been on the table in the first place.

Once you’re thriving wherever you end up, I hope you will come back to this platform, and use your formidable writing talents to talk sense into other young people who are drinking the Prestige Kool-Aid and need to be talked down.

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I have one last comment and I hope it’s taken in the right spirit. But, following this thread has been awkward for a lot of us. I’ve likened it to a episode of Shark Tank, someone else to Groundhog Day. It’s also been like watching sausage get made. I have no doubt other OPs have made similarly duplicitous and disingenuous ED calculations and just haven’t been as naked in their ambition as this one has. So, I’m trying hard not to judge him too harshly.

I just hope he doesn’t select a college because it has the requisite degree of proximity to HYP to the exclusion of everything else; succeeds by some roll of the dice in gaslighting some adcom - then, spends the bulk of his time with the same motivation, trying to transfer to the real HYP (because now, of course, he has proof he can survive a rigorous course load.)

That would be unfair to the kid whose place he took when he got accepted to College X; unfair to his classmates who really won’t have him available as a fully engaged member of the community and frankly, to HYP who have to hire the staff to read all the “drive-by” applications from similarly motivated kids and parents.

I’m out.

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You’re wrong on this.

Every school I have seriously considered is a school I would see myself in. I am actively researching more and more schools to get a good fit, while still having relative prestige, and, perhaps most importantly, a quality education.

If I got into a school in the proximity of the HYP in prestige, and did very well as I imagine I could, perhaps I would transfer to a more prestigious school that met my environmental needs. I don’t see how that is particularly “unfair,” either. This entire process is unfair and completely random.

You’ve given good advice nonetheless, and I appreciate it. Thanks, and take care.

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Ironic comment given its accuracy is your best hope for admission to a T-20.

If it is fair and not random the kid who has thrived academically while independently pursuing the most rigorous classes (including calc) and has worked hard preparing for and scored a 34-36 act will take your spot. Thankfully that is in fact the norm and what you should anticipate.

Don’t underestimate or diminish the hard work and achievements of others by suggesting their acceptances were a function of luck.

You have been blessed to have educators who seemingly care about your development and the financial resources to have a variety of options and few limitations. Those sorts of unearned resources are in fact “random and unfair” in how they are allocated.

Academic achievement and rigor however are what top colleges look for as evidence of future success and are a function of personal determination and hard work.

I would recommend you get off CC, stop bemoaning the unfairness of your situation and spend the time preparing for your ACT.

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Ironic comment given its accuracy is your best hope for admission to a T-20.

Don’t underestimate or diminish the hard work and achievements of others by suggesting their acceptances were a function of luck.

That’s quite an odd interpretation of what I wrote, especially considering I never did that. All I wrote is that the admissions process is inherently unfair and random. The spots of valedictorians with stellar grades, test scores, and EC’s are often taken by those with lesser stats, and sometimes those with lesser stats but harder backgrounds are looked over by AO’s. That is a function of randomness and can be considered unfair.

If it is fair and not random the kid who has thrived academically while independently pursuing the most rigorous classes (including calc) and has worked hard preparing for and scored a 34-36 act will take your spot. Thankfully that is in fact the norm and what you should anticipate.

You clearly didn’t grasp anything I previously wrote about regarding my circumstances. The few AP courses offered by my school were always out of my reach. Those typically cannot be “independently” pursued with any success in the absence of solid prerequisites, nor are they recommended to be. Calculus was also not a fully available course to me, otherwise I would have taken it. My parents downright refused to pay for it.

In sophomore year, knowing I was in one of the lowest course tracks in my school, I actually reached out to the administration to move me up a notch for the second semester. I was immediately turned down. At no point was this in my control, and if I had earlier opportunities to take advanced courses, I absolutely would have. The better question is did I take the hardest courses available to me? The answer is yes, even if those courses are smaller in number compared to my peers.

I would recommend you get off CC, stop bemoaning the unfairness of your situation and spend the time preparing for your ACT.

I would recommend you try to stop misconceiving just about everything I have written. I am not bemoaning the unfairness of my situation. I could have had it far worse. I am also not disparaging the work done by prospective T20 candidates. What I am suggesting is that my circumstances did not allow all of my potential to be realized–but where I was able to work, I did a very fine job. As long as I convey in my application with the backing of my instructors that I have at every opportunity did the most I possibly could in terms of rigor and performance, an AO may give me a chance. Though for the umpteenth time, I do not expect this to happen.

I have already begun preparing for the ACT, though it cannot be used for Early Decision. I contacted my administration earlier today and was told I would need to take it at a later date for the RD round. They also told me not to stress about going test-optional, as colleges will not consider test scores in my evaluation. Put a scoreless candidate like myself next to one with a 36 ACT and I don’t think this holds true, which is why I am taking the ACT.

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Yes, you believe what you want to.
So many very experienced posters have given you accurate advice, yet you seem to think otherwise. Good luck in your applications. Cine back and let us know your results

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yet you seem to think otherwise.

Show me where I said I believe I will get into a T20.

Fact is that I don’t disagree with most of the advice here. I agree with almost all of it. The advice varies here and on other platforms, so it is quite difficult to know what to do. I have established here that a T20 ED is not a good idea, and that I should at least take the ACT to attempt to increase my admission chances.

I will return in December (I can feel your excitement) to let you know where I was admitted, and then again in January to let you know where I applied.

I can’t close this thread because I am barred from using my other account, but we accomplished a lot here. Much of your advice was very useful and I will take it all into account. This is my last reply, so I just want to thank you all for your realistic assessments. Take care!

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“sometimes those with lesser stats but harder backgrounds are looked over by AO’s. That is a function of randomness and can be considered unfair.”

And

“I am not bemoaning the unfairness of my situation.”

Got it and pardon my “odd interpretation”.

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