This thread does give hope to the B students. Nice to know there are some schools that will accept my daughter with similar stats. She has a 3.1 unweighted and 3.4 weighted GPA, loads of honors classes (no AP), class rank 124 out of 365, 4 year varsity cheerleader (captain senior year), and has worked part time for 2 years, and has some volunteer and community service hours. Very, very average…here is the biggest problem, her SAT scores are very low. 1190 first time. Will receive scores from second test this week. We don’t have very much confidence in a great increase. She has never done well on standardized test.
Her first choice was ECU…they denied her because of her low SAT scores of course and they want an us 3.2
Her second choice is VCU.
She would like to go into nursing.
We are in NC so VCU would be OOS.
Anyone have any feedback on her chances?
Do you mean East Carolina U? (Had to google.) Is the 1190 CR + M? If so, she falls right into the average acceptance range so that’s discouraging she’d be turned down … 
Have you checked out test optional schools?
She could apply to Capital, in Ohio, she’d have a shot at their nursing program.
There’s also this program: http://cas.umw.edu/bsn-program/bsn-academic-partnership-plan-121-bsn-plan/
Has she checked out:
https://nursing.uncg.edu/
http://catalog.odu.edu/undergraduate/collegeofhealthsciences/nursing/#bachelorofscienceinnursing
http://www.marshall.edu/nursing/
VCU a reach even without nursing, which tends to be a competitive major. Does your daughter have a CNA, worked as an EMT, has nursing-related EC’s?
800 CR+ M
800 CR+M
Yes. East Carolina University. Needs at least a 1080 for that one.
I don’t expect a big increase in her scores. Will take December SAT also and superscore where possible.
Trying VCU because they are test optional.
Thanks for the info.
No she has no background in any of those fields (senior in highschool).
Applied to UNCG also because they are close to home. Seems like they are a reach also judging by the current SAT scores she has. Crossing all fingers and praying someone will give her a chance. Great student; not so great test taker.
NC has lots of public universities with nursing majors. Perhaps she can apply more widely among them.
However, it looks like an 800 SAT CR+M puts her on the low end of the SAT range even for the ones with the lowest incoming frosh SAT ranges (and that can be an issue since nursing is often a popular major that is capacity-controlled with higher admission standards than the school as a whole). Has she tried the ACT, since some students do better on the ACT than the SAT?
Another option to consider is to see if the CC -> junior transfer pathway works for her intended major in the NC public universities. It looks like SAT or ACT scores are not required for junior level transfers at NC public universities.
She is determined to go the University route. I don’t want her to reduce herself because of a test score. Am I wrong
for encouraging her to keep trying this route?.. I guess I thought VCU was competitive in the Arts field not the nursing field…another reason I thought this school was a good choice is because if she had the application for undergrad admission in by Nov15, she would have a spot held in school of nursing her sophomore year as long as her GPA was up to standards. This would eliminate the competiveness.
She can certainly try for admission to nursing majors at various universities. However, VCU may not be the best chance for her.
http://www.nursing.vcu.edu/programs/traditional-bs/ and http://www.honors.vcu.edu/guaranteed/ indicate that VCU’s guaranteed admission to the nursing major is only available to entering frosh who have high enough grades (HS GPA >= 3.5) and test scores (SAT CR+M >= 1270, with >= 530 in each section, or ACT >= 29).
Otherwise, it looks like competitive admission to enter the nursing major as a sophomore, as described at http://www.nursing.vcu.edu/admission/application-instructions/traditional-bs/ . High school and college course work and SAT or ACT scores are included in this admission process.
Also, starting at a CC does not necessarily mean “reducing” oneself.
Here is an example of a student who started at a CC:
http://news.berkeley.edu/2011/05/10/medalist2011/
http://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/people/aaron-benavidez
Isn’t nursing a test-heavy major, with a lot of math / science whose grades would be determined by tests? What are her math scores like on school tests? I’d check out the courses she’d need to take at different schools, because it makes no sense to get into a school and then get derailed by the courses. If she’s a good student but tests poorly, has she been checked for learning disabilities that could enable her to have accommodations like extra time?
She always had good grades in school, so she never has been tested… Always has taken the honors math, English, science and spanish courses.
I never felt it was an issue because her final grades were A s.
I’m not 100% percent sure she is going to stick with nursing, but for now that is what she thinks she want do.
She does have a wGPA of 3.42 and her class rank is in the top 37% of her class. Not the greatest stats, but certainly not the worst. Just never thought she may have a disability. She has never failed a class. Does fine on class test, just not bigger standardized ones. It has always been blamed on anxiety , even though she goes in seeming confident.
*A s and B s
B average in math.
Kids with good grades can have learning disabilities – they just cover it up well. It’s diagnosed partly by a mismatch between apparent potential (such as intelligence) and results. Whatever the reason, those are rock-bottom scores. It doesn’t make sense for someone to earn As and Bs in honors English and Math and then get around 400 on every section of the SAT.
She’d be in big lecture-type classes at a large university, so she’ll have to face big standardized-type tests, and that could be an issue. Smaller colleges that are test optional for admission and where she wouldn’t just be one of 200 kids in a lecture hall might be better if she has “big test” anxiety. But I think you have to figure out what’s behind getting As and Bs in honors and then far below national average on SAT.
OP here.
Just wanted to update you with my son’s current status.
His GPA is a killer 2.99 (really?? You couldn’t have done 2 more homeworks Junior year, to get that last hundredth of a point?? 
) He does have a part time job, but isn’t involved in extra curricular activities at school.
He applied to 9 schools. All but 1 are within 200 miles of our home. For all of them, his first shot at the SAT last May (M+ CR+W= 1280) put him above the 25th percentile of current freshmen. He’s at or close to the median here and there. None is outrageously expensive.
As of right now, he’s received 2 acceptances, no rejections. One of the acceptances is among his top choices. He retook the SAT in November; those results come out on Tuesday. I would imagine that we’ll hear more in the next month or so. But even if he doesn’t get another acceptance, he’ll have a choice. I think that’s important.
I honestly think the trick with kids like my son is doing your homework. There are plenty of schools out there who aren’t right fits for the typical CC A++student. Lots of non NHS kids get into college and graduate 4 years later. Lots of kids who haven’t worked with the poor abroad, who haven’t taken a single AP course, who have even spent some time in summer school-- and I don’t mean that they’re taking extra coursework-- get accepted and do well in college.
But you’ve got to do your homework with these kids, to find schools where their applications are more likely to be accepted. I see no point in lots of reach schools for these kids-- they don’t need the rejection, the validation that they’re not quite smart enough.
For my son, and for any number of similar kids I’ve taught over the years, it’s simply a question of maturity. Not all kids grow at the same rate, and lots of kids simply don’t hit their academic stride in time to get those stellar GPAs for college applications.
So, if your kid is like my kid, here’s what I suggest:
a. DO YOUR HOMEWORK! A kid who is a less than stellar student might not be inclined to do it himself-- being a self starter isn’t yet in the DNA of kids like my son as Juniors. So I did a lot of it. I found schools that were the right distance, the right SAT requirements, the right price, the right size that carried his major. And, starting early in Junior year, we visited some of those schools. Three of the schools we visited came off the list. (One turned out to be too much of a reach, another too big, another too rural for his taste. But we only realized those things by visiting.) He learned what he wanted in a school by seeing what the options were.
b. Take the SAT Junior year, and again in OCTOBER of Senior year. (Yeah, I learned that last one the hard way.) The reality is that the extra month of waiting for the November SAT did not mean an extra month of prep; it just meant an extra month of waiting for results.
c. Apply EARLY. Not EA or ED, simply early. Rolling admissions are your friend. My son is breathing easier now, knowing that he has those 2 acceptances and WILL be going to college. The biggest stumbling block was the essay. Fortunately, thanks to my time here on CC, I knew that the Common App went live on August 1. So we sat down one day in early August, and he roughed out some topics. A week later, he had a rough draft. And before Labor Day, he had that essay all done and edited. Once he had one, it was easy to adapt for the other 2 he needed for non-Common App schools.
@happykid2 - if you live close to Greensboro, you could take an easy day trip to Radford and Jefferson College of Health Sciences.
If she has a 3.5 GPA (sounds like she’s just beneath it), she could apply test optional to Radford, but she’s going to have to take the Kaplan test for nursing to be admitted to higher level nursing classes. Radford’s 25% on SAT is 910.
Jefferson College of Health Sciences in Roanoke is tiny (800 students) and focuses on all sorts of medicine related majors - from 2 year programs to post-Masters, including BSN and RN. Students can live in apartments, but there aren’t traditional dorms. I’ve known students who have graduated from there and gotten great jobs, but I don’t think it’s going to be a traditional college experience. http://www.jchs.edu/
@bjkmom - We’re in the early stages (three EAs in, one acceptance back, much still to be done for RD), but this is excellent advice for kids at all levels. FIND THE SCHOOLS THAT ARE TRULY REASONABLE OPTIONS and make sure that your kid has his or her head wrapped around a nice set of them them early and often. The rest, including the more aspirational stuff, will sort itself out.
I agree that kids with good grades could have disabilities. In those cases they would be harder to diagnose because
it doesn’t show on their grades, so it doesn’t really bring attention. This could possibly be my child’s case. She has taken the SAT twice (second set of scores come out this week). She will also take it in December in hopes of getting higher scores by superscoring.
I don’t know exactly why her test scores don’t reflect her grades. I wish I knew. Like you said, it doesn’t make sense.
Because there are schools that are going test optional let’s me know there are more kids than a handful that are in the same situation and not all universities want to judge applicants by GPA and test scores only.
Thank you for the information. Greatly appreciated.
I’d suggest that anyone here check out the “Parents of 3.0-3.3 kids” thread
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1656351-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2016-3-0-to-3-3-gpa.html