Likebikes, good luck! My daughter is keeping her fingers crossed as well. She applied to CFA want to major in vocal performance.
Grades matter within context of an applicants circumstances (such as special matters/hardness of classes and so on). They will be eval’ed accordingly. But I think having a 3.75+ UW GPA (as stated in many school’s CDS when categorizing apps on GPA) is putting you in the competitive range for most schools which are competitive.
Still see many posting here UW GPA of what is required etc, etc.? How can you compare GPA from school to school – there are couple of schools (including my son’s school) - the grades are tought o come by and valedictorian’s UW GPA is in the low 3.9s! How do you compare that to someone coming from a school --basically if you do a decent job - you get a 4.0 UWGPA --in fact, there was a poster sometime ago, who had a UW GPA of 4.0 but was 45 rank or something in a school of around 50! Almost, 10% of the class got a perfect GPA - talk about grade inflation!
Something to consider …
meant to say class size of 500!
meant to say class size of 500!
@kg2013 I get what you’re trying to say, hence context is extremely important. But they do get that there cannot be all that of a vast difference between competitive apps and grades. They know that there is a certain mark beyond which an app needs to be. For example I’m pretty sure one of the highest possible GPA’s in a school cannot be a 3.0 on a 4.0. So they have a rough marker.
Of course, they’d see why a GPA is ‘low’ and if you have valid reasons, you’re exempted from rejection there, but they do have a rough ‘GPA level’ to follow by. Based on my research and the legal CDS’s of many top schools that I’ve examined, its about a 3.75+ UW GPA for the top tier of competitive apps, with a decrement of .25 till 3.0 UW GPA.
All apps lie in there. But there is a tier based classification, where a lower tier doesnt mean an ‘out of the game’ but it puts you at a certain (small/large depending on context) disadvantage.
Hope this helps. For further clarifications. please feel free to PM me.
College admissions office know the high schools and get profiles from them that indicate percentages of student receiving As, Bs, Cs etc. The colleges use a multiplier to even the playing field when comparing potential applicants. They are able to compare apples to apples this way. Do not worry about grade inflation from other high schools. It has no impact on your child’s application.
what school did you guys apply to?
SCS 
@anxiousboi
Whens dec’s comin’ out? 3/22? My best guess is that. I didnt check CMU Soc. Med. or admission timeline webpage
March 30 at 9am decisions will come out.
Oh! THanks a lot @prouddad2020
Ugh CMU is the last college for my son to see if he is accepted. We think he has a slim chance, but you never know. He has gotten into RPI, WPI, RIT, Syracuse, Binghamton and Qinnipaic, All for Computer Science. Not sure he would choose this school because he probably won’t get any scholarship, from what I am hearing. But he still wants to know before he makes his final decision.
I hope they change the decision date. Announcing a few days after Ivy day does not make sense. Has CMU done this before?
I have no clue, but Ive heard they used to release it earlier for the past cycles.
THey couldve honestly released it a few days before Ivy Day.
Oh well.
I checked last year’s thread and the decisions were done on 3/31/18 at 9 am which was after Ivy day. However, they mailed the FAT letters a few days before in order for the applicants to get it first in the mail. I assume same will happen this year.
@Likebikes @singer2 I’m a current voice student and decisions were released today for voice! let me know if you have any questions
My daughter just got her email she was accepted for voice but has to wait for an acceptance from the Admissions office.
Turnerk when you applied did you applied as a voice major? Keeping our fingers crossed
So, the college of engineering and/or CS comes out later? like 3/31 right?