<p>My son moved from a small private high school to the large excellent public one for his junior and now senior year of high school. The private school had no grades, so his GPA is based only on his junior year. It took him a little while to adjust to the new environment, especially working for grades, but his trajectory is moving upward, with close to straight A's on the way for his senior year.</p>
<p>3 AP courses junior year, 3 senior year (plus honors courses)
GPA UW 3.1, W4.4
SAT 680 CR 710 W 730 M
Competition-winning pianist, very involved
Other EC's excellent in 9 & 10; below average 11 & 12, except for piano
Essay about switching schools
Recs from AP Chem, private school History, piano teacher</p>
<p>Big reaches:
Brown
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Reach:
Haverford</p>
<p>Match reaches:
Oberlin
Vassar</p>
<p>Match:
Brandeis
Grinnell</p>
<p>Safeties:
Bard
UNC-Chapel Hill (in state)</p>
<p>Chances, anyone?</p>
<p>Suggestions for similarly small, artsy safety schools?</p>
<p>Chapel Hill is a match, not a safety. Consider UNC Asheville as a safety; it's very artsy and LAC-like. App State is too, but it's a bit hippie-ish. Davidson would be another good choice in NC, although it would be more of a reach.</p>
<p>Lawrence U, U Rochester, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Beloit, Wesleyan, and Sarah Lawrence might be good matches.</p>
<p>I strongly recommend taking a good look at Elon.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. Wesleyan and Sarah Lawrence have been on and off the list, but will probably go back on. Skidmore and Earlham look interesting.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, he wants no frats, no party-school, no jock culture. Good-size Jewish population a plus.</p>
<p>I don't really think Haveford should be any harder to get into than Vassar and both should be within reason. Brown and Swarthmore would be major stretches, but don't let that dissuade you. Wesleyan and Skidmore seem to fit and would think that Connecticut College and Bates would too.</p>
<p>Colleges are not just going to ignore the first 2 years of high school. They will construct a gpa estimate from the school's report card format. If it's a well known no grade school like St. Anns, they've already constructed it. So you have to estimate how they'll look at those years.</p>
<p>Given a 3.1 unweighted junior year, your categories might be a bit optimistic. I would add some true safeties.</p>
<p>Suze, thanks for the reality check. His no-grades school is well-known and respected and he'll have a strong letter from a teacher/advisor there. I was concerned about his low unweighted gpa for these top schools, but his current high school counselor keeps assuring us that the weighted gpa counts much more. She seemed to think UNC was absolutely safe given the admits from the school in previous years, but son would much rather go to a small school. We wish he had gotten it together to apply to Bard EA, but no such luck. Strongly considering ED for Haverford, Vassar or Oberlin but has to do another visit before he decides. So far he hasn't seen a safety that he loves, and we all know how important that is!</p>
<p>Skie, you say "We wish he had gotten it together to apply to Bard EA, but no such luck." Bard EA deadline is 11/1, so what am I missing? Isn't there still time to do what needs to be done?</p>
<p>CTLor, my son's high school requires 4 weeks notice to send out transcripts. He didn't get the paperwork (nor the requests for teacher recs) in until Oct. 15, just in time for the November 15 Early Decision deadlines. He's considering 3 schools for Early Decision, all of which he's visiting in Oct/Nov, so he's spending all his time on those 3 applications. No extra time for the Bard supplementary essays until he finishes these others. Just a little bit of pressure these days!</p>