<p>What is the cost of an average house these days? Are the under $15,000 schools parochial schools?</p>
<p>HImom, don't fret. My S was in the same boat along with many at his school. It is ridiculously competitive with no grade inflation. The teachers take immense pride in how hard they grade. Average SAT for his class was 1380, and there were 57 NMF and commended students. I was worried that it would be a problem not only for my son, but for everyone else not in the top 10%. We just got the stats with college admissions and scholarships offered and it was amazing. For 215 students there were over $12,000,000.00 in scholarships offered, and the places kids were accepted to was mighty impressive. </p>
<p>In other words, colleges DO take note of the highschool that your child attends. The admissions stats even debunked the top 10% rule at UT Austin, 47 kids were accepted. My faith in the college admission process went up considerably (after a very nervous sr. year).</p>
<p><<what is="" the="" cost="" of="" an="" average="" house="" these="" days?="" are="" under="" $15,000="" schools="" parochial="" schools?="">></what></p>
<p>No, the under $15,000 schools are NOT parochial schools. Well, many of the school do have a chapel on campus and require the students to attend from time to time, but it mostly these schools are considered college prep. You have to take one semester course on the Bible to graduate. </p>
<p>The school my kids attend has about 200 in the graduating class & ends up with about 50+ National Merit commended, SF or Finalists every year. They do end up at an impressive range of schools, including some every year that go to ivies, many at USC & USantaClara, UWashington. Most go to the West Coast, but a good number go East as well & some are in the middle. They have quite a few PhDs on their faculty & son's smallest class has 3 (AP Computers B). Largest class other than Band generally has 20 or fewer students.</p>
<p>The school collects each student's completed college application & adds the profile, transcript & letter from the GC & sends it off to the colleges. They do have good relationships with all the colleges.</p>
<p>The parochial schools in our state are less expensive that the one my kids attend, but never investigated it since my kids refused to consider attending (would have preferred public over parochial--NOT very religous).</p>
<p>Not sure what an "average" house in HI is any more. When we bought our home in 1990, 40-50 year-old modest houses in OK neighborhoods @ 1300 sq. ft. were going for about $500,000+. Since the latest crazy super-heated market, I think the range is MUCH higher now. Rentals have increased from $1000 for a one bedroom last year to $1500 this year!</p>
<p>I think your S will be fine in the college admissions game. It sounds like his school has a great national reputation, regularly placing kids at fantastic schools. The scholarship money comes into play based upon the schools you apply to. Some schools give alot of money, some don't. We all know which ones do and don't. Good Luck! It's not as bad as it seems as long as your S has some financial safeties as well as academic safeties to apply to along with the reaches.</p>
<p>Himom, while I think that the application package of your son COULD be very competitive, you will have a LOT of work to do. I really believe you WILL have to develop unique angles to make you son's application stand out, especially from the competition at your own high school. </p>
<p>From my vantage point, your old counselor is right on the money, the new one is too optimistic, and your doctor needs to check what he put in his pipe. </p>
<p>As far as general comments on ranking and very selective colleges, there are only a handful of schools from which a student can overcome a 5th decile ranking. For 99.5% of schools in the country, the direct or derived ranking is extremely important and everyone below the first TWO or THREE percent faces immonguous hurdles - let alone top 10 percent. </p>
<p>The reality is that, even at the most selective high schools in the country, there are students who graduate with perfect or close to perfect GPA. If the first decile is at 4.00 or above, the fifth at 3.4-3.5, chances are that the seventh decile is still at 3.00 and above. Being closer to the seventh decile than the first one is not a great position to be in. If more than 50% of the school scores above 1200-1300 (old norm) SAT, the chances for a mid of the pack student to generate much interest from a top school is remote. </p>
<p>However, the definition of a top school is all in the eye of the beholder. And here is where you are facing a lot of work: finding great matches for your son -to go along the necessary reaches/safeties. The matches should include schools that WILL value the accomplishments of your son in their correct context. It is also your job to seize EVERY opportunity to highlight the specific accomplishments in the application. You cannot afford to have your son's application looking like the ones of the top two deciles. Simply stated if a top school receives 10-15 applications from your HS, why would they go to one of the lower ranked students? You cannot expect THEM to go look for a reason, it has to SCREAM at them. </p>
<p>Please do not consider my post as overly negative. Your son should find a great school. Since you mentioned Harvey Mudd as a reach, I would encourage you son to apply. With a relatively small number of applications, the admission officers at HM try to look at the entire application and it is one place where SAT scores and high scores in the core subjects are more important than rankings. </p>
<p>PS Regarding merit money, if you son end up being a NMS -one of about 70 NMS from HI- you could expect a lot of attention from schools pursuing NMS.</p>
<p>PPS Regarding schools in Hawaii:
School Current year Next year
Le Jardin Academy* $10,100 $10,760
Academy of the Pacific $11,700 $12,900**
Punahou School $12,800 $13,775
Maryknoll* $9,600 $10,100
Iolani School $11,500 $12,200
St. Andrew's Priory* $9,885 $10,480
Saint Louis High School* $8,200 $8,610
Hawaii Prep. Academy* $14,500 $15,000*** </p>
<ul>
<li>At high school level ** Includes books and fees </li>
</ul>
<p>Son will at least be commended NM, but not sure whether he'll be SF or Finalist (he's on the "bubble"). Old GC says that if he has GREAT 7th semester (1st semester of senior year), it should really boost his rank & his chances at more selective schools. If he can stay healthy, he CAN do it (academically, he's great) & we're keeping our fingers crossed.</p>
<p>A friend's son from same HS boosted his GPA from 3.5 (middle rank) to 3.8 & got into UChicago, his 1st choice. Other friend's son from same HS with 3.8 & "middle rank" is at UCSB, playing water polo (his 1st choice).</p>
<p>Will definitely try to get son to get great grades & raise rank. Thanks for your thoughts. I do trust the old GC, since he has the years of experience. Also like the new GC--very encouraging & positive.</p>
<p>Himom, part of this "work" I mentioned involves maximizing the positive input of your GC. You may want to discuss with the GC if he is willing to "champion" the cause of your son. After all, he may have very good reasons to be optimistic about your son. Having the GC solidly in your camp could make a lot of difference. Be on the lookout for the GC and teachers' assessment/letters of recommendations. Since the early bird gets the worm, I would make sure to start the process immediately after school starts.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip--will speak with the GC as soon as school starts (he's taking kids from HS on college tour now & will be back just before school starts). I'm pretty sure the GC will be willing to champion my son. He & the entire faculty is amazed at the resiliance my son has shown to his health challenges. The school has NEVER had a kid able to handle the rigorous curriculum with his absences & health challenges.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For 99.5% of schools in the country, the direct or derived ranking is extremely important and everyone below the first TWO or THREE percent faces immonguous hurdles - let alone top 10 percent.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I always get into trouble disagreeing with Xiggi ;), but I think for "schools" he means high schools - I interpreted "schools" as colleges when I first read his post. Actually, for close to 90% of colleges in the country your son will be fine - it is the top 10 to top 25 privates and the few most selective publics that may give him trouble. </p>
<p>For example, I think he would have a good chance for admission at Vandy, even with a relatively low GPA, because of geography - especially if the GC does a good job of explaining his GPA, he shows improvement and his health remains good - but no merit money.</p>
<p>I would suggest investigating health and support services at different schools as well as academics. I would also suggest beginning to "train" him to care for his health (maybe he already is doing this, or maybe his health issues are hopefully behind him) - managing meds, how to recognize if he is becoming ill, savvy about his history - hospitalizations and procedures that he may not quite remember. Your pediatrician might be a good resource for help in this (and help defuse some of the conflict of "Mom, I already know all this stuff!"), the MD sounds like he both knows your son's history, AND has experience with sending kids off to the mainland to school.</p>
<p>Much great advice, have a good year - it will be over before you know it!</p>
<p>Let me guess: Punahou? (I'm back on mainland--couldn't pay the rent). Your son's scores are great, but his toughest competition is from other students at his school. His best chance would be to apply to schools that those kids aren't applying to. (Hard, since kids travel in packs). Many schools would love to get students from HI, and I think with his scores he could get some attention if he steers away from the pack. Poor health is another issue--that could be a problem. . .</p>
<p>His cousins go there. He doesn't care where the "pack" goes & is willing to go to a wide range of different colleges. Thanks for your thoughts--it has occurred to us as well that he would have a better chance at schools where his classmates don't apply in large numbers.<br>
Is interested in East or West (we think West might be safer--closer for travel). Counselor thinks safety & good merit aid from Loyola Marymount in LA (we'll tour next month). Also suggested Occidental & Harvey Mudd (not many of his school go there). Thinks safety & money from U of the Pacific & AzSU Honors College & Santa Clara & BostonUniv & Willamette.</p>
<p>One thought about your son's rank occurred to me: isn't class rank for the purpose of college applications computed based on grades 9-11? So, in that case, even if your son's senior grades went up significantly in the first two quarters, wouldn't that be too late to be reflected in the rank being sent to schools? Or, do they recompute rankings during the year at your school. If not, perhaps the GC could write something about his improvement and indicate his judgement about how that might ultimately affect his ranking.</p>
<p>Good thing to ask counselor about--thanks for mentioning it. Both counselors agree that if son can have great fall semester in senior year, it will grealty increase his options in any case & show improvement. Son thinks they recalculate rank after 1st quarter & 1st semester of senior year, but we're not sure.
HImom</p>
<p>Our dd's school has just decided to start weighting grades. (It doesn't rank). Many of the kids get into fabulous schools but, reading between the lines and on the basis of our own situation, I would say that yes, the higher scores and lower grades have hurt in some cases. There is no problem with colleges that "know" her school and recognize that a 3.3 hardly = "slacker", but the situation is a bit different with colleges that either aren't acquainted with it due to distance or have such a huge applicant pool that they focus largely on a grade/score grid. And kids have also had a tougher time with merit $$ than their public school peers who might have lower scores but GPAs above 4.0.</p>
<p>Zagat
[quote]
In A is for Admission, the former Dartmouth adcom tells of the formulas they have for schools that don't rank. Of course they have a firm idea of where every applicant is at schools that don't rank.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not to be argumentative, but how exactly do they do that? (Especially the FIRM part...) Seems like it would be tough at a college which may not have a lot of applicants from a particular high school.</p>
<p>Frankly, it sounds like a myth propagated to make everybody paranoid and raise the admissions committee to a god status. </p>
<p>I think the important thing is for kids to just try very hard to have their application fully reflect who they really are. All the hard stats? Well, at some point your kids own those and there's nothing a parent can do about them. They'll probably get into the schools they deserve to be at.</p>
<p>As far as USC chances, my daughter scored a 1450 on the old SAT (99th verbal), was student body president at one of the most well-known and academically competititve public high schools in California, studied Chinese for four years (only non-native speaker), studied abroad, worked part-time for our city government, excellent recommendations, and was turned down by USC this past year with her weighted 3.5 (poor, I know, but in my day you could be on academic probation and get into USC!). They seem to have a very strong emphasis on GPA these days. She tooks lots of AP (all 4s and 5s) as well as Mandarin. It didn't seem the school's competitive reputation, or the difficulty of her schedule, or her many ECs could tip her in. Kids who focused on grades and had just very modest ECs were admitted. Just FYI.</p>
<p>Have only considered USC somewhat of a reach, academically & financially; friend's son just graduated from USC & was very happy there & now in 1st year of med school here. Lots of kids from his school go there & have been pretty happy & successful there. Not sure the smog will be great for his asthma & allergies anyway. Son isn't sure what he thinks of USC either.</p>
<p>His scores are pretty good -- highest combined would be 1560 or using the new SATs 2230.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that 1560 is pretty good! Where we live every other license plate and bumper sticker has USC-something or other on it. It has a lot to offer, and the application is not too labor intensive. His scores should make them take a good look, since they are trying to elevate all their admission statistics. Can he throw a football? :) Good luck.</p>
<p>"I always get into trouble disagreeing with Xiggi , but I think for "schools" he means high schools - I interpreted "schools" as colleges when I first read his post."</p>
<p>Calmom, indeed, I meant 99.5% of high schools.</p>
<p>Colleges will know more info about your school (such as grade distribution etc.) and will take it all into account, such as others have said. If he is applying to the same schools as the top 10 students, however, his lower rank will probably affect his chances. Good luck!</p>