I believe Emory does as well - and they meet need. I’ve not seen the first year thing but I’ve read it on here enough to assume there may be something to it that’s at least worth investigating.
While it’d be a huge reach, it sounds like 10th and 11th grade went very well.
Just for reference and clarification although not specifically relevant here.
CA public universities with exception of one CSU, only use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation but 9th grades are reviewed for completion of A-G CSU/UC course requirements and HS rigor so not ignored.
Information posted for future applicants.
Upward trend is better than downward trend, but a student with high grades all years looks better than an upward trend. They only have so many seats.
Not necessarily, high GPA all years with less rigor may not be equivalent to a student better grade trend and increasing rigor trend.
Home schooled students may not be impacted as much by Pandemic virtual schooling as their school going counterparts.
Even in rigor, there are different courses with different rigor, different schools with grading leniency.
Admission decisions are not straightforward.
I realize this, I’ve sent 5 kids to college. Unweighted GPA is still usually #1 in importance, add rigor, and in some cases test scores. I have a family who did take honors/AP classes, was a B student, 35 ACT, who will be attending Pitt, full pay, his only acceptance. Could he have had more acceptances? Yes, but he was riding on his test scores which re-Covid might’ve worked better. GPA seems to have become even more important since TO. I have two 2021 HS graduates, one rocked junior/senior year of 100% online classes, even got 5 ‘s on AP tests. The other had his worst grades ever, phoned it in, got 1’s on AP tests. Unfortunately all of the students he was competing with also had the same Covid disruption, some dealt with it better than others.
I’ve got couple of Masters degrees but the last time I experienced college admissions was almost 20 years ago.
This is our 1st child from HS to college admissions. So, learning here and other venues on the process. As you say, Pandemic has impacted students unequally and admissions offices have to take into account.
I don’t know all the schools the B student applied. We researched and actually see only FAU having 3.2 GPA for their summer admissions. By SAT, 1420 is in the top percentile for most schools.
Hence this thread to get guidance.
Past year is not an indicator for the next year as the volume of applications vary and schools have to choose accordingly.
They HAVE taken it into account- which is why many schools have gone test optional. Which helps the kids with rock solid GPA and rigor- and helps the kids with rock solid GPA, rigor AND high test scores.
You are asking for guidance but don’t seem to want to hear the guidance. Volume of applications vary. But a solid risk management strategy is important “just in case” the adcom’s don’t behave in the way you want them to behave. Maybe they love an upward trend in GPA, except when compared to a kid with a high GPA for all four years. Maybe they ignore freshman year and maybe they don’t.
Etc. Wishful thinking is not a strategy.
What is your budget ?
What’s your EFC?
Would a meet need school work?
Do you want merit aid?
Are you willing to let him go OOS for merit money/if the college is within budget?
(As I said, boy+polisci/history+1420 can be valuable).
For PreLaw, he needs a college where he’ll read&write a lot. That’s why you have to be careful with his peers’ background.
Have you looked into Aspire tcc2fsu together?
What’s the highest level of math completed by graduation? Foreign language ? APs in history, English, others?
Mount Allison is a top Canadian university. They do NOT count 9th grade. Tuition, single room, and unlimited board is $27,000 (in USD). Worth a shot imho.
This is this years FSU Student Profile for reference
Notice number of high school course completed ( Shows Rigor they expect) English 4.5 Math 5.5 Natural Science and Social science 5 each and World language 3.5
https://admissions.fsu.edu/first-year/WWLF/
Here is UF, not as detailed as FSU
@blossom
We are exploring realistic options and evaluating all guidance provided so far. We are thankful for the helpful advice.
There is no wishful thinking here other than not sure of the adcom decision making and this year’s competition.
If you see, we came up with a strategy based on the Student’s preferences, our financial constraints, exit strategy after undergrad, etc.
Just saying that there will better students doesn’t help us and it is very obvious.
CC parents are biased towards high achievers and we didn’t come here to be put down.
Any constructive guidance is welcome.
Our budget is full pay at FL public university e.g FAU. We are hoping to get 75-100% FB scholarship.
OOS is fine if it will be at that level, which we know it will be hard as FL instate is relatively the best cost option.
I think you have been offered constructive advice. My oldest started college in 2014, it gets more competitive every year. Safeties have become matches, matches have become reaches. It’s crazy. There have been applicants here with 4.0/1600/12 AP’s who were not accepted to any of the schools they applied to. I suggest looking at result posts for schools of interest, it can be an eye opener.
Thanks. So, 26k max (20k if full BF) for total costs, 21k direct costs only (15k with BF).
That makes Mount Allison within budget if your son wants to try&apply for a top school up North.
It also means universities with full tuition scholarships for his stats are in play - for instance, 3.5 weighted &1420 SAT is a guaranteed, automatic full tuition scholarship at UAlabama along with Honors College (and there are other “Honors within Honors”).
If he’s interested in smaller colleges, you could run the NPC on Muhlenberg, Roanoke, Sewanee, Centre, Gettysburg, Rhodes, Goucher, Luther, St Olaf…
Colleges That Chnge Lives could be a good website to explore in addition to FL publics.
The idea is for him to end up with good, affordable choices. Better an embarassment of riches than feeling backed into a corner in the Spring.
Didn’t know Bama used weighted. That’s nuts. Really great for other kids.
But the scholarship is $28k. Tuition and fees are $33,200.
There are competitive scholarships for more and in engineering / cs they’d get another $2500 based on the SAT.
UAH would be a similar range for a much smaller school if desired.
They use whatever weighted is on the transcript by Dec1.
Even 5.2k for tuition+R&B make it competitive with FAU/FIU, but it’d be studying at a flagship that is well-known outside the South (thanks to its scholarships) and most importantly it guarantees Honors college, ie., small classes&opportunities that will help with the ultimate goal of Law School.
Law school solid - 35 rank - and if you graduate in less than four years due to AP credit you can use the remainder in grad school, law or otherwise if the student remained.
Good call @MYOS1634
You have been very helpful @MYOS1634.
We’ll do further research on the options.
He is in French Honors club, I don’t know if it is anything.
He plans to bring up GPA to 3.5W at graduation.
He may have 1st semester senior year transcripts only end of December.
For BF, it is at the time of graduation.
Right now, he only has 3.3W.
@MYOS1634
He has done Algebra II and doing statistics.
AP US history done, doing AP English, French, AICE Psychology and AP physics.
All he can do is his best. BF doesn’t round up the gpa, so a 3.49999 is not going to do it for the top award. It’s hard to pull a gpa up in just one year.
But a 75% award is still very good only about $2000 off the top award. He also should try for some of the local scholarships. We didn’t even know about some of them until ‘Awards Night’ of senior year (too late!) but most communities have a lot of little ones like an essay contest from the American Legion or an art scholarship from a photography studio, and those $500 awards can help pay for books or a few pizzas.
UF says they are holistic in admissions and don’t consider class rank, but I don’t believe them. A friend’s daugther had a gpa over 4.3, a high test score all the things on paper that said she should get into UF, but she didn’t get in. She was at a bop high school in Gainesville and UF doesn’t accept 50+ kids from the same high school. She was ranked about 30th in the class, but that’s because the entire graduating class had high stats. There isn’t much a kid can do about that except keep an open mind for all the FL public schools (this kid didn’t and she went OOS).
The kids all get their minds set on one school or another. My nephew was a top hs student from a school near Tampa and for some reason he (and many of his classmates) just couldn’t stand FSU. That was fine because he got into UF, USF, and UCF but he wouldn’t even apply to FSU. My daughter’s classmates split pretty evenly between UF, FSU and UCF if they were at the top of the class, and the next group sort of spread out among the next level with a lot at UNF (we were in a JAX suburb) and FIU. Fewer went to West Florida or USF, mainly because those were farther away.
Very good points @twoinanddone
We got a private scholarship to try, need to check eligibility.
We got a good chance with FAU. UF to FIU are in the list as reach as he likes those.