High score, low GPA nightmare - Seeking advice for college list please?

Parents Forum
21

^Unless I am misunderstanding, the advice to take regular level classes and aceing them goes against what I have heard at every single college info session, including a more in depth workshop hosted by a local university that I attended. They really seem interested in students challenging themselves with rigorous courses, so long as they are not struggling in those courses. This student has a B+ average. That is pretty good! How precipitous was his drop in grades? The first post doesn’t really detail that, but if they went from A to B with the addition of more rigorous and competitive courses, is it really that awful? Is there an indication that the student has slacked off in study habits or just that the grades went down? It seems inevitable that on any like thread, an attention disorder will be mentioned, and fuel to the anything-worse-than-an-A+average is concerning fire will be added.

The parent asked about a list of schools to apply to and what others think of that list. That was the original question. He’s interested in Computer Science. My view of the list is that schools are a little mixed up in terms of category. Other than that, there is a good mix on there that he is likely to be admitted to some.

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^ The grades are not bad, just hurt the chance for college application. The same case for overachieving students taking tons of AP and suffer in GPA.

23

There really is information missing here. Why is your son taking college classes? Was he bored in high school? How involved is he, still, in the local high school? What classes was he taking at the college? Would he be able to continue there?

I think people often suggest that high scores with a GPA lower than predicted by those scores, can be a red flag. A kid with lower scores and higher GPA than predicted, is seen as having a good work ethic. Is there a reason that grades dropped, other than increased difficulty or increased workload for the college courses?

Of course we will speculate about ADHD, learning issues, depression, anxiety etc. etc. but that is just because there seems to be some missing information here. Has the gap between ability and performance always been an issue, or is it a short term one? Does he require parental support and help at all?

Then again, the high scores cited were in math and science. How does he do in other areas of study? Does he have problems with history, English, other subjects that demand verbal skills?

Because some feel these grades are fine, I converted the 3.3 to an 82.5- I have a better feel with that numerical range. If a kid does really well in math science, but not in those more verbal areas, a GPA might be lower but the work ethic okay…is this the case here? Maybe there is no problem, and he is just heavy on math skills and not on verbal.

Computer science is an area of study in which there is a sequence of courses, that usually takes 4 years regardless of what courses your son might have under his belt. So again, it is easy to wonder why he took 60 credits worth of college classes rather than going to high school. I am assuming giftedness had something to do with this course, but you haven’t said. Was he homeschooled at any point?

Northeastern has certainly come up in the world, and they do have a Coop, but the degree takes 5 years. He might want to look at some of the Colleges that Change Lives (book, website, fairs).

Anyway, feel kind of at a loss in responding due to missing info, but wishing him good luck!! He is clearly bright and with your support will most likely find a school to thrive in.

ps UMass Lowell is an interesting option too…

24

@hannuhylu What does this mean??

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Yes, more info, please. Did the student have straight As for two years followed by Cs in the third year or did he have mostly As and some Bs going to mostly Bs with some As. I would be more worried if it was the former and less worried if it was the latter with regards to college admission.

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^^^How is a 3.3 an 82.5? In GPA scale, a 3.3 is a B+. 82.5 is a B-.

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for what it is worth, in my experience, your son will have better admission results if he uses his ED card wisely at a school where he actually has a real chance of admission (which, unfortunately, does not include Cornell). Large public universities rely very heavily on statistics, and I don’t think your son has a good chance at some of them, including VA Tech. Moreover, universities with direct admission to computer science have lower admission rates than overall admissions. Smaller private universities will take a more holistic approach to admissions and improve his odds, particularly if he applies ED but you should consult your counselor/naviance for your school’s results.

28

Computer science is very competitive at Northeaster, WPI and RPI.

You should add RIT and Clarkson to your list, they would like that 34 test score. Maybe get some Merit money with that score.

In my recent experience with NEU admissions I doubt your son is going to get a ton of money there. The CS program is really excepting some super top notch students there. The merit money is going to kids with high test scores, high GPA,diversity etc. They want the “total Package” kids and are willing to pay for them. The rest of the kids don’t get much of anything.

The good thing your son has going for him in the north east schools is that he is from KY and good for geographical diversity and his test score is solid.

Good luck.

29

@garland, I think @compmom computed 3.3 out of 4.0 into a 100 point scale.

3.3/4.0 = 82.5/100

30

Okay, but that’s not how grade equivalents work. A 3.3 is a B’+ and an 82.5 is a B-. The numbers don’t directly compute. For instance, 50 is a failing grade, but 2.0 is a C. So the comparison formulated like that isn’t useful.

31

I translate @hannuhylu 's post by adding punctuation, as follows: “Go where it’s free. Studies prove it doesn’t matter much where you attend.”

32

Garland I never paid much attention to my kids’ GPA’s and weighted/unweighted etc. so confess to being clueless. I did just use the 100 point scale which is obviously incorrect. If a 3.3 is a B+ then the son is in better shape, obviously.

The title of this thread is “High score, low GPA nightmare,” and a B+ isn’t a nightmare! Still if there has been some kind of change recently, it is reasonable to ask why.

33

WPI is on your list. We love it and would recommend it. Students take 3 classes at a time for 7-week terms (few classes to juggle). Learning is extremely project-oriented and hands-on, more so than all but a handful of schools. Is this something that would engage your son, something he would enjoy? And certainly is grades are not “awful,” just somewhat lower than his test scores would seem to suggest he is capable of.

One additional question, could there be a subtle learning issue affecting school? Obviously your student does well in school, but smaller, less obvious things can have an impact. The student I referenced in my first post, it was later found, has pretty severe dysgraphia (inability to write). They are great on a keyboard, so began using that for tests. But I can imagine it made school much less fun to have to do something extremely difficult. Their ability to write was equally low in both hands. I liked school a lot, but if teachers required me to write left-handed, instead of right, it would have been far less pleasant, which was essentially the case for this student.

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^No worries. :slight_smile: I am steeped in this stuff as a college instructor, so I can recite all the equivalents from memory, basically. But yes, of course drop is a concern.

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Since he is in dual enrollment and wants CS, his grades in his college technical classes is what will matter most. Colleges like Ga Tech and RPI (and Cornell) where they have a reputation of being an academic grind may not be the best match for him.

Echoing what TTG said. My oldest took a year off after HS and it made a world of difference.

36

I would really look at why his grades dropped this year taking college level classes. What college (or at least type of college) is it and did he find the classes too challenging or was it time management? Going to one of the top colleges will be very challenging if the dual enrollment classes were hard for him. I would try to find out why he didn’t do as well. If it is challenging college, however, the Bs may well be OK for even the more competitive colleges. College classes tend to be harder than HS.

I am also not clear if you are eligible for need-based aid or looking for merit money. With that GPA, he is unlikely to get much merit aid.

In my experience, RPI would be a low reach and UR would not give him merit and is pretty reachy. I agree with adding RIT as he might get some money as well.

To me a 3.3 is not quite a B+, but is between a B (3.0) and a B+ (3.5). The weighted is a B+, but lots of kids applying to schools like RPI have closer to a 4.0 weighted.

Miami of Ohio may be a safety to consider, as I think they give merit, have comp science, and would probably be happy with his high test scores.

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Do you mean, OP that you can cover full pay at all the schools on your list? You said finances are a concern.Do you have an EFC at your picks? It is hard to parse “finances being an issue” vs being full pay at NEU, for e.g.
As OP has had one kid go through the DE/early college and go to Cornell, then I would take it at face value that the GPA is a problem vs a rigour issue.

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^If A is 4.0 and B is 3.0, then in between are A- and B+ spaced evenly. 3.5 is mathematically exactly halfway between A- and B+. (Usually schools publish the values they use, so it shouldn’t matter what we think anyway. :slight_smile: )

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It’s not something we have to guess at or have opinions about. In college terms, 3.3 is a B+, pretty much everywhere.

http://www.collegeboard.com/html/academicTracker-howtoconvert.html

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Thank you so much for all who responded. We certainly appreciate your time, and I would like to provide some more background information. This is rather long so if you are not interested, please skip. :slight_smile:

  • My S is attending an out of town boarding high school that is located on an accredited university campus. As such, he takes all junior/senior classes at the university. Classes are obviously rigorous starting from Calc 2, Multi Calc (Calc 3), CS ones, etc. while other students may be starting with Trig or Calc 1. His ACT English/Reading are in low 30s. Not bad, but he could do certainly better.
  • This boarding school is the same one as our older D went who is now at Cornell CS intended major. (No legacy hook).
  • He is taking classes at this school mainly because he was running out of classes to take at local high school (he took AP calculus BC and AP Physics C as a sophomore), and we had a good result with our D. Also, we believe this is an excellent opportunity for him to grow/mature as a person with ample supervision as a high schooler from school admins. He is an Eagle scout and is independent and ok to live away from home.
  • I don’t mean to brag so please don’t take this personally, but he is considered gifted in terms of his high IQ (near 160) and based on his past activities for regional/state/national level competitions. Honestly, his academic ability itself is higher than our D’s who is at Cornell. As such, we initially thought he would be able to get into a top 20 school. The GPA drop appears to be the results of playing games too much and poor time management which we will work through with him this summer. We do not believe he has ADHD, but we haven’t been officially diagnosed. He does get bored easily that we need to address. He is learning hard lessons and we hope he will grow up.
  • I am a CS graduate from a top 30 engineering school, and I do know how hard it is to graduate with a CS degree.
  • I worked with students and professors at MIT/CMU in the past, and I currently work in a research organization. As such, I have seen and do see high achieving students/professors on a daily basis. Our family expectation has been generally high due to our D going to Cornell and my experience.
  • Finances are a concern, but most likely not a showstopper. We qualify for need-based. For private schools with need-based funding, we are ok for his 4 years. For OOS schools, we are expecting most credits to transfer. If he can graduate in 3 years, then with his co-op/summer intern, I think we will be ok though it will be rather tight. I am confident some or more credits will transfer from this school since we were able to reduce one semester worth for D, and we have information from this school’s past graduates that some schools accept most (if not all) credits. He has secured a paid intern for this summer (he has done summer intern since freshman year). For private schools without need-based, we can’t pay obviously. Our D got FWS and we are hopeful he could probably get a similar one while he is taking a full-time load in a semester. Most schools we are looking at appear to have co-op support. The summer intern he got is through a local organization and as such, I am not too worried about co-op support from school if the school doesn’t offer one.
  • We are currently not considering a GAP year or LACs. If he does a co-op for a semester with a summer intern, that’s almost 7 or so months which we hope he will gain a similar to GAP experience. We do believe he would like WPI’s project-based studies.
  • Our D got accepted to U Michigan and GT, and got some scholarship. Somebody mentioned no money from GT for OOS. In our case, even for S, NPC shows similar scholarship offer. As such, we might be able to get some if he can get accepted. I also hear GT does GPA recalculate for college classes and that should help.
  • After having said all these, we are currently more worried about admission than merit money. We are not expecting much from merit due to low GPA. Somebody mentioned “low GPA nightmare” doesn’t sound appropriate. However, he kept the freshman/sophomore GPA with near straight As, and going down to 3.3 (most Bs) feels like a nightmare to us.
  • I mistakenly put RPI is a wrong category. I apologize. It should be reach. NEU would also be reach. This is a list that we (parents and he) came up.

I hope these help clarify our situation a bit more. Thank you again for your responses!!