<p>We had to move last year, so my daughter has been going to a low quality public high school since Nov. of her junior year. She's now a senior at this same school. Will this impact her choice of colleges? She's got a 3.0 GPA but did well on her SATs: 630V, 570W, 550M. Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>yeah it will hurt tremendously if the school isnt well to begin with and she has a 3.0, but a 1800(ish) on her sats. her gpa should have been higher</p>
<p>it depends on what college you’re aiming for. these stats are definitely not good enough to get into the ivies, but she probably still has a decent shot at a state/local school.</p>
<p>in general, colleges don’t hold the quality of your high school against you because they know it’s not something you can control. IE, going to a really GOOD high school will help your application, but not going to a great one won’t hurt it. if your daughter has taken hard classes/will have good recs from her teachers, it won’t matter too much.</p>
<p>^^^for ivy and competitive schools it does.</p>
<p>Hi Rissy and welcome to CC!</p>
<p>We really need more information about what schools you’re D is interest in to give you an informative answer.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies. Yes, daughter has always had situation of not applying herself when it comes to classwork, but always pulls it out on the tests. Problem is, of course, that grades don’t come from 100% tests, but homework, assignments, etc. In some cases, she’s ranged from A to D in the same class over the course of one school year – thus the lower than should be GPA.</p>
<p>She’s interested in the “quirky” colleges (no surprise there), so we’re looking at Bennington, Marlboro, Hampshire, Clark, Eckerd and New College of Florida. She wants no “rah rah” schools and no heavy Greek either.</p>
<p>She loves the “learning for the sake of learning” concept that these colleges advertise. I’m just not sure if she’s even got a chance at this point. She’s been in college prep classes throughout high school, but no AP or honors at all.</p>
<p>what do you mean by “college prep” classes? usually those are considered honors at the very least…</p>
<p>Try Shimer for the Great Books ‘learning for the sake of’ sort of feel.</p>
<p>Edit: In many public schools (or at least mine) College prep is NOT considered honors or AP, it is just the bare minimum to get into the local state schools. AP/Honors is just ‘extra’.</p>
<p>At her old high school, there was “regular” track and “college prep” track (in addition to AP and honors). Silly me, I thought “college prep” meant preparation for college.</p>
<p>fire bunny, college prep is the new word to describe “grade level” classes that would be sufficient for state schools or lower. it is considered the regular track at most schools</p>
<p>I go to a magnet school which ranks top 5 in the state of Georgia. This past year it ranked number 1 because every single junior passed the Georgia High school graduation test. We started out with 110 students and now we are left with 82 students.</p>
<p>I rank in the top half of that class of 82 students (not top 10 percent) and my overall GPA is like a 3.3 or 3.2 something, my core GPA is a 3.0 and that is because my grades were average (B’s, C’s and a A here and there) my sophomore and freshman year (my GPA at the end was a 2.8 core and 3.0 overall). My junior year I made the honor roll every single grading period (I ended up making A’s mostly, had the highest average in my AP Euro class) and right now I am a senior that is making All A’s.</p>
<p>Do I have a chance of getting to an out of state college or earning a scholarship if I get an 1800 overall SAT score?</p>
<p>So it would seem the low quality public high school isn’t my only problem – the fact that my daughter’s “only” been on the college prep. track is a problem also. Is all lost at this point (except going to a state school or lower)? What about the colleges I mentioned above - any chance at all??</p>
<p>^i have not heard of those schools nor do i know what it takes to get into them. check to see if they have subsections under “Alphabetical list of colleges” if not, then go check collegeboard.com for the school. Its quicker if you type in the “school name” collegeboard on google</p>
<p>At least 3 of the colleges you mention don’t give grades. They use something called narrative evaluation. Most of the learning/work is student driven and for that to work the student really needs to be driven.</p>
<p>Thanks, J’adoube - for the hope. Yeah, she’s driven but not the “jump thru the hoops” kind of driven, so I think the designing your own major, and taking your education into your own hands concepts would definitely work for her. I’ll have to concentrate on those kinds of colleges. thanks again.</p>
<p>Just chiming in that “college prep” classes where I live are also the minimum level available. It usually goes college prep, honors, AP. This happens because the old classes, which didn’t have prefixes (just “English 10”) were called “regular” classes. But people didn’t like that, and it seemed that they were a lower level (which they are, so I never understood the complaint), so now they are called “college prep” classes.</p>
<p>I think the quality of high school is a big factor. If you’re #1 in your class of a small rural school offering 3 AP classes…you MIGHT get a 2nd look at an Ivy type school. </p>
<p>If you’re #15 in your class at a large, rigorous, IB diploma school that has been a feeder system of students who did well at any given college…they’d be much more apt to consider this student. </p>
<p>The admisssions offices have representatives by area, so they can get to know the schools. That said, they’re HUGE areas. So bigger schools tend to fare better. Or well respected private schools of course.</p>
<p>This is even true of some state colleges. My niece went to our state college on a “full ride”…their most prestigious scholarship offered. But she was told that getting an “A” at her public high school did not mean the same thing to them as a child who gets an “A” at the top public school in our state. </p>
<p>It’s frustrating because my niece MIGHT have been able to get that A at that school too, but the admissions counselors can’t know that. So THAT is one small reason why colleges want you to take the most rigorous course load. If you can at least show some 5s in your AP exams, then they have some way to compare you to students at another school. Without that, at any level, it’s trying to compare apples to oranges.</p>
<p>“… “college prep” classes where I live are also the minimum level available. It usually goes college prep, honors, AP…”</p>
<p>This is just my point. There WERE “regular” classes (I forget the exact name) in addition to college prep. honors and AP classes in her old school. College prep. classes were NOT the minimum. So why would I assume college prep. classes would be something less than preparation for college??</p>
<p>At our public there are also several levels…there are special ed/extra help courses, “regular/non-college prep”, college-prep, honors, and AP. Our public is ridiculous with grading and weights even the college prep courses 1.25. Honors and ap are weighted 1.5. Half the school ends up with a 5.0 gpa and practically everyone is on the honor roll. It is very deceptive to the students as they all think they are amazing and then half of them end up at the local tech school.</p>
<p>Rissy,</p>
<p>At many schools in this country, not even AP classes are held at a level that are preparation for college - not even Big State Us, and certainly not the colleges that get hype on CC. I would say that you would need to take at least an honors level schedule to be best prepared for anything other than a satellite state campus or the community college - though of course, that depends on your school. Public schools are all about deceptive naming so that no one “feels bad.” It’s like the “everyone wins” race - at my school, for example, there were open enrollment for AP courses so that more people would take them, when really that just meant they’d have to be taught at an even lower level. I’ve learned that with public school, you can’t expect an AP class to be taught on a collegiate level, and you can’t expect an honors class to be anything more than a regular class with twice as much work (but nothing anymore challenging). Unfortunately, you can’t expect that teachers - or the students, parents, and counselors who enroll students in the first place - care about the distinction between regular and College Prep. Your best bet is to investigate each class and choose the most rigorous courses you can or want to handle, but not to stick by label. If the AP Psychology teacher is pretty lax and the work isn’t that hard, why not take AP Psychology instead of College Prep psychology? It wouldn’t be any more difficult, but at least you could say you took an AP class.</p>