My son has a 1320 (660/660) SAT, SAT Physics 700, Math2 results in friday, 4.1 W, and is a full IB candidate taking HL MATH, HL PHYSICS & HL COMPUTER SCIENCE. I only see discussion about AP. Any thoughts?
Multi sport V athlete and robotics team.
He wants to major in mechanical engineering. He may play a sport. We haven’t discussed it.
I know credit is offered based on outcome of subject tests. Irrelevant in this instances one must be accepted first.
I guess I just wondered if academic rigor played a factor in evaluating a candidate, or if it was hard and fast scores/gpa.
@Anninhawaii That’s a tough question to answer. If your son is applying regular decision and not early decision, this is definitely a reach school. Private schools generally have a holistic approach and review all parts of application closely while state schools are more focused on scores/gpa. From Naviance records last year, IB diploma students with higher SAT, who applied regular decision, were waitlisted.
Also, since we live in Hawaii it is quite difficult to visit in advance. We didn’t do ED specifically for that reason. Didn’t want to commit sight unseen.
@Anninhawaii Unfortunately, RPI is not a school that looks at geographical location as a perk as some schools do where they try to get some students from various locations. On the other hand, RPI is a top 50 school in the United States for Mechanical Engineering which makes it a very competitive school to get accepted for. RPI is currently ranked 31 for ME which means the amount of applications for that major will be a bit tougher than for other less sought after majors. As far as the academics, we ofcourse can only guess but I’d say he is on the lower edge of the range for accepted overall students; the SAT average is above 1400 with the lower end of math being 680 and the median is 722. Subject tests are not necessary but since your child took it I’m guessing it might be worth sending it if he got above a 740 or so. There is still time to take the sat over again but understandably senior year is a lot of stress and he may be feeling overwhelmed with so much going on. I’d suggest just telling him the cold hard facts of these details and let him tell you if he feels like retesting or just let the scores stand on there own. With regard to financial aid, RPI is extremely affordable as long as you ensure that you’ve properly filled out your FAFSA and CSS properly (I hope everyone has completed theirs by now as the deadline is soon approaches).
Good luck!