I just found out that my son, a 10th grader, ranks at #213 in his class of around 440 kids. At least he’s in the top half
No, he’s not a slacker but he’s not really working to his full potential either. Also he’s in a competitive college prep private HS, where the average SAT score is somewhere in the high 1800s/low 1900s, I don’t have all the exact numbers but I do know that it’s 631 verbal, 647 math. FWIW he tends to do very well on standardized tests and can probably do better than 1900 on the SAT. At least I hope so!
His current average is 91.3 UW, College Board says that’s a 3.7 on the 4 point scale? The school doesn’t weight and considers all their courses to be Honors. They don’t offer AP classes but a number of students take the AP exams on their own–he’ll do AP Euro at the end of this year.
So should our strategy be to apply to colleges where class rank is not in the “most important” column on the Common Data Set? Most selective schools have it as either “most important” or "important’. So far I’ve found just 1 relatively selective school (Loyola MD) where class rank is just in the “considered” column. He says that he wants to go to a selective school and I’ve been telling him that if he does, he needs to step up and improve his GPA.
Part of the issue is finances–we need to keep COA down to 35K or below which means in-state schools or merit scholarships.
Any insights would be helpful, we just went through this whole process with my daughter who is happy with her college and choice but her high school didn’t rank so this is a new factor for me.
Are you a Maryland resident?
According to its 2014-15 Common Data Set, at UMd-College Park the average HS GPA of entering freshmen (those who submitted GPA, anyway) was 4.15. 73% were in the top 10% of their graduating classes, 90% in the top quarter.
Maryland considers rigor, GPA, and scores “very important”. It considers class rank “important”.
Your son’s rank (if it stays where it is) would place him below 90% of entering UM-CP freshmen. So from that perspective I’d consider UM-CP a big reach. However, it may be the case that Maryland focuses mainly on the GPA and scores, not rank (especially if they know the HS is very competitive). If your school has Naviance, you can check how well its ~3.7 GPA applicants have fared at UM-CP (or other schools of interest).
“Automatic” merit scholarships typically are awarded based on GPA and scores. His GPA might be good enough (if it stays where it is). To have a shot at, say, Alabama’s Presidential scholarship, he’d also need at least a 1400 SAT M+CR or 32 ACT (http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html).
Of course, if he’s only beginning the 10th grade, he does have time to raise his GPA and rank.
I think that’s the right response. This is his problem. Make sure he knows the cost parameters and that the rest is on him. Better grades and scores will mean more options for merit aid.
His school does have Naviance but I just looked up access information on the school website and it looks like we won’t be given the access code until a meeting in January of Junior year.
We’re in NY where we don’t have a flagship, but SUNY Stony Brook, one of the better campuses, is another school where class rank is just “considered”–even though according to collegedata.com “more than 50% of freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school class” SUNY Binghamton, which I thought would be an easy match or even a safety, has class rank rated “important”
One reason I was looking at Loyola Maryland is that I’ve heard of students from his school getting decent aid from there. Another school which he’s heard is a safety for kids from his school is U of Scranton–so he doesn’t want to go to Scranton.
I thought he was doing all right because he’s on the honor roll but it turns out that the top half of the class is on the honor roll :-??
My S’12 had a lot of good options with merit aid despite being in the 80% (that’s bottom 20 y’all), a just-under 3.0 gpa and a 28 ACT. He did especially well with LACs, who seem to lower their standards a bit to get more boys.
Thank you @OHMomof2 ! Would you care to share some school names especially on the East Coast?
I really needed to hear about kids not highly ranked doing all right, and your post about your S came just in time. I was getting very discouraged thinking that mine didn’t have many good options and I would have to tell him that his only real choices are our state schools.
Not that I’d be unhappy if he ended up there but I think he’ll work harder knowing there are other possibilities.
He wanted near to home so no east coast but his best financial options in the end were Depauw, Wooster, Adrian and Capital. Wooster accepted him after initially waitlisting him and still offered a nice merit package.
