<p>The first time he scored 1210 using the CR and Math only sections.</p>
<p>The second time he scored a 680 CR and 620 in Math for a total of 1300.
He was quite disappointed with his SAT math score. He has always made A's in math and is very bored with his math class Alg 2 with Trig. He thinks he probably made careless mistakes or was in too big of a hurry.</p>
<p>He has taken the ACT three times. The first time was in his sophomore year and his composite score was 24. The second time was in the fall of his junior year and the composite score increased to 28. The scores from the January ACT are back and his composite score increased to a 32. We were pretty excited over this because we thought it would only increase a point or two. </p>
<p>He wants to apply at Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Tulane, UAB (for safety school) and is still trying to come up with a few more choices. </p>
<p>In previous posts some have said that most of these schools would be a
reach. Will these new higher scores realistically improve his chances at
Rice, Vanderbilt and Duke? He understands that Harvard and Stanford are very long shots and that most people are denied. He has a few EC's but not alot and he is vice president of the chess club.</p>
<p>We would appreciate any advice or suggestions.</p>
<p>Is he happy with UAB as a safety school? I too often hear people saying after the fact that “he never really liked his safety”. I don’t know enough about Tulane or Vanderbilt to speculate about them. The others are pretty reachy for all or most. Do you need financial safety?</p>
<p>Agree he should use the ACT and study for the SAT IIs.</p>
<p>Mom of Four, at schools that accept the ACT in lieu of all other testing, don’t send the SAT OR SAT Subject Tests at all. (Now if it’s 3 800’s on Subject Tests , well…we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.)</p>
<p>I know I’m not a parent, but I thought that my own experience might be relevant in this situation. I’m not sure about the other schools, but I applied to Tulane with a 1410 CR+M and a 3.7 UW GPA and and some average (at least by CC standards) ECs, and I got a nice merit scholarship from them.</p>
<p>So to answer your question: Yes, I think that the improvement in the SAT scores, in the context of good grades and extracurricular involvement should put your S in a good position to get into Tulane. </p>
<p>I don’t know that it makes a significant difference, but I applied using the free, priority application (ie fee waived, no additional essay, November due date), which supposedly puts you toward the front of the line for scholarships, but I don’t know that admissions standards are any stricter for regular decision.</p>
<p>Is he really happy with UAB or is that thought of as a worst case scenario result? His reaches seem highly unlikely to me (just another junior parent trying to figure it all out) and I’d worry that he might get his heart set on a big name school only to be disappointed. His reaches routinely deny kids with much higher scores, and if he’s not bringing something else they need, his chances don’t look so great. That’s not to say he shouldn’t give it a try, but he should understand it’s a really long shot. </p>
<p>I’d encourage him to look for schools where that 32 (or the 1300) is above the 75%ile. It’s nice to have choices in the end.</p>
<p>Hi Srobin, I’m probably one of the few people on this board who is actually familiar with UAB, except maybe NotreDameAL.</p>
<p>A 32 will be a big help at Vanderbilt, not sure that he will get in, but it will definitely help. I am less familiar with Rice. Tulane should be a match. Has he considered Furman and Wake? Ifr his grades and coursework are in sync with a 32, he should do well at those 2. Is he interested in engineering?</p>
<p>Students from here who have looked at UAB over the last 4 years have been quite impressed. It appeals to kids (lots of boys) who haven’t necessarily done as well as they could in high school but are ready for more of a challenge. The bar for Honors College is a little lower, so you can get in on the smaller classes without making a 30 on the ACT. They are opening new dorms, and trying to convert what was a quintessential commuter school to a more residental campus.</p>
<p>He should also consider B’ham Southern as a safety. He will get merit money with a 32, and if he is interested in medicine, some people would say that it is a better choice than UAB for med school admission.</p>
<p>This is to answer some of the latest questions posed to me. DS is not totally unhappy with UAB although he does consider it his safety school. For months all he taked about was UAB’s honors fast tract program (BS and Masters in 5 yrs). When he started scoring well on the ACT he started talking about much more selective schools. We have visited UAB and it has a nice campus and new dorms have been built and it’s improving all the time. They have an excellent medical school should he decide to go in that direction.</p>
<p>He is interested in either mathamatics ,engineering or maybe biomed. At first he swore that he was going to teach, now he says that he might do something else first and then teach. The degree will definitely be in one of those two fields.</p>
<p>He lives Vanderbilt because of the location, reputation etc. He thinks he has a chance of getting in. In less we are reading the stats wrong they list on their admissions page he falls somewhere in the 50% percentile. Am I reading other posts correctly does he need to be at the top of the percentage scale?
His EC’s are not that great. A few clubs, VP of chess club, a local one year student ambasador for the Chamber of Commerce, some work.</p>
<p>We have heard good things about Tulane and I love the ideal. It’s much closer to home at least he could come visit. We are planning to visit their campus. Is the priority application (the one where essay is not required binding)? </p>
<p>He is being flooded with mail every day from different schools some of which I have never heard of.</p>
<p>He is planning on taking the SAT one last time. As previously posted he does not understand why he only scored a 620 on the math since his practice tests were much higher and he makes A’s in his Alg 2/Trig class.</p>
<p>srobin, many of us are very conservative in assessing chances. It is for most of us a fire-tempered experience that guides us. Even with stats well above the 75th anywhere my D was waitlisted at a school where we thought she was a pretty solid candidate, with what we thought was a great app and interview. It is the view of many of us that the bottom 25% of the accepted student range can be thrown out. If your kid was to be in that bunch, we would consider him to be “hooked” in some way (or at least “Lucky Johnny the Lotto-boy”). For un-hooked kids the 75th percentile is the mid-point. It is that conservative bent that leads us to the posts above. Now, does that mean you should not try for the most selective schools? Heck, no. You can’t win if you don’t play. Just don’t for a second let the student think it is anything but a longshot.</p>
<p>Listen to Curmudgeon, we are being conservative with assessing chances, BUT, that is how you should be in advising your son, and how he should be in making his list.</p>
<p>I actually think that based on scores alone, Vandy is a match for your son. Keep in mind, though, that a match only means that his chances are 50-50 or at best 60-40/70-30, it is not a safety.
You may ask why be so negative, that’s not what the published score ranges say - we don’t know what his grades are, what courses he has taken, where he is from, class rank, goals of other students in his class, on and on. There are just too many variables for anyone to predict for certain.</p>
<p>That’s why you will read posters here pounding home the theme of “Love thy safety, love thy safety”, and the notion of rolling admission. Having an early acceptance to a rolling admission school that the student would be happy to attend,and can afford to attend, is freeing and empowering. Now he can take a lot more risk in his application list, because he knows he is going to a school that he is happy to attend.
One of the advantages of the South is that only a minority of schools actually follow the uniform acceptance date of April 1. A good student here, who doesn’t have very specific requirements of major or program, can have a couple of good safety acceptances in hand by Nov at the latest, which makes for a very different attitude toward matches and reaches, than the poor kid in NY who might have to wait until the spring to hear from any school.</p>
<p>The most important schools are his match schools. I only see one on his list - Tulane. If he is happy with his safety, he can move up from there, but he should be looking at more schools where he is at or above the 50 percentile mark in test scores and GPA. Having so few ECs is a negative at the top schools. Have you left off any activities, perhaps something at church or hobby-related, that would show his interests?</p>
<p>Keep adding schools through this semester, then, in the summer, get realistic about safety and match schools. I would advise him to cut down his list of reaches to 3, including Vanderbilt. Having 2-4 reaches, 3-5 matches, 1-2 safeties is a good guideline. </p>
<p>This is a good time for the family to see the college counselor at your school. Ask to see the Naviance diagrams, if your school has them. They will tell you the GPA and test scores of students who have accepted to top schools in the past few years.</p>
<p>Srobin, considering that the 32 ACT will be --at best-- neutral at the reaches and matches. This score, albeit very competitive on a national basis, will merely keep your son “in the running” with probably 50% of the applicants. </p>
<p>Since most schools you listed rely on an extensive holistic approach, your son will need a very strong application that encompasses a very high ranking, almost perfect HS grades, and very strong ECs, and at least ONE impressive angle. Simply stated, if all the statistics are very good but not superlative, the chances at schools that are high reaches will not be good and iffy at the high matches.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when it comes to successful applications at the most selective schools, the days of the very bright and well-rounded kids are long gone.</p>
<p>PS Please take a look at the explosion of applications at Tulane and increases at Vanderbilt. The “match” schools from a decade ago, or even 3-4 years ago, have become a lot more competitive. This said, if a clear choice can be made for an Early Decision, your chances improve DRASTICALLY, especially at schools such as Duke that have found it extremely difficult to raise their volume of ED applicants.</p>
Even with stats well above the 75th anywhere my D was waitlisted at a school where we thought she was a pretty solid candidate, with what we thought was a great app and interview. It is the view of many of us that the bottom 25% of the accepted student range can be thrown out. If your kid was to be in that bunch, we would consider him to be “hooked” in some way (or at least “Lucky Johnny the Lotto-boy”). For un-hooked kids the 75th percentile is the mid-point. It is that conservative bent that leads us to the posts above. Now, does that mean you should not try for the most selective schools? Heck, no. You can’t win if you don’t play.