My kids graduated from a well-known urban academic magnet public school where a large majority of kids were from low-income families. There was no question that the school was very popular with the admissions offices of most Ivy League and equivalent colleges, and it sent lots of students to such colleges – over 30 in one child’s class, and around 25 in the other’s. Out of a total class of ~550. Unless they were top athletes, the kids who got accepted at those colleges had no Cs, and precious few Bs, on their transcripts.
Now, this was a school at which grade inflation was pretty much the order of the day, so it may be the case that Cs are not a problem at a different sort of school. But the fact remains that only the best students were getting admitted to the most selective colleges – top 10% of the class, and most from the top 5% (top 2% for HYPSM).
Problem is, for every brilliant kid who can’t be bothered with what he/she percieves as “busy work” (and it might or might not be), there are brilliant kids who are willing to complete assignments and do what they need to do, thus getting both high SAT/ACT scores and high grades. Seems as if the latter will be more likely to impress ad coms.
Sounds like the kid described above did his research.
Cornell and Colgate both reserve somewhere in the region of 30 and 60 slots for very low income in-states who “have not met their academic potential” under the H/EOP agreement with New York State. Even then, the problem is that this kid clearly has the talent but either chose not to/wasn’t able to put it to work. Those ECs/recs/essays are going to have be stellar if he hopes to beat out lower scoring students who made the most out of their surroundings (though again, none of us knows the D’s friend, so anything is possible.) Even though Colgate and Cornell claim to not look at writing, an 800 in that section indicates there’s a serious amount of writing talent (since he likely couldn’t afford tutors,) so I’ll buy into the essays being strong. He’d also better be keeping in close contact with his rep, since neither school offers interviews.
Not every brilliant kid is a good student, especially in high school. The difficultly for the college is whether to take a chance on a kid that may continue to be a mediocre student in college, or who will blossom there. Especially when a student has a very low income and thus may have had difficulty in keeping track of homework or projects, or may have had a lot on his plate at home. OTOH, as others have said, he simply may be unwilling to do the busy work and is a kid that aces tests with little effort but doesn’t bother to turn in the homework. In college there is less busy work, but often the kids who floated through HS with little studying hit a wall when faced with the more complex work of college courses. .
@GMTplus7, what I said (above) in post #69 is how the movie progresses. Robin Williams’ character claims that great poetry is determined individually, by how the reader is moved by the sense of the writing (or something like that). The boarding school (filmed at St Andrews in DE) traditionally taught out of a book that tried to systematize what is great.
If you look at post #69, you will see that Robin Williams’ character in that movie essentially agrees with you that poetry resists systematic ranking of greatness, as he shows his disdain for this approach:
Truly Gifted kids are rare. Assuming average IQ at Stuyvesant is 115, you wouldn’t expect a kid with an IQ of 70 to perform well in the classroom-- that’s a 45 point IQ difference. Why would you expect a kid with a 160+ IQ to perform well? [Yes, I know, I am making assumptions here].
Hopefully he will find a home that can contain him and help him to harness and direct his talent. It must have been a real privilege to spend time with him!
It sounds like it may benefit him to somehow spend time in classes at Columbia or something; so that someone with clout gets to know him personally.
Giantsfan: This may be because he didn’t bother to write the essay required or his grades were very bad. Since his SATs are good. It is really too bad. Although I didn’t think the finalist notification came out until this month.
He didn’t write the required essay? Of course he didn’t become a NM finalist! This sounds like a kid who is deliberately shooting himself in the foot and a Mom in strong denial. He may be intellect incarnate, but he won’t get far if he can’t be bothered to make the most of his opportunities.
I was the only NM Semifinalist in my class, but since I wasn’t in good academic standing, my school would not even endorse me for Finalist status. So I didn’t even reach the step of being rejected for my grades, which would certainly have happened.
Student was predictably rejected at Cornell & Colgate, though everything else is a surprise given the GPA.
Waitlisted at Chicago, Georgetown(!!!)
Admitted at American with a massive grant to study int’l development, Occidental, in-state public ivy with a full ride, and all state schools to which he applied.
Plans to attend American for a bit and transfer to Georgetown where he feels “more comfortable with the academic environment.”
There was a question earlier about how his SES status may have impacted his grades. There seems to be some assumption that this is a smart kid who just didn’t do the work to earn higher grades.
SES status can impact grades in a number of ways- was this kid working an outside job, limiting time to do homework? Was his home life so chaotic that there wasn’t time or space to do homework? Was he caring for younger siblings? There are dozens of scenarios that could limit this kids opportunities to do the work up to his intellectual capabilities. He could be a kid who wouldn’t do busy work but the fact that teachers like him doesn’t indicate that to me.