Quick question if you know. On common data set, colleges report GPA of “enrolled students.” Do you (or does anyone) know if the GPA they report is the GPA that was submitted with applications (based on through Junior year), or the “final GPA” submitted by those students during their Senior year?
For CDS, final GPA submitted, whatever that is.
Submitted with application can vary: end of Jr year, 1st quarter/1st term senior yr, even 1st semester when school starts early August.
For “freshman class profile” (often found on website with “Welcome class of '2x”): submitted with application.
In addition, students must indicate if they get a final grade of D or F in any class.
A thread that may be interesting:
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Agree with myos, it’s the final HS GPA on the CDS. And, if you don’t know specifically how the school calculates that CDS GPA (and whether AOs calculate it the same way in the admissions process), it is meaningless as a tool to use for anything really.
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The guidance counselor can explain the schedule conflict. If it were me, as a parent, I would focus on keeping stress down and not encourage more classes. Or maybe an easy intro class for Italian on vhslearning.org that she can do asynchronously (assigments due weekly) and at home.
And I would continue to encourage time spent on music, which may actually help her more with admissions that a rigorous (and stressful) FL class, and may be more fulfilling during a difficult year for everyone.
ps worrying about GPA of students at schools seems like dancing on the head of a pin to me…there may be better criteria like freedom of curriculum (so music can be done along with those other subjects0, strength of extracurricular music, and especially “vibe.”
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CW: suicide
The “dancing on the head of a pin” analogy is apt. Rather than adding more courses (the Italian 101 makes no sense to me), fretting about what is in the past and how to increase GPA (which is hard to do at this point in high school, as three years of grades are of course baked-in already), I would alleviate stress as it WILL be a stressful fall without piling more on.
And perhaps most importantly, look at schools that would welcome OP’s daughter (there are so many!) rather than focus on the brand-name most rejective schools she had on her mental list (and bookmarked in her browser!) since middle school. I fear that the CTCL school names will mostly draw a blank in her daughter’s mind, which is a darn shame, since there are some gems there and not only would they welcome this student, they would provide close-knit community, excellent academics and perhaps great merit aid (see original post where lowering cost was mentioned, before a relative offered to help with tuition).
There is still time left for de-programming. OP, please take your daughter to visit one or two schools like Goucher, and maybe a few others from www.ctcl.org, focusing on a few that are driving distance from your home.
My older kid is a highly sensitive kiddo like OP’s daughter, and a perfectionist (but also highly functioning and graduated with an 3.98 UW). The comment “cries when happy, sad, angry, wears nerve endings on skin and uses 50% of energy to just get by on a day to day basis” really hit home. Freshman year was HARD (there was a suicide on her hall and it nearly broke her to live in that dorm for the rest of the school year). I wasn’t sure she would make it, yet she had some deep emotional reserves and we strategized how to best support her. Supporting a kid like this her first year of college (and beyond) is something to plan for and assume the plan will be utilized.
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Op, her transcript/record is what it is at this point. An extra semester of a language senior year isn’t going to make a difference when it wasn’t pursued sophomore or junior year, and adding a completely different language makes no sense at all.
The things that make our kids wonderful are often things that don’t show up on their paper record. But when trying to find schools for our kids, we need to be objective in evaluating their paper record. Your student has a love for the humanities but schools are going to notice that her two lowest grades were in these subjects and that she didn’t pursue the full range of courses they would have expected for a kid with these interests. Her gpa and test scores are very good, but below the median at tip top schools.
As many of us have been saying, she can still get into a great school, and sounds like an amazing person. But her academic record is not as competitive as the kids getting into the most selective schools who will be at the very top of the class with maximum rigor. Pick one or two of those reaches that are most likely to care about her musical abilities and shoot for the moon. But otherwise, she would be much better served by adding more realistic schools to her list rather than playing with her senior year schedule and retaining the current very reach heavy list.
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I am not going to look at the thread and will just mention the schools I would prioritize.
Sure go ahead and apply to Yale. Barnard, maybe Tufts (could do Tufts/NEC).
Then Vassar, Bard, St. Olaf, Clark, UMass Amherst.
I would keep the list down. Two reaches, two matches, two safeties.
Would she like a Bennington or Sarah Lawrence?
I feel you with a student being unable to receive FL instruction due to circumstances outside his or her control. D24 took two years of Latin and then her Latin teacher left and they were unable to replace him, so she did Honors Latin 3 with an online course only, and for several reasons, it didn’t work very well for the students or the school last year. They did not offer Latin 4 this year and no longer offer it as a FL at all (honestly a bit of a relief because we were struggling with whether doing another year online was going to be worth it at the expense of AP Gov and Econ).
That said, I think the cake is largely baked, and I wouldn’t pursue Italian for college admissions purposes. She will have enough additional work to do with the apps and essays for the admissions process and any honors programs she may apply to. If she’s not registered already, I don’t see how you could include additional French in the coursework in progress to put in the common app.
Ultimately you and your daughter have to do what is right for you, but as others have expressed, I think it would be better to limit the number of reaches and possibly also the total number of schools applied to. Have her pick 3 or 4 reaches, and then try to build the rest of the list practically from the bottom up. I think she really needs to have a true safety she would be happy attending that meet the proximity and other requirements. Try to find a couple of those and a 3 or so targets and the entire list to 10. I know my own daughter (also a humanities kid who does choir and feels deeply) would struggle with the demands of 20 full applications and might not be able to put the best version of herself forward in each of them.
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The student prefers “traditional” academic environment, upthread it was mentioned that SLC (and by extension I would assume Bard and Bennington) to be too “free-wheeling.”
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Oh yeah- I didn’t check back and am confusing another thread. Wesleyan was originally out. Otherwise I stand by my list or something like it. If geographic limits expanded I would add a few others.
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@shawk, I agree about the CTCL. Lots of solid options, but you’re right that daughter won’t recognize any names, even Mom might not know many, and that will make them an auto “no.” I feel for this girl - my daughter is similar in many ways mental health-wise, but thankfully she isn’t planning on trying for any sub-10% acceptance schools because it’s just not her jam to chase prestige. (In fact, she’s only planning on applying to two that are <20% acceptance and I am thrilled!)
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If the D is excited about U Mass and… fill in the blanks, Goucher? Wheaton, Clark, Muhlenberg? and the current GPA and scores look as though they are a sure bet (with the music and everything else pushing her over the edge) than the family can relax.
Nobody needs 5 sure bet schools- just as nobody needs 5 reaches. So if the D can find one more relatively safe option to love, and those applications go in quickly-- she can have a relatively sane senior year. Sure- Yale, Penn, whatever else makes her feel as though she did her best and gave it her all. No need to load on Italian (sure, for operatic purposes, Italian/French/German literacy is great) and no need to fret about how a college defines a GPA, and no worries about who cares that she didn’t take BC Calc.
She can spend the year being herself; focusing on the things she cares about; if she has time she can add Conn College, Skidmore, BU, etc. And if she decides not to bother that’s ok too.
But I think trying to move the needle now on the transcript is a mistake. It adds yet more pressure on a perfectionist-type kid (is she going to be happy getting a B in DE Italian even after struggling to find time to review, pay attention?) and likely won’t matter for the reasons others have noted above.
Have the GC address the scheduling challenges AND discuss why the kid is such a fantastic contributor to an academic community- and trust that Italian will still be there next year or the year after.
The world isn’t running out of foreign languages…
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I keep seeing recommendations for St. Olaf, but I definitely consider Northfield to be rural, not suburban/urban. If OP’s daughter didn’t like Oberlin, I don’t think St. Olaf will cut it. And it is a long way from home.
A better location would be University of Puget Sound (another from the Colleges that Change Lives group). It has an excellent music program, but not sure about accessibility to non-majors.
In any event, as a parent who just lived through the first year of my offspring off at college, I would advocate for attending a school closer to home. My child had no known health issues, but ended up having multiple physical illnesses (multiple fevers of 103 or higher; tested positive TWICE for influenza a month apart despite getting a flu shot, and got mono, among other things). It was a godsend to have her within driving distance when the urgent care sent her on to the ER. With your daughter’s history, you may appreciate being reasonably close if there is a crisis or she needs to slip home for a weekend.
Last thought: this winter, after the first apps are done, plan visits — particularly to schools that have already given your daughter early acceptances. You might be surprised. My daughter knew instantly where she felt she belonged — and it was a safety school we nearly didn’t visit. Our very last visit.
All the schools that initially looked more right on paper did not feel right to her when we visited somehow. It came down to a gut feeling/vibe. I was so relieved to have her find somewhere that made her heart happy at last.
I had the same experience as a high school senior — at a completely different kind of school. But I set foot on campus and just knew. It also feels different when a school has already said they love you; you get to say “I love you back!” Instead of crushing on a school and hoping they notice you.
I hope your daughter can have that “love you back” experience, too.
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One of the concerns that I feel coming across is that your daughter (and perhaps your family) are concerned that some of the schools being mentioned may not have the intellectual chops or peers that she has grown to expect from her college environment.
One data point that I like to look at is the ratio of the number of alums who have gone on to earn a doctorate (between 2000-2018…the latest year available in the data set I use) as compared to the undergraduate population. There is no need to go on for a doctorate in any field and not all majors are conducive to doing so. With that said, however, I do think it can be an indication of the type of people one might find on a college campus.
I’ve gone on ahead and done the ratio for the schools your D is considering, as well as several of the schools that others have mentioned. The list is sorted from highest ratio to lowest. I want to make an important caveat here and say that the almost all of the schools that have been mentioned in this thread have ratios that are considerably higher than normal. As a frame of reference, I did the ratios for schools in Illinois (a really strong state) and Washington, so you can see how the number is your chart are really very good.
But in looking at the chart, you can see that many of these schools that your daughter may not be familiar with are really hard-punching in this category. I’ve bolded the names of some of the schools which others have repeatedly suggested.
| School | # of Undergrads | # of Doctoral Recipients | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 9,368 | 4,800 | 0.512 |
| Wesleyan | 3,069 | 1,534 | 0.500 |
| Yale | 6,645 | 3,282 | 0.494 |
| St. John’s-Annapolis | 462 | 228 | 0.494 |
| Smith | 2,523 | 1,231 | 0.488 |
| Vassar | 2,459 | 1,156 | 0.470 |
| Brown | 7,639 | 3,249 | 0.425 |
| St. John’s -Santa Fe | 364 | 135 | 0.371 |
| Lawrence | 1,426 | 490 | 0.344 |
| Brandeis | 3,687 | 1,220 | 0.331 |
| Johns Hopkins | 6,044 | 1,979 | 0.327 |
| William & Mary | 6,797 | 2,159 | 0.318 |
| U. of Rochester | 6,767 | 2,089 | 0.309 |
| Northwestern | 8,847 | 2,663 | 0.301 |
| U. of Pennsylvania | 11,250 | 3,120 | 0.277 |
| Washington U. | 8,132 | 2,104 | 0.259 |
| Barnard | 3,442 | 883 | 0.257 |
| Connecticut College | 1,948 | 494 | 0.254 |
| Tufts | 6,815 | 1,574 | 0.231 |
| Vanderbilt | 7,151 | 1,604 | 0.224 |
| Emory | 7,101 | 1,563 | 0.220 |
| Goucher (MD) | 1,000 | 210 | 0.210 |
| U. of Richmond | 3,145 | 646 | 0.205 |
| U. of Virginia | 17,444 | 3569 | 0.205 |
| Trinity College | 2,167 | 428 | 0.198 |
| Clark | 2,389 | 468 | 0.196 |
| U. of Michigan | 32,695 | 6,231 | 0.191 |
| Skidmore | 2,758 | 473 | 0.172 |
| U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill | 20,029 | 3,338 | 0.167 |
| Muhlenberg | 1,945 | 297 | 0.153 |
| Lehigh | 5,624 | 839 | 0.149 |
| U. of Wisconsin - Madison | 36,306 | 5,396 | 0.149 |
| Boston C. | 9,982 | 1,434 | 0.144 |
| Boston U. | 18,459 | 2,615 | 0.142 |
| Penn State | 41,745 | 5,035 | 0.121 |
| U. of Maryland | 30,353 | 3,444 | 0.113 |
| The College of New Jersey | 7,039 | 757 | 0.108 |
| Wheaton (MA) | 1,667 | 177 | 0.106 |
| Loyola Maryland | 3,977 | 400 | 0.101 |
| U. of Massachusetts | 24,391 | 2,196 | 0.090 |
| Moravian | 1,904 | 170 | 0.089 |
| U. of Pittsburgh | 24,420 | 2,147 | 0.088 |
| Millersville | 5,814 | 506 | 0.087 |
| American | 7,917 | 653 | 0.082 |
| College of Charleston | 9,972 | 605 | 0.061 |
| West Chester (PA ) | 14,392 | 407 | 0.028 |
| Emerson | 4,155 | 98 | 0.024 |
EDIT: For reference, the average ratio among the 50 flagships is 0.0928 and the median is 0.0849, so that might give you a greater sense of how the schools on this list compare to others.
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I think a lot of posters have given you really good advice and information. I wanted to step back for a moment and remind you of the 30,000 ft view.
Your daughter is very accomplished. She is smart. She is capable. She feels deeply.
She is in control of her college admission process. She will choose where she applies and how she completes her applications. Right now she is completely in the driver’s seat. It can sometimes feel like the process is happening to you - it might help to remember these are all choices being made by her and your family.
She will be going to college next year. And lots of the stress of this process will seem overblown in the rear view mirror. 
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Beebee- I love your post. So applicable to the OP and dozens of other folks going through the process.
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For practical purpose: students list courses either as year, semester, or term on commonapp. DE courses are semester only (you click on DE on the oulldown menu). Spring semester-only courses thus appear in that column and it’s assumed the student WILL take the classes listed. If the student drops one Spring class or doesn’t take it (very common) they must tell the college that admitted them and/or where they applied -they cannot wait till their final transcript is sent to the college where they enrolled as a discrepancy in core classes can lead to being rescinded (as would a D or F in core classes .)
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The trick presented on another thread (pasted upthread) where kids are under a lot of pressure wrt “college brands”, is to list known and unknown colleges ’ stats/profiles side by side without names then ask the kids to match the names&the stats. The “reveal” opens a lot of eyes… and makes many colleges suddenly interesting!
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I love this post as well but my concern is greater.
My daughter - if she studied hard and feels she did bad on a test, call home, crying, breaking down, etc. Even her summer geology class, she wanted to drop, she did so bad on the assignments…blah blah …and gets so down.
and got an A.
My daughter is emotional and somewhat perfectionist - but based on what we read- I worry - because whether this student goes to Northwestern or Northern Iowa, if they are as described, at each level of challenge or struggle, how’s it going to look.
I personally think this search is way over detailed and I do worry of the - no one ever heard of that school syndrome.
Your daughter has to know that she will make her way in life - and that doesn’t matter if she is at an elite or simply solid school - and it won’t matter if she gets As in college or some Bs and Cs - because in 10 years, she’ll be where she is work wise - and no one will be looking at her report card.
Just seems way too much going on. Applications are stressful - but no need to make them more so - and it’s just the sense I get as I read post after post.
The child is individual - but we keep reading about how they are different. All kids are different but most find a nice home - and this child certainly can too.
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Note about Northfield (where St Olaf is located): it doesn’t feel “rural” to me in that it’s easily walkable, there are restaurants, a good music scene, and with 2 colleges plenty of young people. For museums, big concerts, etc, the college runs shuttles so the students could go to the Twin cities (thriving megalopolis with nevetheless lots of parks&lakes, excellent public transport) every weekend if they wanted to, it’s a 45mn ride. Plus Mall of America for shopping/indoors amusement park (also college shuttle on weekends).
I suppose the sense of how rural it is probably depends on where you grew up or where you live. This set up (college town 45mn from a megalopolis) may or may not work for OP’s daughter.
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