<p>On behalf of D's friend and his mom. Student (rising senior) is an IB student with about a 90 unweighted GPA (all pre-IB, IB and AP classes), SAT scores in the 1850-2000 range, sports and history ECs, an all-around wonderful young man. He plans to be a historian (his passion is American history, particularly the Civil War) and some of the colleges he's currently looking at are</p>
<p>Rutgers
University of Delaware
University of Connecticut
Stonybrook (in state)
Catholic University
Lafayette (his first choice)
Muhlenberg (daughter's first choice which he introduced her to)</p>
<p>Here's the problem. He has about super-high grades in history and science, excellent grades in English, very good grades in language. With those grades, he'd probably (I think) have about a 94-96 unweighted. The math grade has been a C every semester. I don't know why and won't speculate, but his mom asked me if I had any insight as to whether this is an insurmountable obstacle. I have no idea. Anyone?</p>
<p>what was his score on the Math section of the SAT? does he normally score well on standardized tests in Math? how were his math grades in elementary and junior high?
in high school has he been in advanced math classes, honors, or regular ones?</p>
<p>This is not my kid. I have no idea except that the math classes are honors with next year to be IB Math Studies (whatever that is) and the SAT math score was 610.</p>
<p>I had a somewhat similar issue. I actually did pretty well on math testing and SAT’s and was in a 2 year advanced class, but I think I got mostly C’s in the class, occasionally a B. I took precalc twice (my sophomore and junior year) and both times was just below the 80 necessary to move on to calc. So, yeah, the math part of my high school transcript was not pretty.</p>
<p>I would think it would be okay because those schools are probably a little more about averages than the straight out close examining of the GPA. Uconn is the only one of those schools I considered or know anything about, but I got in, and I’m at Northeastern with merit money.</p>
<p>zoosermom: I think he will be fine with that list, but I wonder why he stayed in advanced classes with “C” range grades; around these parts you can’t even stay in with "B"s…</p>
<p>Lafayette may require an ED to overcome the disparity, but only an adcom would be able to answer that for sure (or a really knowledgeable college counselor on CC who knows Lafayette admissions…)</p>
<p>Also, this isn’t the advanced math track. It’s just the regular one. I’ve since found out that he got a 90 on the Math A Regents exam, so this was the natural progression. He did pass the classes, though, so it’s considered a success.</p>
<p>My daughter was lucky to have the “other” math teacher. The one he had is seriously about 80 years old and a truly terrible teacher. He had her for four semesters and my daughter only two. It’s a shame that that can’t be explained as the mitigating factor!</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t understand the math levels (btw, I thought NY was going back to alg, geo, alg II etc?)…anyway…</p>
<p>what I referred to is that sometimes with a “quirk” in one’s application (like this young man’s math scores) an ED (early decision) binding application may lead the admissions people to overlook the “quirk”, especially for full pay students…In RD, the math grades may not meet up to the other candidates the adcoms are looking at…</p>
<p>it’s so hard to deal with “teacher issues”…(my daughter had 3 different ones in the same year for honors pre-calc; one wasn’t even certified)…</p>
<p>that being said, a “600” range SATI math score is not bad…</p>
<p>would the family be interested in adding Dickinson or Gettysburg to their list? Both have very holistic admissions, my son loved Dickinson and had the feeling that Dickinson also somewhat favors male applicants</p>
<p>Looks like one of the more realistic lists I’ve seen on CC!</p>
<p>Wouldn’t worry about the math at all. If list was filled with more reaches it could be a problem, but with a 90 on the regents and a 610 SAT…kid can do math…and…even in schools on that list with distribution requirements…will be able to find a class that he can take.</p>
<p>Hope that some of those schools are rolling admissions, and that kid will apply early. Those early admits will help some of the anxiety.</p>
<p>If he’s an IB diploma candidate, he probably needed to be in honors math classes in order to be adequately prepared for IB Math Studies. IB Math Studies is the least rigorous of the IB math options. If honors courses are required as prerequisites to it, he wouldn’t have had any other choice but to take them unless he was willing to give up his status as an IB diploma candidate.</p>
<p>Muhlenberg should not be a problem. D is attending this fall and although she had A’s and B’s in math she did not do as well on the SAT. She is undecided however, history is one of her several possible majors. The history dept is excellent. There are courses in both math and science for non science majors.</p>
<p>My son, who is currently at Muhlenberg, is not a history major, but loves history. He is a member of the history club which spent a day touring the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg. He also attended meetings at the Civil War Roundtable of Eastern Pennsylvania. (held once a month in Allentown). Muhlenberg is a great place to study history…particularly the civil war.</p>