Thanks everyone. Maybe her story will have to be that she is earnest, curious, a hard worker and at times a bit overly ambitious, more than that she is a math superstar at this point. Hopefully, that will be compelling to some admissions officer. As an aside, the local college is not a community college but a top engineering school and I believe they were difficult classes. In any event, this has been helpful. Thanks.
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IMO, the right college (for her) will appreciate the fact that she challenged herself, even if the outcome was not the perfect 4.0 GPA. I think too much emphasis is put on “what will the college think” rather than, how can the student make the best of her high school education and experience? It sounds to me like she is reaching high and I love that she took those math classes. I don’t think she will be evaluated in the same way as a student who capped out with Calc AB or BC their senior year.
I only have experience with my S21. He did not have perfect stats (3.6 UW GPA) but he challenged himself with extra APs, excelled at ECs that he was passionate about, and he was accepted at his dream school (U Chicago) while 2 of his much higher ranked classmates were not. He has no hooks, but he wrote compelling essays and was a really good fit. The GPA is only one factor out of many.
I suggest she compile a balanced college list, don’t let her define success as admission to a T20, don’t lose sleep over things you can’t control, and enjoy the process. By the way, I do think she’s a math superstar.
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And I’ll try to stop beating myself up for letting her get 4 or so years ahead in math and get Bs as it sounds as if she could have taken less challenging classes and received all As, and still be rejected from the “best” colleges.
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Even if she’d received all As, her chances would be slim to none at schools like Stanford? Why? Every student’s chances are slim to none. They simply have FAR too many high achievers to accommodate them all. I know a young man, since graduated from Yale in CS who had a 4.0+ (there was no weighting; the only way you could go above 4.0 was to get an A+ in a course) from an great college prep school, a 2400 SAT and great ECs. He didn’t get into Stanford, but a legacy with a far less impressive record from his school did.
Her achievements are compelling, even with a few Bs. Don’t beat yourself up. She’s doing the “right” thing. She will be competitive at lots of very good schools, including the most elite. She’d be best advised to expand her list to include more than prestige/popularity because, as an outsider, there’s a randomness to their processes, that can’t be cracked. Odds are stacked against nearly everyone.
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Her grades are what they are at this point. She sounds amazing. Move on. I think it’s more important to start finding schools she likes. Big, small, urban, rural, east, west, majors, open curriculum, warm, cold, can play violin, etc.
All top schools are a reach. Most have an acceptance rate below 10%. Some below 5% after this year with most schools being test optional.
And that does not mean they choose in rank order the most qualified. Very few schools actually stack candidates that way. Far more fully qualified students will not get in than will. I listened to a story on NPR where they interview Harvard students and asked them why they got in. To a one, they had no clue. Most acknowledged students from their own high schools that they felt were more qualified. If your daughter gets rejected from one of these, it will not be a reflection on her record.
This is very true. S20 applied EA to Georgia Tech. We’re OOS. He knew of at least 10 other kids from his HS that applied. I think 6 were denied EA, 3 accepted EA and he was deferred. Supposedly GT’s admission process doesn’t differentiate majors. Everyone who’s admitted is expected to be competitive for all majors.
One of the denied kids was accepted to CMU. One of the kids accepted EA was at the lower end of GT’s stats (but still a solid student). S20 was admitted RD. For the vast majority of applicants you really can’t predict acceptances or denials. Just move-on when they come.
Instead of worrying about a couple of “Bs” you should applaud your daughter’s willingness to push herself as a student. She sounds like she is remarkably talented in math. However, as others have pointed out, lots of students with superb stats are passed over every year by T20 colleges. That’s just the nature of the beast. If one comes through for your daughter - awesome! If it doesn’t happen it won’t be because she got a B in an advanced math course.
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So she took four college sophomore level math courses while in 10th and 11th grade and earned 3 A grades and 1 B grade (3.75 GPA in those courses, assuming all the same credit value)?
You know how many college students (including engineering and science majors) would be very pleased at earning a 3.75 GPA in college sophomore level math courses?
Stop worrying about the B grade in differential equations as if it were a “failure”. This is sounding like a tiger parent thread where any grade lower than A (such as A-) in a high school (hardest possible honors/AP/IB-HL/etc.) course, or any SAT score lower than 1600, is a “failure”.
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This is amazing. Anyone with her interest in STEM and a 1540 with that math transcript is definitely a possible for a T20 and T100+ with generous merit. Keep encouraging her! She has completed all the math classes for most engineering and computer science programs. Check the transfer-ability at the schools that she is most interested in and keep up on the math practice for retention (she may still need a math placement test before freshman year!). Well Done!
I agree with another poster who said that if she gets rejected it won’t be because of a couple of Bs. Just two standard ECs plus good grades and test scores is not enough for top colleges. Apply to some tippy tops but I think her matches will be a tier below.
Sure it is. To imply otherwise is clearly outweighed by the evidence. I know two recent graduates of Yale and two recent graduates from Stanford who were exactly the person you describe. Why can’t Harvard students articulate why they got in if it’s merely “higher achievement?”
What is not accurate is to suggest that everyone who meets those requirements gets in. Who gets in and who doesn’t is not a matter of achievement. LOTS of students meet those benchmarks. It is rather a result of a non-public facing algorithm or even purely subjective decision by adcoms.
And I know many more kids accepted to top schools who are stellar across the board—stats and ECs. The “average excellent” kid who manages an acceptance is the outlier. Perhaps Harvard kids are being modest. My own kid attributed their Ivy acceptance to luck. Well, the harder you work the luckier you get.
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Your tenet is that the kids who didn’t get in simply didn’t work hard enough and weren’t extraordinary enough. This is categorically false and I was told that directly by the head of admissions at Brown, a school we visited, but my son didn’t apply to.
That in no way is saying that the kids who did/do get in didn’t work hard and didn’t achieve high success. It is an acknowledgement that far too many of those kids are hoping to get into far too few slots. Stanford rejects not hundreds, but thousands of valedictorians.
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that is just nuts! you shouldn’t be beating yourself up in the first place. And the idea that “letting her” grow at her own rate is bad b/c it might impact her ability to get into specific colleges (and the corollary that she won’t get into good colleges) is even more nuts.
Your daughter is who she is. There are great colleges at all levels of selectivity that will love her for that.
But: to find them you need to step away entirely from the whole “T20 / T50 / T100” thing.
Step back and help her look at what her actual interests are. Have her spend time looking at various engineering programs (such as MIT, Cornell, Ga Tech, Purdue, UMi, UIUC, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, CalTech, UWa, UCo-B, UWi, Bucknell, Smith, RPI, Columbia, Union, NU, USAFA, Cal Poly SLO)(not an exhaustive list of good engineering options!). All of these have great engineering programs, and lots of them are likely to be happy to have her. Have her spend time looking at what the programs are like: what are their specialties, and are those things that are interesting to her? is it a good place for a student who isn’t sure what their focus is yet? have her look at Materials Science, which is the interdisciplinary end of engineering, where physics, chemistry, biology and math meet up, and suits a lot of people who aren’t drawn to chemical, electrical or mechanical engineering.
And as she looks at the colleges, does the overall undergrad experience at the college look interesting to her (big/small, N/S/E/W, sports/social, etc)?
Talk them through by asking questions & listening: what parts of the programs and colleges does she think will suit her? what are the pros/cons for her? This process can be long and testing at times, but what she is doing is refining her sense of what she wants, while learning about what the options are, and the better she does that the more likely it is that she will end up in a school that is just right for her- which is the metric that counts most. This is especially true in engineering (which is evaluated differently than other UG areas).
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What your D has going for her is that she has been exposed to higher level math, found it challenging, and still wants to do it. There are tons of kids who do well in high school math and science who struggle so much with those disciplines in college that they choose not to continue with them.
It is possible that those Bs will reveal that she is not a math prodigy/genius and that the school wanting a department filled with those will take a pass on your D. But realistically, your D would not have passed as a math genius through high school classes either.
I think your D’s path has positioned her well for college. She has tackled some harder math and found that even when it didn’t come easily, she could do it. This shows an ability to learn (which many high achieving kids, who have always grasped concepts easily, often struggle with. ) I would argue that this is better than not having taken the more advanced classes.
There will be schools that will welcome this kind of preparation - even top ones. Just be sure to have a good range of schools on her list. And yes, do the exploration of majors and schools.
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OP- your D doesn’t need a “story” of being a math kid. She can be a kid who is hungry to learn, evidenced by preferring hard classes to easy A’s. Period.
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I agree with all you said. It’s important though that the OP realize that even Caltech and MIT can’t do this. In reality, there aren’t that many true math prodigies.
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Op. You are way over thinking this. She started high school in Calculus. That will definitely stand out. She challenged herself which doesn’t mean getting all As.
Have her continue to challenge herself since it seems to be who she is but also have some fun. She doesn’t have to win awards or competitions. She will have many colleges interested in her especially for engineering.
What else does she do besides math? What are her interests and Ecs? I will agree she doesn’t want to come across as one dimensional. But as human beings we normally have other interests.
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