@Lindagaf I can relate to your D. My grades were at the very 1st percentile of my school’s incoming class - but my SAT was probably at the 94th percentile or something like that. When I inquired about my admissions records near the end of my first semester, I was told that the tipping points in my application were my senior year first quarter grades (would have been deferred without them), essay, and genuine interest in attending. And I attend a non-flagship State U that is significantly more difficult to get into from OOS. I guess even state schools can practice holistic admissions.
I was definitely intimidated by CC’ers when I first found this place. I now differentiate what I feel “safe” saying in different threads. I would also love more help for students who are trying to go from a 25 to a 27 ACT instead of “I got a 35 ACT. Should I re-take?”
Like @MamaBear16 I was also surprised about how selective Pitzer was with my older D. She applied there but shouldn’t have!
@benreb Thanks for the U of R info. It’s hard to believe kids who live right there wouldn’t visit! We are hoping to do so, especially since D is also looking at RIT.
@pickpocket That’s good to know. D is not NMF. She’ll probably still apply, especially if her scores come up a little bit. More likely for her to get merit from RIT though!
@soze I’m trying to figure out how you extrapolated so much info out of naviance. Can you elaborate how you figured all that out based on the scattorgrams or other data in Naviance?
Maybe a new thread about how to navigate Naviance would be a more appropriate place to discuss it. While the info is very helpful, I’m afraid it may be overlooked by people looking for that information because it’s buried in this thread that doesn’t specifically address it. JMO.
“test scores are more important than most colleges would admit”
I disagree. Test scores get you in the range. They show you can do the work. But you don’t get into a tippy top school based on test scores. They have more than enough applicants with high test scores.
Now, if you are applying to schools that are not quite as selective and your scores are above their average, it could help. I think they’re also very important if you’re coming from a school with which they’re not very familiar or a homeschool-- but I think that for students from schools they know, it’s important to be in the range on test scores and then give them a good reason to say yes.
I agree with the general thrust of this comment, but “most with a 30 or above are aiming for a top 50 RU or top 50 LAC”? I don’t think so. In the 2015 admissions cycle, about 2100 freshmen with ACT scores of 30 or higher enrolled at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (36.2% of an entering class of 5,756), according to the U’s most recent Common Data Set. They were mostly Minnesotans, and my guess is for most the U was their first choice. Relatively few Minnesotan apply to top 50 research universities or top 50 LACs, and even fewer attend such schools. A few apply to our top local LACs, Carleton and Macalester, but those schools have relatively small applicant pools and Minnesotans comprise a minority of their student bodies and applicant pools. A few apply to Grinnell College in neighboring Iowa. Larger numbers of Minnesotans apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (top 50) due to tuition reciprocity, and roughly equal numbers of Wisconsinites apply to the University of Minnesota (not top 50) for the same reason. For some Minnesota applicants Wisconsin’s top 50 ranking may have some appeal, but for many the main draw is a different type of college town atmosphere, or family ties, or interest in a particular program where Wisconsin is strong. Practical Midwesterners aren’t as taken with rankings as people on the ranking-obsessed Coasts. A smattering of Minnesotans apply to other leading Midwestern schools like Northwestern and Notre Dame, but the numbers pale in comparison to the ACT 30+ Minnesotans applying to the U. Beyond that, the numbers of Minnesotans applying to top 50 schools quickly becomes quite trivial.
The pattern is similar in many other Midwestern states. At Ohio State, 44% of the entering freshmen in 2015 had SAT scores of 30+, out of a class of 7,023. So that’s about 3,100 30+ enrolled freshmen. Were they mostly rejects from top 50 schools? Highly doubtful, though certainly some were.
It’s true that there’s more of a national market at the elite end than there was a generation or two ago, but because so many CCers are participants in that market, there’s a tendency here to overplay its significance. The overwhelming majority of students, and a strong majority of top students, still tend to go to college pretty close to home, and even the tippy-top schools tend to draw much more heavily from their home regions than from elsewhere. If you’re a Northeasterner, it looks like all the top students are competing to get into top 50 schools, but that’s because so many top 50 private schools are located in the Northeast and the public flagships there are generally weaker than in some other parts of the country. If you’re a Californian, it looks like everyone is competing to get into a top UC, most of which are ranked in the top 50 nationally, or competing to get into top privates, but the data suggest that highly credentialed Californians are much more likely to go outside their region than are the similarly credentialed college-bound in most other parts of the country.
@bclintonk, fine, replace “aiming for” with “applying to at least one in” the top 50.
Considering that 40% of the US population resides in a state where a public is in the top 50, I don’t think that’s much of a stretch, and it’s still more than was the case a generation ago.
Very well said @bclink! Especially “practical Midwesterners are not as taken with rankings as the ranking obsessed coasts”. My DS applied to 2 top 50 schools and got in but chose the school that was the best fit for him. I am confident that he made the right choice.
@Cheeringsection We had the same experience.
Test scores validate grades in our era of 30 valedictorians and meaningless 4.0’s from grade inflated HS’s.
So don’t confuse “scores matter more than colleges want you to think” with what’s actually going on. There are thousands of HS’s graduating kids with top GPA’s who are actually NOT as prepared for college as the kids and their parents think.
The high scores aren’t what’s getting the kids in. But the high scores provide a datapoint to distinguish among the 30 Vals and Sals at a particular HS.
Carry on.
@labegg Even the threads that are for kids with lower GPAs end up with some posting whose kid has a 3.4 unweighted but over a 4.0 weighted from a prep, discussing his/her apps to top 25 colleges and how well they did on admissions. That is not what a parent whose kid has less than a 3.5 wants to read about. Would be good to have more threads aimed at good, but not stellar students.
Even this thread feeds into the the “top students only” focus as “mid-tier” is defined as anything below the top 20. U Rochester, BU, Northeastern and others mentioned here are not “mid-tier” schools. They are still highly selective and top colleges. Not super-elite, but not easy admits either.
I would disagree that all students with ACTs over 30 are aiming for top 50. Many are aiming for merit money or for less expensive OOS publics (or in-state). An ACT of 30 with a GPA in the mid 3s is not going to earn merit money for a kid at a top 50 school.
Our son has an unweighted GPA in the low 3’s but a very high SAT (was also a NMSF). He didn’t bother with any top schools. He ended up getting decent merit aid at Temple, which from anecdotal evidence seems to be quite a bit harder to get into than it used to be. I’m pretty sure he would have been a reject from any top 50 due to his grades; fortunately, that’s not something he cared about. He’s very happy with where he’s ended up.
@bclintonk and @Cheeringsection , do you really think people on the coasts are more “ranking obsessed” than other regions and less concerned with where their kids will thrive and be happy than those of you in the midwest?
Isn’t that a little regionally xenophobic and possibly insulting?
I respectfully recommend you re-evaluate that idea, and if that does not affect change, reconsider how it might sound when you post it.
My daughter also had “lop-sided” stats. High ACT score, and an uw GPA in the low 3s . (She took several APs and Honors courses, which brought up her weighted average, but we assumed - correctly? idk - that didn’t count much for admissions… )
She also did not bother looking at very selective schools. She didn’t even look at our flagship - or any other state’s.
She ended up only applying to smaller state schools, and like mstomper’s son, got decent merit aid at them. Better than we thought she would get, actually.
She also is not aware of the rankings, though, I’m pretty sure. (and if she is, she probably doesn’t care; to some extent, she marches to her own beat…).
I would have been happy for her to be at one of the CTCL schools, or any other small LAC. Imo, that’s the best academic fit for her, but she did not see it that way. Oh, well, :). I’m confident she would’ve been accepted at those, as well, and received merit aid, just based on what others on CC have posted. And one of her friends, with similar stats, is attending Augustana in Rock Island on a nice merit scholarship.
Yep. Very high test scores could mean merit money outside the tippy-top (including the lower part of the top 50 as well as a bunch of LACs; actually, a lot of places).
@postmodern – Growing up and being educated on the east coast, then moving to midwest as an adult – I would agree the phenomenon which @bcclintonk and @cheeringsection describe is real, and it arises from the strong tradition of excellent Midwest public flagships. IU, Purdue, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois – these are excellent, affordable schools which kids grow up expecting to attend, like their parents and sometimes grandparents did. When you have MN engineering, or IU Business as a resident, there is a tradition of thinking that is a great experience and a great bargain, so why look elsewhere. Sure, some kids wind up at Northwestern, Chicago, Carleton or Macalester, but there simply isn’t the same sense of “musical chairs” as our friends and families experience back east – that there are only a few seats and a kid could wind up without a chair when the music stops. Having lived here for 20+ years, I will always consider the east coast home, but when I’m back home, dealing with the traffic, the intensity, the pressure, I appreciate my midwest experience.
A little late to the game regarding the UCs and GPA. Statistics at large schools can be skewed if the school has a couple highly ranked competitive program and students with top scores are admitted to those programs. The stories of kids with great GPAs and test scores that don’t get in vs students from the same HS with lower GPA and test scores that do can depend on major (ex. Engineering vs Sociology).
I believe Naviance uses total unweighted GPA. Most UCs only look at grades 10 & 11 and weight a maximum of 8 semesters. Even then, you can find a wide variety of statistics out there.
Take UC Davis for example. This profile on their website shows an average freshman with a UC GPA of 3.95-4.25 and ACT of 27-32. https://www.ucdavis.edu/admissions/undergraduate/student-profile/
If you click on the link at the bottom of that page that says “more information,” it will open a pdf where it states that the average freshman has a UC GPA of 3.91-4.18. https://www.ucdavis.edu/sites/default/files/upload/files/uc-davis-student-profile.pdf
The UC website lists Davis with an average UC GPA of 4.07 and ACT of 29. http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/davis/freshman-profile/
On a side note, I really like the way UCLA lists their statistics. They compare applicants to admits to enrolled. It is interesting to see how the statistics vary. https://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof15.htm
@Midwestmomofboys , what you are saying is that there is simply a different batch of schools, based on local geography and traditions, that people in different regions prefer. And some end up at more selective schools and more end up at less selective schools.
I am not sure how that is different where you live than where I live. And I am definitely not sure how one could be described as wanting the best for my kid and the other as prestige-hunting.
And I definitely don’t know why traffic patterns and “intensity” matter in the discussion either. Everyone hates traffic.
The posts you are supporting clearly indicate a feeling of moral superiority and a value judgement against 2 entire regions of the United States.
What you are describing is NOT real. Parents everywhere want what they believe is best for their kids. Whether you apply to schools with a 10% acceptance rate or a 50%, one is no more superior than the other, and to claim it is so reveals a bias.
I’m born and bred East Coaster and I am not insulted by what Midwestmomofboys and others are saying. You may not agree with what has been said postmodern but I think you are creating an issue where there isn’t one. I perceive of Midwesterners as being more relaxed as a rule than East Coasters (obviously not true in all cases) and imagine what they are saying is probably generally true. I absolutely don’t feel that they are superior or judging. I can concede that some things are better in other parts of the country and still prefer where I live for many reasons…
@myjanda, read the phrase “practical Midwesterners are not as taken with rankings as the ranking obsessed coasts” and tell me how that is not pejorative to the coasts.
“practical” is clearly a positive trait, and implies coasters are “impractical”
“rankings-obsessed” is clearly a pejorative and implies coasters are more concerned with family prestige that what is best for their kid.
I don’t want a long discussion about it either, but it is exactly the kind of gross generalization that is more reflective of those making the statement than those it is about.