New 3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread

<p>yabeyabe, You brought up an excellent point. Elon, I recall, is a school that accepts a lot of its class through early decision, and I think also early action. It is a school (at least was a school) where clearly your best shot is so much better for admission if you can afford to go ED (providing the applicant is certain that they want to attend Elon).</p>

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<p>And I did a few years ago, and they were very nice and answered promptly. AP courses get 2 points added on (A = 6, B = 5, C = 4). Honors courses and college credit courses get 1 point added on. That’s what their posted GPA is based on. </p>

<p>I think that for most students in the 3.0 - 3.3 range Elon is a reach RD and even EA (absent REALLY countervailing test scores). For ED, 3.3 is possible, but probably not lower.</p>

<p>Wow, that kind of weighting would make my B+ D practically a straight A student. That’s just wrong. I wonder how many other schools do this?</p>

<p>^^ 2 points for an AP and their average weighted GPA is 3.94? Something doesn’t gel…that basically means that a C in an AP course becomes an A (like anyone around here would be allowed to even be in an AP course with a C)…</p>

<p>Given that most private schools don’t even have many honors/AP courses (and some have none), Elon must make exceptions…especially as mentioned for ED…</p>

<p>This is fun. I recalculated my D’s grades last semester for Elon, using only the 5 academic courses and got a 5.0 average. Now granted last semester was particularly good for my D. If I recalculate her worst semester I would only get 3.4, but hey, that really impressive because really her GPA for that semester was 2.86.</p>

<p>Wow, Elon’s system is generous. UMass & Northeastern give 0.5 for Honors, and 1.0 for AP (yes, I asked them). Again, core academics only, except UMass says it will count 1 elective per year so long as it’s a full-year elective. So all you band and choir folk with A’s in your music class, UMass may give your GPA a small boost for that!</p>

<p>(OK, obsessed parent here, with an excel spread sheet for GPA… thru mid-point of 11th grade, my D’s core academic GPA is: Unweighted 3.21; UMass weighting 3.58; Elon weighting 4.0. Yet out of 15 academic classes over 3 years, she’s got 11 B/B+/B-, and only 4 A/A-. I’d definitely call her a B/B+ student.)</p>

<p>My college roommate’s daughter goes to Elon (she is a sophomore) and I knew she wasn’t a great student, so I finally called to find out what her stats were. (I felt a little uncomfortable asking about this, but since the daughter is already in college, my friend didn’t seem to mind.)</p>

<p>They are from a town outside Boston. Her daughter had a 3.0 GPA with one honors course (Biology) and took AP Bio senior year. Her SATs were 1160 on the math and verbal. </p>

<p>HTH</p>

<p>Thanks RTR. So again the question is, what the heck do these numbers mean? Are the colleges (out of the top tiers to be sure) taking solid B students and making them look like A students through sleight of hand and number-fudging? For example, I went to an info session at Georgia Tech with D and the admin said that they will superscore combining SAT and ACT sections to get the highest combined total.</p>

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<p>I suspect there’s more of that going on than most people realize. Colleges routinely quote the “we get 24,000 applications for 2000 spots in our freshman class” line, conveniently leaving out that they have to offer admission to 10,000 kids to get 2000 freshmen to actually matriculate. I’ve heard those type of stats given out at every college we’ve visited. They’re not lying… just leaving out some pertinent details.</p>

<p>I have a 3.16 (3.11 at time of applying) and 1230/1780 SAT and I got into:
Oxford College @ Emory University
Seattle University ($7500 scholarship)
Fordham University
Loyola University Chicago
Stony Brook University (OOS, I live in Oregon) ($2000 resident grant)
Robert Morris University ($4500 merit scholarship and $3500 resident grant)</p>

<p>Waitlisted at:
Occidental College (only reason I didn’t get rejected is because mom, uncle, and aunt all went)</p>

<p>Deferred and withdrew application at:
University of Denver
Tulane University
Northeastern University</p>

<p>My GPA throughout the years are:
Freshman- 2.79
Sophomore- 2.64
Junior- 4.00
Senior first semester (only Fordham and Occidental saw)- 3.6UW 4.2W</p>

<p>Very Nice StevenSeagal. Are you going to Oxford (I thought I read that somewhere)?</p>

<p>Yeah StevenSeagal! Way to “pull it out” Junior year! There IS hope!</p>

<p>Thanks guys:)

Yup, and I can’t wait!</p>

<p>Steven Seagal how cool are you! That’s just great. Congrats and best wishes!</p>

<p>Steven, that’s great! That’s so exciting!</p>

<p>RTR, did she apply to Elon ED, EA, or RD if you know? </p>

<p>LOL, that sure explains why the gpa is nearly a 4.0 on average at Elon (taking your word for it, I did not check myself). I noticed that some high schools also have gpas that go up to 8! This is why one can’t pay attention to student stats that are given here with regard to admission, even knowing ECs, test scores, etc… One needs to know the gpa scale.</p>

<p>So how are people making a decision as to what school is a match or safety for their B students, especially when you have a kid that is not hooked in any way? I need to know that there are some solid safeties on my son’s college list.</p>

<p>I depended on Naviance data, which was accurate for my student.</p>

<p>If you include a school or two which admits solely (or primarily) by SAT and GPA, preferably with rolling admissions or (nonbinding) early action, you should have an acceptance early on – which will be a big relief!</p>

<p>Just to confirm, I dug up the e-mail response I got from Elon back in 2006 (have I really been on this board that long???)</p>

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<p>Does anyone know when they add 2009 results to their high school data? For our high scholl’s section, they have curious small bits of data for some school–e.g., 3 2009 applicants listed for certain schools which normally get more than a dozen, with no results listed. It strikes as bizarre to add less than a full set of data.</p>

<p>Spoke to D’s GC, who uses Naviance. She gave us a great safety that gave her finaid. It made the long cold winter bearable. I will always be grateful to this school.</p>