<p>But even as a reach, if your S wants to apply, do not let that stop him, his ACT scores may be the tipping factor, just don’t expect a big merit award.</p>
<p>Different schools place different emphasis on various things, but GPA is usually pretty important at most. Some consider test scores as important as GPA or nearly so, and some consider them less important or do not require them at all.</p>
<p>I would not say you should ignore the test scores unless you are certain that the school does not consider them important.</p>
<p>When comparing GPAs, what is important is the total percentage of students at his level or lower. If he is in the bottom 18%, that school will be a reach unless there are other unknown factors at work (recruited athlete, developmental admit, famous person or child of someone famous, etc…). If there is another 20% below him and there are 18% in his band, then you need to estimate how high in his band he might be. If he is toward the bottom of that 18% band, then there are perhaps 20% to 25% total below him and I would still call that a reach. If he is at the top of that 18% band, then 33% to 38% of the other students are below him. I would think of that as on the border between a match and a reach as far as GPA is concerned. If the school also considers the test scores important and he is better than 75% of the other students there on that, then it could tip a little farther into match territory. Of course, some schools might consider the combination of high test scores and low GPA as the sign of a slacker (not that I’m calling him that), in which case he would be firmly back into reach status.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that these statistics change from year to year, so comparing his current academic stats against those of last year’s admitted class (which is what you mostly get) can be misleading. In a year when more people may be applying to public flagships for economic reasons, admission stats there may be on the rise making them a tougher admit. Conversely, some private schools that have taken a big hit in the endowment may be more willing than in prior years to take on full-pay students whose academic stats are borderline.</p>
<p>As you may have guessed, this is not a simple thing to analyze, which makes the most important schools of all the safeties.</p>
<p>fyi- it is the college board tracker that has this “how do I stack up” feature. D likes to use it, it gives a bit more info than just the middle 50th percentile ranges. For colleges like this, I’ll suggest again look at the section in the common data set where the colleges say how important different things are to them, they will all weight scores to varying degrees, you probably would have a better chance at this school if it places more weight on scores. If his scores are at the top but the school only “considers” them, not so much. But I also agree that if he loves the school, might as well give it a shot.</p>
<p>So are you saying son is in bottom 18% GPA-wise and top 75% SAT wise? I think you have to consider that school a reach, at best a reachy-match. We are in the same boat for lots of schools - and I know I have to find more schools that will take a chance on B students.</p>
<p>warriorboy If it’s a school you really like just go for it and apply! While there are some sure bet safeties we should all encourage our students to go for, the match/reach is less clear. It varies from campus to campus and often from year to year You seem to be trying to nail something down that is un nailable. Relax a little and come up with a list that makes you happy, because playing the numbers game can make you nuts ;)</p>
<p>As much as we would all like to be able to see around corners and predict what will happen in admissions we can’t. Create your list based on what will meet your needs best. Start with the safeties that you love and then add the rest.</p>
<p>Just to illustrate; D was denied at a numbers based, in-state public where she was solidly in that mid range. She was meanwhile accepted at a more prestigious and higher ranked private where her math scores were below range. You just can’t accurately predict what will happen so go for it and apply to places you would like to attend and see where the chips fall.</p>
<p>FWIW, she is attending her beloved safety in the fall thought she was accepted at 7 of the 9 schools she applied to</p>
<p>I found collegedata to be very accurate for my older son. It was especially helpful with financial aid information and turned out to be just off by a couple of thousand dollars in how much merit aid he got.</p>
<p>As far as PA schools, my older son who was a solid B student, was waitlisted at Juniata but accepted at Allegheny. Some safety/match schools IMHO, for B students in Eastern PA are Ursinus, Lycoming, Moravian, Merrywood, DeSales University, LaSalle and Messiah and all of the state schools. Indiana University of PA has an excellent honors college that is attainable for B students. </p>
<p>Dickinson, Gettysburg, etc. are not slam dunks for B students.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say Ursinus is a slam dunk for a B student either unless your EFC is astronomical.</p>
<p>2007 stats show that 40% of Freshmen were in Top 10% of High School Class.
74% were in the Top 25% of High School Class. </p>
<p>Critical Reading 550-660 - 25th-75th percentile
Math 560-660 " " "
Writing 550-660 " " "</p>
<p>The top quarter of a graduating class in this age of grade inflation is often made up entirely of B+, A-, A and A+ students. A kid with an 85 average (a “B”) is likely to be right around the 50th percentile at many of the public high schools in our region.</p>
<p>D’s school does not rank, but based on the school profile, she is definitely somewhere near 50%.</p>
<p>Ditto to Kathiep’s list, and add Elizabethtown, Susquehanna, Lebanon Valley, and Washington College (Maryland) to the list.</p>
<p>All of these are CTCL-“type” schools that get very little mention on CC, and will take B students that F&M, Dickinson, and Gettysburg will not. (and will give the A students a good bit of merit aid)</p>
<p>I would definitely consider Ohio Northern U. It’s a nice small school in the NW part of Ohio. They offer good merit aid (especially if your ACT is above a 29).</p>
<p>That college data website lists almost every college I put in there as a “maybe”…lol. (Just to be sure, I put Harvard in, and it was on the border between “maybe” and “reach”…funny!) The only “good bet” I could find was UConn.</p>
<p>I guess I am trying to come up with a formula to figure out matches and safeties (at least something better than guessing) Reaches are easy. My concern is that he won’t get accepted anywhere!!! Can B students find decent safeties or will they basically be schools that take everyone? ( I swore that I would stop asking all these question!!!)</p>
<p>^^If you are worried that your son won’t get accepted anywhere, then just have him apply to 2 rolling admission schools that are not reach schools. My son did that. It was really a false sense of security because the school that notified him within 9 days of his application was also an OOS public U and they did not offer merit or financial aid. We could not afford to send him there. At the time we were real novices and did not even understand that. We got the “picture” when we got the FA package in April. At least my son was happy and we were relieved at the time. Sometimes ignorance is bliss! If you are not a family that can pay the full freight, then I would concern myself with that more than where he will get in. If you are looking for merit aid, you will have him apply to more low matches and safeties than reaches if you are doing your homework. Hope this helps a bit, warriorboy.</p>
<p>Finding an affordable safety that you would actually be happy attending is probably the hardest part of the search, but also among the most important. There are many colleges that would almost certainly accept a B student with decent test scores. Probably two-thirds of the colleges out there accept way more applicants that they decline, but we tend to obsess over the ones that are more selective. Like you say, finding reaches is easy.</p>
<p>Warriorboy, finding good safety schools takes work, but be assured there are MANY good schools for B students–high quality teachers, pretty campuses, nice kids, etc. Some places have more than others–I have found PA has many more than NJ over and above th epopulation difference; some have better public options. Keep positive and keep looking–by my ount, this thread alone has over 30 schools nominated for you in just a few states!</p>
<p>Ok, we are taking a road trip at the end of June through VA, NC and SC. I listened to all your advice and hope I came up with some reasonable schools. We are visiting some or most of these schools. (My son already plans to apply to McDaniel, Goucher and University of Mary Washington) So I was looking for similiar schools since he liked these. (He hated Wheaton and Clark, liked Loyola (MD) but didn’t like the cookie cutter feel.)</p>
<p>So here they are…
Washington College (MD)
U of Richmond
Lynchburg
Roanoke
Emory and Henry
High Point
Elon
Guilford
Furman
UNC - Asheville</p>
<p>Any opinions??? Do you think any of these might be safeties? Also, any schools that we should add? (I was thinking about College of Charleston and Queens U of Charlotte but the list is getting long.)</p>
<p>I’d suggest adding Hood College (Frederick, MD) to your lists to consider. It seems to be completely overlooked on CC, but has much to recommend it, and is very comparable to the other colleges being mentioned on this thread, and in a great location (Frederick is a vibrant town with great restaurants, but still rural, and only ur’s drive from DC and Baltimore). Anyway, my D just went through the application process and added Hood relatively late to her list, almost as an afterthought. But after having some wonderful choices and merit aid options and great indecision, my D settled on Hood as the best choice for her. If anyone has any questions about this, feel free to PM me. And of course I will have more firsthand knowledge of Hood next year, if anyone is interested.</p>
<p>Can you describe Hood’s campus or what campus it is similiar to. I just checked out the website but couldn’t find a virtual tour. </p>
<p>We are taking Guilford off the list because only 67% of the students return for sophomore year. That looks really low to me.</p>