New 3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread

<p>Dionte, i respect your basketball playing but i must disagree with you. I will send you a link down here for my school’s College admission profile. My school generally gets people into Maryland, PSU, Uconn, BU, and Miami with 2.9-3.2 GPAs, and SATS lower than mine. Tulane and UIUC are untested, but I believe they would be on the similar level.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.northernhighlands.org/71244582581817/lib/71244582581817/CAP_2008_combined.pdf[/url]”>http://www.northernhighlands.org/71244582581817/lib/71244582581817/CAP_2008_combined.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.northernhighlands.org/71244582581817/lib/71244582581817/collegeapps_2_yrs_2007_for_CAP_for_adobe.pdf[/url]”>http://www.northernhighlands.org/71244582581817/lib/71244582581817/collegeapps_2_yrs_2007_for_CAP_for_adobe.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I know about Northern Highlands Regional, but your school’s profile doesnt match up with the economic times. Those numbers wont get you into the flagship state schools in state. Since I’m a PA resident, I’m very aware of what it takes to get into PSU, and that will not get you into PSU in state. Maybe if you do pull a 2000+ on the SATs, but at this point, I think you’re giving yourself too much credit.</p>

<p>Keep in mind however, I am still a sophomore and i still have a whole year plus finals this year and first semester of senior year. I will likely get my GPA up somewhere around 3.2 3.3. Plus I believe money is not an object for my parents. I think that 2000+ is doable on the SAT for me, considering my PSAT score, and that i haven’t taken any prep yet at all.</p>

<p>BTW dionte, good luck with the NBA draft coming up soon!</p>

<p>I think temple could also be a match with me. Is it a nice school? I hear good things except about the location.</p>

<p>Well, eromano, I must say I like your positive attitude. Be sure to put the work behind it, and you might just surprise a lot of us on CC.</p>

<p>That said, flagship state U’s are getting more selective by the minute, due to the economy. Students who would normally have gone to a private school are heading to flagship states instead. I wouldn’t count on past admissions records as being any sort of guarantee for this year or next year.</p>

<p>It looks like the only people accepted into Maryland last year from eromano’s school had a 3.7, a 3.8 and a 3.9 average. Some kids applied with lower grades but were denied. </p>

<p>What’s interesting about the chart, though, is that for some schools, you needed higher grades to get in early than you did for “regular” admission. This was for schools that had early action, not early decision. Has anyone ever seen this? Does it mean that it is sometimes a bad idea to apply earlier?</p>

<p>Readytoroll, I really think it depends on the school.</p>

<p>A friend’s daughter attends Boston College. She says their hs GC told people that only the very strongest candidates should apply Early to BC. A lot of kids didn’t listen, and got rejected.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I have heard repeatedly that applying early is an advantage at Northeastern. CC’rs have said that their kids who applied EA got it, but kids who applied just before the RD deadline with higher scores & stats were rejected.</p>

<p>If you get up to a 3.2+ and a 2000+ on the SATs, then you should be able to call some of those schools a match. At this point, however, it’s a bit premature.</p>

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<p>Thank you, it’s a very exciting time for Temple.</p>

<p>Yeah, Temple has been great. I transferred here from BU, actually. The location is really a non-factor. North Philly gets a bad rap, but Temple is really safe.</p>

<p>Yep. Hopefully Dionte can get drafted to my nets in round 2!!! we could use a player like him.</p>

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<p>Unlikely, considering you dealt your second rounder to Seattle/Oklahoma City. He’ll be gone before the 10th pick of the 2nd round anyway.</p>

<p>ReadyToRoll, I think in just looking at my D#3’s application experience, she waited until just before the deadlines to do the Common Application & she was accepted at five private schools. IMO, this was to her advantage as I felt the schools were not getting the number of applications they desired at this point in time. Especially true for those with the rolling admissions. I recall reading something about this in one of Loren Pope’s books that he was at a private admissions office in February & the adcom was saying that all those students they rejected in November would have been accepted in February. </p>

<p>Of course this would not work for a large flagship public university with rolling admissions. They would say they had no space, especially these days, with the record number of applications they receive! It is so competitive now, I don’t think D#1 could get into UCONN now & she just graduated in 2007!</p>

<p>So that leads me to a question. Does the same thing apply to EA? Is it better to wait and apply regular decision if you are a marginal (toward the low end of the middle 50%) candidate?</p>

<p>I would tend to think so, Queen’s Mom, wait & apply regular decision as close to the deadline as possible. This was our experience! To be honest, I was surprised that she was accepted at five privates. She only applied to private schools. There was the math issue to contend with: she did not do Algebra I, Algebra II & Geometry as math has always been a problem. Now she will be taking a 101 level course in math her first semester as she does not have the SAT math score that Alfred would like.</p>

<p>I feel Early Action is for very strong applicants, not marginal candidates.</p>

<p>My daughter applied Early Action to all the schools offering it.</p>

<p>I would try and find out the acceptance statistics for Early Decision, Early Action and Regular Decision for each school under consideration.</p>

<p>As an example, University of Miami (Florida) tells you in their information session that only very strong candidates should apply Early Decision, otherwise they recommend applying Early Action for the best chance of acceptance.</p>

<p>This discussion is very interesting. Our GC has said to apply EA to every school that has it and one of the schools we visited told the group that if they needed $$$, they should apply as early as possible. My son is going to finish most of his applications during the summer so they can be sent out early.</p>

<p>For very popular schools with rolling admissions, like Penn State, the earlier you apply the better chance you have. I personally prefer Early Action if at all possible just to get the applications in and done. I don’t think it’s always smart to try to guess where the application will have the best chance, especially if you have a typical procrastinating senior that will be looking for any excuse to not get them in in a timely manner.</p>

<p>I think in general EA is the way to go, but the thing to remember is that there is no one size fits all answer regarding whether EA is the best option or not. Always check the acceptance rates for EA, ED and RD at each specific school. The info can be found in the CDS and is sometimes included in the USNews premium in the “entering class stats”. UMiami definitely has higher acceptance rates for EA (ED 27%, EA 54%, RD 30%) while Boston College definitely states that they are more selective during the EA round.</p>

<p>I think earlier is always preferred for rolling admissions schools unless the candidates app would be stronger if fall semester grades are included.</p>

<p>I know for ED many schools accept, reject or defer to the regular admission pool. Do they do the same with EA candidates?</p>

<p>But this thread is specifically for the low B students, if they could have been getting A’s all along they would have, right? I know some kids will be able to get A’s first semester senior year, but as far as my son is concerned, we’re going to just assume the “as is” grades and put in the applications ASAP. Not yet - he’s only a sophomore. ;)</p>

<p>Yeah, I know. I definitely discovered that my son could not just turn on his “A” brain (or to be honest, his “A” work habits!) whenever he felt like it. Unless there’s strong evidence to the contrary it’s safer to assume that the first semester of Senior year is not going to result in a big upward spike.</p>