New 3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread

<p>SLUMOM, no nothing to lose at all. BTW, I know one person who refused to apply because she said that she was not going to school that sounded like “your sinus” college.</p>

<p>I had a friend who didn’t want her son to look at Goucher because it sounded funny.</p>

<p>northeastmom, I guess that’s my point- with privates, the waters are murkier in regards to knowing if a college is a match or not. It could be that the Allegheny admissions person liked that son was and Eagle Scout, maybe the Juniata one had a slew of Eagle Scout applicants… With State U’s they sometimes don’t even look at EC’s, they just go by the stats.</p>

<p>SLUMOM, I agree, can’t beat the free ap’s. I suggested my son apply to the school he is now attending because the application was free and easy.</p>

<p>Kathiep, it could also be nothing more than the state that you live in that had something to do with it.</p>

<p>That too. I think I’ve mentioned to you before that I think Son’s admission to Roanoke had to do with his gender and our state. Schools like to say that they have students from all fifty states and liberal arts oriented schools have an ever shrinking amount of males. So if you are a guy from a state with a low population, you probably have an edge at most oos private colleges.</p>

<p>One that wants geographic diversity comes to mind, just read about it the other day, was Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, MN. They have rolling admissions and “those who can provide some geographic diversity are welcome.” Looks like it is becoming more of a 60% Female-40% Male population as well. I suppose Minnesota winters aren’t any worst than the ones in Northeast!</p>

<p>SLUMOM, MN winters are worse than where I live, but probably not worse than where you live :)</p>

<p>^^I think gender and location might also help in some state sch. admits. S2’s gpa was prob in the 3.0-3.4 range (weighted), barely sqeaked into the top third of his class. He had a mix of honors, two AP’s (didn’t pass the exams), 2 CC courses and some reg. classes. He was a four yr. athlete but only recruited by very small schools he was not interested in. He held a PT job for over two years. His SAT (that he refused to prep for or retake) was abysmal (less than 1000). Not a president or founder of anything. </p>

<p>He applied to two directional state u’s. One was a safety but the other’s (his favorite) average fresh. stats were higher than his. The fav. sch. is over 60% female and is on the opposite side of our wide state from us. He was admitted 6 weeks after applying. I’m sure it wasn’t his great stats that got him in. I have to believe being a guy from an underrepresented part of the state played a part in his acceptance even at a big (25,000) state u.</p>

<p>Thanks again for all of your suggestions. His college counselor did suggest Beloit, but not the others. I did wonder if being a boy would help him at a school like Bennington, which seems to really need boys.</p>

<p>I’m jumping in with a quick word on Emerson, which was suggested earlier. My brother goes there, and was pretty much a B student in high school (I think, I never saw his transcript). However, he was below the averages and it was a big reach for him gradewise. He was a lighting design major and had quite a good portfolio and resume already, so I think that’s really what got him in. Which brings me to the second point – Emerson is a really technical school. It offers majors in communications and theater and every single aspect of those, but nothing else. So probably not such a good fit, unless your kid is really interested in some aspect of theater.</p>

<p>Lois, yes the fact that you have a boy and the fact that you are from the northwest should both be positives for Bennington. Many schools post or call out where their student boy is from and most privates “like” to have a diverse body of students from across the nation. My oldest goes to a school with only a couple thousand students but it has for decades had at least one student from every state in the union and it “likes” to be able to use that statement in their literature. Every school has it’s rationale for how they put a class together, but most schools like georgraphic diversity and like to keep their male/female ratio. It also sounds like you GC knows your son. My best advice as a second time around mom with kids who pretty much knew what they liked and didn’t like , is to enjoy the ride, point out schools your son might not have thought about and let 'em go. It’s virtually impossible to know every college in the country so I enjoyed reading these forums to find out about schools I had never heard of to point out to the kids. </p>

<p>SLU mom, I defer to you on the liberal arts scene at Alfred, you would have the greater experience. I liked Alfred very much and we were ther for a couple days, but it didn’t click with the “kid”, and Alfred did not “promote” their liberal arts curriculum to us.</p>

<p>What is a “free priority application”?</p>

<p>Also, anyone know any students in our GPA range that have managed to get into Skidmore? This appears to be a great match for my son except for the GPA…</p>

<p>Have you gotten a priority app yet, warriorboy? They are great. Often they waive the app fee, sometimes there is no essay to write, often a very abbreviated application to fill out, and they usually give the applicant a much quicker response as to whether they are admitted. My older son completed one of these. I don’t know how they usally effect financial and merit aid, if they do at all, but that school (priority app school) offered him the worst package.</p>

<p>Well the GPA looks to be around 3.4 for Skidmore, according to the Princeton Review website. When I put in my S’s stuff, it said it was a match, but he doesn’t have a 3.4, more like the title of our thread, here! We have it on our list, warriorboy, as they need males, they would like to have a 50-50 gender spread. We sent S’s SAT scores from the May test date. At our high school, I hear about females being denied, not males! </p>

<p>We have visited with another child of ours, but she went elsewhere! I was very impressed and Saratoga Springs is a nice little city. S has said he would look at Skidmore, even though it isn’t his idea of “rural.” It is on the outskirts of town. </p>

<p>Get your son on the mailing list of some schools that he finds interesting & you may receive some Priority Applications-no fee & limited essays! (sometimes no teacher recommendations either) Because he is male & from a certain state they may be targeting, you might get a few Priority Applications. My D got at least 3 of them last winter.</p>

<p>I think Skidmore may be doable given the economy. In fact, maybe many of the heretofore (ooh…always wanted to use that word) unreachable private schools may be more reachable next year!</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I can’t talk my son into even looking at the smaller private schools because he is so set on big, greek, and sporty. Even our flagship UConn is not that appealing to him given the low greek participation. He wants to look at Syracuse, of course, but it’s awfully expensive and we won’t be qualifying for any need-based aid even though we really need it…lol!!</p>

<p>Ooh…another question. Some of you mentioned that you have already sent your SAT scores. Is there any reason one would want to send them earlier than the app, or are you just getting it out of the way?</p>

<p>We haven’t received any priority apps and wasn’t sure what they were. There are a few schools on my son’s list that are more difficult to get into but where he would probably add some geographic diversity as well as being a male. I’m not sure that he would actually attend so we’ll have to see if he gets in. </p>

<p>I think the Skidmore GPA is unweighted because when I looked at Naviance, the kids who were accepted all had a 3.8 GPA or above and at least a 1300 on their SAT’s.</p>

<p>My son (now college senior) had several unsolicited free application offers but only a couple of priority aps. I think he got most of them from a big College Fair we attended in Philadelphia. He had made up stickers that had his info on them, like a return address - and then when we stopped at the booths for the colleges he could just add slap them on the response cards and add any additional info they wanted.</p>

<p>ReadytoRoll, I sent my S’s test scores from the May test date only to the schools who consider ALL the test scores & use your highest score. This is what they call “Superscore”. As you can send the scores to 4 schools for free, why not just go ahead & do it? If we decided to do it later, it would cost $9.50 per school. </p>

<p>The collegeboard also has “Score Choice” where the student picks the test scores to be sent to the colleges. However, you have to scrutinize the collegeboard website & determine which schools will “Superscore” & which schools will use “Score Choice”. In my S’s case, those 4 schools want to see ALL the scores from ALL test dates & will use best score, or “Superscore.” So there would be no hiding any bad scores with those schools, they would get them all anyway, no matter how many times you took the test. As it turned out, he did very well & has received some mailings from schools who received the scores.</p>

<p>We aren’t sending any of D’s scores anywhere until we see which ones she does best on. At the moment her ACT score is significantly higher than her SAT, so we’ll only send the ACT. But she wants to try the ACT one more time, and maybe the SAT as well. </p>

<p>I hate standardized tests and think the SAT is a rip-off, BUT… since the colleges seem to think the test scores are important, I’d like to wait until we have all the data and only send that which looks the best. I know they only take the highest score, but why even show them a lower one? In the scheme of what college costs, $9.50/score report is small money.</p>

<p>Slumom - where can you find the info on collegeboard about which schools superscore? Also, is there a way to find out what an ACT is equivalent to on the SAT. I had a chart but our GC said that it wasn’t accurate.</p>