<p>Now I would like to see alist of schools that are “grade optional”… Wouldn’t that be nice.</p>
<p>So my underachieving son met with his GC and came up with a new schedule without my input. His school has begun to use test scores as “indicators of success” and therefore my son is expected to take AP science and math (AP BIo and AP Stat). He did well enough in history and Latin to be recommended for those AP classes so he added them to his schedule. Now I would be very happy if I thought that he would get at least B’s in all these classes. I wanted him to take some easy classes so he could bring up his GPA to at least a 3.25 since that seems to be the dividing line used by so many schools. </p>
<p>Of course, his GC thinks that he needs to pushed to do the work that he is capable of and that he would be bored otherwise… So I guess this means that I have to back off and hope that he doesn’t end up with all C’s!!!</p>
<p>It’s going to be a long year… I hope we hear from a school he loves early on so that I can relax!!!</p>
<p>Warrior he will have a “knuckle down” year, but he’ll be well prepared when he goes off to college. I’m a firm supporter when the kids sign up for the tough classes and I accept the grades they get. I would take a well-prepared 3.2 boy heading off to college over a 4.0 kid who took classes for the GPA…now I wish I had a 4.0 boy who took all the “hardest classes” but it isn’t going to happen with #2 or perhaps #3 will surprise me. #1 son is doing well in his college and his college GPA is higher than his high school GPA.</p>
<p>Warrior, thanks for chuckle. We’re right there with you.</p>
<p>It was really hard last Thursday, when my son came home from taking his math final, and said that if he talked about it he was going to cry (not a typical response from him). Later on, I told him it happens, forget about what you can’t change and work on what you can. That happened to be chem on Friday, which went better. </p>
<p>We keep telling ourselves, he’s a good kid, and he keeps finding ways to remind us that he is, but boy, the ups and downs are tough.</p>
<p>warriorboy648, I suppose you could say that schools with open admissions policies are “grade-optional”, and not all of them are bad schools. (In fairness, none of them are great schools, either, but still.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the words of encouragement. It is hard sometimes because we want the very best for our kids. </p>
<p>My son is a great kid. (He has a younger sisiter with a LD and he spends lots of time reading to her and working on her math skills.) I have to remember to keep it all in perspective. (He’s better at doing this than I am!!)</p>
<p>Maybe he’ll even get a couple A’s in those classes. He pointed out to me that he loves bio and European History. Now to get through next weeks exams and begin our college visits.</p>
<p>hard to remember the exact SAT numbers for first S and I’m too lazy to dig and search, but his high school unweighted GPA was 3.2, his ACT was 27 and his SAT low 1800 something: 590/600 something/and 600 something else. It made perfect sense to me and seemed in keeping. No tutoring, no online class - really no self studying. I don’t remember the PSAT score but it was alittle lower than the concordance for SAT, but PSAT was sophomore year and SAT was senior fall. That said, my S1 is a “steady Eddie” so it makes sense that all the scores are related with very little wild swings. Personally I think he could have had a slightly higher GPA, but he was prone to dislike the daily homework. His college GPA is running more like a 3.5.</p>
<p>Our son’s scores are the least of our worries: </p>
<p>SAT I 750 CR/720 M/760 W
SAT II 710 Spanish/750 World History</p>
<p>GPA, 3.1…and from the reports I’m getting on final projects and tests, it’s possible that average will go down slightly when the year is done…sigh.</p>
<p>My son’s SAT score is better than his GPA…but not nearly as good as nightchef’s son…and my son also refused to take any SAT IIs since he said that no college that wanted them would admit him anyway. (He may be right about that.)</p>
<p>SAT (first time) 760M 590V 630W
SAT (second time) 670M 670V 630W
ACT (only once) 30 composite…scores from 29 to 31</p>
<p>(Our other dilemma is whether even to send the ACT, because the 30 is lower than the superscored SAT and comparable to one of the single SATs.)</p>
<p>His GPA right now is around 3.2 or 3.3. He thinks that this year’s GPA will be similar, so no upward trend. (He is in the middle of finals right now.)</p>
<p>I think it he can get into Maryland he will be happy. I would have liked to see him go to Michigan (and he liked it too), but it’s a huge reach, although he is a double legacy. Still also considering our state flagship (UConn) since it is soooo much cheaper…again, if he gets in.</p>
<p>Yayyy! My son fjust inished this sophomore year with a 3.427… if you include Bible and Journalism… but whose counting? About 1600 an PSAT. 22 PLAN ( pre-ACT) I think, but paperwork “lost”. Sigh…</p>
<p>nightchef, students with scores like yours son’s tend to be shooed out of this thread. I’m not shooing, but when I came here asking about my son, who had similar scores, it was suggested that the thread was not the right one. YMMV.</p>
<p>Well, wait a minute…I thought this thread was not about scores but GPA. And there, he qualifies. (In fact, a couple more bad terms and he’ll need to be shooed out of the thread for having too <em>low</em> a GPA.)</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang…I don’t think anyone tried to shoo you out of here…I think one poster pointed out that there may be a different pattern of acceptances for kids with higher scores, though. I am hearing that the GPA is the most important thing…and if your score is high, it just shows that your kid is an underachiever so may not be such a good thing. It may be true that those higher SAT scores will help…especially the ones that Nightchef’s kid has…but that is part of what this thread is all about…finding those schools that may give more attention to other things besides GPA.</p>
<p>Nightchef…if your son’s 3.1 is unweighted and his weighted is much higher, then Cardinal Fang is right and this thread will really not be applicable to you. But if your son’s weighted GPA is 3.1 (or, he never took any honors/AP classes, in which case his weighted and unweighted GPAs are the same…which is what I meant in my OP but may not have been clear)…then welcome to the thread. </p>
<p>I think we’re all a little sensitive here to the “one upper” parents and would like to be in a place where all of our situations are similar. It doesn’t really help the parents on this thread to hear about some kid who is shooting for an Ivy, for instance. That said, I am happy to read about a 3.0 student who has a unique amazing talent or has won an award for community service, etc, because as I said originally…we know these kids are fantastic regardless of their GPA!</p>
<p>Sorry! I didn’t mean to cause angst! I was trying to establish a benchmark goal for us and having the SAT info for the 3.0-3.3 gpa student I thought would be helpful.</p>
<p>cherryhillmomto2, I think that the SAT score range would be huge. Not all Bs are equal, because not all classes and not all high schools are equal. Also, some student are great standardized test takers, some are lousy test takers and some are average at taking those tests. Some had tutors and some did not. Some kids would have higher gpas if they did and handed in their homework, while others work diligently for their Bs. You probably have some uneven kids who are A students and score high in one or more areas, but are average in other areas.</p>
<p>Okay, I think this is becoming clearer to me. I hadnt read all the comments, so I wasnt sure what the issue was with some posters being uninvited to this thread.</p>
<p>So, the 3.0-3.3 GPA should be UW, even though in the original post it stated that it could be either W or UW as long as the WGPA wasnt as high as 4.0. I see the confusion.</p>
<p>Im not slamming RR, just saying that its perfectly understandable how some parents got the impression that this thread was meant to include their kid.</p>
<p>Northstarmom is correct that the kids will be all over the place. I used my S1 as an example. He’s probably more the exception than the rule. He is/was a true B+ kind of kid with unweighted GPA of 3.2 and SAT/ACT scores that put him around 80%.</p>