<p>Gettysburg sounds fabulous, but isn’t it a bit reachy for him?</p>
<p>I would have him look at Gettysburg and Dickinson, and if he would look a bit further, Wittenberg</p>
<p>wonderful to find this thread. We live in one of those uber-competitive NYC suburbs. My son with a 3.3 and 1800 SATs walks around feeling like a failure despite an impressive extra-curricular record and a documented learning disability. We keep reassuring him that he is doing his best with one AP course each year to challenge. He keeps comparing himself to friends who are straight-A with what appears to be very little effort (we know it’s not, but to his eyes, noone works as hard as he does 
)</p>
<p>We’re just starting to see schools now and are hopeful that he will mature this year, start handing in homework, and let the teachers help him instead of thinking that they’re “always on my case.”</p>
<p>In a town where everyone seems to be A+, 2300 SATs, running a charity since they were 5, while appearing on Broadway, it’s nice to know about other great kids who shine in their way, although maybe not in every way.</p>
<p>We’re heading to JMU and Roanoke soon. Ithaca and LeMoyne after that. Ramapo and Montclair locally.</p>
<p>mrsveebee, when I read posts like yours about these driven kids, I’m so thankful we live in the midwest where people actually stop and smell the roses once in a while. I had a herd of just wonderful teens in my backyard this afternoon…swimming, laying around, laughing. Not one of them had yet checked their ACT scores from a couple weeks ago, not one of them has started working on their essays for their fall apps, they all have jobs this summer and they are just the most wonderful, well adjusted teens that each shine in their own way to paraphrase you. I was inside listening to their happy noise and thinking that a year from now they will all be fired up and getting ready to go to all different colleges…and they all will without a whole lotta self-induced stress and without having discovered a cure for cancer. More power to the “super kids” but golly how many of them are going to burn out at 22?</p>
<p>mrsveebee, I’m sure your s will be fine. My s has similar stats by choice and he seems fine with it (I’m the one who isn’t.) Your s has a good work ethic that will serve him well. My d is the same way - has to work hard in school and feels very accomplished when she knows she’s given it her all. It must be tough to be in a competitive atmosphere like your s’s school. My cousin lives out there and she and her kids are very competitive - I avoid talking about the kids when I talk to her! Of course, we have families like that here, too.<br>
A friend’s D just finished her first year at Marist. She loves it. She was a strong B+ student in HS and very involved in school. She is just as involved in college. Got lots of $$ from them, too.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I tried to use Naviance to see if we could “guess” if Gettysburg would be a reach or not. My D goes to a very small private school (100 kids/class) so we don’t have much info to go on. It seems at least one student with about a 3.1 and a tad bit lower SATs got in early decision. We don’t have IB or many APs. I would keep Gettysburg on the list and have your friend’s child contact the school. Maybe he can talk to a Professor and get a better feel (or someone who will walk his application through admissions). UDel has accepted kids with Cs. Sorry I don’t know more! Maybe someone with a bigger school can chime in here?</p>
<p>MuppetMom, that was incredibly kind and helpful of you. I really appreciate it. (We don’t have Naviance at all!).</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I think Gettysburg would be a reach for your D’s friend, unless perhaps he applied early decision and made a real good case for why Gettysburg would be the right school for him. He might want to consider Roanoke, which is less competitive and seems to have a good history department, including Civil War history, and some pretty good sports programs (especially lacrosse), but no football team.</p>
<p>zoozermom, I don’t know about how UD tolerates Cs with respect to admission. I can only tell you that I heard “third hand” of a student in our hs getting a letter from UD to explain the 2 Cs at the end of senior year. His admission was not rescinded, but it had to be very unsettling for him and his family. He applied OOS, and I have no idea how that factors into the equation.</p>
<p>I just looked at our school’s naviance and it was the strangest thing. We have never had a kid rejected from Gettysburg! There are several waitlists at the bottom of the graphs, but no rejections! From our data it looks like the GPA is more important than the SAT, there are accepted kids with SATs all over the map including < 1000 in the two part graphs. Most GPAs are above 3.0 and that seems to be the cutoff line between accept and waitlist.</p>
<p>Even WUSTL had one rejection (and many fewer applicants) from our school</p>
<p>Mrsveebee, you found the most supportive and helpful thread on CC. Your child will get an excellent education and be happy to boot. Plus, in our intense suburb, most of those charitable efforts are done by the kids’ moms (and the kids themselves are notably uncharitable to anyone they perceive as below them on the HS foodchain). In addiiton to your NY, NY and VA choices, there are good options in PA and MD. Be sure you are comfortable with Ramapo’s graduation rate and your son does not mind Ithaca’s snow (both schools have pluses, as well).</p>
<p>Zoosermom, from our HS Naviance, Gettysburg might be a reach for your friend. It is also frequently described as dominated by preppies in frats, but academically very sound. Given that boys typically do better in math, your friend may have novelty on his side.</p>
<p>Momofthreeboys, I think the competitiveness is not an East vs. Midwest issue, but more a reflection of a few affluent communities without regard for geography. My classmates from New Trier, IL; Shaker Heights, OH; and Grosse Point, MI, for example, had the same academic hypercompetitiveness as the NYC suburbanites. In most Eastern towns, the boys are more interested in colleges school where the sports programs and parties are good than the Ivy League. And even in the college rat race hotbeds, it is just a few dozen kids per class running that race (thank goodness).</p>
<p>Jackie,</p>
<p>Our school has also never had anyone rejected from Gettysburg!</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, re: competitiveness and affluence, I have to agree with you there. In our area, you can also throw in the “hovering parent” factor. Some parents with whom I associate are over-involved in their children’s education. So much so that I’ve seen crazy things… hand picking teachers, test prep classes, threats/bribes, sitting in class and taking notes (I’m not kidding.) Oftentimes, I’ve observed that the parents are more competitive than the kids!<br>
My challenge has been to keep things in perspective. A 3.0 to 3.3 is not the end of the world! My s isn’t making it easier by limiting is choices to colleges close to home (within 2-3 hr. drive).</p>
<p>Some parents sit in high school classes and take notes for their child?^^^^</p>
<p>Regarding “helicoptering”…we don’t have a school system where test/homework grades are available on line, or any grades for that matter. However, I think that if we did, I might have been one of those parents who checked them, because when I hear about grading errors that occur, I often wonder if my son has been the victim of any of them. </p>
<p>For instance, I read something in another thread about a kid in physics who got a poor grade on a test and it turned out to be a scantron error. I didn’t even know what scantron was and asked my son about it, and he told me that this is how his physics tests are graded too. To top that off, this year he has gotten As on all his physics tests, but failed one of them! Failing a test is something he has never done (and in general, tests are not his problem…it’s not handing things in that is the problem), but by the time I found out (the teacher wrote it as a comment on the report card), my son would not follow up with the teacher to check on whether it had been graded properly. I think that if we had a system where I could have known that sooner, I would have pushed him to follow up immediately or even (maybe, not sure) called myself.</p>
<p>So, I guess I can relate to some helicoptering (or I wouldn’t be here) but I can’t imagine taking notes in class for him. In fact, I think the most “helicoptery” moms and dads around are experts at doing things in secret so that their kid is the one that looks good.</p>
<p>P.S. We’re still waiting here for the final report card.</p>
<p>“In most Eastern towns, the boys are more interested in colleges school where the sports programs and parties are good than the Ivy League.” What???</p>
<p>Obviously you have not attended an East coast robotics tournament… They might compete in seeing who has the coolest laptop and colleges that have the best techy toys are the highest on their list. My son’s friends in particular are looking for schools without football to avoid a jock culture.</p>
<p>Back to the question about C’s and acceptance. I’ve found that the large state U’s are the ones that are more black and white about GPA’s. Penn State would probably not accept C average students at the University Park campus. They don’t even re-weigh the grades so if it’s a 2.5 GPA on paper, that’s what they take it as. One C won’t matter but an overall GPA of 2.0 is different matter.</p>
<p>Kathiep, you are correct that I “obviously have not attended an East Coast Robotics tournament”, although, having attended 2 Ivy League schools, I had a fair number of friends who did. I was obviously generalizing about boys being sports-oriented; I respect the robotics convention boys, but believe they are unfortunately outnumbered by the ESPN and Madden Football addicts.</p>
<p>As for helicopter parents, in many towns, I think it is a close call whether the school helicopter parents are worse than the sports parents who go insane if their child does not make the “A” travel team; get the most playing time; etc. And then there are some parents who do both. I think the rising competitiveness and cost of college admission has a lot to do with both types of parents.</p>
<p>riggo, true story!, this mom was so determined to be able to help her child through pre-calc that she asked the teacher if she could sit in some of the classes to take notes. That way, she said, if her c needed help after 10 P.M., when it was too late to call the teacher, she would be able to help her…Other kids joked, “where are THEY going to college next year?” C was actually a good student, just so overshadowed by mom.</p>
<p>ReadytoRoll, that was me with the kid with the Scantron error on physics. It was his semester final, so a D showed up loud and clear on the report card! He had not gotten anything less than an 89 on a test in that class all semester and had studied for the final. He was really upset about it and went to see the teacher (not much prodding required). If it had been a regular unit test I suspect he would have written it off.</p>
<p>The scary part was that the teacher never acknowledged that the scanning problem might have been an issue for other students, too. If he had a low B or a C in the class, we might not have questioned it. It also made us wonder if other grades were simiarly compromised.</p>
<p>I have bought books that S2 used as an additional resource to help in math (especially his freshman year in Alg II w/Analysis), but sit in class and take notes?!?!? Not a prayer.</p>
<p>D’s friend got a D on her report card this semester in a class where she was pulling a high A. Even assuming she flunked the final (highly doubtful), there was no way she could have gotten anything lower than a C given her grades. The teacher is nowhere to be found and the guidance counselor (yes, she’s the same one my D has) refuses to do anything until the teacher comes back in September.</p>
<p>She is such a good girl and has been working incredibly hard this year (after having a really bad sophomore year). It’s just not fair.</p>