<p>Looked into Pitt briefly when my daughter was being recruited there for her sport. From what we heard, it IS right in the city, but with a non-city looking campus and feel. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>Perhaps they mean it has some nice grassy areas? When I visited there, I remember it it being in the city, rather than in a suburb. CC has a pretty active Pitt forum, so perhaps posting there will get a better answer.</p>
<p>kathiep raises an good question–how much above a school’s average do you need to be to regard it as a safety and does it need to be in both GPA and boards or, as in warriorboy’s example is being a GPA match and well above on boards (or vice versa) good enough? Obviously, various other factors–atheltics, ECs, URM, legacy, geographic diversity also come into play. I have felt safe when Naviance indicated over 80% of equivalent GPA/board kids were accepted, but there may be other formulas out there.</p>
<p>
No–the only retention question asked was about the percentage of returning sophomores, which I think the rep said was about 90. Was that a 4-year graduation rate you saw? If so, I wonder if the emphasis on internships might often result in students taking a semester or two longer to finish.</p>
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At my son’s school, the average accepted GPA was 3.73 and most of the accepted students were in the 3.5-4.0 range. But there were acceptances with GPAs of 3.2 and 3.4, so it can be done.</p>
<p>When I put in my S’s stats on Princeton Review’s “Is it a Match?” or whatever it is, where you put in GPA and Test scores, it keeps saying that HWS is a “safety” for him. But I think that is because of his test scores. While I don’t regard these things as any prediction of the outcome, I suppose they can be used as just a tool. They certainly don’t take into consideration your gender, legacy status, your sport or your home state.</p>
<p>I would not use the PR’s predictor as an accurate predictor at all. I like looking at this site - [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) which has the actual SAT scores of accepted students at every college. Or Collegedata, which lists SAT scores and gpa’s of enrolled students. Neither site mentions if these are weighted or unweighted gpa’s but I assume the latter. I guess PR does that too, but I know that when I used it for my kids it was wildly optimistic.</p>
<p>When you need merit aid, your students stats should be ABOVE the average.</p>
<p>Anyone have any experience with “my chances dot net”? It reinforced my thinking on 5 of D’s 7 schools, but I think it’s overestimating her chances at one school and underestimating at another. According to this website, D has a 63% chance at 2 of her top 3 schools, and only a 35% chance at the third. Even her safety is only an 80% chance of admittance. I guess this is because it’s using test scores and unweighted GPA, and not counting weighted GPA or ECs?</p>
<p>In July, the American Enterprise Institute think tank released a lengthy report on graduation rates, highlighting the top ten and bottom ten rates in each admissions category, including regional tables. <a href=“http://www.aei.org/docLib/Diplomas%20and%20Dropouts%20final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aei.org/docLib/Diplomas%20and%20Dropouts%20final.pdf</a></p>
<p>Not surprisingly, schools with a high percentage of impoverished students fared poorly, but there were some surprises. GW finished 6th worst in its category, which its president said was a result of kids who transfer out (although I do not regard a high transfer out rate as a positive). Its rate of over 70%, however, was an improvement over prior years. Some other well regarded schools I have seen low 4 year rates for are Ramapo and McDaniel.</p>
<p>I think there are 3 rates to check, and colleges are not always clear about which rate they refer to–% of freshmen who return; 4 year graduation rate; and 6 year rate. Schools in isolated areas, for example, may lose a lot of freshmen but graduate almost all who stay past that year. In the recession, I can imagine an increase in drop outs, transfers to less expensive schools and students switching from full time to part time.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, I think that a lot of the kids from Ramapo probably transfer to Rutgers, the flagship in NJ to finish. I do not have the data to state that as fact. It is just a guess, I know of a couple of examples where that is exactly what happened. In fact I know one student who attended a private in NY, transferred to Ramapo bc she did not have the gpa for Rutgers (at that time Ramapo was much less competitive), and then transferred to Rutgers for year 3 and she graduated on 4.5 years. She left the private U in NY because she was unhappy socially.</p>
<p>Northeastmom, you raise a very good point: we are all so worried that we are somehow missing a piece of important information this year and yet so much of happiness and success at college comes down to whether they find a good friend first semester; a roommate they can at least tolerate; and at least one subject they find interesting.</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned this before (hopefully not on this thread) about how my son’s college makes a big push to get the freshman comfortable and active on campus asap. Their feeling is that if a student is comfortable, then they will have a better chance to succeed academically. I really like the idea of applying to a wide variety of colleges and having overnights after acceptance. Whenever I hear of kids transferring, nine times out of ten, it’s not for academic reasons, it’s about comfort and fit.</p>
<p>I tried my chances dot net. I would like to know how accurate this site is also. We got some interesting results.</p>
<p>Not very accurate unless there are alot of data points. I just lobbed S1 “stuff” in for his safety and it said he had a 5% chance, but there was only one data point and it was a rejection. This is a school that for the most part only rejects folks with a 1.9 or lower GPA and only rejects about 10% of applicants, so be careful using this site until there are sufficient data points in my opinion. For S1 (who is already in college) his number 2 school and his number 3 school should have come in virtually identical but one was a 75% chance and one was a 54% chance. These were all three schools he was accepted at. (The 5% chance, the 54% chance and the 74% chance.) It’s a fun site, but I personally don’t put a ton of weight on the info unless there are many, many data points.</p>
<p>college data dot com also has a chance calculation. I don’t find it particularly spot on either, but it does give you a ballpark idea.</p>
<p>College data dot com was pretty accurate for my D’s results this past spring. At least four were right on the line between “Reach” and “Maybe”, with two being acceptances and two being denials. Their “Admission Tracker Results” are rather fun to look at but I probably pay more attention to the denials than the acceptances. </p>
<p>As I said before your gender, a sport you play etc. or your geographical location don’t come into play on these chances calculators. If a school needs more males or favors males in the admissions process, that can’t be calculated. Or maybe your child plays an unusual instrument. The calculators are fun to use, that is about it. We all know that this is a crap shoot at best! LOL</p>
<p>My Chances was fairly accurate for my daughter. She applied to 15 schools (accpeted at 6, 1 waitlist, 8 rejections) and their estimates were correct in all but one case. (She was accepted at Clemson, while they gave her a 32% chance of getting in) To be fair, many of her applications were at extreme reaches so predicting that she would not get in was not that difficult. It was also interesting that their estimates changed during the course of the admissions season as they received more data points.</p>
<p>I think the most accurate predictor is Naviance or a similar database of a reasonable number of kids from your high school. This picks up whether the college has a favorable view of your HS (which is often a decisive boost for kids without great numbers) and your geographic factor. If Naviance is unavailable, a good guidance department should be able to give you some good input on how applicants have done at the school.</p>
<p>For 3.0-3.5 GPA kids, my personal belief is that many will be best served by smaller, more nurturing schools if affordable. At such schools, I have the impression that–no matter what a website says–boys will often have an edge if, as is often the case, there is clear majority of female students; that geographic diversity is a major edge because they often do not get that many students from beyond a few states; and that athletes have a big edge, because without athletic scholarships, fielding a competitive team (especially in football) requires a lot of athletes.</p>
<p>Conversely, at schools which boast of a high percentage of intercollegiate athletes, the average scores may be misleading, because if you are accepting a high number of kids because of their athletic ability (or legacy status, etc) despite lower scores (no offense to the many brainy athletes), the nonathlete will need higher than average scores to get in.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, the kids with a real hard time are those without any ECs. My older son went to school with a peer who was a straight A student and had high SAT scores. The problem was that he really was extremely unsocial. He never participated in any high school ECs, and did not participate in outside ECs either. He stayed home and studied. If he had participated in anything (sports, written for the school’s paper, joined the yearbook club, church group etc.) he would have many more options. He still got into top schools but they were out of his geographic area. He ended up in the midwest, and he wanted to be in New England.</p>
<p>This is a little off topic but I was a middle school math teacher for a number of years. I remember parents being upset if their child had a B or B+ average. These kids were strong students and worked hard. i couldn’t understand the stress. </p>
<p>I also thought that if my son maintained a B average in high school that it was a good score. Foolish me!!! Is it just CC or is the world made up of mostly A students? I’ve looked at a lot of college stats and MOST of them have kids with average GPA’s of 3.7 or above. One of the school’s that my son really likes that I thought was a safety is probably a match.</p>
<p>I think my son will be applying to a few schools that he likes that he should be able to get into very early.(probably the strategy of most of us)If he gets into one of those, (and he has good grades in AP classes) then he will probably focus on the reach schools that he loves. I feel like we’re playing poker and trying to beat the odds. We’re hoping that being a male and geographic diversity will help but who knows.</p>
<p>Our Penn trip should be interesting. He hasn’t been thrilled with too many of the schools that he has a good shot at, so if he likes at least one of the schools, I will be thrilled.</p>
<p>Warrior, after number 1 son I ceased worry about the B+ stuff. There are two many not so great forces in play these days that I just don’t agree with. If you were in the schools these days you would see this clearly. If my kids’ grade points and standardized test scores are all commensurate with one another than I’m OK with it all. If S2 doesn’t get into his reach, then so be it. Fortunately it’s not the only school he is in “like” with. We’ve gotten handwritten (positive) notes from time to time unsolicited from teachers about all our sons and I think those notes speak volumes. S2s list is gelling nicely and I’m OK with all on the list so far. No HYP, but frankly, proportionately my HYP friends aren’t doing all that much better than little 'ole CTCL me in the game of life and I suspect the same will hold true for our kids.</p>