Ole Miss, Honors College, Scholarships & GPA

My son really loved his visit to Ole Miss, and he is very interested in the honors college there. Does anyone know how they calculate GPA for scholarships and honors admissions? It’s all very confusing to me. My son has a mix of As & Bs in his classes. He typically has mostly As in the first Semester, but drops to mostly Bs in the Second when his sports activities kick into high gear. He’s in sports that have a huge time commitment. That said, his course load at school is ridiculous. This year as a junior, his schedule was this:

0 Hour - AP Chemistry LAB
1 Hour - AP Chemistry
2 Hour - AP Calculus BC
3 Hour - AP European History
4 Hour - AP Language & Composition
5 Hour - Lunch
6 Hour - PE
7 Hour - Honors Computer Programming (Math elective)
8 Hour - Honors Biomedical Sciences (Science elective)

His unweighted GPA is a 3.3 this year, weighted it’s 4.5 or so.

His school is a magnet school, and has extremely high poverty and URM students. The drop out rate is increasing quarter by quarter. As a result, his class rank is dropping, though he hasn’t really budged as far as class standing goes. He’s still in the top 40 or so students (Class started at 660, it’s down to 480(!!!) now).

He likely would not attend Ole Miss if he can’t get into SBHC, as he wants the smaller class sizes and opportunities for deeper discussions that would be available to him there.

He has a 34 on his ACT, and he will have 12 APs completed by the time he graduates. He is in a Gifted and Talented Magnet program now, and he wants to continue in a similar environment.

For ECs he is a varsity athlete, and he participates in the poetry and gaming clubs at school. He does some community service events during the year. He has a job working at a tree nursery on the weekends, so his time is somewhat limited.

Does he have any chance for SBHC? I am seeing 3.9 GPA posted - he would be right there if we are talking weighted.

Your son sounds quite accomplished. Good luck to you. The average from the last few classes is around 3.9 something unweighted and 31 ACT. My daughter is finishing freshman year in HC and it has been better for her than we could have imagined.

The weighted vs. unweighted is so hard to figure out. My son’s school doesn’t provided unweighted GPA at all, you only get the weighted. I did the calculation myself for where he is thus far for the school year.

I’ll make sure he doesn’t get his heart set on Ole Miss - it sounds like he doesn’t have a good chance at SBHC if it all about weighted. This year really hurt him, too. He added two extra honors courses that are math and science, in place of orchestra and German - which were classes he always got As in. He really likes to push himself, and the grades, in his mind, don’t matter a lot. He may have hurt his chances at a lot of schools.

My son will be a freshman in the Fall. He was crushed when he wasn’t accepted to HC. However, he was accepted to Lott Leadership and Provost Honors (a “consolation” of sorts). He also had a 34 ACT and 3.38 GPA. He went through a rough patch Sophomore year and his GPA suffered. Similar to your son, his high school does not weight for honors and AP and he took too many IMO. It’s hard to know…honestly…what they will be looking for when your son applies. Honors College is not the make or break. There are many other programs that he could find himself interested in. I would definitely give it a shot.

Great advice from MomofJandA03. Your son will qualify for the the highest level of merit aid plus the Holmes scholarship. Should be around 28k annually iirc

We went to an info session at Ole Miss recently. They said that admission is based off of unweighted GPA, but for the scholarships and awards, they look at weighted GPA. I didn’t realize it was that competitive to get into the Honors College! My son will likely have above a 4.0 weighted, but is closer to a 3.5UW (and also a 34 ACT).

Unweighted is a bit unfair. Kids who take risks will have lower GPAs than those who play it safe. Hopefully, admissions is holistic ans not just the GPA.

Very competitive. They claim to look at the Holistic student, but we were told by an admissions counselor at Scholars weekend that my son was probably a long shot to get in to the Honors College. He still received a scholarship for full tuition and out of state waiver, bringing our costs to just room and board. We don’t look at the rest of the cost of attendance since we would be paying that no matter where he goes…and there are ways to make that lower.

My son is interested in the CME primarily, although he think he’d like to be in the Honors College. We thought he had a better chance of getting into the Honors College than CME, but we may have it wrong. Good information to have as he gets on with applications this fall.

He finished up fairly strong, and managed a 3.7 unweighted and 4.3 weighted. He had 4 AP classes, 2 of which were the hardest ones, plus the PLTW Bioengineering class which is also at AP level. He took on a crazy load this year, and did an Early College course distance learning in the spring in his spare time. He is at University of Alabama right now taking two classes this summer. He will have some good experience under his belt. He is very passionate about the biomedical field and he does different programs in the summer to get more exposure to that as a carrier. Last year he did a genetics seminar at iSU in Terre Haute. He is an interesting kid who loves being around others who like to see different types of living and try it out for a bit.i can omy send my hopea

Good luck. I would say definitely apply because you just never know.

We attended orientation last week, and we are so thrilled our son chose Ole Miss. He is definitely where he needs to be and we can’t wait for move in!

Thanks, MomofJandA03 - he will definitely apply. He loved the school, though I think the honors college will be the deciding factor of whether he will attend there. He is enjoying his time in Tuscaloosa, though he probably liked Oxford a tad better.

Something I would encourage your student to do when he applies to Honors and for UM scholarships is to highlight these out of school experiences you are describing. Today, scholarship and admissions committees are looking for more than just captain of the football team and student body president. Utilizing summers in the way you describe and showing your interest in your field is going to differentiate him from the pack. I would imagine the School of Engineering at Ole Miss would be very willing to offer him money. The Ole Miss biomedical engineering program is attracting top kids from everywhere! @elodyCOH

Thankfully, he picked up the pace for the 4th quarter and ended up with As in most classes by the end of the year. He applied yesterday to Ole Miss and to SBHC - fingers crossed.