<p>I’m in. S got a 2180 on his SAT’s but has a GPA hovering in the 3-3.3 range. He currently has 8 true safeties on his list but we are having a hard time catorgorizing reaches and matches because of the mismatch. His GC suggested we apply to “lots” of reaches because one never knows what the admins will think. </p>
<p>As calmom said, I do think the safeties value S’s high SAT scores, not necessarily because they see potential, but because they want his high scores to up their stats.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I can see the importance of ‘shining’ vs. ‘making excuses’ in the essay. I’m thinking Cal Tech in particular is looking for passion and ability, both of which he has. His grades in math and science are all A’s. He has also received the highest grade in our state for the state-wide math competition. Would a perfect SAT help some schools overlook a mediocre GPA? Wouldn’t they need some insight into the reason for the GPA? How could we do give them that?</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for your comments!
Calmom, you have given me food for thought. I honestly don’t know about the first and second semester pattern - although there is not a huge difference overall - but you bring up an interesting question about stamina. On the one hand, she plays a sport first semester and I think that this focuses her, and second semester might offer more distractions with socializing. On the other hand, she was a Congressional Page second semester in 11th grade - and talk about stamina! School at 6:45 AM, then work for 7 or more hours, sometimes into the evening, then homework, class trips with reflective writing on the weekends, lots of distractions as there were 70 teenagers all thrown together and very little sleep. This produced a C in math, a B in Spanish, and As in English, history and science, as well as a “Washington seminar” course that colleges will probably ignore so I am not even counting it in the GPA. It was a fabulous experience, but maybe a “sprint” as you describe it. However, one of the first things my daughter learned there is that GPAs are NOT equivalent across school districts or across the country. She met kids who had higher GPAs who showed less understanding of the concepts and really didn’t have as much knowledge of the subject matter. Therefore, I do not understand how colleges can possibly use GPA more than standardized test scores, which are at least - standardized! However, you do bring up a good point that GPA may reflect work ethic even if the student is not understanding or mastering subject matter or concepts. We actually had the opposite experience in our family - the high SAT/lower GPA kid was admitted to reaches, while the lower SAT/higher GPA kid was not, and of course the high SAT/high GPA kid was. (Just because I had skewed kids before doesn’t mean I am any less confused about this one!)
That being said, I think that you bring up interesting ideas about scheduling. I have also noticed that my daughter will have some behaviors such as “having” to read a certain book, rushing to the library to get it and becoming totally absorbed until she finishes it, ignoring other things that she has to do, then wanting to talk about it at great length. And, sometimes these are books that fall into the category of “great literature”. She is also what you might call the “creative type”, as mathmom’s son is.
Do you know which schools offer this 4-1-4 pattern?</p>
<p>Opus, I think that the colleges will probably ignore this grade, unless your student is trying to play up music as his or her most important strength, applying to a music program, etc.</p>
<p>Football, which division is your son trying to play in?</p>
<p>Astro, it sounds like your daughter is great at math and science AND writing! That is a winning combination.</p>
<p>Mathmom, when I have time I will try to PM you.</p>
<p>qgroup, I think that you are right to look at the schools with “tech” in their names Cal Tech, MIT, WPI, CMU (used to be “Carnegie Tech”), RPI, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech all might be more focused on those As in math and science!</p>
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Here’s how I understand it: Your kid is going to be competing against a lot of kids with a higher GPA. If he spends his essay explaining why his GPA is lower than it should be, the best-case scenario is that the adcoms finish the essay thinking, “well, maybe he really is just as academically capable as these other kids we’re looking at.” But in the meantime, those other kids have spent <em>their</em> essays making the adcoms fall in love with them by talking about the things they are passionate about. Who do you think they will pick? So I think you should always spend your essay talking about what really matters to you and pushes your enthusiasm buttons, and hope you catch the imaginations of the readers to the point where they are motivated to take a chance on you.</p>
<p>Great thread!!! My DS fits in here perfectly. Just finished Sophmore year. 3.2 GPA, PSAT 219. Hasn’t taken any AP’s yet but is signed up for a few next year. It is hard to decide which way he may go. Part of me thinks that he will do better in the harder classes, but then again he may not. I think next year will be the determining factor for what colleges he will apply to. I think he should look at colleges based on his grades not his SAT scores.</p>
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FWIW this was certainly true for my kid–he entered senior year with 2230 SATs and a 3.2 weighted GPA, having done no APs and just a couple of honors courses up to that point. He took 3 APs in senior year and got better grades than he’d ever gotten before, regardless of weighting. Struggling with the level of the material was never his problem, it was disorganization & self-sabotage.</p>
<p>Ya, my DS’s GPA is in direct correlation with his slight ADHD symptoms of disorganization and focus. He has a real hard time focusing on material he either already knows… which is true of many subjects, he has self-taught himself many things by reading and researching all his life, or just finds boring. He always does well on tests and his teachers always comment that he knows the material and concepts more than anybody in the class, but yet, he always gets B’s, not A’s. He also does not do his homework a lot of the time. URGH!!! My pet peeve.</p>
<p>Nightchef, is your son going to Rochester?
mamom, what are your son’s safeties? What does he like about them? I am asking because we are having a hard time finding safeties that my daughter likes.</p>
<p>And, for those of you who have kids with organization and focus problems, what do you do about it at their age? They need to learn to be independent without us on their case every second, yet they so often “sabatoge” themselves as nightchef put it.</p>
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No, he chose Goucher instead. But speaking of Rochester, it was the only one of his reaches that admitted him, and based on our experience it might be a good reach to look at for high SAT/middling GPA kids.</p>
<p>D does not belong in the stratosphere of this thread, but since someone asked I will respond…just barely a 3.0 GPA /no weighting at her school; great writer, awful test taker…high 20 ACT first try…</p>
<p>Not much time to post, but midthread so far I saw someone grappling with how much of the essay to devote to “explaining” away the lower part of the lopside.</p>
<p>If this helps: our D, who had super-high verbal everything and not-hot math anythings (both standardized tests and courses, consistent lopsided since Middle School). She was so lopsided it jumped off the page. </p>
<p>What she did was choose colleges where there was some chance for a strategy to deal with this through coursework. Then she mentioned – in ONE SENTENCE and not the whole essay. She did a "why I chose this college to apply to… (their prompt) and in one sentence owned her math badside (“As you can see from my scores and transcript…”). She didnt explain or angst over it, either. Just assume the committee sees what’s in front of them. </p>
<p>THEN (second half of that sentence) she said how she planned to take some of their quantitative courses to meet their grad requirements. She didn’t pretend she’d become something she wasn’t. That school particular school had a Q (quantitative) distribution in some courses called things like “Math in Architecture” and “Math in Music” and she thought through her entire 15-point distribution to show she could graduate. And that she appreciated those course-offerings. (Noteworthy: when in college she was sure to lighten up her credit load the terms she took the actual Math department course so she could handle it. She really planned her schedule aroudn the lopsidedness, and flourished in her strength areas – does, still).</p>
<p>She had more colleges on her list where she perceived similar ways through her weakness area and said how she Would address it at Their college. That was done in a sentence, and folded into a long essay about her strength areas which she also said how she’d develop them at Their college. (Later in college she was diagnosed with a full-blown learning disability, but at app time had no idea that was behind any of this. She was compensating on math/science all her life by relying on her verbal/creative/social strengths; Water under the bridge…) </p>
<p>I think: own the problem and act like you’re aware. Nobody’s fooled. By figuring out a Strategy to get through, while at college keyed into their college, the student sounds smarter, capable and aware of both strengths/weaknesses. Just 1-2 sentences on addressing weakness, not a whole essay and hopefully not even a whole paragraph. The rest of personal essay: all strengths! And not a “platitude”, rah-rah, self-pitying or self-excusing sentence – rather, a real practical approach, keyed off of their course catalogue, to get through. Show you know, appreciate them, mention it’s part of your plan to succeed. BRIEFLY (unlike my post…when i’m in a hurry i post too long).</p>
<p>Essays help for lopsiders. Based on numbercrunching alone, D;s stratospheric verbal skills were wiped out by her always-low math marks (standardized testing and transcripts alike). Therefore, those colleges that read essays with care, and prize “fit” are helpful. My advice might be to others: key into some smaller sized but higher-ranked LAC’s (top 30-100 but not top 1-30 LAC’s…just grasping for numbers here, no science behind it). The big universities that might rule out based on numbers before they get to readng any essay might not be your friend here. Think of this from ground-up, as you develop your list.</p>
<p>D’s 2200 was a good score, but was only achieved in her third round of SATs. Her initial CR was low 600s, and her PSAT score equivalents were well below that. Hard studying was required to reach her final SAT I score, which was still lower than most of her GPA peers. She just never has tested well with standardized tests. Despite an otherwise outstanding application, she was rejected or waitlisted by half a dozen top schools, including one where she had double legacy status. Fortunately, she applied to enough schools to have a few good choices left at the end, and we have no regrets about the school she will attend this fall. I’m just offering her experience for those who might think that 2100-2200 on the SAT I would be good enough for almost any college (except maybe a couple of “techs”). </p>
<p>Thanks, levirm! She ought to do well in the sciences with her “triple threat.” I’m just sorry that my alma mater chose to admit the celebrity kid instead!</p>
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<p>Maybe “stamina” is the wrong word for it. My sprinter/marathon analogy was just to suggest that maybe your daughter is very high energy over the short term, but interest & motivation may wane over the long haul. I don’t mean to diminish her talents in any way – I attended an undergraduate university on the quarter system, and I really thrived in that environment. Some people like a lot of variation and change in their lives. One thing I liked in college was that I had the opportunity to take many <em>more</em> different classes than I could have taken with a semester system. If I liked a particular class or professor, I could enroll in a follow-up or different class with the same prof. in a subsequent quarter. If I didn’t like a prof or class… well, I only had to put up with it for 10 weeks. </p>
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That’s why class rank is also very important in considering GPA’s – as well as other information about the school. Standardized tests are NOT really standardized, precisely because schools are different. My d. entered an elite college with test scores on the tail end of their distribution – she realized right away that she was a stronger-than-average student at the college and graduated at the top of her college class. In hindsight, I can see that her weak test scores might have been, in part, a reflection of the weaker school she was coming from – or at least, the fact that she was not coming from a teach-to-the-test type of environment. I think all too many of her college classmates with stellar test scores came from the type of schools that prepared their students very well for SAT’s, but not so much for the level of critical thinking and independence of thought required to do well in college. (D. expressed frustration early on to me at hearing college classmates ask the profs, “will this be on the test?”) </p>
<p>GPA in context with class rank, given a large enough student body, is a good indication of how a student does in comparison with others. Some students have a tendency to rise to the top in any environment. It may be an easy rise in a less-challenging environment, but when put in a more challenging environment, the same basic motivation and work ethic applies, and kids will rise to the challenge. I think that’s another reason colleges also like to see whether the kid has opted for a challenging curriculum. The kid who opts to take as many APs as can be crammed into a schedule – and still get’s A’s – is obviously a kid with a lot of drive, as well as ability – even if they happen to come from a high school that provides weaker preparation for the SATs.</p>
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<p>I do think that each situation is unique – but its also hard to weigh anecdotal information because we each subjectively determine which colleges are “reaches”. I can definitely say that my high GPA/lower SAT daughter got into colleges where her test scores put her on the lower end of the distribution – so on paper I think that anyone would call those schools “reaches” and most CC’ers (and at least one professional college counselor) would have been skeptical of her chances. But I felt we targeted carefully, and there were good reasons for each of those schools to accept her. </p>
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<p>No… but I’m sure that you could find others on CC that do. 
You could start by checking this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/491618-what-does-4-1-4-mean.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/491618-what-does-4-1-4-mean.html</a> (note that it is from 2008)</p>
<p>I don’t think in terms of our kids being “lopsided.” I would not expect them to have talents or deficits in all the same areas. Everyone is different.</p>
<p>I remember reading something on the Harvard admissions site that said they did not expect their applicants to be good at everything, and joking that it wasn’t for nothing that their office was adjacent to Howard Gardner’s (who conceived the term “multiple intelligences.”</p>
<p>The other thing, maybe because of the environment we were in, but neither my kids nor I ever even knew what their GPA’s were, nor could we say what the SAT’s were. It made for a more relaxed time of it, and noone compared him or herself to anyone else. (Now, with a new guidance counselor, things may change. The kids may become more competitive in admissions but the stress level will go up.)</p>
<p>They’ve all ended up in good places for them, quite different, just as they are different themselves. I don’t think a single one of them is lopsided, they just followed different paths based on strengths and interests.</p>
<p>My impression, again, is that top colleges are not necessarily looking for the kind of well-roundedness that would be the alternative to being uneven.</p>
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<p>Since I don’t know which “top schools” your daughter applied to, its hard to know what the specific factors were – but I think its unlikely that it was because 2200 was too low. Colleges look at the highest scores, so it doesn’t really matter what the student started out with. My d’s best SAT was more than 250 points below that, and she was admitted to Barnard, turning down spots at Berkeley, Chicago & NYU. She opted to submit ACT’s rather than SAT’s to the private colleges – but even her ACT was below the 25% mark for students enrolling in Barnard the year she was accepted. </p>
<p>Scores are one part of the picture. But at the mega-selective colleges, they end up looking at a lot of selective factors. There isn’t a college in the US where a 2200 wouldn’t be good enough for admission (absent a score pattern that undermines the impact, such as a student applying to MIT with a 600 in math and 800’s on CR/Writing). But getting the foot in the door isn’t the same as getting admitted – the colleges are still choosing as small handful of students from many with impressive credentials, both in terms of test scores and GPA. </p>
<p>I think that your d’s problem was more along the lines that her 2200 score was “no big deal” at the top colleges – it’s not that it wasn’t good enough, it’s simply that in a field where most of the students have high scores, a student needs more than good score to make the cut. It got your daughter in the door, but once in, it wasn’t enough to make her stand out from the rest of the pool. However, many of the students who did get accepted would have had lower SATs – and of course some had higher SATs. The point is simply that the ultimate decision rested on subjective factors.</p>
<p>^ I’m sure you are right that there were subjective factors at work at each of the schools in question (Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Princeton, Chicago, Williams, and MIT). It is just hard for me to determine what made the difference for my daughter versus classmates taking easier classes but with higher SATs who were admitted to these schools. At this point, it is a purely academic question, but I’d like to think that there was something tangible under consideration beyond the Vatican-esque black smoke/white smoke scenario suggested by a professor at one of the schools in question. Given that her Common App essay was “best in the class” according to the college counselor, I’m scratching my head.</p>
<p>It’s very hard to compare admissions results among classmates from the same school. Again, a lot of subjective factors involved, including LORs, class rank, and other EC’s, achievements, etc. I’d also be wary of a college counselor’s opinion as to the quality of the essay – my admittedly limited experience with admissions suggests that the off-the-wall, quirky, or risk essay tends to be more effective, whereas teachers tend to prefer the well-crafted, literary effort with perfect grammar and spelling. (My d. submitted what was in essence a joke essay to Chicago, another school that admitted her despite below-median test scores). I’m certainly not advising joke essays, by any means – but my d’s Chicago app was a masterpiece when it came to conveying her personality. However, she did pretty much break every rule ever written on what a college essay is supposed to be in the process.</p>
<p>astrodeb - where did your daughter decide to attend?</p>