Parents of the HS Class of 2013 - 3.0 to 3.3 GPA

<p>jkiwmom, thanks for the info on UMW, and for the Guilford report! I think we’ll keep UMW on the list for now. That’s disappointing about the art building though. I read recently that they’ve been renovating buildings - hopefully they’ll get to all of them. That is a concern for me though with several state schools. With the state budgets these days, I worry about facilities.</p>

<p>Guilford sounds like a lovely school. I went a looked at the website and I realized that I’d looked at it and been impressed by it before. I’m partial to several of the Quaker schools.</p>

<p>^My grandmother and her twin sister attended Guilford. That side of my family were Quakers. Grandma was lovesick for soon to be grandpa and left after first year. Her twin sister (who was like a grandmother to me since mine died before I was born) continued at Guilford and graduated in 1918. I have her framed diploma…real sheepskin… all the wording is in Latin.</p>

<p>JKIW–I must admit I’ve had a slight hesitation about Guilford because of its location. Good to hear it is a nice (very nice!) campus. (We’ve been to soccer tournaments many times in Greensboro and find the area rather. . . unappealing.) FWIW I have a friend from elementary school days who sent one daughter to UVA and a second to Guilford. He has nothing but <em>wonderful</em> things to say about Guilford, and I believe even ended up on their Board of Visitors.</p>

<p>We are not far from UMW and it is a very nice little school at a great in-state price. That said I’ve never pushed it for my kids–I know this sounds stupid but they won’t even let me get a female pet. I just don’t think they’d even consider going to a school named “Mary Washington”.</p>

<p>Again, I don’t know if DS wants to make a trip this summer or if we’ll wait til fall, but at some point we’ll likely do one that will include Guilford, WW, UNC-A, Appy State, and Wofford.</p>

<p>JKIW–I’m curious if you have any VA schools on your list? I believe we’re both in-state here? DS#1 ended up not applying to any in-state (although looked at Randolph-Macon), and DS#2 applied to a few but did not do well with admissions (although did great OOS!).</p>

<p>We have several great travel writers on this tread! Thanks for these thorough reports! It’s interesting, MyLB, that you didn’t love Greensboro. When we last visited, we were in town on a Saturday night and couldn’t believe how much was going on. It looked great to us, and we’re real city people. The Guilford campus is not very close, though and I’m not sure kids are able to walk to town. I probably have notes on that somewhere. We’ve actually visited the school twice from NY! </p>

<p>Remember that jkiwmom has great photos and I have some as well on my blog of Guilford, WW, Juniata, McDaniel and Goucher. I also have Ursinus in PA. PM me for the URL.</p>

<p>jkiwmom, PLEASE post your visit reports on the campus vibe site so they will be easy for others to see. Here’s my report on Guilford from a couple of years ago: [Guilford</a> College Visit - kathiep](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/guilford-college/1990738.html]Guilford”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/guilford-college/1990738.html)</p>

<p>You might also want to swing by UNC Greensboro for a look. S2 has a friend attending Greensboro College, a small(1250 students) private sch. The friend says he likes Greensboro because there are so many students/young people in the town…always something going on.
Here’s a link from the UNCG website that has two videos at the bottom of the page. One about UNCG and one about Greensboro.[Campus</a> Tour | UNCG Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.uncg.edu/visit-campus-tour.php]Campus”>http://admissions.uncg.edu/visit-campus-tour.php)</p>

<p>You might also want to swing by UNC Greensboro for a look. S2 has a friend attending Greensboro College, a small(1250 students) private sch. The friend says he likes Greensboro because there are so many students/young people in the town…always something going on.
Here’s a link from the UNCG website that has two videos at the bottom of the page. One about UNCG and one about Greensboro.[Campus</a> Tour | UNCG Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.uncg.edu/visit-campus-tour.php]Campus”>http://admissions.uncg.edu/visit-campus-tour.php)
<a href=“UNCG Admissions”>UNCG Admissions;

<p>FWIW, when we looked into UMW about 3 years ago, it was my understanding that 4 semesters of college foreign language would be required to graduate. My son chose not to apply for that reason. </p>

<p>I know someone currently attending UNC-G. This student is very happy there.</p>

<p>Jackman: Take a deep breath. Keep checking in on this thread for inspiration and bucking up. </p>

<p>My D was diagnosed at the end of soph year and the change in the grades was stunning to see: C- to A- in Chemistry in one trimester (and she’s really not a scientist!). I think Admissions offices at many LAC’s and smaller States will respect this steady upward trend. A big school or the UC system won’t really have time to examine the transcript and often draw the line at a specific GPA. Make sure you have accommodations in place for the SAT (takes time and you’ll need to supply documentation). If there’s a CC near you, see if she can’t take a course over the summer in those weaker subjects or in a subject she loves. I did that as a teen and ended up with a semester’s worth of credit (and a college GPA of 3.8) by the end of senior year. </p>

<p>Her EC’s sound good. Make sure you do test prep --if you can manage a private tutor and a course–it’s not a bad idea (the tutor can address specific weaknesses and the course can provide realistic practice tests). </p>

<p>In our case, we are prepared to be upfront about (but not flog) the ADHD. But the bottom line is my D has got to produce from here on out and to her credit, she has really turned it around. </p>

<p>Put any notions about HYP behind you (if you ever had them), it will be liberating. Those schools are a reach for everyone. You will find so many great schools out there. Keep her on track and let her know you believe in her.</p>

<p>Jackman12, I also noticed that she’s interested in Studio Art. IMHO I think many art programs are accustomed to seeing kids whose GPA doesn’t fit the mold. This gives you even less to worry about. She should make sure that she’s putting together a portfolio to show. Many schools require it and want to see a body of work over time and in a variety of disciplines.</p>

<p>nyer, thank you so much for your very helpful suggestions. We had hoped she could attend a precollege art program this summer but she will probably be doing math instead… ugh! She is more interested in finding the right program combination for her and fit rather than worrying too much about general prestige. She attends a big public high school, they will not revise grades even if she takes classes during the summer…there is no leeway unfortunately. She has to live with the terrible gpa and hope to do much better junior & senior year. The essay question is problematic. Does she disclose the depression & the ADD diagnosis or not? Obviously, both have had a huge impact on her. We are working on the 504 plan right now. Useless GC is well, useless. Thank you again.</p>

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Regarding the essay… What I’ve heard/read about disclosing something like this is that one needs to be able to show how she changed for the better/learned something from it, etc. In other words, make the focus of the essay the maturation/growth that came about from the difficulties, rather than coming across as an excuse for lower achievement. </p>

<p>I’m not sure if I am stating it clearly. Does this make any sense?</p>

<p>^^Exactly the advice I was given (by Sally Rubenstone over on Ask the Dean) for DS#2. He ended up with a good essay that was very much “look where I am today after what I went through” in tone and I think also explained the dip in grades, transfer of schools, and repeat of 11th grade. Because of his roller coaster-ish transcript, we were pretty uncertain about admissions, so he applied to 14 schools. He was rejected by one, WL’ed by one, but accepted by 12 with some decent merit aid.</p>

<p>Adcom’s that we’ve talked to at several schools advised us to submit a one page supplement with DD’s application, briefly explaining her health issues as an explanation for some some of the discrepancies on her transcript. They were careful to say - they want an explanation, not an excuse. In our case, the GC is doing it, but you could think about writing something and asking the GC if they’d be ok with signing off on it. You have time to think about whether or not to disclose, but if she is doing well and grades have improved, I think it makes sense to disclose. Colleges really do want to understand the child in front of them and they have limited information with which to do that.</p>

<p>^^Another reason DS thought to disclose. If there are schools that are a little more skittish about kids with depression/ADD/. . . , I’d just as soon not send my kid there.</p>

<p>A kind of general GPA question here - DD’s school doesn’t do “honors” designation - there are regular, college bound, pre-AP, and AP classes. If there is a school that looks at “academic” classes and weights for “honors and AP classes”, what do you think they’ll look at? Do you think dual enrollment classes, which are not “core” classes (other than history), but are weighted by her high school would count? These include more technical classes such as web design, video production, etc.</p>

<p>mamaduck, Smaller colleges will take the time to recalculate everything. Large public U’s may just take them as they are, without re-calculating. The best thing to do is to make sure your guidance department includes an accurate school profile that explains how classes are graded and that your daughters grades are correct on the transcript.</p>

<p>Yeah, colleges seem to be all over the board in how they calculate. Some seem to take whatever shows up on the transcript, not even looking at if it’s weighted or not. Others seem to recalculate in random ways. Sort of makes the class profile useless, doesn’t it? I’ve decided to just e-mail the admissions people and ask for the schools she really likes.</p>

<p>

[quote]
Sort of makes the class profile useless, doesn’t it? I’ve decided to just e-mail the admissions people and ask for the schools she really likes.

[quote]
The profile is invaluable at smaller schools. I wouldn’t disregard it. Do you mean that you want to contact admissions at the schools your daughter is interested in and ask them how they re-calculate? Many of them have that information on their websites, or you can find what they think is important on a few college information sites.</p>

<p>What I concluded after helping all three of my kids through this was the only thing to do was to make sure that my kids grades were correct and the Profile was accurate. For instance, our school stopped offering a certain AP class, but it was still listed on the Profile. That would have looked like my child should have taken that class, since it was the next level class, but really she couldn’t have. When I pointed that out, they removed it. It’s one of those documents that probably changes yearly, but sometimes isn’t done.</p>

<p>Sorry, kathiep, I meant the college’s freshman class profile is almost useless - certainly not the high school’s profile. I definitely want the schools to know that she comes from an extremely competitive school and, until this year, had a 6 point grading scale! </p>

<p>Yes, I just e-mailed California Lutheran and asked them what classes they pull and how they weight them. I will share what I find out.</p>

<p>I have to wonder about ranking too - I think 60% of DD’s high school class is college bound, so rankings are a bit different than they might be in a school where only 25% go to college.</p>