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

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
701

<p>My D only took the ACT- and was very comfortable with her (somewhat lopsided) scores. My only caution is that don’t have your students spread too thin- studying for SAT again, taking the ACT (they should do some prep work as it is different), working on apps and then trying to keep up senior grades. That’s a lot of balls in the air.<br>
Nice to “see” 5 boys- I still say your S was not done right by. To do well in such a competive school, he should have gotten better than that. Ah well, water under the bridge.</p>

<p>thrower1- a friend’s son had slightly lower grades and was looking at similar programs a year or so back (sports managment can be approached from a couple of angles so all of these may not be what you are looking for). These schools while not top tier, have minors, major/concentrations close to what you are looking for: Alfed State (SUNY), Castleton (VT), Cazenovia College (NY), College of St. Rose, Elon (not NE but North Carolina), Johnson and Wales (RI)</p>

702

<p>thrower1 – If you are a NYS resident (possibly even if you’re not) have you considered SUNY Cortland? There was a poster on CC a few years back whose student went to Cortland for Sports Management and is now a happy graduate.</p>

703

<p>Good point, kinderny, about spreading too thin. My D does not want to test again, unless a college asks her to. I am comfortable with that - and her scores are in the mid 50% for every school she is applying to. Many of her schools are test optional.</p>

<p>5boys, it does sound like your son was treated unfairly. Ah, the inconsistencies of the whole process.</p>

<p>I have really worried about D’s ranking. It actually slipped this year (to 57%), even though her GPA went up. So I got the school’s profile. Out of 292 graduates, 96.5% went to college (75% to 4 year programs), and the school is nationally ranked. I think it’s very competitive. People always say that the colleges in the state know how difficult the school is and take it into account. However, D’s only applying only to out of state small schools. So, how much is her ranking going to hurt her?</p>

704

<p>@Blt… I was just researching some theater schools for my DS14 and saw that DePaul University in Chicago just received a 30 million donation to the business scchool. You might want to check that school out :-)).</p>

705

<p>mamaduck–just my experience with DS#1, who was also not even in the top half of his class (I’m pretty sure–I mostly ignored things like that). He did just fine with admissions, getting into almost every school he applied to, including several CTCL schools. He ended up at one of them with decent merit aid.</p>

706

<p>Haystack:
Thanks so much for suggesting Truman State. Yes, we had just recently added it to a potential list of quality schools at quality prices! Hope to trek up there soon (might have to be fall) and will let you all know how it goes.</p>

<p>OK-so here’s a curve ball for you CC’ers…my son is also thining of taking a “Gap Year” and postponing college until 2014. Anyone else getting that kind of feedback from their sons or daughters in the class of 2013? Any thoughts about the pros and cons? I love him so much, but aarrgggh, this is definitely not what I envisioned when he was born 17 years ago…</p>

707

<p>kelijake… my 2012 S is on a gap year. He will be attending St Lawrence University, but he deferred a year and will be in the class of 2013. St Lawrence held all of his merit aid and we will have to apply for FA again, but it was easy peasy. I actually think it is a good idea… especially for boys, and I was all for it. My H… not so much. But, so far, so good. He is right now 1300 miles into his 2600 mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. He will be done in October, then he will be doing a month long class in Wyoming getting his Wilderness EMT, and then he will probably go to work for the SCA in Yosemite. There are so many things they can do, but I would encourage your S to have some sort of a plan in place. If you have any more questions you can pm me. I know I was a little apprehensive about my S doing a gap year too.</p>

708

<p>Did your kids send thank you notes after college interviews? I was told it was a good idea,
I even found a good link for it:
[How</a> to Write Thank You Letters to College Admissions Officers | eHow.com](<a href=“http://www.ehow.com/how_4456522_write-thank-letters-college-admissions.html]How”>http://www.ehow.com/how_4456522_write-thank-letters-college-admissions.html)</p>

<p>I asked DS to write two notes tonight for the 2 interviews he had last week but he is “too tired” ?! Pardon me while I vent but after hauling his butt across 3 states in 2 days and spending $$ I’m tired too! GRRRR! I’m so ready to say “you’re own your own kid” but my fear is if I don’t push him , he’ll get less merit aid and it will end up costing me dearly in the end.
Anyway my question is: thank you notes, yes or no?</p>

709

<p>My D sent e-mail thank you notes after her interviews. The interviews were very casual - in fact, I was invited to sit in on both (not sure if I should have accepted, but I did). She has gotten nice replies back from her thank you’s - she usually asks some valid question or follows up on something from the interview.</p>

<p>Tonight D settled on her common app essay topic and narrowed down the teacher recommendations she’s going to ask for. Progress!</p>

710

<p>I’ve only read the last few pages; DD graduated HS in 2012. Her test scores were so miserable that she applied mostly to test optional schools; her unweighted GPA might have been above 3.3, but IMHO, the general picture was within the parameters of this thread.</p>

<p>I strongly STRONGLY suggest exploring CTCL schools and Colleges of Distinction. The latter has a web site, and many of the schools overlap CTCL, plus they profile mid-size school which are mostly Catholic universities. These schools give merit aid, and it is not always by the numbers. For example, DD received both leadership and music scholarships. She will most definitely not be a music major, is not good enough to be a music major, but the college is not know for music so she will be a big fish in a small pond. </p>

<p>I also suggest exploring more unusual geographic options. We are in California. We looked at schools in the Midwest since most Californians go to California schools or at least West coast ones, and some go to East coast ones. DD was unwilling to explore Southern schools, but that would be another option for coastal folks. IOW, apply where there won’t be a lot of kids fitting your profile.</p>

<p>DD is quite personable, interviews well, and is as picky as they come. We spent spring break of her junior year visiting schools – an entire day at four different schools, including tours, interviews, visiting classes, and for her, talking to students. She eliminated two schools, including one that courted her for months. She was afraid they would make her an offer of aid that she would feel compelled to accept – and would end up in a place so isolated that this city girl would be miserable. I warned her that by not applying, she was taking a risk that she might end up at an overcrowded CSU if the aid didn’t pan out.</p>

<p>DD showed her love to the schools to which she applied and also went to local interviews. She got into all the schools to which she applied. The school she will be attending gave her a lot of merit aid and some financial aid. Another school’s package gave her a tiny bit of merit aid and much more financial aid – not quite as good but only a few thousand dollars different as I recall. Our bottom line will be less than a UC, but a little higher than a CSU, and I think leaving California will be a tremendous growing experience.</p>

<p>Time will tell, but I think DD’s college will be one of the best for HER. I am thankful that she wasn’t set on following the herd and was willing to apply to schools where no one else at her high school had attended, much less applied to. I am also hoping that in attending a LAC, she will be able to fill her academic deficits from attending an urban public high school.</p>

711

<p>To Rubytuesday–my kids never did. In fact, they often got thank-you notes from the admissions counselors they’d met with. (You and your kid are the ones who did the travel, spent the $$s. The admissions people are doing their jobs.) I can guarantee you it won’t affect merit aid one way or the other.</p>

712

<p>kelijake1987–we are also fans of Truman, loved the campus, the admissions staff was friendly and very helpful. Everyone on campus was outgoing, friendly, kids seemed to really know each other, our tour guide seemed to know everyone, and it’s not that small of a school. We had faculty members help us when we got turned around looking for the parking lot, etc. It’s very much worth a visit.</p>

<p>The kids did not send thank you notes, but they have gotten notes from just about every school they have visited, except Grinnell–but that might be because DS told the ad comm there was no way he would attend that school after the way he was treated during his tour :D.</p>

713

<p>It’s interesting about class rank - my dd is just going into 10th grade, but I can see where it will be a problem. Her school has 4 levels of classes - regular, honors, accelerated and AP. Students can’t take AP until 11th grade, but it seems a solid majority of 9th and 10th graders take all or mostly accelerated classes. My daughter took honors level and got a 3.22 so far. Which means if 60-70% (at least) of her class took accelerated classes - and most did better than a 3.22 – her class rank will be very, very low. She will take one accelerated class in 10th grade, but the honors level was tough for her. I really don’t see her taking a lot of accelerated or AP.</p>

<p>So, she could end up with a 3.2 or 3.3 and have a horrific rank. I don’t know if colleges view her honors classes the same as another school’s whose honors classes are ranked right below AP. Is it normal to have a solid B average and end up with a rank in the bottom third of the class?</p>

714

<p>SansSerif-The way our school does rankings, yes, it would be very, very common. They don’t weight grades but they do weight ranking so a student like your DD wouldn’t be able to get a ranking higher than say 50%. With so many scholarships dependent on class rank, I think it is a better way to deal with the various class levels then weighting GPA’s. For the schools where your DD will have a realistic chance of getting in and doing well, class rank isn’t really going to matter that much for admissions as long as she does ok on the ACT/SAT (mid range scores-20-24 on the ACT for example).</p>

715

<p>My D’s school weights AP and Dual Enrollment. Each gets 1 point in gpa. Pre-AP, advanced, and college bound are not weighted. She has a 3.25, and as previously mentioned, is 57%. The gpa is capped at 4.0, and anyone with a 4.0 is considered valedictorian- last year there were 42 valedictorians. It is the only gpa reported on the transcript. Of course, she’ll also have her 24 dual enrollment hours on an additional Community College transcript - and she has a 4.0 there!</p>

716

<p>SteveMA, that’s the way her school does it. They said the only place they use weighted grades is for ranking. I’m glad to hear there are schools out there that don’t heavily rely on rank for admissions!</p>

717

<p>Just learning the lingo here: CTCL and Colleges of Distinction? Ok, figured out that is “Colleges That Change Lives” and looked at the Colleges of Distinction website (they need a search feature to search the colleges by major so we can weed through the list more easily.) Actually a couple of the schools we have thought about for my son for engineering were on that list: Roger Williams and Western New England Univ.</p>

<p>We visited RWU in April and loved it. Nice small school (which I think my son would prefer), beautiful campus right on the water, seemed like a nurturing environment for the students. It was our favorite till he spent time at UConn. Have not visited Western New England yet. Both give merit aid. </p>

<p>Anyone have any experience with those 2 schools? Thanks.</p>

718

<p>Thanks for the feedback on the thank you notes, I think we will probably skip them.</p>

719

<p>I liked the CTCL colleges, and two of my kids applied to a few of them, but what I’ve found out over the course of a few kids is that EVERY small LAC is pretty darn unique. The CTCL ones, just got great write-ups. This book- [Amazon.com:</a> Finding the College That’s Right for You! (0639785387336): John Palladino: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Finding-College-Thats-Right-You/dp/0071423060/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1343789824&sr=8-3&keywords=colleges+for+b+students]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Finding-College-Thats-Right-You/dp/0071423060/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1343789824&sr=8-3&keywords=colleges+for+b+students) was very helpful to me.</p>

720

<p>katiep: I have heard of that book, but was concerned that it is almost 10 years old. Did you find the data still useful?</p>