Parents of the HS class of 2014 - 3.0 to 3.3 GPA

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
821

<p>We visited Wooster this past week… WOW!!! What a school! We were incredibly impressed with just about everything. Everyone super friendly, from the admission staff, to the gal that my S interviewed with, to the students saying “Hi” as passed, to the student my S had lunch with, and finally a personal tour of the theater facilities by a professor after my S sat in on a class. Loved the personal tour with a bright bubbly math, music double major. The facilities are out of this world. Top notch everything. The dorms were fabulous… light, carpeted, air-conditioned, HUGE, and even charming built in bookcases. The student center was cozy and warm with a gigantic round copper fireplace( real woodburning) centrally located with tons of big comfy couches and chairs everywhere. They have their own bowling alley under the student center with a diner type food place. Dining hall was really great, and my S raved about the food. </p>

<p>The campus is laid out really nicely, and it was a perfect fall day… could not have looked more lovely. Our tour guide said she loved her classes, and felt academically it couldn’t be better. The student body seemed more mainstream, but we saw a little of everything, bit overall everyone was incredibly welcoming and warm. </p>

<p>The bonus is that the town of Wooster is SO charming, I had a great lunch while my S was in class. Lots of cute mom and pop shops, restaurants, bookstores, and walking distance from the college.</p>

<p>My S will apply EA</p>

822

<p>Hello,
I’m back! Last time I posted was in April, I think. </p>

<p>I told D2 that we should focus more on safer schools rather than Brown or MIT that some of her friends at her competitive high school are doing. Surprisingly, that went well, but she says she no longer has any dream schools. She likes the schools she picked, which I admit are a good balance. When we met with her GC, the GC congratulated her on having more target/safeties of anyone she had seen, including my older daughter (we knew alarmingly little then: D1 applied to Ivies, Stanford, Caltech, MIT and UCs only).</p>

<p>I was a little bit surprised. I thought that schools like U of Rochester, Pitt, Georgia Tech, and Case Western would be reaches, but GC said they were matches. D2 likes these schools. </p>

<p>The problem is that she had a rocky year past year and I don’t know what that’s going to be like even with a GC note since it was junior year. I added a lot of safer bets to her list, and I’m guessing she didn’t even look at them because now she’s saying she can’t do so many schools “she doesn’t like”! I can’t let her NOT do them anymore, because we cannot get a refund for the transcripts. Also we want to compare finaid. </p>

<p>Also, D2 is not finishing her essays. She had a draft of Indiana University but her teachers gave a lot of advice last minute! It’s due in less than a week, for scholarship consideration. She seems to take an overly long time writing essays. And they’re not very descriptive either. </p>

<p>Recently, she’s been saying she doesn’t have time to write essays or something. She said that if she had to write the essays this weekend she would fail all her classes and college would be a moot point. At this point, she’s cleared a lot of her schedule away, and she comes home at lunch everyday. She takes 5 classes. I don’t think she needs to study that much or that she has homework for that long. When I ask her what she’s doing, she says either “brainstorming” or “homework”. And when I ask about essays, she says she’s writing them, but barely has any working drafts. </p>

<p>I have told her at one point she should get all As this semester, but I don’t think college essays should affect her that much.</p>

823

<p>I read a few posts back. D2 is also interested in neuroscience! She has somehow improved her GPA to 3.45, and hopefully she will do well this semester. So far, she has As in three classes. She’s getting there in AP Econ, which admittedly is surprising - the teacher scares her so she doesn’t really talk in class. For AP Chem, the teacher is really disorganized. We think she has a B but we are not sure. </p>

<p>D2s scores do her good according to her GC. She has a 2280/1480 SAT and 740 Math II and 710 Chem. AP scores are okay, but then, that doesn’t need to be reported.</p>

<p>D2 also announced she really does not want to go to community college. She’s doing math there. Most of the classes are 2 hour lecture, and for my D, 1 hour is quite enough.</p>

824

<p>StanfordMom–does the school charge for sending transcripts? </p>

<p>If the GC thinks the schools you listed are safeties with your D’s GPA, her school must not have significant grade inflation.</p>

<p>3.8-3.9 & 2050-2100 are accepted student stats from our school for U of R and GT, and our school uses a 4.0 scale with weighting for honors classes from 10th grade on, so that the Val probably has a 4.3 or so. Perhaps your school’s grading is even less inflated, if her GC thinks she is in range with 3.45.</p>

825

<p>Unfortunately, yes, my Ds’ high school charges $10 per transcript, and an additional $10 per school that requires a mid-year report, which is most of them. I don’t understand why it costs so much when we are providing the stamps, envelopes, and the necessary information. D2’s out of area friends told her that their school does theirs through Naviance and there aren’t any envelopes, stamps or money involved! </p>

<p>The GC said matches, not safeties, but the average GPA/SAT doesn’t appear to be too helpful. In the entire 8 year period recorded on Naviance, for those schools, less than 10 people applied. </p>

<p>The average GPA for both is 3.6 and average SATs are around 1920. However, the data points are spread out and sort of far from the averages. </p>

<p>My guess is that since my Ds’ high school has a good track record of sending students to “top” colleges (28 to Ivies - 3 for sports, 37 to Berkeley - instate, 33 to Stanford, 25 to USC last year, out of 438 seniors), a lot of students with 3.8 or higher aim for these tippy top schools, possibly have one safety and that’s it for their college list. So there’s possibly an undercoverage of the schools 30-50 on US News (our area is heavily infested with US News ranking influenced people, so I’ve found it a good way to say which schools in general I’m talking about, but I do not think it is a good way). </p>

<p>If so many people (about 25%) have GPAs so high, I don’t really understand how my Ds’ high school insists they are “extremely vigorous”. I’d just say “deeply stressed”</p>

826

<p>We now have six years of data on Naviance and I wish there were some way the data could be color-coded to identify the year b/c the college admission landscape has changed so much in six years.</p>

<p>My mistake on safety vs match from GC. It appears that the GC has plenty of experience helping submit apps to these top schools, and therefore the ability to peg this better than many. Best of luck! (We all need it at this point.)</p>

827

<p>Yes, that’s very true! Even in the three years between my D1 and D2, the college admissions process has changed. It’ll probably continue to change as my S begins to prep for college (he’s not in high school yet). But to be fair, three years ago I barely knew what to do for D1. D1 was also, not to brag, one of those top students. So the applying for colleges part is bound to be different with D2. </p>

<p>I’m not sure how many top student this particular GC has had, but yes, she does seem to know what she is talking about. D’s school added new staff for GCs this year, and a lot of other parents are upset b/c they’re not sure if the new GCs are any good. </p>

<p>Yes, luck is good. After reading all the “horror” stories of not getting into any colleges I think I was played a lot of luck when it came to D1.</p>

828

<p>My D asked me earlier this week if I would mind helping a few of her friends with their college applications. Fortunately, we finished the process last month so I told her that would not be a problem. She tells me last night that 8 of her friends are coming over today. I asked her what type of assistance they needed, assuming it was a Common App question or adding a safety to their lists or something relatively minor. Much to my surprise, I was told that they have not even selected a college yet and have no idea what to do. They have not even started the basics yet and these are Seniors. I am stunned since the school is very good about providing workshops and required seminars on the college process since their Junior year. </p>

<p>It is going to be a long day. Ugggg</p>

829

<p>Bobby…Look at the bright side. All of the hours you invested in helping your D through the college process will come in handy x 8! You and your D will be the most popular house in her senior class :-). Feel the love and enjoy spreading your wisdom. </p>

<p>Today D is off for a final visit to her college counselor before hitting the send button this week on four of her six schools. Scary, but exciting to be making progress. One of her schools just extended the common app deadline by a week to 11/8. Actually, I’m hoping she’ll get it done today and not drag it out any longer.</p>

<p>Hang in there everyone! It’s going to be an exciting/stressful/painful (add your own word here) few weeks/months. Cheers!</p>

830

<p>DD sent out two EA apps yesterday. Working on more this week. Has already got accepted at the second state flagship but not at all a top choice. Only have it there in case FA doesn’t come through at other schools. You know…this is actually quite fun!!! Back in '78, when I graduated from HS it was just “let me out!!” :-)</p>

831

<p>Greetings all. D hit the send button today on her 4th and final school (until Christmas break when she’ll do two public safeties with rolling admissions). OMG, I think I could use a good stiff drink, or at least one with a very colorful umbrella in it ;-). What an experience! Those last few essays had prompts that were excruciating and difficult for D. Not sure which was worse–getting wisdom teeth out in Aug or finishing the school-specific essays this week. </p>

<p>Good luck to those finishing up there EA apps. Let the wait begin!</p>

832

<p>DD showed me her essay. It is amazingly wonderful. I am so proud of her.</p>

833

<p>Hello cyber friends, Sooo happy to report, six CA’s + one submitted today with no problems! We did our best and rolled the dice…now we just sit back and pray for good results…after a nice tall glass of wine!</p>

834

<p>There is light at the end of the tunnel. My D has been accepted at 3 schools so far. All safeties but exciting none the less.</p>

835

<p>Tentatively pokes toe into the water…I’d posted on the plain vanilla 2014 thread long ago but have stayed away for awhile because D2 isn’t the typical CC kid and I figured reading the thread would just stress me out. But y’all are her college admissions tribe. :slight_smile: 3.8-9 GPA but it’s from a nondemanding high school that works specifically with kids with learning disabilities–in her case, ADHD and dramatically low processing speed. No APs, she’s taking her first college-level course now online. Did the ACT and SAT both with extended time, much better on the ACT (29 composite). </p>

<p>A little envious of those of you whose kiddos have already submitted. That’s probably another reason I’ve not posted here before. :slight_smile: First app will be submitted today: EA to Chapman College in SoCal. She does not want to go terribly far from home, and almost everything else on her list is west coast. EA for Lewis and Clark is later this week, then next week will be a long Hail Mary pass for Tulane and a reachy but not impossible ED to Pitzer. Then the UC application (Santa Cruz, Davis (unlikely), UCLA (bwa-hahahaha–even longer Hail Mary than Tulane)). Depending on what happens with ED, there may or may not be an RD application for Puget Sound.</p>

<p>Looking forward to hearing lots of good news from all of you about your kids, and commiserating (and being commiserated with) about the bad.</p>

836

<p>I hope she gets lots of great news in the months to come. Your D’s list is similar to my D’s list for 2015.</p>

837

<p>I was wondering if anyone knew if the University of Portland (and other Pacific NW colleges) include merit scholarship awards in acceptance letters. My D got into UP today but no mention of money.</p>

838

<p>How about University of Oregon? Same neck if the woods… They don’t call it UC Eugene for nothing :)</p>

839

<p>My daughter is also applying to UC Eugene; if they give any money to out of staters, I haven’t heard about it.</p>

840

<p>When my daughter was accepted to UPS, Lewis & Clark, Whitman and Willamette three years ago, the merit awards were included in the initial paper acceptance.</p>