Parents of the HS Class of 2017 - 3.0 to 3.4 GPA

Parents Forum
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Weighting doesn’t always help. My daughter took very few AP classes, just the honors versions of physics, chemistry, etc. Her school did weight, and she was about #40 rank in unweighted but about #55 when weighted. Most of those ahead of her on the weighted list had things like AP Human Geography as freshmen, AP world history, etc., but no AP or honors science and math (the very highest ranked kids did, but not those in the #30-50 range). We’d transferred to this school so hadn’t had those options as a freshman or sophomore. You just have to play the cards you are dealt.

For admissions, I think the colleges do know and do consider the courses. For scholarships, unfortunately, many are stats driven and there isn’t much you can do about it. It didn’t make much difference to my daughter being #40 or #55, unless you were looking at percentile as #40 was top 10%, #55 was not.

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@twoinanddone oh I know it doesn’t weighting doesn’t really help, and in fact it most ways it hurts. Kids can then stack just for the sake of rank and weighting. We don’t weight and it’s nice that the kids don’t play that game. Still it is hard when your kid is a bit down comparing his GPA to a friends that is 2 math tracks behind and significantly lower ACT score (not that S’s is anything fabulous) but has a 3.8. As for scholarships, it is what it is and he will qualify for what he does and go from there. I just made me sad to see him down as I don’t see the reason for it. I know how hard he works and am very pleased with the effort and work ethic, it is all I could ask for. I tried to make sure he knew that and that I firmly believe the schools will look at the rigor. His trending is solid, best GPA so far last semester with his most difficult load (core classes are AP Lang, AP Physics, Pre-Calc and Spanish 3). Down is an overstatement, it was more an “I don’t understand all these kids that always get 4.0’s and all my friends have better grades than me”…and so we dove a little bit into part of the why. Not in all cases, but in some.

And honestly, if the schools don’t look at that bigger picture, if it isn’t holistic…it may not be the right fit for him anyway (though I didn’t say that). The positive side of the B student is no Tufts syndrome to really worry about lol. Not to mention there are plenty of safeties on his list.

At our school for the core tracks it would not be possible to do an AP class as a freshman. I honestly do not know for sure that is the case with all of the AP classes but suspect so, most have some pre-req that would have been impossible to fulfill before 9th. Because my kids do music and as a result have no electives to use on an “extra” AP class, I am not as well versed in what could have been (AP Psych etc) possible to “stack”.

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That’s just it, the schools my kids went to as freshmen and sophomores, no AP. The school they transferred to and graduated from, lot of AP and honors and strategies for upping the gpa and rank, starting in 8th grade. Mine transferred in already behind, no way to be val or sal or even top 20. One had merely a 4.0, not the 4.2 that others had as freshmen.

My daughter was also a different type of student than her friends. She had a crying fit once when I wouldn’t let her skip school (she didn’t want to skip, she wanted me to excuse her and I wouldn’t). I said her friends weren’t headed to college or at least to engineering like she was, and weren’t dependent on a scholarship. It was like a light bulb went off for her, and she realized I was right, she was a different type of student. Some did have gpas in the same range (not most) but not in the same level or type of classes.

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My son goes to Hofstra. There are a number of commuting students but plenty of kids live on or near campus and stay on the weekends. Hempstead doesn’t have much going on but it’s easy to get into the city.

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March SAT scores are in…didn’t seem too bad on the face of it: 1180 (580M/600CR), but once you introduce the concordance to the old SAT we end up with 1640 (560M/570CR/510W). Didn’t seem to budge D’s position on the chancing sites (College Data, Parchment), either up or down. It is what it is. Taking it again in June.

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@klinska I hear you. S17 predicts to come in around there at 1190 based on the PSAT he did zero prep for, but he’s not taken it yet. We will see how the June ACT goes, we hit review and practice tests hard starting Monday and then possibly consider SAT for Sept if needed.

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I’ve been looking at Towson U. Don’t know about their marching band though

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@eandesmom and @twoinanddone
I don’t think you should worry too much about the weighting. From what I’ve read, most colleges pay little attention to weighted GPA’s because of the fact that they are done so differently from school to school. I believe most of them (at least the more holistic ones) use their own weighting scale which can even be different from major to major.

@klinska
I’m really bummed about the new SAT scores not being as good as they look. My D did pretty well, but apparently not as well as I thought. Her safeties still look fine, but I think reaches are now out of reach and matches are not as well matched as they seemed, especially in terms of getting merit aid. I don’t even want to think about adding new schools, but it may be necessary. The one good thing is that her top choice school is test optional (luckily hers are still good enough to send) and scores are not a top consideration. She’s signed up again for June and I think I’ll need to be pushier about prepping than I’d like.

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@snoozn I hope so as we are chasing merit and I am amazed how similar everything is really coming out to be. Tuitions can either be inflated, or not and then the merit seems to respond to level set most of our matches to a pretty similar price point.

All of which is higher than I need it to be. At this exact moment I feel like throwing in the towel and resigning myself to safeties. Not a single one of which I am excited about. The safety we were most excited about…just dropped the exchange program tuition discount. I am not going to do that (only look at financial safeties) but…it’s depressing as all get out, hard to picture gaps being met but we won’t know unless we try. At least on a few.

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I wouldn’t worry about weighting too much either. I was at a college fair panel with a bunch of admissions people on stage, and they all said they kind of do the same thing: take core classes and average them all. If some kids took a more rigorous schedule it was noted. They didn’t factor in gym, art, wood shop etc. The admins said they liked to see kids improve year to year, or take harder courses year to year. They did not like to see grades dropping junior and senior year. So, for my son hope this works in his favor, as he has been pretty consistent in his grades and is now taking more difficult classes throughout his course load.

Not going to worry about the new SAT, it is what it is. It doesn’t hurt my sons chances, nor helps. I’m not sure if he’ll even submit them, unless he takes them again and improves closer to 1400. I don’t see that happening, but you never know, and then there is super scoring. I think he could get his ACT score 1 or 2 points more easily than getting a 1400 on SAT, even though he thought he did really well on the SAT and thought ACT was a little harder. We have him signed up for both tests in June, so unless his brain explodes from too much stress, he’ll try again. We are happy that at least his scores are in the median or above for the schools he is looking at now.

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Since we’re talking about weighting and rigor and so forth, thought I’d toss in my previous and current experiences. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself – I sometimes forget what I’ve said on which threads!

With D11, there was worry about rigor because her school had no AP/IB/honors etc. (no ranking either). Even so, she got 2 or 3 C’s early on, but luckily had that upward trend. I know her GPA ended up at 3.7, but it would have been lower when she was applying because she got straight A’s senior year. Her SAT’s were very strong, especially in reading. ACT was meh, so she didn’t send it. I thought her essay was excellent. She got copies of 2 of her LoR’s. The one from her English teacher was wonderful. The counselor one was very plain vanilla blah. The math teacher didn’t give her a copy, but we think it was probably pretty good. EC’s were practically non-existent – all dance all the time. Also, her GC was worthless and I was clueless, not having found CC until pretty late in the process. She applied to 11 schools, all small LAC’s except for our state flagship as a safety (similar tier to what D17 is looking at). She got into 5 schools, wait-listed at 1, and rejected by 5. Acceptance rates where she got in varied from 53% to 83%. One of the colleges only gave need-based aid, which I didn’t know at the time, being so clueless and all. The other 4 offered merit ranging from $10,000 - $20,000 (I think – I may not remember numbers from 6 years ago even if they’re big ones!) Anyway, just thought I’d give an example of what happened with my smart but non-stellar-stats kid.

As far as D17, her school has AP and IB, but she hasn’t tried to do all AP super rigor. She’s taken all her STEM classes at the highest level, along with English, but nothing else. I’m glad she’s felt free to take classes she’s interested in rather than taking a class just because it’s weighted. I get why kids do that, but for some, including her, it would just be stressful and overwhelming. She and I talked about the SAT issue with the scores not being as high as they seem and are in a good place with that now. She’s going to study on Khan and do one practice test (which she didn’t for the March SAT) and will do the writing portion in June. She’ll study more over the summer and hopefully knock out a great fall SAT (no writing). She really just needs to get the reading score up – there’s such a big spread between reading and math that it’s tough to judge how well she matches a school’s stats. I’m not even worrying about EC’s. As @RightCoaster said (regarding SAT), “it is what it is!”

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Frankly I don’t think anyone should worry about EC’s. Either the child is doing something they enjoy for the right reasons, or they are not. And the ones who are not, it’s pretty obvious that they’ve done it only to look good. Some schools will value it, and others not.

A friend last night was describing why her D16 chose her school in the end and it sums up everything I don’t like about the process. Her daughter felt that everything she’d done in HS wouldn’t mean a thing the minute she walked out the door and was basically worthless. All that mattered, all she would have to show for it would be the name on the college diploma, to show how her work had paid off. It bothered me. I realize people get hung up on prestige to me, the program and curricula and overall culture fit should trump the “name” if all things are equal. In this case I believe it was likely the right choice but I suspect, had she gotten into one of her waitlisted schools (which could still happen) she would choose those based on the name, and not at all the real “fit” for her, or the cost to her parents. That really bothered me. All of her schools were excellent, top 60 or so and most in the top 25. I know many feel the opposite, that certain names are worth any price but…I can’t really personally wrap my head around that for undergrad.

Granted, that’s not my world financially or academically but…

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I love putting more and more numbers into the official “college table” which is part of the much larger “college document.” My most recent addition is acceptance rate. I’d be curious what range other folks in this thread are looking at, if willing to share.

My D’s list
Publics: 71% - 91%
Privates: 28% - 73% (and I keep telling her we should take off that 28% – just so little chance – if we did, the most selective would be 36%)

For even more numbers to excite the senses: Her top choice is 38%, second choice 49% and third choice 68%. I really like all these schools too and think any one would be a good fit.

I kind of like to see a number ranging from mid-40’s to high-60’s (in the privates), but I can’t really say why. I guess these are the types of places that might be at the right level of challenge. I’m not going to over-think it (promise!) since it’s just one number. But I do love adding more and more statistics.

I did not do a great job helping my D11 in the selection process and in hindsight, she applied to too many schools that I should have known were out of reach. I was also expecting merit aid to rain from the sky (we got more of a light drizzle). I think I’m much smarter now (regarding college stuff – not any other areas), but I could be wrong.

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I love numbers! I’ll play :slight_smile:

I have one list that has acceptance rate and have used that, with gpa and test scores to come up with safeties/match and reaches. However I have also amended it a tad after factoring our Naviance results. A few reaches that may actually be matches, one match that might really be a safety, reaches that were really reachy reach, etc.

On our list we have

Publics: 74% - 98% (average 86%)
Privates: 32% - 83% (average 65%)

I have debated leaving that 32% one on, as well as a 38% and 43%. However some of the higher acceptance rate privates we like with better % are simply unaffordable. They are still on “my” list but I did unsticky them in Fiske. Sad.

I can understand where you are coming from on the % but I do think it’s a little harder on the LAC’s as some of those are self selecting, the general applicant pool is highly qualified already hence the greater %. Of our 3 in the upper 60’s only one is a match, the other 2 are reaches. I am hoping though that that match one…moves into the top 3 but he hasn’t looked at it closely enough yet to weigh in. I would say the 43% one though, is also a match so you never know. By virtue of it being only 43% though…that makes it a reach in my mind.

There are so many we really haven’t reviewed and visited yet that I can’t say 1,2,3 with any degree of certainty but at the moment the top 2 are at 78% and 73% although one may need merit monies from the sky. Based on my research it is not out of the question for it to come in where we need it to but it is by no means a sure thing.

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I’m not sure acceptance percentages are the numbers that matter. My youngest is not doing so well this semester (though she is still above a 3.0…barely). Her SAT scores came back: 1160, M:520, E: 640. It’s okay, but I thought she could pull up her math a bit more.

Tuition numbers are also a worry…sorry, I’m a downer this morning.

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@“Queen’s Mom” you aren’t a downer!!!

I know the feeling. I honestly almost called off the June ACT last night as the kid is so stressed and down I am doubtful for an improved result. Practice tests have him exactly where he was at before. We are done after this for sure. He didn’t want to call it off but boy, I’ll be glad when it is over.

All the numbers matter, some are just more pleasant to focus on that others for sure. S19 and S17 are having really terrible end of semester experiences in their foreign language classes. It was FL intervention night at my house last night, including researching tutors and reaching out for one teacher, I’ll be reaching out for the other today. Both have 4 weeks to turn this around. Very ugly surprise in the numbers when I checked online grades last night, S17 has an F in Spanish 3 (in all fairness he missed a test and 2 homework assignments due to a field trip, he’d been at a B- before that) and S19 has a D in French 3. I am going to try to focus on the positive here though. Both kids are absolutely lost and were in denial and not asking for help. I had no idea it was that bad. I needed to know and they needed to know that they really can come to me with this stuff. As a parent I need to teach them it is ok not to understand, and to reach out when they are in over their heads instead of just fighting through it. Like me, they’d rather just fight through it on their own but I’ve not led them well in this area and apparently actions have spoken louder than words.

I had an amazing email exchange with S17’s teacher and we’ve a plan his teacher and I feel confident that he can turn this around. He did take the missing test yesterday which will help but given his lack of confidence (we have past tense issues apparently) on how well he did, I am not expecting better than D’s or C’s on the missing items. However, if he can grasp the concept, she does offer the opportunity to redo past work once the concept is mastered so he really has a solid chance of getting it back to that B that he ended the 3rd quarter with. She believes in him, and I am so glad I contacted her directly. My general policy on that stuff is pretty hands off, letting the child drive it but this time, this time it was really worth reaching out.

Hoping for a similar result with S19 although in his case the issues are very different and arguably more easily fixed…although I suspect the grade cannot be fixed with that kind of ease, he had a horrid 3rd quarter grade in that class. That one makes me sad as the ability is there. He is not a child that belongs in the 3-3.4 thread and he is going to put himself there with pure laziness, intellectual arrogance and pride. S17 on the other hard works incredibly hard, it’s just harder for him.

Sorry for the digression, it was an emotional night here…crying teens, lots of hugs, etc.

Tuition matters. A lot. I have those numbers too. 4 rankings. Sigh.

  1. Affordable = 3
  2. Affordable with auto merit per published data/NPC's = 4 (includes the 3 that were already affordable)
  3. Affordable with small loan, factoring in 2 kids in school for 2 years = 6 more, 10 total.
  4. Affordable only if the school considers our circumstances and allows for 2 kids in school for 3 or more years, or an adjustment due to NCP, allows an NCP waiver and factors that in or gives a giant chunk more merit to compensate, or S gets music $$ (or a combo of all the above) = 9 more.

Total working list is 19 but there are a LOT S hasn’t really looked at yet and won’t till school is out. I will be far more comfortable if EFC is adjusted at a profile school due to #4 items, than banking on 2 kids in college for 2-3 years. Heaven forbid S19 takes a gap year or what have you, it’s a risky proposition. I do not like one of the schools that is in category #1 and #2 which means only 3 are sure financial bets and at the moment S only loves 1 of them. I hate that number. Of course he likes the one we do not. It’s on the list. But not really in my mind (and H’s).

I suppose the only number I do like is that category #1 and #2 are all safeties.

Right now for applications I think “my” ideal, so we cast a wide academic and financial net are

3 safeties
4 match
1 reach
1 high reach

I am not sure S will go for 10 apps, in his mind I suspect the number is 5 though we have discussed 5-8. I’ll go back in august and rerun all the NPC’s and check on the updated scholarship/merit info for the “short list” and suspect more will fall off.

Unless I win the lottery. Or S opens his mind to other instate (Or Jesuit school) options, including our flagship (which would be a reach anyway).

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Oh, @eandesmom, I feel for you and your boys. I hope everything works out for you.

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@eandesmom , I’m so sorry for your sons’ language grades. I hope they will turn things around. It’s a dilemma. I usually stay away from checking my D’s online grade because it makes me unnecessarily worried but if I don’t see it at all, I don’t realize what’s happening. Last time I checked, her grade had slipped and I had to talk to her about it.

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@“Queen’s Mom” thank you. Great exchanges today with the GC and the French teacher and we’ve plans for all. I am extremely pleased with the level of support and response all around. Lovely insight from both teachers and you have to feel a ton better about everything when the Spanish teacher’s response starts with

*“I have a special place in my heart for…” and then this, "I respect him for his musical talent and all he gives to productions in and out of school. He is inspirational! Also, he’s matured incredibly. I’ve used him as an example to my son…”I hope you figure things out like Juan Chupacabra!” *

Yeah, that’s his Spanish name. Cracks me up. So heartwarming to know your kid has a champion on the other side.

S19’s teacher doesn’t have quite the same bond with his teacher, it’s S17’s second year with his teacher but she definitely gets him and is rooting for him too. I think she pinpointed a bigger issue and it is likely that French is just a casualty (or the first casualty) and I appreciate (and needed) that outsider/objective input.

It will still be a rough 4 weeks for all of us but at least we have a team in place and some plans.

@HiToWaMom my kids have been VERY unhappy I’ve been checking a lot lately. Typically I don’t check much at all as I really haven’t needed to and I do know there is a lag but when I start to see trends I’ve not seen all year I have to jump in. Historically talking to them about it hasn’t worked well but hopefully now that I’ve brought in reinforcements we will see progress. Traditionally they do better when I don’t check and nag but sometimes…you have to play the mom card.

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You have to check…just not every day or it will drive you crazy. I try to check often enough that there’s time to fix mistakes, but not enough to freak her out. It’s difficult. Luckily, she does tend to connect to her teachers unlike D16, who thought she was smarter than everyone.