@me29034 I am the students father. I mentioned my acceptances in another thread to try and spark hope in a young student who needed it, but I have not been in high school in over 24 years. The horrendous comment was my sons owns words not mine, I know they are average scores.
I wouldnāt even call them average scores, @EmpireFrontier ā your son should not be so hard on himself, and at least on this thread, nor should you. Congrats on some fine acceptances.
A 1290 SAT is around the 90th-percentile. Thatās a great score, and one he should be proud of. In no way should it be disparaged. Kudos to him on his acceptances.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln offers some great merit for good but not exceptional stats. My son has SAT of 1240 (620/620) and 3.2 UW/3.7W GPA and received $13,500 annual merit which brought the total cost just below our state flagship. And their OOS tuition is reasonable to start. We visited and we both loved the campus/school and city of Lincoln (lots more than corn there!). Students and staff were friendly and engaging, the academics are solid, and they have Big 10 football with a storied history (a lot of excitement with Scott Frost getting hired), and overall excellent athletics to watch or play including club/intramural. A good option for students in that stat range who want to explore OOS options without breaking the bank.
@EmpireFrontier I agree with the others, those are not remotely horrendous scores, it looks like he applied broadly and well and was rewarded accordingly. Congratulations to him and to you. Celebrate!
There are LOTS of great options for kids in this stat range. Which is my no means horrendous. Itās just far more āreal lifeā than some of CC 
For kicks I looked at where my 2017 version of this thread was, at this point in time. We didnāt hit page 50 until August of 2016! And it was a busy thread all the way through (sits at 299 right now)!
Ok to be fair I think I started this one earlier in the process than the last but, well done all!
Hey everyone. I realize now that the comment I made about my sons 1290 SAT being āhorrendousā was an extremely rude and insensitive thing to do. I am so proud of him and could not have gone through this process with a better young man.
I realize that this thread is built on hope, acceptance, and positivity. I think I was just so used to having to justify a āaverageā score because of time I have spent on more prestigious CC threads and I truly apologize if I offended anyone.
This is by far the greatest thread I have come across on CC, and I want to thank @eandesmom for creating a tolerant safe thread for students more associated with normal everyday high school students.
Will follow up with more news likely later tonight. S is choosing between Florida State, West Florida, South Carolina, and Kent State.
@EmpireFrontier Please do come back and let us know, he has wonderful options! Congratulations again, you both should be extremely proud.
@EmpireFrontier, donāt beat yourself up too terribly about the misstepāCollege Confidential can warp oneās perceptions a bit, you know? But weāre a welcoming sort over here. (And if the CC text editor would let me insert proper emoji, Iād hand you a virtual cookie or three.)
It was good to see @EmpireFrontier ās list because the GPA is like my D and those are goal test scores! At least 2 of those schools are on our list as well.
S just shared the big news with everyone over dinner.
He will be attending South Carolina this fall. The main factor, he said, was the 14,500 in merit along with it being a lot closer to home compared to FSU and West Florida.
He seriously considered FSU but the aspect of not having any merit and little interest shown by the university kind of pushed him away.
West Florida gave 21k but he said he wanted a more ātraditionalā college experience heavy into sports and greek life.
And Kent State he said was similar to WFU, just not premier enough.
Congratulations @EmpireFrontier It sounds like a great choice for him.
@empirefrontier We are in the same county so I understand the environment where your son can end up thinking his 90th percentile SAT is bad. My son has been complaining that he doesnāt know anyone else who has multiple Bs on their transcript.
Congrats to him on great results!
@EmpireFrontier, congratulations to your son! Iām impressed your son got a decent merit award. My D applied to and got into South Carolina last year with a 4.0 and similar SAT score. She got zero merit aid though she did her merit from College of Charleston. I was surprised b/c the previous year kids from her h.s. got decent merit aid so I assumed she would as well (we live in suburban MD). It was not her top choice so it was not a big deal. Good luck to him - I have several friends with kids there and they love it!
I must say I am disappointed in this thread. It is just the usual CC bragging about grades and SATs. My older daughter went to HYPS. Iāve done the hotshot CC. I am now looking for a different kind of support. My younger may be going to community college. I guess there is no space on CC for such students.
Hi, all, DS is graduating in 2020 and I am stopping by to say hi and to learn what I need for him later. It is great information here. Keep up the good work!
@mamalion , similar story here. But hope DS can at least go to state schools. Best of luck to your D.
@mamalion this yearās thread does seem to lean to pretty high stat (in my opinion) kids. When I found last yearās thread, my son was really more a 2.7 GPA - he applied to 9 schools and was accepted at all 9. There are schools out there! Donāt give up hope. My son is finishing up his freshman year at college and is doing great - much better than he ever did in HS!!
I donāt see a lot of bragging here. I think it all depends on your point of view. If your kid has a 3.0, then someone bemoaning their kids 3.4 sound like bragging. Same with SAT scores. I wanted to come here to celebrate my kids recent increase in scores (went from 1100 to 1220, yay), but I think others who have lower scores may see it as bragging. Anyway, I think i am going to abandon the main 2019 thread for awhile as they are all busy discussing their visits to various Ivy League schools.
So son beat my target for him which was 1200. The first thing he said was āSee, I did better than you thought I couldā, quickly followed by āWhen can I take it again?ā He wants to beat his older sister. I would be very happy if he could pull that off, but am not holding my breath. He is now well into the mid SAT range for most of the schools we have talked about and above 75% for a few. His main reach school is Pitt, where his sister goes, but he is sitting right at 25% for Pitt so he will need to raise his scores up to be realistic. We are planning a retake in June. He is just in Algebra 2 now for math, so if we can wait until the end if the school year I think it will help to get more topics covered and help get the score up.
Now if I can just get him to agree to start visiting colleges, I would relax a bit. Kid so far had completely refused. I think he may end up applying just based on internet information.
@mamalion and @NJWrestlingmom we do have a thread for the C/B students: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21417858#Comment_21417858
@mamalion, Iām sorry you feel that way - does your student fit within the stats of this thread? There is another thread for kids with less than a 3.0. While my son has about a 3.4-3.5 GPA, he does not have high test scores (i question if he suffers from test anxiety) so some information on this thread does not always apply to him. However, Iāve found this thread to be very useful in identifying schools for kids that donāt have high stats. I have not found it to be a braggy thread at all compared to the rest of CC, but Iām sorry if you have a different takeaway from the information provided here.
My most recent comment above to Empirefrontier was not meant to be a brag about my daughter and her stats (she is already in college and not the child that brought me to this thread). My son is a totally different type of student so his college search is also going to be different which is what has made this thread very useful to me.
Edited to add that there are many paths to success with community college being a great option for many.