You guys give AOs way more credit than the 3 minutes they will spend with your kid’s file warrants. =))
Our HS reduces the 1.0 grade point bump for and AP class to only .5 grade point bump if you don’t take the test. Not that we care, but that’s what they do.
No adjustment here. And if you aren’t going to do well they don’t want you taking.
Lowers the aaverage.
Last year only one of 60 kids got less than a 3 on AP Comp Sci. Pretty sure the school would rather he had skipped.
Just caught up on about 150 messages. Work travel has buried me.
I hate the proliferation of APs for the sake of looking better on college applications. It’s one thing if a HS uses AP as curriculum, but if that’s the case, I think taking the tests should be optional. D17 took 4 APs, and collectively received 29 credit hours for them, enough for Sophomore standing. That seemed enough. Taking only 4 APs didn’t hinder her acceptances.
Our HS just dropped rankings this year. DD20s transcript at the end of freshman year included a rank. At the end of sophomore year it was gone. As far as I know, they haven’t announced that they are no longer ranking. I asked her GC when the ranking disappeared and she confirmed they were going away. For D17, rankings were based on straight GPA, all classes included, no weighting. I liked this – students weren’t penalized for staying in band, orchestra, or art class as opposed to adding on another AP class.
@bigmacbeth, I agree with you. My thinking was that if the kid has great stats and EC’s, but something in the essay ticks off AO, s/he might be looking for an excuse to deny rather than defer/waitlist, and seeing no test score reported for an AP class taken by obviously middle-class kid who can afford the test might just give such excuse.
Change of subject - can anyone recommend a reasonably priced online essay coach/tutor for college apps? Our local one charges $95/hour, and while I understand it’s much better in person than via Skype, a help with a single essay may end up costing as much as one or more AP tests. Thanks!
I think my number may have been closer than even I thought: https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-elite-colleges-review-an-application-in-8-minutes-or-less-1517400001
@bigmacbeth at a college fair last year 3 different adcoms told us they spend 5-15 minutes per application but they also said the stats were already “summarized” for them so they could move on to other areas of the application.
We did have one adcom from UCSB say that the essay was 50% of the decision but I have a hard time believing that as almost 100% of our 2018 applicants who had at least a 30 ACT and 4.26 GPA were accepted. I really doubt every one of the 40 accepted applicants had stellar essays. Maybe with lower stat applicants it mattered but GPA, rigorous course load and standardized test scores ruled the day at UCSB and pretty much all the UCs.
Yes for UCSB, it is 50% stats and 50% PIQ and activities. https://admissions.sa.ucsb.edu/apply/freshman/selection
^^when I look at my D’s high school Naviance distribution of accepted students GPAs and test scores at all of the UCs, they all have a similar distribution of accepted students, including UCSB. If personal insight questions and activities were just as important as grades/test scores you would have an equal number of low stat applicants with great essays/activities gaining acceptance which is just not the case.
Said another way, an applicant with a 4.5 GPA and 34 ACT with weak essays and activities is more likely to gain acceptance than an applicant with a 3.0 GPA and a 24 ACT with excellent essays and activities.
After going through this process multiple times, my perspective is that admissions is far more formula based than parents and students suspect. Everything is assigned a value. Whatever % of students they are looking for that fall into whatever sum and above are the students who get additional review with the exception of the few that are singled out due to whatever hook the adcoms are looking for. Those sums can be lower. And, all in all, the above process is done either by a computer when students input their data for the app (self-reporting academic records) or partially completed by office staff before hitting adcoms’ desk. Those remaining apps are further screened, but the process is fairly quick until you get to borderline apps or cases where adcoms are going to argue in favor of an applicant due to something they see in the application or selection for competitive scholarships that are committee selected, etc.
This PP gives a good presention on what has influenced my perspective:
http://www.manhassetsca.org/HighSchool/articles2010-11/DonBettertonpresentation2011.05.17.pdf
Fwiw, I have been pretty accurate is assessing my kids’ odds at being invited to competitive scholarship weekends. I take a very “brutal assessment of them” approach. I spend time researching the CDS Profile of the U’s top applicants, the profile of their awardees, etc. Our kids limit their energies toward places where their numbers are going to put them in the strongly competitive range.
I would recommend learning to read IPED/CDS info for yourself if you haven’t already. Nothing is more misplaced than thinking that a certain characteristic will benefit your student when the CDS clearly states that it is “not considered.” Or not recognizing the 25th-75th% data. Want to be competitive? Be above that 75% #.
@socaldad2002 I understand what you are saying when looking at Naviance but if you look at the kids that got into UCSB but did not get into UCD or UCSD or vice versa, you can might see the difference. The same goes for UCLA vs UCB. If you read the websites in detail, you can tell that they are looking for a different type of student.
Just from personal experience, one of my son’s friends had a 3.96 unweighted, 35 on ACT and was not accepted at UCLA, UCB or UCI yet received Regents at UCSB. Another received Regents at UCLA, a Regents interview at UCB but nothing at UCSB. She is a swimmer who has done phenomenal research but not much else.
Every high school is different but our Naviance shows more kids with low GPAs/high test scores and with high GPA/low test scores got into UCSB than UCD, UCSD or UCI.
@lkg4answers, thank you, very interesting. I haven’t done this kind of research. Could you share what you think UCLA vs UCB vs UCSD are looking for and how did you determine these nuances? Thanks!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Thanks for the link and informative feedback! Will be looking for above 75th stats.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I feel like a lot of parents try to outsmart the competition by doing things that their kid’s target school is not asking for because they think it will give their kid a leg up (Level of applicant’s interest=Not Important? Ha! BS. I’ll show them and take my kid across the country to show how interested he is!).
I do think it’s all very much formulaic (admissions as well as merit), and a little research (like is being discussed here) can go a long way in eliminating surprises, or uncovering programs that might be better at a school you may never have considered :-h )
@bigmacbeth I agree! We went to a U Chicago presentation in our town and they didn’t have a sign-in sheet since they didn’t care who showed up - i.e. didn’t care about demonstrated interest.
But some colleges care very much about demonstrated interest (e.g. Tulane, Tufts, etc.) and families need to know which of their target colleges consider it important. Yield is very important to some colleges.
@socaldad2002 But with the majority of schools it is easy to know if demonstrated interest, geographic location, etc matter. For example, MIT states level of of interest not considered. (How many students accept that?) http://ir.mit.edu/common-data-set-2018/#A U’s are not lying on their CDS info. So if it states not considered, it isn’t.
Cal Tech almost has a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on their website with respect visiting their campus. http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/visit/prospective-student-tours
When we visited last year during spring break, they said because of mid term (or something else) there weren’t enough tour guides so only prospective students could get on the tour. Parents were asked to just sit for info session.
My kid has been on the Cal Tech campus multiple times for events like Science Olympiad and we have friends there, so no point in an official visit if she was interested.
PSA: One thing Caltech hates is when applicants and their parents call it Cal Tech.