@Suave123 The value depends on the school, per our advisor. Check the credit offerings at the schools your child is applying to. For instance, if they only give credit for 4s and 5s you would not want to send any scores of 3, even though they are technically passing. The student can get the AP Scholar awards with 3s, so if you don’t self report the scores, but list the award- you have basically told them your scores. AP scores are never used for admission, so if the scores would not help you, don’t list the award and in essence give away that you have lower scores than they would like. If your child got the award and all (or most) of their AP scores would give them credit and you are sending/self reporting them, then list the award.
In our case, D has the AP Scholar with Distinction award, but only has one 5 (the rest 4s and 3s) and her list of schools will only take 5s and a few 4s. She will not report any AP scores on applications- they do not help her and could hurt her at the competitive schools where they are looking for anything to differentiate. If she reported the AP award, it would actually hurt her due to the absence of listed AP scores. Our advisor also said it’s kind of like NHS- almost everybody gets it, so the value is diluted.
@H0llyw00d Regarding cancelled leadership and other opportunities, unless a student had already been appointed to a leadership position, I don’t think it can be included in the activities section. I do think it’s worth a quick mention in the Covid-specific question of the Common App. Not leadership, but our D had her first shift as a hospital volunteer the first week of March, after a long training period. She’s going to mention that somewhere as a “might have been.”
Re SAT/ACT scores, I believe most would say the conventional wisdom still holds, that you submit if the scores are at/above the middle 50%. Otherwise, apply TO, if possible.
Clemson just announced online until September 21. Campus move in pushed to September 13. I think they are just delaying the inevitable fall semester online
Re Submitting scores, does that mean the composite, or both sections above the middle 50 percent? That’s the part no one seems to have a definitive answer for. I would ask an AO, but don’t want to jeopardized my daughter’s application anywhere by mentioning it in case she is able to re-test and superscore.
Everything I have read has said composite, but that issue is the struggle we are facing right now. Ds composite is in that sweet spot, but her Math section is not. She just took the ACT last Saturday and we are hoping she really brought it up, otherwise we decided that she would not be submitting the score with the low math, in spite of the overall composite. No need to give them data that could possibly hurt her.
@Rue4 thanks for your reply! My S21 took 4 APs so far and fortunately has scored 3 5’s and 1 4. And yes, you are right, it has very least significance as almost everyone takes couple or more APs in their high school career.
@inthegarden Her scores for English/Reading were at or close to the 75th, her Math was at the 50th percent, and Science killed her. Composite was one point above middle 50 percent.
Regarding Fall sports and leadership - if it is possible, your child could still lead activities online with the team via Zoom etc. My daughter was the co-captain for a spring sport (cancelled) and they still did a lot of team bonding activities including movie nights, zumba and yoga workouts and made a fun video. They also put together senior tributes and posted on social media. Of course, this was easier as the team and captains were already in place. Again, not sure if possible with your school and sport. My daughter should be the co-captain this year too - but unsure if the sport will happen and she feels she has this as a talking point.
For test scores, I am not sure if the old way will be the new way and would recommend you speak to your daughter’s guidance/college counselor.
@HollyW00d my son made section leader for marching band this year. Even though we’re not having a typical band year, and our marching season will be extremely abbreviated if not cancelled outright, the leadership team and drum majors are still being given tasks, assignments and duties by the band directors. They have Zoom meetings, relay information to their sections and are filming marching drills and other music for the band students underneath them.
Can you do a virtual admissions session with the school and ask that question anonymously?
It probably depends on the school, but if composite is above median, and one of the two sections is below the median but above the 25%ile…that is probably a submit. If the lower section is below the 25%ile, I would not submit. IMO, obviously.
Can you individually report self report AP scores or is that part of the general Common Application? My daughter has one 3 (AP Lang), the rest 4’s and 5’s.
3 of her 5 schools that she’s applying to accept 3’s. The two private schools only accept 4’s and 5’s.
I have a practice Common App account so I just went to look. The place to enter self reported AP scores is in the common section of the application. However, a podcast I was recently listening to said that you can adjust that information for each school as you submit - they said, for example, you could report it when you submit to the first school. Then you can go back into the common app and take that info out before you submit to the second school. You’d just have to be careful to keep track of what you want in for each school. Even though it’s a common app, you don’t submit it simultaneously to all schools - you submit one by one. At least, that’s my understanding.
@nichols51 you are right! We can edit the common app for every individual school. The only problem is when you are sending one application to a bunch of schools like UC application (university of California). It’s not possible to edit for individual UC but is not the case with common app.
@dadof4kids Im glad they issued the mask requirement! I don’t get it. Girls can’t wear certain tops to school and can’t wear short shorts and no one is protesting the loss of Constitutional rights but mask to save lives is causing an uproar. Goodness.
Anyone here visited Lehigh? I signed D up for a live virtual tour and info session. I did a quick peak at a recorded virtual tour and, wow, it’s pretty.
List is currently set at Wake, Davidson, Richmond, Tulane (I guess haha), Vanderbilt, Colgate, BC, Santa Clara, Denison, LMU (maybe), Miami OH (maybe)
I’m even thinking of throwing Boulder on there. I know it’s too big but she needs more safeties and loves CO and her two cousins in their mid 20s just moved there and they are just awesome human beings. It would be nice for her to be near them. Wouldn’t be the worst idea to have one big school on the list as an option in the end.
Yes - it’s beautiful in real life as well. I’m not sure if the virtual tour shows this, but it is literally built on the side of a hill. The surrounding area is a mixed bag.
Agree Lehigh is beautiful, and some of the surrounding area not so great. Riding the bus up the hill necessary to get to science buildings, then further up the hill to athletic facilities. Not sure either of those are walkable or bike ride-able. But students said the busses run frequently. The library is among the best anywhere. A showstopper.
Safety/highly likely wise, would your D attend Boulder over Miami OH?
I’m not getting any traction on the University of Texas at Austin board so I thought I would post this here too.
Not sure how true it is but I have “heard” that UT does not consider the 2nd choice major on their application in like 95% of applications. Do you think with UT going Test Optional that it will affect considerations of the 2nd choice major for kids applying this fall?
Also, speaking of Test Optional, do you think the Engineering and Computer Science majors will actually be Test Optional for admissions? Or perhaps just a percentage of them? Do you think the SAT/ACT scores in general will be lower due to lack of testing/retesting opportunities and thereby, a little easier to get into this year?
(My son wants to apply Computer Science and then Electrical Engineering but he doesn’t think he will get into Computer Science based on past admissions cycles with his current SAT. June SAT was cancelled and now August looks like it will be cancelled too. Time is running out to retake it. He doesn’t want to blow his chances of admission by putting Computer Science first if the 2nd choice major isn’t really looked at.)
@Mwfan1921 maybe? The idea would be that, if she was left with just safeties in the acceptance column, she would have choices come April. If she had Denison, Miami, Santa Clara and Boulder as options, she would still feel like she has the chance to pick. If we were able to visit schools now, she could narrow down safety options this fall but that’s just not happening. There would be trade offs if she had to choose between this list of safeties. Size, location, how many kids from her class are going there, etc. I thought of USCarolina too but it feels random and I don’t see her choosing it over the others since we have zero connection to SC. We’ve been to CO a number of times for vacations. My cousin and her two adult kids live there - moved there recently from here and D21 knows them well. D really likes Denver too. S19 would have loved to have found a school in CO but nothing really matched up for him. And , since D is starting to lean away from the smallest of the small schools, I think it might be good to have a big school on the list as an option.