D has all of her UK and EA apps submitted - she is down to her last 3 schools that are RD. She is really running out of steam though. Luckily I think there are just a few more essays and she can rework one of her essays to help. Plan is to see if she gets any merit aid and then look at her top choices before making a decision.
She has one rolling admission to a school she thinks she would be really happy to attend and just got her first UK acceptance!
I cannot wait for this part to be over!!
We just got the proofs her senior photos and they are amazing! It will be nice when these kids can just enjoy the rest of senior year (despite all of the covid changes)
I finally got to read Dâs main essay! I have never even seen a draft but I knew the topic. It is very herâso perfectly accurate to who she is â I criedâwhich may be sillyâbut I did. This is months of work with a really nice result, IMO.
Then I looked at the rest of CAâhadnât seen that either. Her CC had already looked it over incl the essays etc so nothing really for me to do except double check every word. All ready to submit!
D21 decided not to sit for any AP exams at all this year. Our district (100% virtual) is on a 3 classes per semester schedule this year due to Covid. No one likes the schedule. Not teachers. Not students. Not parents.
This schedule has really messed up AP students.
Her first semester AP class ends in late January. Her second semester AP classes run from February to mid-June.
Sheâll be way out of touch with her first semester class by AP tests in early May. All content from her three second semester AP classes will have to be covered in Feb/Mar/Apr.
The district superintendent pledged in a webinar that schools would develop plans to support AP students. Ha ha. All that âsupportâ ended up being was study guides placed in an online folder. Not helpful in the least! Itâs a disaster.
Plus, if AP exams are the mess that they were this past spring, ugh.
My S21 is utterly uncooperative with senior pictures. I think Iâll have an easier time getting him to finish up the last of his apps before agreeing to pictures. And he received his first rolling acceptance yesterday! No surprise, but nice to see.
Iâve now got another issue I could use some collective advice for.
My D has been told all along (for almost a year) by the GC that she is tied for rank 1. the GC told her the same during her virtual Senior interview, and included that in an email and the attached transcript (that showed her rank). Meanwhile, my D learned she will probably drop down in rank before graduation because of a schedule change (There was no 2-credit AP bio for her to take so she took a DE class and an honors class instead ). Also, she learned that a student transferred in from the high school across town. This high school offers eight shorter classes per day instead of seven classes and so straight âAâs can get a higher weighted GPA. ironic, as this school is known to be easier and less academic, but I digress. My D knew that would drop her rank down by graduation but the GC still gave her a current rank 1, which is what my D listed on the common app. After all, no one knows the future or what any studentsâ grades will be in the future and the GC had not said anything about the other studentâs effect on rank at that time (early October, I believe).
The student that she was tied with for rank 1 all along had the GC interview a couple of weeks after my D. Up until now, his schedule and grades have been identical to my daughterâs. Today he told my D that the GC had told him that he was tied with two other people for rank #2, and thatâs what he reported on the CA. Evidently, it seems the GC may have recalculated rank (including the new student that transferred) between the time my D had the interview and this boy did. Now my D is in a quandary (and pretty upset).
Obviously, she will have to report the mistake, But sheâs already worried enough as isâŠnow she worries it will look either as if she lied, hoping to get away with it, or, at best, made a careless mistake on the CA (not as bad, but doesnât look like a detail-oriented, careful applicant). if she says that the GC gave her the wrong information, well, we know thatâs not a good look, either, even if itâs true. Obviously, she will have to contact the GC but in the meantime itâs nerve wracking. Not sure what the GC put in her report about Dâs rank. I feel itâs the GCâs job to clarify it with the schools, but I honestly donât trust whether she will clearly own up to her own mistake, or if she will just say that the student accident ally mis-reported the rank and now wants to correct it. Thereâs no way we can know what the GC will write. Help, please! My D does have the email from the GC stating her rank, but thereâs no way getting into controversy will help her in college admissions.
@inthegarden , I may be off base here because our school doesnât rank, but could you do nothing in this situation? If she was ranked #1 when she put it down on her app, #1 is on her transcript, and sheâs already submitted, then I think thatâs the end of the story. The info from the other student is not official, or from the GC, so I donât see a need to act on it.
I could be wrong, but I also donât think that colleges need to know the exact rank. They are just looking at top 10%, top 20%, what type of high school, etc., right?
Also, Iâm sorry this happened because your D doesnât need the stress!!
@inthegarden , the rank is on the official transcript? Hugs to you. I hope someone else chimes in with advise. I personally think it should not matter if still in top 2% of class. But since D only applied to safeties, I really donât know.
Also, @inthegarden , I have some possible ideas for EA. These are all LACâs with fewer than 7,000 students. Our family knows students at each one who are very happy, and weâve visited most. I donât think any have supplemental essays!
Her worry is not so much about what schools will think about her exact rank, but whether or not the schools she has already applied to think she falsified that information on the CA (either deliberately or by accident). Even if they think itâs unintentional, it makes her look sloppy/inaccurate. and she hates to bother the AOs, calling attention to it, but now that she knows, sheâd feel dishonest not reporting it. Sheâs worried that maybe the transcript and rank that the GC actually sent to the schools may reflect the later calculation of rank, not not be the one she told my D.
The other person who was always tied with her #1 rank is her boyfriend. Heâs really honest, and Iâd say itâs reliable information. They have taken every single class together in school up to this semester (sometimes in different sections but the same courses) and both have always gotten 4.0 UW. So itâs concerning that he was told by the GC that his rank is 2. She should have the same rank as him. He also applied honors at the flagship my D applied to and plans to apply RD to the schools she applied to ED and she also doesnât want to feel sheâs listed as having higher rank than him if itâs not true (scrupulously honest).
@inthegarden I wouldnât report any changes and I wouldnât stress over it. Itâs basically all hearsay. She has a transcript. A lot can change from here until the end of the year, especially in a year with Covid.
Our kids have dealt with transfers into our average school from private and charter schools that instantaneously place the new kid at #1. I wouldnât worry about it unless a specific scholarship you were vying for is only given to the #1. I just donât think there is a ton of difference in the top kids.
@Meddy, thanks, but itâs not her rank sheâs stressed about but whether it looks like she lied on her CA, and whether the transcript the GC actually sent says she has a different rank than the one she self-reported.
Yes, weâll have to straighten it out. Itâs just that the GC is very hard to get ahold of these days, school is out Tuesday for Election Day, and my D wants to be able to report something quickly if thereâs a discrepancy because sheâd like to report it herself rather than the school catching her in a âlieâ that is not really a lie, according to what she was told.
@inthegarden - I think the rank is the rank on the transcript until the next transcript comes out. She was ranked #1 at the end of 6 semesters and thatâs what she reported. Maybe sheâll be #1 after 7 semesters, maybe sheâll be #2 or #3 but as of her last marking period, she was #1.
Just found out my D already emailed the GC, even though itâs the weekend, to try to find out what the situation is.
My D said her boyfriendâs dad went to talk to the GC to clarify some things after his sonâs senior interview. He asked if his sonâs rank was the same as before (#1 tie). The GC told him that they had just computed a new class rank, and he was now tied for #2. This conversation happened weeks after my Dâs senior interview but before the GC attached her transcript (with rank on it) to her CA.
After Dâs senior interview the GC sent her a copy of her transcript with rank #1 clearly stated. My D showed me this, so that part is true. She never informed my D that there was to be a new class rank computed soon. I think itâs unlikely the GC would have attached the outdated transcript/rank to her application. Yes, weâll have to verify what happened with the GC but itâs new anxiety to deal with in the meantime. In any case, itâs pretty irresponsible to tell a student her rank is one thing, knowing it could change soon, and yet not inform her when rank is recalculated, knowing the CA has a place for students to self-report. And if the GC did send out the old, outdated transcript to her CA, matching the transcript she emailed my D, itâs unfair to other students such as her boyfriend, who is at the same GPA level but sending out a transcript with a lower rank than hers to colleges. They shouldnât rank at all unless they are going to be accurate and consistent with the information they give students.
I donât think any admissions person is going to see self-reported rank of #1, and then, a GC reported rank of #2 and think the student is trying to pull a fast one. The difference is negligible. It is not a change in the studentâs coursework or GPA.
I think if the student was self reporting #1 rank using unweighted (or some other misleading statistic within the school ecosystem) and had taken more non honors / AP courses than other top students and then GC reported they were outside the top 5% or something - so an obvious misrepresentation trying to get an advantage - that would be detrimental. âWell, technically I am number one if you donât count second semester junior year classes, math and fine artsâ grades.â
I would be more concerned of trying to write the correction / update email. If you write some worried FYI correction - which in an email it is hard to control how someone reads tone - it runs the risk of coming off as one of those kids who is going to melt when they encounter a little adversity and they are not the unquestioned best runner in the race.
More risk in the follow up / update than resting comfortably on a strong application.
@Ohiodadof4, my Dâs anxiety has NOTHING to do with not dealing with adversity or fear of not being the best. Itâs about her level of HONESTY, which is a damned solid character trait. She feels appalled and she feels guilty that she listed her rank as #1, when itâs not. She doesnât want to get credit for being what sheâs not.
If she emails AOs about it, sheâll only say, apologetically, that she mis-wrote her rank. and concede that sheâs number 2 and not number 1. As in, Mea Culpa. Iâm just angry that she was put in that position through no fault of her own. That GC has been doing the same job for years. The GC knows that the Common App asks students to report rank if the school ranks. She did not tell my D that rank was about to be recalculated within the next week.
Your D did not make a mistake. Why Mea Culpa? She was #1 when she submitted. She was not dishonest. At worst, state it as unapologetically factual, âSince the submission of my application, my class rank changed to #2 from # 1 through recalculation of the class rankings by the school. My grades have not changed. â
I sympathize with her frustration and anxiety (and yours). GCs fault (but who likely in good faith never even thought past answering the rank question at the time, not anticipating any update/ change).
My point was there may be more downside of a misinterpreted update email than anyone sincerely believing that she was dishonest in her original submission. However, I think the potential downside of either course of action is minuscule. If it were my D, I would say donât worry about it - which advice she would ignore until the acceptance came.
I meant, a simple mea culpa, as in, âmy mistakeâ, as opposed to excusing herself by inferring blame on the GC; as opposed to what you inferred (oh, dear, Iâm no longer the best and canât cope).
GC sent my D her transcript knowing full well that it wasnât just an interesting thing to look atâŠmy D had to refer to THAT transcript to complete the CA. Our flagship requires students to write in every course and grade into the CA for some weird reason, even though the transcript had to be attached as well. The GC SHOULD KNOW that with new students in school thereâs a possibility of new rankings. My D had no idea there were any new students in school (all students are online only). When the GC sent her the transcript she had to have known that new rank would be calculated soon but my D had no way to know that. My D trusted the GC to have given her updated information. No new grading period started between the time of my Dâs interview and the recalculated rankâŠhow was she to know she was given an outdated transcript at her senior interview? At very least, why wouldnât a GC notify all students who had already had an interview as soon as there is a new recalculated rankIng list that differed from the last, knowing that students are AT THAT MOMENT preparing apps to send and need accurate info to put on the CA. I still think itâs terribly irresponsible for the GC to fail to communicate that not-so-little detail. The GC is supposed to be the professional.
