Same… But he decided to not graduate early… He’s got stuff to do… Lol…
Major advantage to UIUC is they take all Aps from 3 and up. Many kids can start as almost second semester sophomores or at least get a lot out of the way.
People are talking about Case Western. It’s a great, great school and if for engineering a great program. Know many that graduated from there and all have solid jobs. The students love the school. Friend of mines kid just got accepted with a nice merit… She will have many acceptances but was just as thrilled with that as she was for Georgetown. Also many high Stat kids were deferred this round from there.
The prepaid plan was still a good investment. I think we paid something like $28k for the full four years and it’s now with almost $80k for us to use towards any school the kids go to. The worth is tied to the increase in tuition at Illinois state schools since one purchased the plan.
Daughter got accepted with offered instate tuition before Honors acceptance. My guess is honors acceptance may increase merit and potential Top scholars invite.
“The college admissions buzz at the moment is all about how difficult early action and early decision admissions have been this year…
But this year’s huge increase in early applications has meant that the admit rate at most colleges has been much lower than in previous years, and many more very strong candidates are being deferred to regular admissions than in the past.
Here are the numbers for the increase in Early Decision/Early Action applications from 2019 to 2020 for some of the selective schools:
MIT - 62%
Harvard - 57%
Columbia - 49%
Yale - 38%
Cornell - 37%
UVA - 35%
Northwestern - 14%
Tufts - 17%
Tulane- 11%
Notre Dame - 6%
These increases are due in large part to the fact that most colleges have gone test optional… This has encouraged a much larger number of students to apply to these schools.
This trend of increased applications is likely to continue in the Regular Decision pool, with the result that admissions in the RD round will also be more difficult than in the past.
Please keep that in mind as your students decide where to submit applications in these final weeks!
Please make sure that your students apply to a realistic “safety school” – a school that is very likely to take them, that you can afford, and (very important!) where they think they can be happy. This year, applying to a safety school is more important than ever!“
I can only share my kids’ experiences, which are of limited value in the general landscape.
I think the schools are upfront about recalculating gpas. Emory (not a LAC, I know) says they drop the 9th grade grades and recalculate the applicant’s gpa without them.
My youngest son just applied ED and the school did see his 1st quarter grades from this fall.
I have to believe that’s standard. That said, my kids’ school has a 12 point grading scale (so e.g. a 10.8 is an A- average.
@GoldPenn I have heard most colleges do recalculate grades. Especially when they want them on common app or SRAR so that can use that as an easy way to do it.
That grading scale is tough. My sons school the two quarters are 1/3 each with the mid term or final being 1/3 as well. They also require approval to determine honors and AP placement so not anyone can take them. The approval is tough (all As in regular to take honors and all As in honors to take AP, a certain GPA threshold and a teacher recommendation). Even then you can still be denied for AP if the current teacher doesn’t recommend you for it regardless of your grades or gpa.
They weight honors as .5 and AP as 1.
So it is unfair to just compare a gpa from my sons school to one that doesn’t have midterms, anyone can take honors and AP, uses 1 weight for honors, etc.
That’s where the AO knowing the HS can help for sure. My son wouldn’t stand a chance at colleges that didn’t know how our school operates.
My youngest applied ED and was also asked to submit his first quarter grades.
The grading scale for my kids’ school is different. I don’t recall all of it, but I know a 95 is an A-, 92 is B+… It’s really hard to get actual A’s at their school; teachers say they expect kids to “go beyond the curriculum” (whatever that means) in order to earn an A. But details about the grading system are included, I think, in the standard form sent to colleges by the GC. Colleges don’t seem to respond negatively to it even though it’s not standard.
I don’t know if LACs officially recalculate grades. My understanding from the AOs I’ve spoken to is that they look at the grades and the rigor and any info that shows how the student fits within their class using profile info. Those schools are always more holistic in their determinations.
They see dozens of different types of grading scales and look at the candidate in terms of their high school. I didn’t get the sense they would be comparing GPAs from different candidates from different schools - at least not to the point where they compare some recalculated number. No student is at a disadvantage because of the grading scale at their high school. Kids who have lower GPAs but are still near the top of their class present as kids who are at the top of their class. AOs say all the time that they can’t compare GPAs. I understand this happens at some big state schools for merit purposes but you don’t need to concern yourself at all about recalculating if that’s not where your D is applying.
I’d assume that they can designate applicants as ELC without the SAT/ACT but UC did say that determination of ELC would be one of a very few ways that standardized tests would be used.
Our counselor said that many colleges do recalculate because each school may use a different scale. At ours, 90-93 is an A-, 93-96 is A and 97-100 is A+. On the low end, they need at least a 70 to pass a course. A 70 is a D and a 71 is C-.
@nucities do you know if UCs do this automatically with what the kids submit? S21 reported all his scores but we never saw a box that said enter your ELC.
Our school A starts at 94. I don’t remember if they use -/+, but I think they do. We have like maybe 3 kids with a UW GPA of 4.0 in a graduating class of almost 800.
They reworked ours 5-6 years ago to make it more lenient, this is similar to what we used to have. Our kids were really struggling to get some of the automatic merit awards at the schools we send lots of apps to, because frankly there are a lot of super easy HS’s around here that if you put in marginal effort an unweighted 4.0 isn’t that hard. So they tried to change it to be more in line with the smaller school kids that our kids were competing against for scholarships.
Even so an A still means a lot more at our school than at most of the surrounding small towns. Some teachers reworked their difficulty so 90 now is just as tough as 94 used to be under the old system, although especially for the non-honors and AP the classes A’s are easier to come by than they used to be. Probably less than 10% of the class in AP Lit gets an A even with a 90, she just grades tougher than she used to. D was literally told on more than one paper that this will be an A in college, but in this class you get a B.
About 20% of class graduates with a weighted 4.0.
Unweighted almost no one who takes honors and AP gets a 4.0, D is #1 in class of 350+ with a B and 2 B+'s.
A=90
B=80
C=70
No minuses, plus at 7.5%, so B+at 87.5. Extra .2 for plus grade (3.2 for B+, 4.2 A+)
4.0 regular
4.5 honors
5.0 AP
I think as others have said that GPA really matters only in context. Ideally you want to be very high compared to your peers, and you want it to look like your peers are very high compared to the general population. If you are from a school like ours, it has to be pretty tough for them to figure out because selective schools probably only average a couple of apps a year at most, the LAC’s usually get none.
I can’t speak to LACs specifically, but know at least some non-LACs recalculate to adjust for different grading scales and weightings across different schools and states. I would think that could be true for some LACs too.
I know some universities recalculate based on only certain set of classes (ex only consider 4 English, 4 Math, 3 SS, 3 Science, 2 electives and use the combo from total classes taken that gives highest result).
@dadof4kids That’s interesting that the school is very tough as far as teacher grading standards but generous in terms of weighting (plusses but no minuses, extra weight for honors). Like you said, I don’t know if your school is doing the kids any favors with that approach.
Our high school is stingy with weighting. Less than a point for AP/DE and nothing for honors. In fact, to calculate GPA at the end of junior year for applications, they take the number of APs, divide by 36, and add to unweighted GPA. So a kid with all As and 7 APs only has a 4.19 weighted. Kinda dumb. I don’t even know why people in these threads report weighted GPAs because they are not comparable at all (like when a kid has a 5.2 weighted GPA, what in the world is that??).
As far as I know, UCs do this automatically when the kids submit their app. (They calculate based on the GPA the kids enter and compare if that comes within the range of their school’s top 9%). We don’t enter anywhere in the app about ELC. Once the students submit their app, they can see how their application is reviewed in their application status, and there, it would be mentioned if the student is ELC or not.