<p>My son has a perfect ACT (36) with a 3.55 UW GPA (3.9 W). He is sure to have a C on AP Physics A/B but is interested in doing Chemical Engineer. He received As in Chem and APChem (AP=4) and SATII Chem 760. He has been an active participant in band and is going for durm major for his senior year. He auditioned and got a chance to participate in the Rose parade this year, but that affected his GPA I think. What is his chance at Chem Eng, and what kind of schools</p>
<p>Does he has an upward trend in GPA? And how is his class rank?
His GPA is really low for top schools and for that ACT score. The schools may think he has been extremely prepared for the ACT as it does not match up well with other test scores and GPA. Nevertheless, he should try UMN-TC, UCSB, and some other schools that are good at ChemE and not too competitive.</p>
<p>This all happened during Junior year when he got no rest during finals last semester (dropped everything to a B at final time) or Christmas break due to TOR. He was falling asleep during class in Jan and Feb. Class ranking back in Feb is 137 out of 787. He took the ACT in Jan without any preparation but it all depends on what the admission officer thinks. We are at California, UCSB is one on his list but he is interested in getting out of here for a while.</p>
<p>GPA doesn’t carry as much weight in my opinion.
Every school is different when looking at GPA. Hard to even consider class rank. Someone could be ranked 10th out of 200 but a crappy school. His ACT score is fantastic.<br>
He should be able to get into a very good school. Not sure what your targets schools are.</p>
<p>We plan to sit down and discuss the target schools in detail this summer. Casually, he has expressed interest in two IVys (Princeton and CalTech) which he probably will not have a chance. Beside that, he will for sure apply to all the UC schools and USC and maybe Stanford too just because we are here. Beyond that, Virginia Tech, Geogia Tech, Carnegie mellon, UTAustin, RIT, WIT, etc. We don’t know yet and have to do more research. He is interested in Chem/ChemEng/Material Science.</p>
<p>Have the GC mentioned about the reason of lower GPA in the recommendation. GPA is one of the factors in holistic review. A poor GPA may indicate over-ambitious in rigorous curriculum, lay back in class and miss home work, or other issues. uwGPA of 3.55 is indeed very low for top schools. Some schools like UMich actually value GPA a lot.</p>
<p>If he is planning to apply to the UC’s, GPA does carry a lot of weight in their decisions vs. test scores. GPA is an accumulation of 4 years of work, while a test score is snapshot of 1 day. His ACT score is fantastic, but the discrepancy between GPA and Test score will hurt. UCSB and UCB are known to be more holisitic in their admissions than the rest.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why people are telling you this, but GPA and teacher recs are far more important than test scores. My aunt in an ad com at a top 20 school and has told me that this is upheld at most highly selective schools.
ACT shows what the student did in 4 hours on a Saturday morning.
GPA shows the student’s drive and intellect.
Really, there is no comparison.</p>
<p>Thank you Billcsho for the suggestions. He took two honors for freshmen (Eng & Math), two APs (Comp Sci & Chem) and two honors for sophomore, 3 AP this year (CalcAB, PhysAB and Lang). He has no interest in History or liberal Art subjects and put them mostly in the summer so that he can make rm for Science APs and music. Dose this count as a rigorous curriculum?<br>
Question for noel597: how would your aunt compare some one with 3.5uw and 3.9w GPA vs someone with 3.8uw and 3.9w GPA?</p>
<p>She has told me (and I have heard from numerous sources) that UW GPA is most important.</p>
<p>His GPA is low by CC standards. Not by real life standards. My daughter got into Swarthmore with a GPA that was about 3.65 higher SAT scores, and a great personality </p>
<p>What would be a safety school for him?</p>
<p>his gpa is very low for ivy league standards and good privates where gpa is like 50% of the consideration… consider the schools like UCSB, UIUC, and Georgia Tech. Those seem more realistic.</p>