<p>My son is a senior at a top public school outside of Boston and has had a less-than-stellar four years (despite being very smart). He currently has a 2.4 GPA (!) and the following SAT scores: 650V; 680M; 640 writing; he has played football (2 years, hated it) lacrosse (2 years, not his thing) and he did track last spring but had to leave the team for academic reasons. He has had a part-time job (one Christmas season) and he currently works about 15-20/week at a local farm (rather high end, if that makes any difference). He did community service last summer in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands and went to overnight camp for a few years. We are considering a PG year at a boarding school to help prep him for college, but want to apply to a few LACs or state schools. (He wants to be driving distance to Boston). Any constructive advice out there (especially advice based on experience, not just opinion)? Thanks.</p>
<p>Advice on what? </p>
<p>His combination of pretty good SATs and less-than-mediocre GPA screams "lazy", and will raise eyebrows in many admissions offices. You may want to consider some of these schools <a href="http://ctcl.com/%5B/url%5D">http://ctcl.com/</a> that supposedly prefer a "diamond in the rough" over high achievers.</p>
<p>Your son meets the minimum "sliding scale" requirements for Framingham State: (2.4 GPA + SAT CR+M of at least 1000) and it is certainly within driving distance of Boston. <a href="http://www.framingham.edu/Admissions/freshman/standards.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.framingham.edu/Admissions/freshman/standards.htm</a></p>
<p>Same requirements for Salem State; Salem also has rolling admissions so he could apply right now and get an answer.</p>
<p>If you want a LAC, you might want to look into schools like Lasell and Mt. Ida in Newton or Emmanuel College in Boston There are 70 colleges & universities in the Boston area - not all are highly selective.</p>
<p>Though it is several years old, we got some good ideas from "Cool Colleges" by Donald Asher. Has lots of alternatives to the colleges everyone knows about.</p>
<p>BTW, your son's stats don't necessarily scream 'lazy'. Some kids don't do that well in high school, but blossom in college. Everyone talks about finding a college with the 'right fit', same goes for high school, sometimes it isn't the right fit.</p>
<p>Good luck, I think he will find more places that are interested in him than some posters might think.</p>
<p>Let him go to a community college for 1-2 semesters. If college is his thing, he will do well there and then he can transfer to a 4 year college and they will basically only look at his GPA for the community college. That can disguise his high school years. If education in general is not his thing, he will do the same at the community college that he did in high school and you will have saved a lot of money.</p>
<p>Too many people think that College is a requirement in life. Some people just aren't cut out for college. At least initially. I know plenty of 2.0 students in high school who didn't go right to college. They worked, learned skills, got a decent paying job, were happy, then went back to college later on. Usually their job paid for their education and they wound up with 3.5-4.0 GPA in college.</p>
<p>Find out what your son wants. If he says he does want college, then tell him that you aren't sure if he's going to waste his time there like he did in high school. Tell him you'll pay for the local community college for the 1st 2 semesters. If he does well; 3.0 or greater GPA, that you'll help him transfer to whatever school he can get into. If he doesn't do well, you'll help him get his associate's degree and then he's on his own. As a parent, you only owe him the "Opportunity" to suceed. It's not your job to support or encourage him while he figures out his purpose in life. Might as well pay for him to travel Europe for 3 months while he finds himself. He's old enough to be responsible for his actions. Make him "Prove" that he deserves the "Priviledge" of going to college. Later... Mike...</p>
<p>try U Mass Amherst</p>
<p>Your S's gpa is so low that he doesn't sound ready for college. Indeed, he sounds like the perfect candidate for living at home and doing a gap year while volunteering or working fulltime.</p>
<p>If you decide to send him to college, I'd suggest that he live at home and go to a community college so you won't waste too much of your money if he doesn't bother to study. I also think that he should help foot the bill for his education, and if he takes a gap year and lives at home, he also should pay rent.</p>
<p>I'm the mom of 2 very smart sons (both National Merit commended) both of whom had sub 3.0 unweighted averages when they graduated form h.s. The older S with my help went off to the college of his choice and flunked out. My younger S took a gap year, lived at home, volunteered fulltime with Americorps, paid rent and then applied with his money to college, and is going there with loans and merit aid (great scores, great ECs). H and I told S we will not help pay for his college until he has been there a year, and keeps his scholarships, which require that he maintain a 3.2, something that he's very capable of doing.</p>
<p>Younger S was randomly assigned 2 partying roommates, but unlike older S, who in college fell in with the partying crowd, younger S clearly is taking his college seriously (amazing how serious they can be when they've experienced the real world and also are having to help pay for their own education). </p>
<p>Incidentally, both of my sons said they wanted to go straight to college from h.s. I structured older S so he got applications in on time. After that, I learned my lesson. With younger S, I warned him that apps take longer than he'd expect, but I didn't organize his time (though as I did with older S, I took him around to see colleges). Younger S missed the deadlines for the colleges that interested him, and then he quickly got an Americorps volunteer position created for him (He had happily and responsibly volunteered for several years at the agency that created the position), and he handled the volunteer work very well.</p>
<p>Anyway, the most important thing isn't finding a college that will accept your s. Many will. The most important thing is structuring things so that if your S isn't ready for college, he doesn't waste his time and your money by going to college. It's far better for our students to take a gap year or to even get vocational training after h.s. than to go to college and risk their lives and waste our money by exclusively partying and doing stupid things instead of studying.</p>
<p>I wish someone had told me this when older S was a senior. He's now 23 and still hasn't returned to college nor has he ever returned home after flunking out of college.</p>
<p>Forget UMass Amherst. It is the state's flagship university campus. It is getting more and more selective. Its mean GPA is 3.46 on a 4.0 scale, and mean high school rank is top 23%. If the high school is truly a competitive one outside of Boston, it's highly unlikely that OP's son is even close to the top 23%. And his SAT scores are just barely above the 75% mark. It is highly unlikely that OP's son would get into UMass Amherst. And given what the OP said about her son, it is unlikely that Amherst, in the Berkshires and 2 hours from Boston, is an appropriate fit for him anyway.</p>
<p>UMass Boston is also a reach for OP's son. Its median high school GPA is 3.03 for the class graduating UMass Boston in 2008 (entered 2004). State colleges as noted above, or community colleges such as Mass Bay, are likelier bets.</p>
<p>I would pick a community college. If he does well, he can transfer to a much better school than he would have gotten into after high school.</p>
<p>Let me suggest Evergreen State in Washington. I know. It's far from Boston, but if you child is ever going to get motivated by learning, ESt. would be the place to do it. I know of several bright but unmotivated high school kids who have gone there and gone on to become lifelong learners. There's no guarantee, of course, but ESt. specializes in taking kids who did poorly in regular classrooms and turning them on to learning with experiential techniques.</p>
<p>It's worth a look.</p>
<p>If I were your son, I would hate doing a PG year. Hate it. It would be like paying penance for the sins of not doing well in school. But since when is not doing well in school a sin?</p>
<p>One of my best friends, even though she had strong stats and had a slate of college acceptances, decided to take a year off. She felt she was not emotionally or academically prepared for college, and did manual work and traveled for a year before going to school. She did, though, apply to colleges her senior year, and then announce her intention to take a gap year.</p>
<p>Your son sounds like he might do well at Clark U, a school that is really nurturing, in Worcester, and pretty crunchy granola/intellectual. Other LAC's he might look at include Muhlenberg (Pennsylvania too far?) and Quinnipiac (Connecticut).</p>
<p>Is your son's GPA weighted or unweighted? Is he taking any honors or AP courses? This information could be crucial in calculating his odds at various colleges.</p>