<p>Hi, I'm a newbie here, so please guide me gently when needed.</p>
<p>My son just finished his sophomore year at Boston Latin, and we're starting to look at college possibilities. He has struggled with organizational issues that have kept his GPA lower than it should be. He knows what he needs to do to improve this, and I'm confident he can do it. </p>
<p>Here's my question: to what extent do admissions offices take into account the trend in a student's GPA over his HS career? Do two years of B's followed by two years of A's work better than the reverse? Or is the overall GPA the only thing that matters? (Obviously he has a strong motive to get those A's either way.)</p>
<p>An upward trend is much more highly regarded than a downward trend, but obviously someone who got straight A's would have preference. There's more to admissions than just grades, but I agree with xjis: a 3.5 or lower won't look too good to the very top colleges, however it isn't necessarily a deal breaker. What schools is your son interested in?</p>
<p>You would be suprised at just how attentive the adcoms are when it comes to grades. Rising grades are a huge bonus, but they muct be REALLY rising, not just really bad as a fresh and decent as a junior. The application and personal essay can be used to shed light on the bad grades, but really if your son just isn't motivated/doesn't want to put in the work to get straight A's the adcoms are going to know in an instant.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies....we're still just starting to figure out what colleges to focus on. He's a gifted musician (most of his extracurriculars are musical), but he's not sure he wants to major in music--he's also very interested in international relations and languages, among other things. </p>
<p>Some of the places we're thinking about to start with are (in rough descending order of "reachiness"): Middlebury, Wesleyan, Tufts, Oberlin, Bates, Brandeis, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington, Rochester, Ithaca, and UMass. I'm a Hamilton alum, so that might end up in the mix as well, though I'm not sure it's a good fit for him in terms of academic strengths.</p>
<p>He's very bright, likes school and is a hard worker, but he's the kind of kid who stays up half the night perfecting an assignment and then puts it in the wrong folder and leaves it home. We're working with him on developing organizational/time management strategies for the next two years, and he's gung-ho to do it. A 3.5 unweighted by application time is probably the best-case scenario at this point, but I think it's very likely he can get there.</p>
<p>I don't see a ~3.5 GPA being a dealbreaker for any of those schools - he may just have to work to make sure his application shines in other areas (EC's sound strong, and the interest in music is a plus, for example). With your help in the organization department, he should be fine. Good luck! :)</p>
<p>Has he considered Vassar? With a 60-40 female/male ratio. guys usually have a bit of an edge in admissions. My son applied and was accepted to Wesleyan, Oberlin and Brandeis and chose Vassar.</p>
<p>I would also look at schools that don’t get a lot of applications from Boston Latin. The first line of competition at any college is your own classmates. That might make some of the top New England schools tougher.</p>
<p>Well, the bad news is that he has continued to struggle as a junior, so the issue is pretty much moot. His junior year GPA will probably be better than his soph, but not by a wide enough margin to catch anybody’s attention. His overall GPA at application time will probably be in the neighborhood of 3.2 or 3.3…and that’s weighted. His test scores are fine (SAT I 2230, SAT II 750 world history, 710 Spanish), but the GPA is going to force some rethinking of that list, obviously.</p>
<p>Your son probably has a good chance at BU. For BC it may be a bit more difficult but his SAT is very good which may help him out. He probably wont get rejected from BC, but on the verge of waitlist. </p>
<p>McGill would probably be a good reach. Brandeis also. Tufts may be a bit far.</p>
<p>His app might work well at a public U which weights standardized scores more. With those scores and that GPA, my first thought is he is lazy (and I think LACs may lean toward the same thought). Just my 2 cents based on solely that info.</p>
<p>To be honest Middlebury and Wesleyan are going to be quite high reaches with a 3.5, but if he gets it up he has a good shot at the other schools.</p>
<p>To Erin’s Dad: there are all kinds of reasons besides laziness why a bright kid might struggle academically. My son has a few qualities that might well give an admissions committee pause, but laziness is not one of them. He is lucky if he has as much as two hours of downtime in a day. He is up past midnight way too often to keep up, to the point where lack of sleep has become a contributing factor in his academic struggles. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is that his homework load really is, in my opinion, excessive (far too often >4 hours a day); part of it is that he is overscheduled with musical EC’s (our fault for not seeing the problem in advance, but it can’t be fixed till next year). In his circumstances, being an A student would require an extraordinary degree of focus and organizational ability, and he doesn’t have that. But lazy he is not.</p>
<p>Regardless, the GPA is what it is, and so places like Wesleyan, Tufts and Middlebury are, indeed, going to have to come off the list.</p>
<p>Edit: Booklady, thanks for the links–I recently found those threads, and they’re very helpful.</p>
<p>I would think that a 3.5 at Boston Latin is not the same as a 3.5 at some city high school- the competition for A’s has to be killer, and I am sure admissions people know that.</p>
<p>Nightchef, I’ll retract the comment about being lazy. What is his decile in school? If that is not high (despite the low GPA) it will bring into question his priorities - school vs. ECs. An alternative to a Public U would be a school that highly values those ECs. I don’t know of any specifically but other knowledgeable people on CC may.</p>
<p>The word “priorities” is definitely hitting nearer the mark. It occurs to me that what you meant in the first place by “lazy” may have been closer to what I would call “undisciplined.” And yes, he is definitely a bit undisciplined. He needs to get better at doing the thing that needs to be done first, even if something else is more fun or more interesting. </p>
<p>As for his decile, I’m not sure, because Boston Latin doesn’t do class rank. I recall seeing a graphic at a recent guidance presentation that suggested he was somewhere in the 50s or 60s. But as merryecho suggests, I think the adcoms must understand that there’s an apples & oranges issue in comparing an urban exam school to a comprehensive suburban or small-city school. Certainly judging by the Naviance scattergrams we’re looking at, it looks like he will have lots of decent choices beyond public U’s, even with a 3.2 weighted GPA.</p>