Question on GPA at the end of junior yr

<p>S is a rising senior (HS Class of 2012). It seems that at the end of junior year he will have unweighted 3.78 and Weighted 4.17 GPA. It is mainly As and Bs. The Bs are in the following subjects</p>

<p>AP Stats in 10th grade (1 sem)
French 4 in 10th grade (1 sem)
Honors English in 11th grade (1 and 2 sem). It was like B+ both times
Digital Imaging (Art) in 11th grade (1 and 2 sem). Art is not his cup of tea
AP Chemistry (1 and 2 sem). It seems that the teacher was very hard.</p>

<p>I have following questions.</p>

<ol>
<li>For college admission, is this the GPA they will look or 1st semester senior grade counts? </li>
<li>He is aspiring to go to one of the Ivys. Is there any chance? He scored 2300 in SAT (first trial) and 35 on ACT and 800/800 on Math2 and Chem SAT-II. </li>
<li>I heard the some elite colleges use 3.8 as GPA cutoff...Is it true?</li>
</ol>

<p>We are really stressed out on this GPA stuff</p>

<p>As a general rule with the Ivys, he will fill out his application with junior year GPA/transcript and file by early January. Then he will need to send in his first semester senior grades on the Secondary School supplemental form which is usually filed in late Jan or Feb. So schools like the Ivys will see his first semester senior grades and count them in the mix. So he has to have a rigorous schedule and keep his grades up.</p>

<p>Ivys take less than 10% of the kids that apply and grades and test scores alone don’t tell half the story. Will his GPA put him in the “automatically rejected” pile? No. But his great test scores won’t put him in the “automatically accepted” pile either. He’s got to bring something else to the table. I’d quite stressing about the GPA and start stressing about the essays. ;)</p>

<p>Just have a good list of schools to apply to that includes schools that he could see himself attending and that you can afford (“safeties”). Then add on whatever Ivys you want to.</p>

<p>[Your CC name puts a little pressure on your kid…I don’t know if I’d have that as my screen name unless he had already been accepted. Just saying…]</p>

<ol>
<li>Unless he is applying early decision or early action they will see his first semester senior year grades.</li>
<li>I’ll refrain from the “The Ivy’s aren’t all alike and there are plenty of great schools besides the Ivy’s speech.” The short answer is yes there is a chance, but… So the buts - it helps if the school supplies evidence that there is no grade inflation or that the student has a high rank. (At our school not too many Ivy acceptance under top 5% in rank.) It helps if B’s are mostly freshman year. (Doesn’t look like they are.) It helps if B’s are relegated to one subject (my older son had B+'s in honors English, A’s in regular English and still got into Harvard.) Does your school report both semester grades on the transcript? Ours only puts the final ones. His scores are of course fine.</li>
<li>I have never heard of a cut off, but there are certainly GPAs that are too low. </li>
</ol>

<p>I really believe that there are scores and GPAs that are good enough. If you pass the bar the other parts of your application are really what is going to determine the decision.</p>

<p>The most important thing though is to find a safety or two that your son likes. Liking Ivy’s is easy.</p>

<p>Don’t worry about things you can’t change- his first 3 years are now history. Some schools only look at unweighted grades and only at “academic” courses (ie no phy ed and some others)- they will calculate the gpa using their criteria so don’t try to second guess what gpa they will use.</p>

<p>Since the junior year grades are the most recent ones seen they carry the most weight. Improvement is helpful, don’t worry about earlier grades, especially freshman year (Stanford doesn’t even look at freshman grades). Since applications are due before senior grades come out they won’t be seen but can be reported. Therefore it is wise to not goof off/be a slacker senior year. No gpa cutoffs to worry about in his range.</p>

<p>Top grades and test scores will never guarantee a spot in an Ivy or comparable school. There are simply too many stellar students to more than fill each school’s class. Be sure to have a second set of schools and include your state flagship U as a “safety” (with his stats likely to get into that, still no guarantees).</p>

<p>Relax about his record. It is what it is (and very good) so now you do have reasons for him to apply to the elite schools. However, be prepared for his not getting in- we’ve “been there done that” with our gifted kid (who also ignored all Ivies).</p>

<p>Most important now is for him to think about his essays and to come up with HIS list of colleges. He can work on them this summer and refine them in the fall. Again- don’t spend your time as the parent thinking too much about it. It is his job to do them, not yours. Do not hassle him about them, expect to read them (only do so if he wants you to- a teacher can proofread) or otherwise make him miserable this summer.</p>

<p>Be sure the schools are more than an academic good fit- let your son have nonacademic reasons to like/dislike schools. This may take some discussing so he doesn’t eliminate schools he could enjoy.</p>

<p>Take time to enjoy his last year at home as well.</p>

<p>Addenda- “cross-posted”, ie others posted while I was composing my response. Will leave it as is.</p>

<p>What is your son’s rank?</p>

<p>AP Chemistry (1 and 2 sem). It seems that the teacher was very hard.</p>

<p>Uhhhh…very hard? Won’t an ivy education be “very hard”???</p>

<p>*[Your CC name puts a little pressure on your kid…I don’t know if I’d have that as my screen name unless he had already been accepted. Just saying…] *</p>

<p>Completely agree…the screen name is too much.</p>

<p>*We are really stressed out on this GPA stuff *</p>

<p>And…that’s too much, too.</p>

<p>Thanks for some insight…</p>

<p>Our school does not rank nor they give out top X% to colleges (as per the counselor)…</p>

<p>BTW. I agree about the screen name…did not think that way when I created…need to change it to a fun one now :-)</p>

<p>What is your son’s likely major?</p>

<p>Don’t get too hung up on ivies…there are many wonderful schools out there. Kids with great stats get rejected from ivies all the time.</p>

<p>Since your son’s school doesn’t rank or do deciles, I don’t know how schools will view that. Is it a private school?</p>

<p>Also…can you pay full freight? If not, have you determined how much you can pay?</p>

<p>off2applytoivybutnotgettingtooemotionallyinvestedingettinganacceptancemom, perhaps? Too long…</p>

<p>One other thing I would add is to find a few other not as selective schools your S would love to attend and you can easily afford and apply EA to them. He is likely to get an affirmative nod from some less selective schools and having a couple acceptances in hand before he hears back from the ivies makes life a whole less stressful. There are so many schools out there I am sure you and your S can find 2-3 that he would like and would thrive at</p>

<p>What everyone else said! Also, come join the rest of us <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/658245-parents-high-school-class-2012-a-137.html#post12767222[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/658245-parents-high-school-class-2012-a-137.html#post12767222&lt;/a&gt; :)</p>

<p>You should join the 2012 thread, as mihcal1 suggests. I would not stress about or place too much weight on Bs. How is he doing relative to his classmates? It’s all in context - is his school highly rigorous? Do they send many to top schools each year? Do you know where students with a similar profile have attended in past years (Naviance)? If his rigor is right up there and he has lots of other things going on, he’s competitive, especially with his stellar SATs. And at this point, his grades are water under the bridge anyway. Of course, he should have a good list of reach, match and safety schools.</p>

<p>His numbers look really good!</p>

<p>I don’t know how much my URM status (hispanic male applying as Math major) affected me, but I got into Cornell with a 33 ACT superscore and 3.7 unweighted, so I’m sure your son will do fine. Plus, if he doesn’t get into an ivy, he’ll still get in a pretty good school!</p>

<p>All good answers. You haven’t mentioned his full picture and, as we argue all the time on CC, it’s more than stats. Yes, the Ivy adcoms will notice 8 B’s. So, the rest of his application has to be great. Remember, he’s not competing against a formula; he’s competing against thousands of kids who will have stellar packages. Hope he is using his summer wisely! He has to get good letters of rec- if he hasn’t reached out to any teachers (ie, started to bond,) he should. And, as suggested- we don’t know his major- which could affect how he presents.<br>
The wisest thing he could learn is to carefully hedge his bets- find other schools he can love. Good Luck.</p>

<p>A valuable tool in assessing chances for a particular school is to look at the Naviance graph for your child’s high school. The GC can also assist you in assessing the chart by pointing out if those outliers on the data have special hooks and also letting you know if your student as anything that will help boost his chances. If your school is not one that tends to send many kids to the most selective schools, what the conventional wisdom says is that successful candidates need to truly be one of the top students. </p>

<p>My son had a definite rising trend in GPA, and that was one of the reasons we applied late in the process for him, having his senior year grades reported in quarter form so there were more of them. He had an identical GPA as a friend who applied to pretty much the same schools he did, and s/he was declined and WLed at those schools even though the test scores were much higher. That s/he had a declining GPA was an issue from some of the feedback given, and also that senior year courses were considered light. My son took the most difficult courses he could senior year, whereas s/he dropped the foreign language since level 4 was attained instead of taking AP level, and took Mandarin Chinese 1 instead, dropped the math, heavy duty science for some Environmental Bio course and other course of interest. Went the direction of interest, but apparently the colleges want to see that interest shown in ways other than in substitution for difficult courses. </p>

<p>If your son applied ED, EA or rolling at an early date, the senior grades may not be shown unless you can get the school to get that first quarter grade out there. For RD, those senior courses and grade will show on the mid year report and most all colleges want those grades and they do weigh in heavily. </p>

<p>Do remember that when you are dealing with the most selective colleges, they have some formidable candidates, so if your student is truly not the top of the top or have some unusual attribute they are seeking, the chances for admissions is very small. When you talk about ivies, it is a wide spread from HPYC single digit acceptance rates to Cornell’s double digit ones. Two of mine were accepted to Cornell with lower GPAs than your son’s but one was an athlete and the other had near perfect test scores, took the hardest possible courses at a very rigorous school that regularly gets kids into top school who are in the second quintile, though his grades were on the low side. But he also had an unusual hook that did differentiate his application, we were told. So other issues do come into play than his gpa. My son had Bs in Chem too, but he got a perfect on the Chem SAT2 test, for instance, and the grade curve for that course was a steep one at his school. </p>

<p>In my opinion, the last schools added to the school list are the most selective ones. It’s easy to pick off those big name schools that we all love to roll off of our tongue. Lots of fun to debate the merits of one vs the other and where your son would have the best chance. Where the true work is in putting together a college list is finding the lesser known schools that are likely to accept him and that he can like and grow as a young man and as a scholar. Even harder, I suspect, is finding the school that pleases you in addition to those requirements. But it is true work in putting together your college list. The rest is easy. But you have to understand that when the dust clears, the sure thing you will have are the choices of those likely schools, not the highly selective ones.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone.</p>

<p>Notice my new username :-)</p>

<p>I am joining class of 2012 thread</p>