Hello! My son has a 3.5 unweighted GPA (all honors and 8 AP) and a 1350 on the SAT along with the requisite sports and clubs- no offense to anyone but would St Mike’s be setting the bar too low for him? He has already gotten into UPitt and has applied to several other schools EA. St Mike’s just seems really keen on getting students in with their emails and fee waivers so we are wondering if they are having trouble attracting students?
About 50% of students at St. Mike’s have GPA’s substantially higher than your son’s. He seems to be an average kid for St. Mike’s. It is a nice school. We toured it with my younger son when we visited UVM. I imagine he will get accepted and get a good a financial package but I wouldn’t assume your son is overqualified for that school.
My little anecdote, fwiw, my daughter’s GC told her to take St. Mike’s off her list, said she could “do better”. It was a weird comment, and I wished I had asked her why, but my daughter had so many schools at that point that we were just looking for reasons to take them off. This was last year, and at the time, my daughter had a 3.7W GPA and an SAT of 1290, so she certainly wasn’t overqualified. I’ve always wondered what the reasoning was behind her comment.
I toured St Mikes 6 years ago with my older daughter, she was accepted with a scholarship and so we returned on accepted students day - along with UVM. We both liked both schools, I thought the students there were nice, and the teachers and admins were all very helpful. I have a good impression of the school, I would have been comfortable if my daughter decided to go there (BTW while we waited for accepted student day to start, they had their acapella group performing and they were wonderful). Whether it’s the right fit for your son or daughter, only you can tell.
BTW that daughter ended up at Cornell. We tried to keep an open mind when looking at schools, and many schools will adjust their price accordingly (merit aid) for the stronger students, and this may also factor in.
Thank you for your thoughts - I appreciate it
My son applied to St. Mike’s and he has great stats. It is not the most competitive school he applied to but we are most concerned with the fit and financial package. We were so impressed on our tour. The pre-med and pre-law students have over 90% acceptance to law and med schools. Burlington is such a fun town and it seemed like a great college for a kid from a very small rural school. Good luck!!
Hi - Thanks for the response! Burlington is an awesome town, my husband and I both went to another school there (UVM) and had always been curious about St Mike’s so it will be interesting if our son gets in there. If he does we plan on a tour. Good luck to you and yours on this journey too!
My son did get an offer o of admission to St, Mike’s along with a $24,000 scholarship - we will be visiting in February!!
Congrats, momtofourkids! Our son got in as well and we were very happy with the scholarship. St Mikes is definitely in the running!!
We visited Saint Michael’s on my daughters college tour. Out of all the colleges, they were the friendliest campus, I think we had a very popular tour guide, he must have said hi to at least 15 students and one professor. He said he got into all 17 colleges he applied to and chose Saint Mikes. For their national ranking, they have a pretty high acceptance rate. I think it’s a simple matter of location. At the info session they said there were a few as 7,000 high school seniors in Vermont. They don’t attract any students from the North as it’s Canada, and Maine has its share of good LAC’s and state schools. Also, all the New England big state universities are pretty good. She ended up choosing Mount Holyoke as she got about the same in financial aid.
My D was also accepted at St. Mikes and did the overnight for admitted students. Her stats were a bit higher and she applied there as a “safety school” in our chase for merit. She did get a good scholarship but in all honesty, during her overnight she did not feel it was a good academic fit. But we both loved Burlington, great college town. While fit was an important criteria, finances were a determining factor and she chose Skidmore, where she is thriving, also in a great college town, Saratoga Springs. Good luck to your son!
NEpatsgirl-our son applied to Skidmore as well. my hubby and I are Skid Alum as well as my sister. Loved that school! waiting until March for an answer is killing us. it will all depend on the $$$. Cheers!