<p>A friend of mine is in a bit of a predicament. As it's the summer, she can't consult with our high school's guidance counselor until the beginning of September, but as rising seniors, we're supposed to be grouping together a few colleges that we're interested in attending.</p>
<p>However, she just received her June SAT scores and they are abysmal scores. Her cumulative score was an 1100/2400. Her GPA, however, stands at 3.7/4.0. She has around 200 hours of community service logged but her extra curricular activities are nearly non existent, and her letters of recommendation, are, at best, decent. Her writing skills are sub par, even with revision, which means that her essays won't stand out.</p>
<p>I was hoping that if she scored well on the SAT, the aforementioned weaknesses wouldn't end up piling down on her, but with her current score, that's just not a realistic frame of mind anymore.</p>
<p>So, what exactly are her options at this point? As it stands, the only realistic increase in points would come from her math score. If she seriously applied herself, it would be at least a 100 point increase, but a 1200 isn't much better than a 1100, is it?</p>
<p>She sounds like a good candidate for a community college or junior college. That would provide two years of support and foundational classes to make her better equipped for college admission as a transfer.</p>
<p>Thank you. I thought that transferring would be the best option but I wanted to double check.</p>
<p>She’s also, and I don’t mean to imply rudeness at all, deluded as she thinks that her GPA alone will carry her into the top-notch universities and colleges, but she’s done little to no research on these things to truly understand her predicament. I’m not entirely sure how to break the news to her as she comes from a very strict family with extremely high expectations, but thank you for the input at all the same.</p>
<p>Google SAT optional schools. Wake Forest and Guilford College are two that come to mind and both excellent schools. Guilford is writing intense and may be a benefit as it will force her writing to improve.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for the advice, I appreciate it very much! I had no idea those types of schools even existed until now. I’ll be sure to look them up and refer them to her.</p>
<p>Nope, not yet. But in light of her recent SAT score, I think staying away from Literature is a given. She’s a strong U.S History student, so she’ll be taking that as one of her subject tests.</p>
<p>And she’ll now be taking the ACT in September.</p>
<p>If you are really trying to help her, I would encourage you to help steer her away from these top schools anyway, regardless of whether they require the SATs or not. If she struggles with language skills, she is going to struggle with college work! It may well be, too, that this GPA is a reflection of what is expected at your school but is much lower expectations than around the country. Also, where does she rank within your school?</p>
<p>Check into the ones that are SAT optional. Unfortunately, they are private and $$$ may be an issue but they are all great schools. </p>
<p>BTW, if she has poor writing skills, she will struggle with history or any humanities while at college. It seems to me she should work on writing/verbal skills at a community college or hire a tutor.</p>
<p>That is a very low score. I am not that familiar with SAT scores since my kids are doing ACT but when I looked at the conversion, it is equal to 14. That won’t let you get into any school that requires tests. Many test optional schools have alternate procedures like SAT 2 tests, AP tests, IB scores, or school paper turned in. But I am very wary about how her GPA is that high in strong academic classes when the score is that low. It is apporximately in the bottom 9% of all students. I agree with previous posters who recommended a CC.</p>
<p>Is English her first language or is she a non-native speaker?</p>
<p>In any case, I second the Colleges That Change Lives recommendation. One of them, Guilford (in NC) was already specifically mentioned on this thread and could be a good match for your friend.</p>
<p>Is it her first time? I would take a timed practice test to ensure that the score wasn’t a fluke due to some kind of bubbling issue/whatever. If the practice test comes back to the same score, I would think that a community college is a good idea to build skills. Many also offer guaranteed transfers into state schools.</p>
<p>Another question, how rigorous is her course load at your school? Like is she in Honors or AP courses? And how rigorous is your school in general?</p>
<p>It sounds like her 3.7 GPA is from regular courses at her high school. If my high school is any indication of the difficulty of these classes, I am not surprised at these results.</p>
<p>I think if she truly bothered to sit down and go through a number of practice SAT’s and read books on strategies of how to attack each section of the SAT, she can increase her score a WHOLE lot. I mean a lot. She still has MUCH time to do all this before application season.</p>