<p>Much to my surprise, my D was admitted to Smith. Her gpa is maybe 3.4 uw, lots of accelerated/AP classes, 31 ACT, lots of activities, NHS, music stuff and a part time job. She's a great all around person, but obviously not a really high level student. Smart enough, but doesn't study a ton and seems to like it that way.</p>
<p>She's unsure about Smith, and I'm a bit nervous about it. Is it really competitive and are all the students really high level students? I know she's got to be at the bottom end of admits and I hate to see her feel like she doesn't measure up.</p>
<p>On the other hand, she's got admission to several very nice liberal arts colleges that maybe are more her speed.</p>
<p>Hi! I also didn’t expect to be admitted and think I fall near the bottom of the admitted pool. With so many international students and girls who attended schools of varying academic rigor, I think Smith is well aware of the discrepancies among students’ preparation and will help us catch up through advising, first-year seminar, and the Jacobson Writing and Learning Center [Jacobson</a> Center for Writing, Teaching and Learning](<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/jacobsoncenter/learning.php]Jacobson”>http://www.smith.edu/jacobsoncenter/learning.php)</p>
<p>I also was accepted to Wooster, Beloit and Knox! According to how parents responded to a post I made earlier, Smith will provide the most opportunities and offers the strongest academic programs.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids wanted to attend a women’s college but they have several friends who did/are attending Smith& it isn’t a crash/burn sort of school.
It is challenging but not unreasonably so. As noted,there is a lot of support for students.</p>
<p>My son is at Bates, class of 2015. Was admitted with 30 ACT, 3.8ish GPA, no AP’s, only honors and one Comm. college class in Physics (where all the kids at his small private took it.)</p>
<p>He is doing just fine. Had a 2.9 his 1st semester. Now I’m sure some on CC would be appalled having that GPA but I think is is fine, especially for a freshman. </p>
<p>My thoughts. Your daughter should go to Smith. It’s a fabulous school, though I may be a bit biased as my mom, sister, and two of my cousins are all Smith grads.</p>
<p>I was practically at the bottom of those admitted to Oberlin in my year via high school GPA and estimated class rank(Bottom 40-50%) back in the mid-'90s. Heck…my high school cumulative GPA would be the stuff of any parent’s worst nightmares. </p>
<p>My dad expressed the very same concerns about whether I’d crash and burn considering Oberlin’s academic reputation. Within the first semester, I relieved him and a few others of that notion. </p>
<p>Ended up graduating with a great GPA most CC parents would be proud of…and I found college-level work to be more manageable even after working-part-time, doing ECs, and carrying course overloads till senior year.</p>
<p>In short, have confidence that your D can succeed at Smith. Their admissions office certainly does judging by their admission offer.</p>
<p>The support services, mentoring, and advising available at Smith are awesome, almost awe-inspiring, and way beyond anything I have ever seen elsewhere or anywhere. They wouldn’t have accepted your d. if they didn’t think she could do the work. Congratulations!</p>
<p>I taught for a while at Mount Holyoke and in the Smith College of Social Work–plus I lived in Northampton. If your daughter works hard, she will be fine. It’s a great school, but with these schools, as well as the Ivies, it’s much harder to get in than stay in. </p>
<p>To give you an idea, Yale (I now live in New Haven) has a program where public high school kids can take tuition free courses. The admission standard–for a HS junior–is 160 on the PSAT, well below the SAT standard for the regular admission of a senior. So if Yale thinks a 160 PSAT is good enough for their classes, it’s more reason your kid will be fine at Smith. </p>
<p>I’ll confess I couldn’t get my own daughter daughter to appy to either–no boys. But from what I’ve seen it’s not a problem. My son goes to UMASS, and everyone loves the parties–even the Amherst kids. There will be boys in her classes, etc. and she could take courses at Amherst, Hampshire, and UMASS. Think of Smith as part of an extended community.</p>
<p>To be blunt, Smith is a better school than the OP’s other options. And Northampton and Amherst define college town.</p>
<p>In response to … “She’s unsure about Smith, and I’m a bit nervous about it. Is it really competitive and are all the students really high level students? I know she’s got to be at the bottom end of admits and I hate to see her feel like she doesn’t measure up.”</p>
<p>I believe you might have misread or been given wrong statistics about Smith. 75 percent of the students at Smith earned LESS than a 31 ACT. With all the variances in reporting HsGPA, this yardstick is mostly irrelevant.</p>
<p>Your daughter seems to be solidly in the top quartile of students at Smith, a school that is considered more selective as opposed to most selective.</p>
<p>Our kids sound similar in their choices except my daughter didn’t want an all-girls school. Smith is also part of the 5-college consortium so she will be able to take classes at Hampshire, UMass Amherst, Amherst, and Mt. Holyoke (another all-girls school). I agree with those that said they wouldn’t have admitted her if they didn’t think she could succeed there and that it’s harder to get in than to stay in. Remember, you now are in control - if you have questions call the school and ask.</p>
<p>xiggi, it’s funny that you say GPA is mostly irrelevant, because as far as I’m concerned, a 31 on her ACT is mostly irrelevant for my D. She’s a great standardized test taker (comes from a long line of good test takers) and her not top quartile GPA is hard fought for. So, to me, it’s her ability to maintain decent grades in a competitive atmosphere where people freak out about a B+ (I saw that somewhere, but don’t remember where) that concerns me.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. We’ll see if she wants to pursue it. I’d like her to check it out just because of its reputation, but who knows.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, is she attending an extremely academically rigorous/cutthroat high school where even C students are scoring high on the ACT/SATs? </p>
<p>Just wondering as that sounds very much like the high school I attended where it wasn’t unusual to have kids with 1200+ SATs(pre-1995) who had low B or even C/D HS cumulative GPAs. Many of those C/D classmates who were forced to attend out local state/city colleges ended up transferring up to respectable/elite LACs/universities similar/higher ranking than Smith because they wanted more of an academic challenge…and proceeded to continue excelling to graduation with 3.5+ cumulative college GPAs.</p>
<p>One common issue we all dealt with is “depressed expectations” from parents, teachers, and GCs…which galvanized us to go on to prove them wrong.</p>
<p>Well, it’s pretty rigorous but not cutthroat. It’s a larger school, not huge, so there’s a wide range, but there are a lot of kids who excel. It’s one of the schools that’s moving toward getting rid of class rank as there are so many kids clustered at the top that it’s not very meaningful and hurts some of the kids in their college apps. </p>
<p>I hope I’m being realistic, and not having depressed expectations, but it’s hard to tell from the inside. If my D is interested in Smith, we’ll help her explore it. In fact, when she got back into town and I asked her about it, she said she wasn’t sure and didn’t really have time to check into it. I told her she should start researching and thinking about it and that we’d get her out for a visit if she wants.</p>
<p>I’d focus more on any social/fit concerns she has about Smith – not on her ability to do well. Mini’s post is right on – there is more than enough academic support available for her at Smith, so she will do fine on the academics if she wants or needs it. </p>
<p>So the real question is will she be happy at Smith. My mother was a Smith dropout many years ago (she dropped out in 1949 to marry my dad) – and she was miserably unhappy there. The Smith housing system can work for or against a student (wonderful and amazing if the student loves their house, but frustrating if there is a social mismatch). My daughter is a Barnard grad and she loved the academic atmosphere and did impressively well, but she alternated over 4 years between being extremely unhappy socially and quite comfortable – in hindsight, her housing assignment each year made a huge difference. </p>
<p>So bottom line the woman’s college thing is not a comfortable fit for all students. I think Smith is clearly the best option academically-- but now is the time for your daughter to do some soul searching in making the choice. Her long-term academic goals might be a factor.</p>
<p>As a member of the board’s “Smith Mafia” as someone once termed several of us (now, where did I put my fedora & Tommy gun?), I agree with the notion they wouldn’t have admitted her if they didn’t think she could do the work.</p>
<p>I’d say that Smith has very few slackers but not all of them express it in a wholly academic direction. I’m probably the originator of the B+ comment…where two Smithies consoled a third who got a B+. Otoh, I guarantee you that Smithies graduate with less than a 3.0 average. One of D’s friends had one semester where she hit a 3.5 and was over the moon with joy. (Fair cop: my D would have been devastated; she graduated with Latin honors.)</p>
<p>Just read the other options: I know someone whose D did very well at Beloit but the three cited really are in a different league. Smith can be a spectacular experience even if you’re not at the top of her class. One of my favorite memories was listening to one of her classmates who <em>wasn’t</em> a top student and was a Religion/Philosophy major extemporize for 45 minutes on the politics of Edwardian England. (Good set up for watching “Downton Abbey.”)</p>
<p>D at Wellesley and heard many of the same stories.Bottom line is she has to work hard to meet expectations but it is not cuthroat.She gets plenty of support and encouragement from classmates and staff.</p>
<p>In response to “xiggi, it’s funny that you say GPA is mostly irrelevant, because as far as I’m concerned, a 31 on her ACT is mostly irrelevant for my D. She’s a great standardized test taker (comes from a long line of good test takers) and her not top quartile GPA is hard fought for. So, to me, it’s her ability to maintain decent grades in a competitive atmosphere where people freak out about a B+ (I saw that somewhere, but don’t remember where) that concerns me.”</p>
<p>My response was about comparing your daughter to her upcoming cohorts. The GPA is not irrelevant per se, but does not offer a useful yardstick when taken out of its local context. As an example, comparing the GPA at Stuy in New York to one from a public high school in South Carolina or Wyoming can be misleading. That is why standardized tests remain the best COMPARATIVE tool. When used in tandem with valid GPA indicators, tests also provide a glimpse at the chances of success in college.</p>
<p>This said, success in college can also be enhanced by advising and faculty support. Based on close to a decade of multiple reports by the CC Sophians, there are few doubts that Smith does shine in that regard, and few doubts that the environment is very supportive.</p>
<p>All in all, I firmly believe that a student who is concerned about being in the lower echelon of students stands a better chance than her peers who feel that college will be a cinch.</p>