Suggested I post here

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I had originally posted a "chance me" thread, but was told by hmom5 that I might be able to get some better insight into my issue here on the parents forum. Any help would be appreciated. The original post can be seen in its entirety below:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Hey, guys.</p>

<p>I posted this thread (actually a similar one) in the Penn board without noticing this one, so I figured that it would be more appropriate to re-post here as oppose to bump the old thread. Plus it gives me a chance to add some important info I forgot and omit some not-so-important stuff.</p>

<p>I'm a little bit concerned about my chances of being accepted. I understand that as an Ivy League establishment, Penn is extremely selective. My main problem is my GPA. Now, please don't laugh me out of here when I say this, but... my average high school GPA was a 2.75. However, I scored very well on the SAT (2260 - Writing 800/CR 770/Math 690) and the ACT (33). Due to personal issues, my freshman and sophomore years were pretty poor. Fortunately, I was able to transfer to a different school my Junior year, and from there on out my grades were pretty good - the combined average of the last two years was around 3.8. </p>

<p>My main concern is that the overall GPA would belie my actual abilities and interest in learning. Before I continue, please realize that I fully understand that I've dug myself in a veritable hole here, so there's no need to tell me that, lol. I've taken summer classes as well as AP and CC courses, and am involved in several extra-curricular acitivies; in addition, I've contributed quite a substantial amount of volunteer hours in my community, which includes taking a Community Service class my senior year. Like I said, my main concern is the umbrella GPA, as the other stuff I don't feel is an issue.</p>

<p>Gender: Male
Race: White
Ethnicity: Irish/Jewish (pretty odd, I know!)
Location: Middle-of-nowhere, Missouri
Intended Majors: Poli Sci, Law</p>

<p>SAT II:</p>

<p>-Literature: 790
-World History: 770
-United States History: 780</p>

<p>The list of AP/CC classes I've taken (for both years) are as follow:</p>

<p>-AP Psychology
-AP Biology
-CC Latin III
-CC German III
-AP Ancient Greek II
-AP Economics
-AP/CC Senior Lit
-AP/CC Senior Comp
-AP English Language and Composition</p>

<p>In addition, extra-cirricular affiliations are as follows:</p>

<p>-Character Education Committee, per principal invitation (organized community events such as veteran, police, etc appriciation and acknowledged students with exceptional character)
-Welcoming Committee (welcomed new students to the high school)
-National Honor Society
-Renaissance
-Peer Meditation/Peer Tutoring
-Political Club (including lobying the State capitol)</p>

<p>Contributed 100 hours of community service</p>

<p>So... here's where I cross my fingers! I would appreciate any insight and thoughts on the matter. I'm hoping that in the application essay I can get a little personal and explain some of the reasons for my horrendous performance during the Freshman and Sophomore years. Not to seem haughty, but English is my strong suit - much more than math - so I think I can knock some people out.</p>

<p>Sorry for the massive post, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible. Also, if anybody knows about Haverford College, Duke, Rice, and Davidson College, how are my chances for getting in? I'm looking at them for fallbacks.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!

[/quote]
</p>

2

<p>Haverford, Duke, Rice, and Davidson are reaches for most applicants; they are most definitely NOT ‘fallbacks’ or as we say on CC, ‘safeties’. Nonetheless, you seem to be in a very peculiar situation that I doubt any of us here on this forum could safely make any fair predictions. What makes you particularly interested in Haverford? I am a current student, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer to the best of my ability.</p>

3

<p>Your guidance counselor can include a letter that can explain the discrepancy between your first two years and last two years of high school…and your SAT scores. </p>

<p>However, if you were my kiddo, I would be suggesting that you look at some less selective schools also. Your SAT score is outstanding. Your GPA isn’t…you know that already!!). Some schools will wonder if you will have the ability to maintain that higher GPA from the last two years…or if you will have issues that will make their school difficult for you. NO SCHOOL wants to accept a student who will not succeed at their school. I would venture that you have a warning flag that this “COULD” happen, but have also demonstrated that you can do very well at the same time.</p>

<p>All of the schools you have listed as “fallbacks” should not be considered so. These are competitive schools as well…and are not safeties.</p>

<p>I’m not positive yours IS an odd situation. There are probably many students who do better as they go up in HS years and more courses are chosen by THEM as opposed to required.</p>

4

<p>I can speak to this, having been through the application process with a kid with a less than perfect transcript. A lot depends on what the “personal issues” were. They may or may not be something that will give a school pause. I am not asking you to share them, but the death of a parent, an illness or car accident is one thing, a mental illness that could re-occur is something else (in the eyes of the admission folks). That said, this will require a well-crafted letter from your college counselor and a strong personal statement with an explanation. Your scores and recent grades are certainly strong enough for Penn and the other schools, but as other posters have noted, NONE of these schools are locks for anyone! I would find a state school that appeals to you as well as some less-selective LACs.</p>

5

<p>I would just say that even if you had 3.8 GPA for all four years of high school, Penn would still be a reach for you, as would Haverford, Duke and Rice. (I don’t know about Davidson). A 3.8 is not really outstanding at those schools, nor is a 2260. You don’t have an EC that stands out tremendously. While it’s not unreasonable to apply to those reach schools, you need to create a list with more matches and true safeties. I agree with those who say that a lot depends on why your GPA was lower in earlier years.</p>

6

<p>Have you already graduated from high school? What are you doing this year while you apply to college?</p>

<p>Anyway, I’ll give you what I think straight. Based on your resume and test scores, even if you had a 3.8 unweighted high school GPA you would be an OK candidate, not a clear admit, for all of the colleges you listed, not to mention any more selective ones. So even if you can turn your personal history into a positive – I’ll assume you can – that will not assure your success at that level. Of course, you should apply to some reachy colleges that you like, and you have a definite chance of being admitted to one or more, but you have to recognize that your “definite chance” may be on the order of 10-20%, not anything you can count on. Your essays and what you are doing now will have a significant impact.</p>

<p>The difference between you and other students whose transcripts are more consistent is that they usually have a decent-to-great public flagship as a safety option, or some other university that essentially has stats-dominated admissions, and you may not have that option. You have to work a lot harder to find places you would like to attend where your chance of admission is reasonably high.</p>

<p>I would proceed on several fronts: </p>

<p>Look hard at the secondary public universities in your state. I don’t know anything about Missouri, but in my state many of the second- or third-tier public universities have quite attractive honors programs that do an excellent job for their students. If you can find something like that, try to love it, because that may wind up being your best option.</p>

<p>Some large universities, public and private, may have largely stats-based admissions, but may not count freshman grades. If my math is correct, that should give you something like a 3.0 unweighted, which may be good enough given your test scores and APs, etc. See if you can identify some of those, and if you like one.</p>

<p>Obviously, you are willing to consider LACs, and that’s a good idea, but you need to look at places that are a little less selective than Haverford or Davidson. Look at the “Colleges That Change Lives”. Also, I would look at some of the colleges that are SAT-optional. Obviously, you are going to submit your SAT scores, but those colleges pride themselves on giving individualized consideration to applicants whose resumes may not be all shiny and perfect, and that’s going to work in your favor. (In addition to which they may very much appreciate the opportunity to enroll someone whose test scores are actually a strong point.) You may also want to give special attention to some humanities-oriented colleges where keeping the number of male and female students in some kind of balance is a challenge – it’s no secret that they are receptive to male applicants who they think can succeed, notwithstanding less-than-perfect transcripts. Look for schools where men represent 40% or less of the student body. Finally, if your family’s financial circumstances permit this kind of risk, and you can identify an appropriate college, consider an Early Decision application. I doubt that would be an effective strategy for you at Haverford or Davidson, but there are definitely attractive colleges where your commitment to attend if accepted would probably seal the deal for you.</p>

7

<p>I agree with what all of the other posters are telling you. I’m also thinking that you might consider looking at colleges that don’t consider freshman year grades. For these colleges, your GPA will look a lot stronger as a full year of low grades will be eliminated. </p>

<p>Also, I want to reiterate that you don’t have safeties. You don’t even have clear matches, especially given the GPA issue. Schools that take 10 or 20% of their applicants and turn away more highly qualified applicants than they accept can’t be considered fallbacks for anyone. Because of your unusual situation, you would probably be well served to cast a wider net than is usually recommended on CC, perhaps with more applications if you have time to do a good job on them. Given that you seem to like small LAC’s (Haverford and Davidson), you might look for more similar schools that resemble those two in reach, match, and safety categories. Ditto with Rice and Duke; think about what you like about those colleges and find some similar schools that might accept a wider range of students that you would like to attend.</p>

<p>If you have an good GC, make sure that he knows you and understands your situation. You are going to need a strong, supportive letter in which he explains that whatever was going on prior to your junior year is behind you and that your final two years demonstrate what a good fit you would be for their college. If he has any sort of relationship with admissions people at any of your colleges, phone calls could be helpful.</p>

<p>Finally, what are you doing this coming year? It sounds as if you have completed two years of hs since transferring, so I’m assuming you’ve graduated. Great gap year plans could be a real asset to your application.</p>

8

<p>Missou has a fairly straight-forward formula on their web site that can give you a pretty good idea of your chances there. My guess is that your GPA/SAT combo will be enough to get you in. You can then try to petition to get into their honors college. Truman State U is another good choice for a potential safety.</p>

<p>I do not believe that you will get into Penn, Haverford, Duke or Rice with a 2.75 GPA, unless you had a truly exceptional reason for such poor grades. They have way too many high scoring candidates with near-perfect transcripts. You will have a hard time convincing them to take a chance with you…</p>

<p>It seems that you have little understanding of the process based on the list of schools you mentioned as “fall-backs”. Go to the forums of these schools, and see the results of the last admissions cycle. Maybe it will give you better understanding of what it takes to get in.</p>

9

<p>As someone who’s been there (high school screw up hop for top college admission) I agree with what’s been said. Haverford, Davidson, etc, are <em>not</em> safeties or fall backs, they’re almost as reachy as Penn.</p>

<p>When I was in highschool, I had one semester where my GPA was below 1.0. That’s not a typo. Discounting that semester, I still wasn’t particularly stellar – while my junior year grades were pretty good (1 B), and my SAT scores were pretty good (2180), I still had a couple Cs on my transcript. Honestly, I think I was very, very, very immature and was going through some growing pains. A combination of things happened for me:</p>

<p>1) I lucked out with a counselor that checked “most rigorous coursework” if a student had taken 1 AP (our school offered at least 8).
2) I wrote a strong essay explaining my poor performance in high school. This essay did not attempt to provide excuses, but did try to explain why I failed classes, not just classes I thought were difficult, but my favorite subjects, and how I would handle myself better in college. I had my guidance counselor review this essay.
3) All through high school, I had strong ECs and demonstrated passion for them. I wasn’t a superstar (no athletic recruitment or anything) but I was focused and driven and achieved in my ECs which reflected a capability to do so in school.
4) I applied to a broad range of schools, from Willamette to Haverford. I applied to 14 and got into 8, rejected at the other 6. I was not waitlisted anywhere. You will be a student that a college “takes a chance” on – either they want you or they don’t, I don’t think you’ll be on the waitlist.
5) I am a minority (though NOT a URM) and applied to schools that were primarily white and might want me for “diversity” reasons. Unfortunately, you can’t use this one though I <em>would</em> look at some schools where males are in demand.
6) I was full-pay. This matters then and it matters even more this year. Not for the “reachy” schools you mentioned that are mostly need blind, but definitely for your matches and safeties.</p>

<p>You need a broader list of schools to apply to. You do need at least 1 hard safety, and I would guess there’s a fairly good chance you won’t get into any of the schools you mention so you need some matches as well.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

10

<p>Penn lover,</p>

<p>There aren’t too many “middle of nowhere” places in Missouri where you can study Ancient Greek and Latin. You don’t have to say, but if you live in Columbia, be aware that it is not really “nowhere” in the eyes of the admissions department at Penn or other highly selective private institutions. They are aware of the opportunities and records of students from this college town’s schools, and I don’t think you will get any breaks on the basis of geography. (If you are not from Columbia, ignore that paragraph.)</p>

<p>Some of the other posters have commented on Mizzou and other MO schools. You probably already know that your record meets the stats requirements for admission to Mizzou and probably is OK for Truman State (but the average stats at Truman are better than those at Mizzou). It looks like you will have to petition for admission to the Honors program at Mizzou, since top 10% rank/gpa is one of the requirements for automatic admission.</p>

<p>If I knew you personally, I would strongly suggest you put together a list that includes a variety of schools for which admission is more likely than those you are mentioning. If you really don’t like Mizzou or Truman, and your family can afford private schools, look at some that do not fall into the “highly selective” range; with your interests in classics and languages, I frankly don’t think you will find Missouri’s second and third tier publics to your liking.</p>

11

<p>When I read the OP initially, my initial thought was that the kid didn’t need me raining on his parade. But then I got to thinking about WHY my reaction would be negative to this kid, and perhaps not so negative to my own. Here’s why (and I really hope it helps the OP):</p>

<p>When my D talks about her future husband she might say “Well I want to marry a guy named Bill who lives and Manhattan and has a summer house in the Hamptons” (which excuse me, is analogous to what the OP wants). Yes there are a number of guys named Bill who live in Manhattan and summer in the Hamptons. The chance of finding and marrying one? Let’s say one in eleven … at best. That’s a 91% chance of failure … probably higher. A good dream? Sure. A formula for success? No. Might it happen? Possibly. Will it happen? Most likely not. If my D asked for this I’d say “Yes, it would be grand if it worked out that way Hon … what’s your Plan B?”</p>

<p>So I say this to the OP: What’s your Plan B? By all means apply to your dream schools. But your GOAL is to get the best education you can. And if you stick with Penn, Haverford, Duke, Rice and Davidson as your sole targets, it’s very VERY likely that you will have NO acceptances next April and you’ll be looking at CCs … which are not the best places to study Greek and Latin.</p>

12

<p>First and foremost, thank you all for the responses. This type of discussion is really much more what I was looking for, as opposed to simply being “chanced.”</p>

<p>Secondly, no I do not live in Columbia. In fact, I hate that town, lol. My mother was able to acquire a job working for a school district outside of where I lived (about a 30 minute commute) which is where I transferred my junior year. I practically live in the wilderness, but a half hour drive gets me into a prett nice suburban area.</p>

<p>Regarding more realistic fallbacks: I’ve received a large amount of mail from both Colgate and Washington and Lee stating things like “I’m an excellent match for their school; I’m the kind of student they can be proud of; We would be happy if you could tour our campus[es]; etc.” I’m assuming I can list those as safties? Those, as I understand it, are quite good schools. In full candidness, that’s why I was shooting for some more “reachy” places. Perhaps my ego is overinflated? lol… The main problem I have with these schools is the location, which is an extremely important aspect for me. I do not want to remain miles away from any substantial civilization for another 4 years. I’m going stir-crazy now as it is.</p>

<p>I really have no interest in Mizzou… I don’t think it would be wise to go there when I’ve gotten a fairly good reception from two other, better LACs. Now, you’ll have to forgive me but I really don’t know what I’m doing in terms of selecting a varied, appropriate portfolio of colleges. I saw some of you comment that I should be looking into a public university; how about the University of Virginia? If I attend a university, I would ideally like it to be one that has a strong law school (that goes for public or private). </p>

<p>Would it be helpful for me to post back with a revised list of schools?</p>

<p>As far as the counselor rec and the essay go, I’ve got those down pat. Same for the teacher rec (one from the head of the LA department and one from the head of the SS deptarment).</p>

<p>Thanks again for all the help!</p>

13

<p>

You absolutely can not assume that these schools will accept you. The “love letters” you are getting from schools now are based solely on your test scores. This is the only information available to schools at this time. Obviously, your scores are not what will hold you back…</p>

<p>UVA will not be an option for OOS student with 2.75 GPA, as far as I know.</p>

<p>If you want an urban location, look into schools like U of Pittsburgh. One of the advantages of public universities (with the exception of a few elite ones) is that they pretty much accept by the numbers (SAT/GPA combo), so you can have a realistic idea of your chances.</p>

<p>Having a law school at the university should not matter for you right now. If you want to go to a good law school in the future, just work on getting a very high GPA in college, and then score high on LSAT. It will matter very little which school your undergrad degree is from, as long as these two numbers are very high.</p>

14

<p>“if your family’s financial circumstances permit this kind of risk, and you can identify an appropriate college, consider an Early Decision application”</p>

<p>The only risk is that you cannot compare various financial aid offers, but there’s no risk of being stuck with a tuition bill you can’t afford. From the common app instructions:

You just say thanks but no thanks, and apply RD to other schools. But you really should love the school, and expect to do everything you can to make the financial aid offer work. You can usually get a good idea from online EFC calculators.</p>

15

<p>OP- does your current school have Naviance? It is hard for us to assess here whether you are truly at a “nobody has ever heard of it” HS,or if it’s a school which routinely sends kids to top tier colleges. In which case you will "have some “splaining to do”.</p>

<p>So get some help from your GC and find out where kids like you (which means both kids with the lowish gpa as well as kids with high scores) have gone. That’s your starting line. Then you need to ignore, and I mean completely ignore, the love letters you will start to get from colleges. The colleges have an algorithm which very simplistically goes like this: minimum threshold score (which you are above) + C or D county (how the census divides up the country) - some high income anomolous zip codes = someone who gets a letter. That’s it. They don’t know you, they don’t know you had 100 hours of community service, they don’t know your GPA. However, they’ve purchased data which suggests to them that you are either low income or socio-economically disadvantaged, or from an under-represented demographic (grew up on a farm or in a coal mine or are Native American); coupled with high scores.</p>

<p>So I don’t want to discourage you-- you are obviously smart and talented, and you will end up somewhere great. And will love learning and will thrive in college. But the letters you get from Colgate or Harvard or No-name U were spit out of a computer based on a very simple statistical package. So it’s time to do the hard research- identify a list of schools where if the worst happens (the adcoms focus on the low end of your GPA) you can get admitted, can afford it, and will thrive there, as well as the best case scenario, which you’ve already done with Penn, Haverford, Rice, etc.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

16

<p>Please don’t consider a school a safety just because they send those letters. They mail them out to students who score above a certain threshold on standardized tests. They want you to apply! They have no way of knowing if they want you to attend - all they know is your name, address and test scores.
The schools you added are still really far reaches for anyone (Washington and Lee admitted less than 20% of those who applied last year). </p>

<p>On the good side - you don’t have to attend a famous college to get into a good law school. In fact, some argue that going to a really competitive undergrad school results in a lower GPA and fewer opportunities for law or med school level than a student who attended a medium-level college.</p>

17

<p>I’m going to give you a little more hope than some of the other posters. Again, I do not know the circumstances surrounding your bad first couple of years, but even highly selective schools are willing to look beyond the simple GPA calculation. Not all, but many. Keep in mind that many schools don’t even calculate a GPA or class rank and admissions officers are left to look at semester grades and counselor write-ups. I personally know a number of kids who not only had bad GPAs for several years, they were kicked out of schools. One is at Yale, one at WashU and one at USC. None of these were recruits or URMs.</p>

18

<p>^True. But nobody is saying you don’t have a chance. They’re saying you have a chance, but it’s slim, and it relies on factors we can’t see. So, the logical thing to do would be to apply to the schools you really want to go to, but to also apply to true matches and safeties.</p>

<p>On law school: Law school admissions are arguably even more “point and shoot” GPA/LSAT combo than undergrad schools are GPA/SAT combo. Therefore where you go, when it comes to this, should be someplace decent (Mizzou counts) where you feel you can get good grades and get involved.</p>

<p>I echo that the existence of a good law school at your choice for undergrad is not important in the slightest. You won’t be taking classes there, and it won’t matter to law admissions whether you went to a school with good graduate programs or not. Now, some argue that the rigor of the UNDERGRAD program is important, but even so it is more of a “what did you do/how did you do” not “where did go.” </p>

<p>On the letters: And I also echo that these letters don’t mean anything. They send them to those kids who got a certain score on the SAT. And arguably, they send them because they actually want to reject you (the more applicants they receive and reject, the higher they rank on the “selectivity” scale). They lose very little by sending you a nice little piece of mass mail, but they gain a lot from you applying to them (either they get to reject you and push down the “percentage of applicants accepted” #, or you actually do have good numbers and they’ll accept you and you’ll pay them 40K a year). I got a freaking application from MIT in the mail and a glowing letter about why they would want me, and I don’t think they had any intention of accepting a kid who never got to BC calc, was in regular science classes, and got a 580 on the math section. Really now, MIT. That’s just cruel. If you think about it, this makes sense. They don’t know your GPA, they don’t your ECs, they don’t know if every teacher thinks you’re the devil child - how could they know if they’d “love to have you”? They can’t. </p>

<p>You are a smart kid but unfortunately with your GPA you need to apply to some matches/safeties. Not schools that would be a reach for anyone (Rice, Duke <em>cough</em>). A school like Mizzou/Truman state would be a likely match/near safety for you, for example. There are hundreds of colleges in the US, though, so if you’re super against Mizzou there are lots of others you’ll get into. Hopefully you get into your top choices but you do seem to have a skewed idea of what to consider a match.</p>

19

<p>vossron makes a good point, but makes it much more broadly than I think is prudent, especially when talking to an unsophisticated student (which is what the OP clearly is). There’s no question that, if a student applies ED, is accepted, and is offered a financial aid package which clearly does not fill the gap between one of the reasonably accepted definitions of “need” and the cost of attendance, the student may decline the offer (quickly) and continue to pursue admission elsewhere. What happens if the college offers a “100% of need” financial package, but the student’s family disagrees, is a lot less clear. In many cases, perhaps almost all cases, it won’t be an issue as a practical matter. The college will be willing to let the student decline (provided he does it in the 2- or 3-week ED response period) without any fuss. However, if someone at the college gets the feeling that the student is playing cute – the family’s position is not reasonable, or perhaps the student shows up at a competitor institution with the same or worse financial package – the college would have the ability to make life pretty miserable for the student, up to and including getting the student’s admission elsewhere rescinded. </p>

<p>Does that happen a lot? No. The entire volume of turndowns by ED admits in any year probably doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Will it happen someday if a college feels burned? I wouldn’t bet my future against it. Students need to take the ED commitment seriously.</p>

<p>Back to substance: The OP should probably just forget about any famous out-of-state public universities, like UVa or UNC. Those are precisely the places that are least likely to overlook his GPA, no matter how good his story explaining it is. (With a 2.65 GPA, Pitt may fall into that category, too.) Colgate and Washington & Lee are reasonable possibilities, but not remotely safeties. (And, by the way, Colgate at least is in the middle of nowhere, too.) I believe the OP will ultimately have a better shot with slightly crunchier LACs.</p>

20

<p>I checked out our scattergram for Colgate. The average weighted GPA was 97 (probably unweighted around 91), the average SAT score was 2038. Nobody in the last six years has gotten in with a weighted GPA less than 94. I don’t know Colgate, but my parents lived in Lexington for many years. The town is small and cute, but there is very little to do unless you like the outdoors, the area is very pretty. W&L has a HUGE frat presence. I wouldn’t attend unless I knew I wanted to go Greek.</p>

<p>If you can convince the powers that be that your past is behind you, I think you have a decent chance of being accepted at some decent places, but I also think you should be looking at some schools where B+ students apply. If you’d like something a little more urban some of the schools my younger son has looked at might work. American, GW, Trinity, BU, Tulane, Syracuse don’t have quite as high a percentage of kids in the top 10% of the class as some of the ones you’ve listed (though they all have 45-65%). GW has the lowest acceptance rate at 38%.</p>