<p>Weight a moment! Mathmom ‘says’ she went to Harvard?</p>
<p>I’m talking about midwest school that aren’t near big airports as being hard to reach. I have nothing against the midwest per se - I just know the long drive to Pittsburgh is longer than I thought it would be! That’s why Macalaster is on the list, and Grinnell isn’t. He also doesn’t like rural. He hated Bard’s location and campus. </p>
<p>Applicanot, I’m happy to have a second opinion, that’s why I’m putting it all out there. I only had two sorting mechanism - how many kids outside the top 10% get accepted and how many overall get accepted. I figure the near perfect CR score ought to count for something - and expect the math and writing scores to go up too - but he won’t be retaking SAT1 until October so that remains an unknown. Unfortunately both his parents went to the same school which he has virtually no chance at, and he doesn’t even like.</p>
<p>Ever since spending five years in Germany mathmom hasn’t been able to type homonyms. I’ve even been known to type flower instead of flour!</p>
<p>lockn, absolutely students are welcome!</p>
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All three school look safe for son on our Naviance - good enough grades and no one with his SAT scores rejected. </p>
<p>Our numbers are:
Syracuse 92.37 GPA 1850 or 1220 SAT
American 94.39 GPA 1910 or 1277 SAT
BU 95 GPA 1934 or 1284 SAT (interesting that our SAT is much lower than Counting Down’s even with correction on this school only - I think unweighting GPAs likely puts them in same ballpark)</p>
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<p>Our school does not have Naviance, so I’ve just put his numbers into the general programs available on the web. BU, Ameircan and GW came up a matches for him and, I don’t know how to put this more delicately, but his scores are higher across the board. </p>
<p>I see that you live near NYC. The only thing I can think of is that we live in Texas, S attends a somewhat small public in a Title One district and/or we don’t have Regents courses(I’m not even sure what those are.) But we do have AP and duel credit, which he’s taken a lot of. </p>
<p>Sorry to highjack your thread but I swear, I’m only one or two more variables away from going off the edge. I"m wondering if those of us whose kids are not in the highly ranked public school systems or a well ranked private should view our kids gpas through a different lens?</p>
<p>I think that Vanderbilt is a high reach due to the GPA. Admissions there has gotten much more competitive.</p>
<p>I don’t want this to be MY thread. All are welcome to post their kid’s stats and ask for suggestions.</p>
<p>Regent’s course are college prep level, but they have state exams at the end of the year. We have some courses like a math sequence that move slower than a normal Regent’s course. The kids still have to take the Regent’s exams, but they take longer to get there, and those are the ones rated 1.0. It’s horribly confusing when you are trying to figure out what the GPA means because basically every course in the school is weighted unless you are on a slow track.</p>
<p>The scores are what make the process confusing - I don’t know how much of a bonus he’ll get for them.</p>
<p>Lockn, what schools if any are you thinking about?</p>
<p>Mathmom, DH and S2 flew to Chicago, drove to Mac for a day, then to Carleton, then would have driven four-five hours south to Grinnell, then back to UChicago. In the middle of planning that, S2 decided to put off Grinnell. </p>
<p>Southwest is terrific for Chicago and I think they are also coming to Minn/St. Paul. I don’t recall if SWA is close to you, though.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang – CMU’s H&SS admit rate (which is where a history/polisci sort might apply) was 32% last year. CIT and SCS take fewer folks. S brought back a sheet from his visit of the admit rates and average SATs by section within each school at CMU, but it’s not where I expected it to be. I will try to dig it up – I think I pulled it out for a previous CC post and it didn’t get refiled (arg).</p>
<p>Here’s a link to Carnegie Mellon’s admissions statistics: [Admission</a> Statistics](<a href=“Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University”>Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University) H&SS is definitely easier to get into, but they are still looking for decent GPAs.</p>
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<p>I’m open, but warm weather and proximity to a major city are both a plus. List is based mostly on admissions.</p>
<p>High reach:
U Chicago - expensive, only if finances improve
Johns Hopkins - ditto
Cornell - ditto
Tufts - ditto</p>
<p>Low reach:
USC - is looking like my most likely choice if NMF works out.
Rochester - also a NMF school, with a popular math major.
Carnegie Mellon - expensive</p>
<p>Match:
State U. - a pretty good school.
U Washington - Seattle seems awesome.
Case Western - early action, merit aid.
U Miami - early action, merit aid. Not sure about this one becuase of the scant higher math coursework.</p>
<p>Safety:
Will worry about this if I don’t get into Case. CC for a year, maybe.</p>
<p>Reach that I don’t even deserve to apply to:
MIT - always wanted to go here, loved it when I visited.</p>
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<p>No, you’re completely right. I wasn’t taking into account the sex factor for Vassar, I was going on stats only.</p>
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<p>I rank lists of schools quite conservatively, so don’t mind if mine differ a bit. If he could join the 700 club on each of the SAT sections, I think your list might match a little more closely.</p>
<p>Mathmom, will your son be taking the SATs again? I agree that getting his math score up a bit would be beneficial.</p>
<p>Also, will you be paying full freight? That will definitely help you at lots of places in these recessionary times.</p>
<p>Also, what are the nature of his ECs? A place like Vassar (which turned down my NMF daughter, and I’m still bitter, I admit) is very interested in seeing activities that are original or prize-winning, etc. I agree that his Y chromosome will help him at Vassar!</p>
<p>Have you looked at Drew in Madison, N.J.? I think it is an unsung gem, and not that hard to get into. We have a family friend there now, and he is loving it (he’s finishing his junior year). Even though I’m a New Yorker, Drew was never on my radar before. Also, it’s a short train ride away from Manhattan. I think it would be a solid safety for your son, near a city, and the Y factor would be in his favor as well. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Mathmom – thanks, that’s the list I remember. They had printed it up for distribution when S2 visited.</p>
<p>lockn, UMD has a very decent math department and they will like your SAT scores. If you have a good upward grade trend and some solid AP scores, that will help, too. What math are you currently taking?</p>
<p>Mathmom:</p>
<p>D’s GC gave us a list of who gets into which school grouped by GPA/SAT scores from her school (small, private West coast college prep).</p>
<p>FWIW, they put Johns Hopkins in your “uber reach” category, and Trinity would be a “reach.”</p>
<p>Other safeties: They class Bucknell, Case Western, Dickenson, Fordham along with American and GW. If you want to come to the West, Lewis and Clark is both nice and fairly easy to get to.</p>
<p>LurkNessMonster, Yes he’ll be taking the SATs again, the original plan had been to do SAT1 again in June, but he wants to redo subject tests as he felt he didn’t do as well as he would have liked. He’ll do the SAT1 again in October and I think will practice this summer.</p>
<p>His ECs are okay I think. He’s in two school orchestras - regular and a select one. Plays the violin. He’s done Science Olympiad every year. They got to states this year and he got a fourth place ribbon there. He makes origami earrings and has sold them at a cooperative gallery - we’ll know next week if they accept him as a regular member. He’s on the literary magazine and has had art work published in it. (He has no room in his schedule for visual art electives but does enjoy producing art on the computer.) I think he may be able to write something about the origami business. </p>
<p>Despite a not terribly high income (by NY standards only!) we inherited some money that we are using for college tuitions, so we can pay full freight. I know nothing about Drew, but will look into it. I agree it’s unfair that he may get a bump due to being a boy, but even our Naviance data makes Vassar look very iffy. It may be artier than he really needs. He’s pretty intellectual if you talk to him, but it doesn’t always show in his grades.</p>
<p>Oh and I forgot one more EC, he’s cataloging the neighborhood association archives and is really enjoying reading “primary sources”. All sorts of issues regarding redlining the neighborhood and trying to save programs at the local elementary school.</p>
<p>Mathmom, my daughter was accepted at Barnard, Chicago, Berkeley – and waitlisted at BU. (She - and her GC- thought BU was a match). She was also waitlisted at Brandeis. </p>
<p>She was a strong A student, 3.85 uw GPA, maybe 4.1+ weighted, among the top 5 students in a graduating class of approx. 150. (Within the top 4% for purposes of UC admissions, where it is calculated by the state). Test scores not so impressive, around 90th percentile level, but certainly well in range for BU. </p>
<p>I think you are very mistaken to look at BU as a “safety”. I would feel the same about GW and American – my d. did not apply to those schools, but considered them and visited – and I would have considered GW as a match, not a safety. American, probably a safety - but I wasn’t confident of financial aid there, so for us it wasn’t “safe” enough. </p>
<p>I don’t know how your son’s high school compares to my daughter’s – I do think that the colleges look at the GPA in the context of the school, so a B+ at a very competitive high school with a reputation for strong academics may be equivalent to my d’s higher GPA at a her public high school. </p>
<p>But I still think that you’ve got things skewed too high on your list. I saw Macalester & Reed as “matches” for my son 9 years ago - before things were were nearly as competitive as now - and he was a straight A student with top scores - a National Merit Finalist - who was being actively courted by Mac. So I think that some of your “safeties” are reaches, and most of your “safeties” are matches. </p>
<p>Maybe I was just too pessimistic, since my son did get accepted to those colleges – but I would define a “safety” as one where your kid is not only likely to accepted, but will probably be offered merit aid at well (assuming the school offers such aid).</p>
<p>Outside of the UC system, where my kids were guaranteed admission, my son’s safeties way back when were Lewis & Clark and Pitzer (but Pitzer has gotten significantly more selective since then) — my daughter’s safeties were Northeastern & Fordham, both of which offered merit money to her. I also tagged Goucher as a safety for her (but she didn’t like it after a visit, so no application). </p>
<p>Under the “love thy safety” rationale, I think you really need to go somewhat down the US News ranking list to create a more certain foundation of safety level schools. I’m saying foundation because that doesn’t mean that the matches and reaches are impossible dreams. It’s just that your son’s senior year will be a lot less stressful if you build that college list from the ground up.</p>
<p>calmom, I don’t disagree at all. I have no objections to get some safer safeties! Not at all. Luckily there’s still time.</p>
<p>Mathmom-
We live down the street from Drew, in Madison, NJ. Upscale, suburban.
The campus is beautiful, old building, trees and rolling lawn.
VERY easy commute from/into NYC on NJTransit Midtown direct trains. Walking distance to train and downtown Madison with small shops, restaurants, etc.
It’s expensive but I think it has money for aplicants it wants.
We have friends whose son graduated from Drew. Quirky kid who didn’t have the best HS record but who did great at Drew and has already made wonderful strides in the business world. </p>
<p>We never looked at Drew for our own son since they didn’t have the music program he was going for. But he did spend several summers there in an instrumental program and loved the campus.</p>
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<p>Pre-calc now, calc this summer at CC - both calc 1 and 2 if they let me. The local CC has discrete math, multivariable, differential equations, and linear algebra. I could take all or none of these senior year.</p>
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<p>Oh my, you really have my sympathy. I’m having enough trouble trying to figure things out with AP and DC. Here’s to all of us figuring this thing out prior to application deadlines!</p>