<p>IMO, both Bucknell and Trinity are more difficult to get into than American.</p>
<p>For reference points, I know of two young women in recent years who were near the top of their (respected) public high school.</p>
<p>Student A had a GPA of about 94, with disappointing SAT scores in the mid-600s. Good but not spectacular ECs. She was rejected by Bucknell, Trinity, College of W&M, and Boston College. Accepted into Syracuse, BU, and American.</p>
<p>Student B had a higher GPA (96ish) with stellar ECs, and slightly higher SAT scores (high 600s V, low 700s M). Rejected from Colgate. Got into Trinity, BU, Wake, and a few others.</p>
<p>For another data point, Student C from the same high school, with a B+ average (87 or so)and lower SAT scores (low 600s): rejected from BU and GW. Accepted Northeastern (but general studies), American, and a few others.</p>
<p>Because colleges do look at applicants in the context of their schools, this kind of relative comparison may help deciding which school may (or may not) be easier to get into.</p>
<p>How do you tell if the high school is using UW or W GPA’s on Naviance?</p>
<p>I looked at the scattergram data for some of the high schools whose guest passwords were listed on the Naviance thread. (Our hs just got Naviance, but there’s no data inputted yet.) Frankly, I’m still just as much at a loss as before to know where D stands in the admissions game. For one thing, there’s the issue of high school context. Her GPA is quite mediocre by CC standards, but I don’t think it’s too shabby relative to her hs peers, since she’s on the high honor roll each time and that’s only about 30 students give or take. Second, you don’t get info. on the outliers on the scattergrams, so I don’t know how much an athletic hook might compensate for a lower GPA. I had thought D would be fine just about anywhere except the tippy top, but after reading this thread I’m getting very worried! Without doing research, I would have given the OP’s son much higher odds at the schools on his list than what the data seems to be revealing.</p>
<p>average 89 GPA 1100/1550 SAT for Elon at our school, but only one acceptance data point! They did reject someone with higher scores but lower grades.</p>
<p>The easiest way to figure out if it’s a weighted GPA is to see if there are points over 4.0 (or in our case over 100).</p>
<p>Mathmom, FWIW, the B+ student I listed above did not take any AP classes, just a few honors. The other two students (A and B) were AP students.</p>
<p>My guess is that your son may fall in the range of Student A, with BU and Syracuse being matches.</p>
<p>Oh, and what does your son’s GC say? If you have decent counseling, the GC should have the best idea of where he might get in.</p>
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<p>I think they are almost all weighted. When I see the tippy-top GPAs going up to 4.7, I subtract 0.7 to get an approximate unweighted GPA, figuring that the top kids are getting straight A’s. I figure my D has a rigorous-enough schedule to get the full benefit of AP/honors weighting. I like this one <a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/colleges/scattergram_list.php[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/colleges/scattergram_list.php</a> (password=wildcat) because you can switch between weighted and unweighted. Of course, it’s just one school.</p>
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<p>How big is her class? If it’s less than 300, then she is probably in the top 10% with her group of 30 on the honor roll. If it’s 500, maybe not. </p>
<p>I think class rank may be more useful than GPA since it is hard to compare across schools. I look at the college’s admissions stats to see what percentage of the freshman class (or ideally, the accepted applicants) are in the top 10% of their HS class. When 85-90% of the class is in the top decile of their HS class, the second-decile kids better be bringing something to the table besides their grades.</p>
<p>Where I find the other school’s scattergrams useful is when I look at Duke, Rice, or similar schools and see all the acceptances clustered at the top of the GPA range. My B+ student is a long-shots for admissions at those schools no matter how many APs she took or how good her SATs are. Not that there is anything wrong with applying to a long-shot or two, but you don’t start your list with those.</p>
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<p>That’s a big if for those of us with large public high schools. My D’s counselor heard she was interested in engineering and suggested Swarthmore. (Hmmm… 16% admission rate. 87% in top decile. 1520 SAT V+M 75th percentile. 1500 students.) Not gonna happen.</p>
<p>Some public schools are better with counseling than others, but, yes, parents usually have to take the initiative themselves. Still, sometimes a GC gives a student a list to consider that gives him an idea of where he stands compared to his classmates.</p>
<p>Maybe he’ll give more thoughtful advice next year. :)</p>
<p>We have yet to meet with the GC, but will as soon as my son finishes his part of the paperwork after his last AP on Monday. She has met him once when he was setting up next year’s schedule and she encourage him to take AP Stats (in addition to AP Calc BC) instead of some non-honors history courses if he was aiming at schools “like Vassar”. Vassar is definitely a reach for him - even with our scattergrams. I only think he has a chance because he’s a boy with a 790 CR score. The GC seems nice but very young - I don’t know whether to trust her judgment or not, but I will be asking pointed questions about this year’s results.</p>
<p>@Dad’o’2: Don’t count on it!</p>
<p>@mathmom: Inexperienced is never good.</p>
<p>^I agree, but the person in charge of counseling is very good, very thorough. I think he trains his staff pretty well, however I don’t think she’s been there long enough to give advice based on a base of experience. i.e. how ECs, lack of sports and things like that may factor into the equation.</p>
<p>Actually, this guy is the head of the counseling department and is pretty experienced. I suspect the Swat recommendation was the only LAC with engineering that came to mind after D showed him her preliminary list (OK, our preliminary list :o)</p>
<p>thanks, mathmom. Good thread for my younger son, although he’s not taking many APs, he has a hugely improving GPA (from C/B to B+/A, and may end up 4.0+ WGPA-I love the weighted/waited play on words because in his case, it really is because he waited until Junior year to think about academics!), very good PSAT, and seems to be coming out of the fog of mid-adolescence. We are in CT so have the same “value” at colleges farther away. Although more and more kids are applying farther away, so that value may be diminishing.</p>
<p>I’d like to agree with those who focus on the acceptance rates at SPECIFIC high schools. S’s school has a consistently low rate of acceptance from Vassar, whether boy or girl (I’m counting my 4.0 WGPA/2260, 7 AP older son as one of Vassar’s rejects!). Definitely lower acceptance than CMU, for example. In fact, it’s harder to get into than most of the Ivies–again, for kids from this school (And UNC/CH is hardest of all–except for Juilliard/Curtis, etc.). It’s certainly all relative!</p>
<p>I always think of weighted GPAs as misleading–if the courses are truly rigorous, class rank will reflect it, and otherwise top colleges will calculate internal UW themselves anyway. One shouldn’t get into the habit of thinking that a kid has a weighted 4.0+, which looks much better than an UW 3.5 (just as an example because every system is different–my own school weights 0.3 max, and a 4.3 is impossible because you’d have to take all AP courses for 4 years).</p>
<p>Specific school trends apply across the board. In the past decade, my HS has gotten 2 kids into Stanford, and not for lack of trying–whereas usually a couple get into HYP every year (the same couple crazy-outstanding kids). They obviously aren’t B+ students, but the same trend applies.</p>