<p>Oh, and we (juniors) took our first practice ACT and we got our results.</p>
<p>If we graduated now our rank 1 would have a 21 ACT. 4.7 gpa 3.95something uw</p>
<p>I’m rank 10 and i got a 27.</p>
<p>I came to the conclusion after reading our school’s naviance is that acceptance to top schools is a combination of GPA/SAT/Course Rigor. Students with 4.0uw with CR+M(<1500) rarely got into top schools. Same with GPA, 4.0 uw/ 4.0 w(no APs) rarely get into top schools. Most students with 4.0 uw and 4.30+w received acceptances to top schools.</p>
<p>I’m interested in this topic as my stats are almost identical to your son’s. At my school, people get very high grades in normal classes, but the AP classes, on the other hand, are extremely rigorous in general. Most people pass the exams with 5’s, but grades aren’t very high. Thus, at my school, I’ve seen tons of 4.0, 21 ACT scoring people while most 30+ ACT scorers are having average GPA’s. I have taken 8 AP classes, most rigorous course at my school, basically, so my GPA is not quite top-notch. Good luck to your son and hopefully some people will post more info about these colleges!</p>
<p>I think among top schools, there isn’t that much emphasis given to the SAT. However, if you’d like a full scholarship, you should consider a school like Auburn, which automatically gives out scholarship based on test numbers. It is a pretty good school too.</p>
<p>If your son had a heavy courseload in high school (honors courses, APs, etc), then Vanderbilt might be an option. The admissions board looks for the highest SAT/ACT scores, but then again, ECs are pretty important to Vandy, as well as GPA, but still not as significantly as the SAT/ACT scores. Another school like that is Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). They really look for high SAT/ACT scores and you can still get in with something as low as a 3.5. You might want to look into New York University (NYU) as well.</p>
<p>Also, there is the University of Chicago. I was accepted with a 30 ACT score and a 3.93 GPA, but my friend was accepted as well with a 33 ACT and a 3.64 GPA.</p>
<p>This one is a constant debate on CC and frankly, it is getting old. As a parent with two children, each of whose stats fall on one side of this argument, I will tell you that my high GPA combined with most rigorous coursework kid fared much, much better in the admission game. My lower GPA kid with near perfect, single sitting test scores, was not admitted to either of our top state schools and ended up at a regional school. My other kid was admitted to every school she applied to, including several top 50, and our state flagship, which is the same as OP. </p>
<p>The thing that drives me crazy about this debate is the fact that every student does not have an equivalent learning environment. There is a reason why the boarding schools, private prep schools and elite public schools have better overall test scores! The access to well-taught honors and advanced classes is far greater than at your local public high school. Selective colleges look for kids who bloom where they are planted! They look for kids who made the most of the opportunities available to them, who were engaged in their school and community in a meaningful way. They look for kids who excelled not only in academics but in other areas as well. And this is not the kid who is in fifteen clubs, six bands and eight sports, but never accomplished anything meaningful in any of them! Believe me, admissions officers see right through that bs. They look for kids who have a voice and can convey that in voice in well-crafted essays that give the reader a sense of who they are and why they would be a great addition to the campus community. Basically, they want to see what the student did with his life for the past three years. These attributes, combined with very good tests scores, trump an uninvolved, lower GPA applicant with stellar test scores every time, particularly at the most selective schools, who need to distinguish among the multitudes of academically qualified applicants. There are plenty of less selective schools that will accept your high test score kid. Heck, there are plenty that will give scholarships for those stats. But stats like that are a dime a dozen at selective schools, an applicant needs something besides test scores to stand out in the crowd.</p>
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<p>The SAT is important, but the weight of it is hard to place. It’s not merely “a 3-hour test”, just like not merely your “11 seconds” for a 100-meter dash. The SAT score, together with GPA, # APs and hours of ECs, tells a lot about a student. The OP’s son may have the potential to survive any college in the land, so apply to wherever he wants to go, and he might get in. I won’t be surprised that a 4.0 UW 2300+ is likely preferred than a 3.7 UW 2300+ at any place, other things being equal.</p>
<p>valedictorian with a 21 act and #10 with a 27? what state are you in?</p>
<p>Also, there is the University of Chicago. I was accepted with a 30 ACT score and a 3.93 GPA, but my friend was accepted as well with a 33 ACT and a 3.64 GPA.</p>
<p>You are talking about not so common cases.
I attended a feeder school to U Chicago. Last year U Chicago accepted almost 15% of our graduating class and about 20% three years ago. I can tell you this. Almost all (or all) of unhooked applicants were NMF and they had 3.8+GPA and 33+ or 2250+.</p>
<p>These are stats of few accepted students (from my HS, 2015) from U Chicago.
2400, few 800s on SAT IIs, 35 and 4.0
2380, few 800s on SAT IIs, 35 and 3.96 (attending U Chicago)
2300+, few 800s on SAT IIs, 36, and 4.0 (attending U Chicago)
2300+, high 700s on SAT IIs, 35 and 3.95+</p>
<p>When we talk about elite colleges such as HYPSMC, Columbia, Penn, Chicago and Duke and so on, you really need to have BOTH HIGH GPA (FROM RIGOROUS COURSES) AND HIGH STANDARDIZED SCORES.
If you do not have great academic credentials, then you need to have hooks or something really unusual or great ECs or sometimes great essays and so on.</p>
<p>@Fishymom,</p>
<p>How did your high score/lower gpa child do in college vs. your high gpa/lower SAT child?
This is what seems to be missing from all of the debates, how do these kids do once they get to college? Do the high score/lower gpa kids find their niche and inspiration to succeed, or do they continue to struggle with coursework in college? Do the high gpa/lower score kids continue to work hard and excel in college, or do they become overwhelmed by the material? I’ve seen a few studies with conflicting conclusions, mostly because selective colleges accept such narrow ranges of gpa/test score kids. The real experiment would be to put 100 kids with 3.5 gpa >2300 SAT on each HYPS campus and see what happens.</p>
<p>How does great SAT scores plus low GPA (3.3) but 4.0 Junior year with a rigorous schedule throughout play into this? Or, basically, how far do great SAT scores + excellent grades later in HS make up for subpar grades freshman/sophomore year?</p>
<p>The real experiment would be to put 100 kids with 3.5 gpa >2300 SAT on each HYPS campus and see what happens.</p>
<p>That would be very interesting.
I think it will be even better if such experiment is done on MIT, Chicago and Cal Tech.</p>
<p>“How does great SAT scores plus low GPA (3.3) but 4.0 Junior year with a rigorous schedule throughout play into this? Or, basically, how far do great SAT scores + excellent grades later in HS make up for subpar grades freshman/sophomore year?”
And by great I meant 1550/2330.</p>
<p>I’d love to hear some of these schools!</p>
<p>I’m a high SAT/lowish GPA. I’m in the top 10% of my class, but the problem is, my school just doesn’t give out A’s. A 90 is the highest you’re going to get in any AP class, and the teacher only gives out 1-2 in a class of 20. So it puts me in a pretty bad position.</p>
<p>
Read the book “Outliers: The Story of Success”
A researcher collected students who scored 99% or above on a standardized IQ test. Out of this group, he took the top 99% and did a cohort study on this group, detailing their successes. He predicted this “super group” would become world leaders, innovators, Nobel Prize winners, etc. A few of these people did become those, but the majority of them were not. They lead successful lives, but nothing far from astonishing. </p>
<p>In another scenario, the book explored affirmative action and how minorities were accepted at top schools with lower GPAs and test scores. It turned out that their achievements fared just as well as non-minorities beyond college.</p>
<p>
Read the book “Outliers: The Story of Success”
A researcher collected students who scored 99% or above on a standardized IQ test. Out of this group, he took the top 99% and did a cohort study on this group, detailing their successes. He predicted this “super group” would become world leaders, innovators, Nobel Prize winners, etc. A few of these people did become those, but the majority of them were not. They lead successful lives, but nothing far from astonishing. </p>
<p>In another scenario, the book explored affirmative action and how minorities were accepted at top schools with lower GPAs and test scores. It turned out that their achievements fared just as well as non-minorities beyond college.</p>
<p>Edit: Just skimmed through the book again, here’s how he specifically did the experiment
- Put together a field of workers
- Workers contacted thousands elementary schools, Teachers selected the best and brightest kids in their classes to take an IQ test.
- The kids who scored in the top 10% of this IQ test took another test.
- Those who scored above 130, were given a third test.
- After the third, the brightest kids were selected for a longitudinal study.</p>
<p>This group consisted of 1470 out of 250,000 students. This group is the .00588%. Please note that these 250,000 were already considered smart. So the percentage should actually be much lower than that. The lowest IQ among them was 140, while the highest was 200.</p>
<p>If you are a student worrying about your low GPA in a school with grade deflation overall, look at your high school’s profile, which is part of your guidance counselor’s package provided to the colleges. The profile should explain the relationship of GPA to rank, or if your school doesn’t rank, deciles, so that your GPA can be understood in the context of your school. This is why GPA+SAT+EC is such a complicated entity: adcoms don’t really compare one 4.0 to another at different schools. Why would they fail to take into account the variety of programs at schools, and the rigor of each students’ courseload? Obviously, a high GPA in the context of 6 APs and top decile has a different weight than a high GPA without such marks of rigor. There would also be some difference, it seems to me, between a student with all As except for Bs (or lower!) in one subject, and one with straight B+s. That’s where recommendations would play their part: is this a hard worker who can’t get an A, from any teacher, no matter how hard she works, or a student with a blind spot in one area? It would also, then, depend on the school at which you’re aiming: do they want only academic superstars, or do they look for a judicious mixture of students, some geniuses and some plodders? </p>
<p>In answer to OP’s question: I have never seen a list of colleges that overlook GPA in favor of SAT. In general, a low GPA (and low is relative for each school–you don’t have to be 4.0uw) doesn’t promise well without other factors to offset it, just as a high SAT with no other factors to confirm it doesn’t indicate future success. If you have a lopsided stat profile, it’s vital to make your case as strongly as you can in other ways.</p>
<p>The problem with my school is that its profile is such a vague representation of how hard it is. My school doesn’t rank at all, and the only thing that shows the difficulty of my school is an AP score distribution. While 60%+ of kids get 5s on AP tests in most AP classes, that still doesn’t make up for my GPA :(</p>
<p>3.6 UW is not a bad GPA. I would think a 2300 with a 3.6 would make him competitive to any college minus the top 25. Is he set on the top colleges? There are so many that would be the right fit, as opposed to the so called ‘dream schools’. If he is really set on the top 25, then some factors that can help - SAT2 subject scores, AP courses and AP exam grades, rigor of final year courses, getting As in final year mid-report. What major is he considering? Does he have any summer experience to show?</p>