Under 3.6 (GPA) and Applying Top 20 Parents Thread

Parents Forum
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<p>Okay. I had to cut and paste from his resume, but here is the “stats“ for DS1.</p>

<p>Grades & Test Scores:
GPA is just under 3.6 (what a major surprise) with a loaded schedule. I really believe this is the only weak area on his stats. Good test scores: 240 PSAT, 2360 SAT, 700+ on two subject tests so far. 4 APs, all 4’s and 5’s. Took 4 classes at Harvard, all in advanced bio, and a calc class at UMass. 4 A’s and 1 B. He’ll probably take another 4 AP classes and two more Harvard bio classes this year. He’s hoping to raise his GPA to above 3.6 after the fall semester.</p>

<p>List of EC’s:
Social Action/Community Service Committee School chairman
Chess Team captain/president/founder
Breakdance crew president
Debate team captain
Student government senator
School literary magazine editor
School honor orchestra - violin
New England Conservatory youth orchestra
Founder and key performer of teen street performer for charity organization
Track and cross country team</p>

<p>Award and Recognition:
Siemens Competition Semifinalist
State Science Fair 1st Place Team Project
American Junior Academy of Science Lifelong Fellow
State Junior Academy of Science Delegate
Citation by the State Speaker of the House
State Grade Championship High School Chess Individual Champion
State 14 & under Chess Individual and Team Champion
State Forensic League State Novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate Champion & First Speaker
Senior Districts Music Festival (violin)
Invited to perform (not compete) at the world breakdance competition in Boston this year</p>

<p>Research and Internship:
Year-long internship at the Harvard-MIT HST Tissue Engineering & 3-D Organ Printing Department
Summer internship at the Olin College Bacteriophage Research Department </p>

<p>Recommendations:
Excellent LORs expected from teachers and professors.</p>

<p>Not captured in the stats:
He is good with arts and crafts. People have paid for his art work since middle school. He also a very good writer with frequently internet postings on philosophy and poetry.</p>

<p>Colleges (still working on the list):
UMass (still need to convince DS1 on this)
Brandeis
BC
Tufts
U of Chicago
JHU
Cornell
Caltech
MIT
Harvard (why not)</p>

<p>I’m particularly proud of his achievement in life science. Both mom and I are not in the bio field and there was no connection to explore. He opened doors and seized opportunities on his own. In fact, mom and I didn’t even know how far he had advanced until he won 1st place in states. I know we probably need a few more “matches” and I know there are schools that would give DS1 full-ride, but DS1 told me that if he can’t get into any one of the colleges listed above (UMass excluded), he will seriously consider taking a gap year. </p>

<p>So, is the list reasonable? I know most schools are reaches and super-reaches, but the list is at least a pyramid, right?</p>

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<p>PCP - Your son has done some outstanding work and you have a right to be proud (even if you are like me and can think of nothing that you have personally contributed to his achievements - as my friends often ask). That said, and based on my experiences of two years ago, I think that only Harvard, MIT and CalTech are real reaches. This is based on your son’s GPA (here’s where class rank could be important) and the 700+ SAT IIs. Based on his achievements, I would have expected SAT IIs in Biology and Math to be real close to 800. And I’m sure you know that Harvard requires 3 SAT IIs. The 2360 should put him in the top 25% at every college on the list.</p>

<p>JHU and UChicago are reach/matches in my opinion. If you son is looking at BioMechEng at JHU, JHU requires that it is identified on the application and the application is considered separately from the general admissions. UChicago is, as you probably know, quirky in its application process, so a lot will probably depend on his essay.</p>

<p>The rest should be matches or safeties for him, although I am still somewhat concerned about the 3.6 GPA and class rank. Best of luck.</p>

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<p>PCP-</p>

<p>With your son’s stats, I would think he would be very likely to get strong merit aid at top-50 (below 20) schools. Consider Case Western. If he is in the top 10% of his class, he would likely get the President’s scholarship, close to $30K. Very strong life sciences and engineering program there. URochester has a very strong biomedical engineering program. These would both be high prob admits with likely merit money for him, if you can get past the presige factor</p>

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<p>PCP - it looks like your son has an excellent resume, except for his GPA. Has he taken the hardest courses possible, or is that GPA for regular courses? With such high test scores, he may have a harder time explaining his lower GPA.</p>

<p>It appears your son may have his heart set on going to one of those schools, and there is nothing wrong with it. If that’s the case, I would go for EA at Chicago, and pick a more likely school to go ED (Cornell, Tufts, JHU). Those schools would most likely to give him a bump by going ED. The hard part is if he would feel he was leaving something on the table by not applying to MIT or Harvard(my opinion is they are such long shot, he is not really leaving that much on the table, I could be wrong.). FYI - by going ED or EA, your son will still need to submit his interim semester grades, so he’ll still have an opportunity to show an upward trend.</p>

<p>There is a controversy on hiring a private college counselor. In your case, your son may benefit in having one to make sure he is packaged in the right light. My friend’s son, with a little better GPA from a private school with lower SATs, was hoping to get into a top school with sports. But schools that want him are not the schools he necessary wants. My friend has decided to hire a counselor ($10,000) to help him this fall.</p>

<p>I am going to give a push for Cornell. It’s a great research university. Curriculum at the school is very rigorous, and it pushes every student to the limit. What Cornell has is 7 schools right on the campus. Students have opportunities to take courses from all of those schools. Not knowing your son, but it appears he may do better in a university rather than a small LAC.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about Brandeis or BC, but there is a likelihood your son could be rejected by all schools from Tufts down on your list during the RD round. I think the consensus is it doesn’t help to take a gap year and reapply to those schools again. He would be better off in getting into la ower tier school, then apply for transfer.</p>

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<p>I’m just a visitor to this thread (with older kids) and have just read through most of the postings.</p>

<p>Some schools (such as Brandeis and Tufts) are very focused on social service. For those that have tutored or volunteered, this may be something that can be focused on in an essay.</p>

<p>To the poster who said that just about all of the unhooked students at Harvard are val or sal - definitely not true at all. Harvard has often rejected the vals and sals in our district in favor of lower ranked students. (However, the accepted students are generally ranked somewhere in the top ten and are in the top 1-2% of the class.)</p>

<p>Mathmom: Keep in mind that Vassar has a “Your Space” part of their application; your son may want to present his origami there. Sounds crazy, but successful Vassar applicants add all sorts of quirky stuff to this part of the application.</p>

<p>Pizzagirl: Not sure how interested your son is in Vassar (BTW, I have boy/girl twins too - boy is at Vassar) but I think he has a good shot at the school and it may be a good fit with his interests (though they don’t have international relations, they do have a good history department.) Being from the midwest should help your son at Vassar as well.</p>

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<p>PaperChaserPop: Your son sounds like an outstanding young man with terrific achievements. That being said, I would also be concerned about the low GPA. If you have to talk him into applying to UMass, that may not be the best safety for him. I would strongly suggest that you/he put some energy into finding an additional safety or two that he would be happy to attend if necessary.</p>

<p>I would also discourage the gap year/reapplying scenario. There is a thread from a few years ago about a top student who did not get into any of his schools. He took a gap year (not by choice) and reapplied to several, as well as adding additional schools to his list. While this young man presented differently than your son (top GPA), it was unfortunate that he did not have more safeties. His story did have a happy ending, but it should be noted that the second time around the schools that had passed over him the first time rejected him again.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the suggestion, twinmom.</p>

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<p>RE: my post #346
Below is the thread which I referenced.</p>

<p>IMO, This should be required reading for all applicants, regardless of their stats. Enough cannot be said about the need to have good safeties which the applicant would be happy to attend.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-were-picking-up-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html?highlight=andison[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-were-picking-up-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html?highlight=andison&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^I agree, I am a fan of gap years, but not, in general, because you don’t like the schools you that accepted you. If you want to do a gap year most schools will let you defer admission, and a few (Harvard notably) actually encourage it. You should be able to find a school or two that your kid could like and is sure to get into. (Though I admit medium size research universities in urban or suburban areas aren’t that plentiful.)</p>

<p>If he wants a techie safish school he could try RPI. Rochester U. looks good for his stats, (but he MUST interview and show the love.) Syracuse and RIT would be sure bets.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the great suggestions! I should have posted his stats a long time ago.</p>

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<p>It is music to my ear to hear that “only” Harvard, MIT and CalTech are real reaches. I thank you for brighten my day, even if you were just been kind. I still think many others on his list are reaches. He doesn’t even know his class rank. He scored 700 on US History and 790 on Bio. I worry very much of the low US History score. He’ll be taking math level II and chemistry this October. It is unfortunate he wasn’t able to take them before the summer when they were still fresh due to a conflict in the science fair schedule.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the suggestion, Dad’o’2. DS1 doesn’t consider himself a math person and thus far hasn’t really seriously looked at any “engineering” program. He is more of the natural science type. He wants to pursure molecular genetics, but I think deep down he knew he probably can’t escape heavy math somewhere. Because of his current mindset, I’d back off on the engineering side for now and just let it happen if he comes the conclusion later in his undergraduate years. And yes, regardless of how much I’d like to deny it, prestige is still a factor (hopefully a dwindling one).</p>

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<p>I believe he has taken the hardest courses possible given his schedule. He did not take a single non-honor or AP class when there is a choice. He took the college classes last year with a fully stacked high school schedule. The Harvard classes are not part of the dual-enrollment program. They will not appear on his high school transcript. I gave a short explanation of his low GPA upthread, but I have to believe the enormous amount of time he spent on ECs must had been a huge drag on his grades. I also think his insistence on keeping his own style and approach may have gotten a few B’s for him, especially in English and Debate. But, you know what, I like that about him. He received a B in Debate the year he won the state debate championship. Go figure. </p>

<p>

You are right on the dot. I was thinking along the same line, so thanks for the confirmation. It looks like he is going to apply ED to Cornell and EA to Chicago, MIT & Caltech. Regarding “leaving something on the table”, yes, he does feel this way. Just recently, I asked him if he would feel bad if both Cornell and MIT come back positive, but because of ED contract, he will not be able to attend MIT. I got an emphatic yes from him. Btw, he is a legacy at JHU. I’ve struggling between Cornell and JHU. But, I felt he may be better off in a bigger and more diverse environment.</p>

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<p>Yes. I agree. We need to come up with a few more safeties and matches. Re: gap year. I have a mix feeling here. He certainly has some expectation that may turn into disappointment comes April, but I really don’t want him to lose the drive that has gotten him this far. I’ll continue to encourage him to have more matches on his list that he can come to term with because as mathmom said “he MUST interview and show the love”.</p>

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<p>“It looks like he is going to apply ED to Cornell and EA to Chicago, MIT & Caltech. Regarding “leaving something on the table”, yes, he does feel this way. Just recently, I asked him if he would feel bad if both Cornell and MIT come back positive, but because of ED contract, he will not be able to attend MIT. I got an emphatic yes from him.”</p>

<p>So…why would he apply ED to Cornell?</p>

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<p>Well, first of all because he likes what Cornell can offer. I think he felt MIT may be more suitable because he has been very involved with MIT through seminars and his internship there, and he woud like to continue his internship work if he gets accepted there. But (and this is a very BIG but), he also realizes his chances at MIT is very slim. So given the reality, he has to make a realistic decision here and cast a wide net. If the above scenario happens, he will feel a bit disappointed, but he’ll still be very happy with/at Cornell. Cornell is certainly a reach too.</p>

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<p>Cornell’s overall acceptance rate is 21%, and their ED acceptance rate is 37%. That’s a good reason to consider applying ED there, given that Cornell sounds like a very good fit for PaperChaserSon.</p>

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<p>S1 applied EA to MIT, UChicago and Caltech two years ago (3.76 UW, 2380, 9 APs, 13 post-APs, Bs were almost entirely in classes where he wasn’t challenged). Lots of great awards and research, was NOT in the top 10%. Was accepted EA into both Chicago (with merit scholarship) and MIT (his #1 and #3) and was deferred (ultimately w/l) at Caltech. Darned nice to have the pressure off that early. </p>

<p>UMD just opened a new building for biological sciences. A good friend of ours is a Banneker-Key winner, genetics/cell phys major and LOVES it there. Has been able to continue work at NIH, and is now working for a prof in the bio dept. as well. Your S would be extremely competitive for merit money at UMD.</p>

<p>PCP, was your S on a Siemens Competition team project or was this a Siemens award given at a local science fair? The big Siemens Science/Math/Technology competition is for seniors only (at the individual project level) and is due 10/1/09. BTW, if he intends to submit to Intel or Siemens, PM me.</p>

<p>INTERVIEW at MIT. It improves one’s chances. UMich would also be a fairly likely admit, but he must apply early (as in now).</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t apply ED if my first choice was MIT. Yes, do not miss the MIT interview - the acceptance rate is half if you don’t interview (unless you are located somewhere where interviewers aren’t available.)</p>

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<p>^^CountingDown, I think your S1 had better stats than my DS1, at least on the academic side, which is the most important side. How did he ever get 13 post-APs? So, while your S1’s acceptances to Chicago and MIT are very encouraging to hear, I’m afraid because of the gap, I can’t translate that to anything meaningful for my DS1.</p>

<p>Thanks for the UMD & UMich suggestions, I’ll take a closer look there.</p>

<p>DS1’s Seimens semifinalist award was for a team project he did with a classmate because as you mentioned, as a junior, he can’t submit it as an individual project. He is thinking about it again this year, so I’ll PM you.</p>

<p>^mathmom, we are still struggling with the ED/EA decision. I think he will not miss the interview if he gets one.</p>

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<p>Somehow I think the thread of “3.6 GPA kids who are Siemens semifinalists” is a bit different from the thread of “3.6 GPA kids who are good kids and have some interesting EC’s.” Feeling outclassed and will slink away. LOL.</p>

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<p>Well, Pizzagirl, at least you are voluntarily leaving and not being pushed out by participants like some other threads I can mention. lol. Come back, you are not alone!!!</p>

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<p>^Pizzagirl, while I don’t want to take away what DS1 had done, I really don’t think Siemens sf is a huge deal, and I have a feeling that by itself it does not carry much weight for the T10s. Sometimes I feel it is just as much of a crapshoot as the Ivy application process. I mean, yes, it is a highly recognized award for high schoolers and yes, he did work very hard for it. But, I’d say what he was able to attain with the classes at Harvard and the HST internship are much bigger in my estimation. </p>

<p>The last thing I want to do is to turn this thread into an “one upper” match. I mean who are we kidding here, given our GPAs? Your two kids have things that I envy and wish my DS1 would have. As you said, let’s be honest and work together. So, don’t leave.</p>

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<p>Ok, I’ll stay :-). More power to your son, PCP!</p>