Under 3.6 (GPA) and Applying Top 20 Parents Thread

<p>Pizzagirl there isn’t one right answer. For our son, whose stats put him in the top of any applicant pool, he applied to 6 super reach school and two safeties. One safety was around 45 (RPI) and the other around 60 (WPI). There were other techie schools that might have been further up the list, but we liked the programs in these two schools, if he wasn’t going to get into one of his top choices he figured a super-techie school was the way to go, and the locations were convenient for our family. Another kids might choose Georgia Tech because they wanted someting big, or Virginia Tech or Rose Hulman - there were lots of potential safeties for my son. They were very easy to identify via Naviance. We didn’t feel the state schools had a lot to offer our son, but plenty of kids at the school go that route. </p>

<p>I agree that high scores/low grades is a double edged sword - it’s better than low scores/low grades, but hard to know how much better. Naviance turns out to be surprisingly unhelpful there.</p>

<p>We’ve looked at acceptance rates and strength of program rather than USNWR rankings in determining what a good range of schools might be for S2. Of course, he said no thanks to a number of great places, including some I thought were really up his alley. The list of schools where he decided not to apply makes up quite a nice list in and of itself (Pitt, NYU, Brandeis, Colby, Syracuse, Swarthmore, Brown, Reed, Haverford, Boston U, St. Mary’s/MD, Grinnell, GWU, American and JHU). A couple of them I really wish he’d kept on the list, but it’s his life!</p>

<p>I peeked at those USNWR rankings yesterday and wondered if I should be nervous.</p>

<p>mathmom – I’ve started to spend some time studying those Naviance charts to find how high scores/low grades kids fared in the application process, but so far my son’s stats usually place him in uncharted territory as far as his high school’s graduates are concerned.</p>

<p>My S’s stats fit us in this thread. 35 ACT and 3.5 UW/4.2 W GPA with just barely Top 10% rank. </p>

<p>It is really hard to know how to define reach/match/safety schools, when your kid is an outlier on the scattergrams, away from most points on the diagonal. Our school district just got Naviance, and has very little data entered (just last year, and admissions only, no rejections), so I’m very jealous of those with good historical data. The little bit of data I’ve seen is scary - fewer admissions to top 20 schools than I would have thought for our suburban NJ school. Turns out that the few anecdotes I had heard about school admissions were almost all that had been admitted to top schools. And S is interested in some off-the-beaten-path schools that had few/no applications and no admissions in Naviance.</p>

<p>Compared to some other schools, it seems that there must be some grade deflation at S’s HS to have 3.5 UW GPA be within the top 10%, although ranks are done by weighted GPA, with +1 for Honors/AP and he has always taken the most Honors/AP classes that he can.</p>

<p>I’m encouraging D to consider ED (and ED-2 if necessary), if he can settle on a favorite school, for the possible admissions boost. And then pick a good range of other schools to apply to. </p>

<p>There are very few Match schools on his list, and instead a bunch of Reach and Low Match/Safety schools. I would have guessed GW to be a Match, but Naviance shows it to be closer to a Safety - all of the students accepted have lower GPAs then him and SAT scores at least 300+ points lower.</p>

<p>PayFor we have a similar problem. It’s funny - because his grades aren’t that bad, but apparently his scores are “too high”. I was surprised that our son might be top 10%, but he gets a boost I think from orchestra and a difficult schedule. I know from our oldest that it’s possible to be in the top 1% and still have some B+s.</p>

<p>Saachi, our scattergram shows similar pattern with high scores, GW will almost certainly accept you, more leeway on grades.</p>

<p>Mine are both in the 3.6 range UW, 4.0-4.1 weighted. Suburban public HS.
Based on testing to date, I would anticipate SAT’s in the 2000-2100 range, but hey, nothing guaranteed til it’s guaranteed and who knows. We live in the midwest so will also take ACT’s, but I don’t have a good feel for what an ACT score means the way I do for SAT’s. </p>

<p>What about EC’s that the kid is showing interest in, but it’s not of the “I live, sleep, eat and breathe” variety?</p>

<p>S: Loves history / international relations / politics, always likes to read about / discuss. Has taken summer school classes in it. Also likes TV / radio production. Works for the school TV cable channel. Likes teaching and Judaica – teaches at Hebrew school. These are all good things, and I’m proud he does them and he gets enjoyment out of them. But they’re not the “OMG wow” types of EC’s found on CC. He’s not getting awards for this. They just make him an interesting person. How do we frame those best? </p>

<p>D: A bit math / sciencey, but not overly so (which is cool with me). Math Team, varsity tennis, part-time job in retail, volunteers at hospital (reception), volunteers at major science center in our city. She’s dabbling and frankly the science center one we sort of pushed on her, but she’s liking it. Again, that’s totally cool with me that she’s doing things she enjoys but how do we frame these best? </p>

<p>Appreciate any suggestions. Just get so discouraged from reading CC that there is no room for bright well rounded kids who aren’t curing cancer or for kids who don’t have passions like “I have danced ballet 5 hours a day since I could first walk.”</p>

<p>I think these kinds of kids would benefit by thinking about geographic diversity.</p>

<p>Totally fine with me – as I think I mentioned upthread, I want to get them out of the midwest. Am I just jumping the gun since I don’t have SAT / ACT scores?
But then how do I plan visits without having those?</p>

<p>After all the talking and data gathering prior to starting this thread, I’m somewhat convinced that, in most of the top 20s, a high to very high set test scores by themselves will not be able to counterbalance a low cumulative GPA. If high test scores could, I would not have started this thread. However, I do believe a combination of high test scores, great essays/LORs, and (I really believe this is the key) one or two high achievements outside of HS curriculum that demonstrate your kid’s passion, maturity and caliber can more than offset a 3.5 ish GPA. Since my emphasis in place on the last item, it is very important how the kids present them to the adcoms. This is what I meant by “positioning”.</p>

<p>Right. But do those high achievements have to be “awards” per se? I mean, if you talked to my S on history, you’d be impressed. He’s one of those old-soul, still-waters-run-deep types with amazing insight. He impresses adults in interview situations. But - you can’t win an Intel award for that, kwim? And just pushing him to join Model UN (as an example) just feels kind of trite to me, when he is the kind of kid who really resists being pushed into things.</p>

<p>

No. Achievement can be in the form of social/charitable/volunteering work that leverage your S’s talent. Or, in publications. In business, we’d call it adjacent market opportunities. May be your S can start a fun history program for local kids and share his passion for history, or publish an article on history about something unusual he noticed and theorized in a newspaper. I believe there are also scholarship contests he can enter. Just a few ideas to think about. I’m sure there are more.</p>

<p>Btw, the 2010 USNWR rankings are out.</p>

<p>[US</a> News and World Report - National University Rankings](<a href=“http://rankings.usnews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings]US”>http://rankings.usnews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings)</p>

<p>Pizzagirl, I suppose this is too late to be of use for college admissions purposes for your history-loving son, but my kids have had good experiences with the National History Day competition. S was a state finalist/national qualifier grade 10, and a regional finalist/state qualifier grade 11.</p>

<p>Thanks - part of my frustration is that I don’t think our schools really know about / push this stuff. I’ll look into it (they are rising juniors, so time!).</p>

<p>There is a History Fair akin to Science Fair, I know my history loving kid wouldn’t go for it. [Home</a> of History Education: National History Day](<a href=“http://www.nationalhistoryday.org/]Home”>http://www.nationalhistoryday.org/) My lawyer’s daughter created a “History Research” program akin to her school’s Science Research program - it culminated in doing a year of research with a college history professor. There are local historical societies that could probably use help.</p>

<p>At PizzaGirl in particular, could your son expand his role at the school cable station? I think he has pretty solid ECs.</p>

<p>Yeah, that’s a possibility. I know the director loves him. He’s just the kind of kid that people really like – like I said, old-soul, wise-beyond-his-years – but he’s not a leader in the traditional sense of “run for class president / head of football team.” He’s not aggressive. He just does what he wants to in his own time, but when he does, he has a lot of passion. He’s a great kid and he really does impress adults. We met a Broadway producer (name you would all know) and within 10 minutes he was asking for S’s email address because he thought he was a great storyteller and wanted S to send him some of his writing. He’s a talented writer but he’s just not the kind to enter contests, etc. because that’s not what’s motivating to him. It’s very frustrating to me since that was what was motivating to me, LOL. He did (admittedly at my urging) write for school newspaper and edit literary journal.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Thanks for bringing this up, because I’ve been wondering about it myself. The chronology is that in 9th grade we lived in a relatively affluent suburb of a huge city. Then we decided to move to a small city for the lifestyle (slower pace, less expensive) where he was a 10th-grader at an even large, urban school. Then he was admitted to his current school, a small, public, residential magnet school, for 11th and 12th.</p>

<p>So, since he didn’t change school out of hardship, I’m not sure if this is worth emphasizing or not. I wonder if just letting adcoms notice it themselves, by way of receiving three different transcripts, is enough.</p>

<p>Another possible hook is that he was medicated for ADD and had an IEP until 8th grade, when he decided that he wanted to sink or swim on his own, and stopped taking the meds and asked us not to renew the IEP. There was no significant drop in his grades after that, but I would say it takes him double the time to complete the same work as a typical student.</p>

<p>Do you think this is worth mentioning on his apps?</p>

<p>PayFor–</p>

<p>I hope adcoms will interpret the grades/test scores discrepancy in a good way (“He’s smart and doesn’t grub for grades!”) rather than a bad way (“He’s smart but doesn’t like to work!”).</p>

<p>From what I’ve heard—and this is just heresay; I don’t know—top LACs are more likely to take a chance on such a student than top universities, in the interest of building a Freshman class with “character”. Do you suppose that’s true?</p>

<p>Everyone should keep in mind that there are schools where a high score can counter a lower GPA. State schools that use formulas are a good bet in this situation–Berkeley, UCLA and Michigan are a good bet for these kids.</p>

<p>Also keep in mind that rank is a lot more important than GPA. If the student has a 3.5 but is still top 10%, that’s better than a 3.9 that isn’t. Colleges report how many were in the top 10% and this is an important stat to them. When you look at the top schools and see under 5% were not in the top decile, and your student isn’t, that’s a huge uphill battle. It’s a much smaller battle if you’re in the top 10% to get them to ‘overlook’ something when everything else is stellar.</p>

<p>Pizzagirl, colleges love official honors. It’s almost impossible to get across a talent/skill or knowledge that has not been in some way recognized.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=PizzaGirl]

What about EC’s that the kid is showing interest in, but it’s not of the “I live, sleep, eat and breathe” variety?</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>Just get so discouraged from reading CC that there is no room for bright well rounded kids who aren’t curing cancer or for kids who don’t have passions like “I have danced ballet 5 hours a day since I could first walk.”

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is why I’m actually encouraged by those stories you hear every now and then, about a kid who had perfect grades, perfect test scores, superhuman ECs, and get rejected from top colleges anyway. I take that to mean, or at least I sincerely hope it means, that adcoms can spot the kids who will really make a difference, as opposed to those who are superficially perfect with no substance underneath.</p>

<p>When I hear about such kids, about half the time I think, “Wow, I could only hope to be that good.” The other half of the time I think, “That kid’s parents are sickos and need to be smacked.”</p>