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I think a lot will depend on what that C and D were in, and why. Even if it’s not an academic course, that’s going to be a red flag, I fear.</p>
<p>PaperChaserPop, those LACs and small unis are wonderful schools but not the easiest of admits. “Swarthmore, Pomona, Reed, Grinnell, Carleton, Wesleyan, Oberlin, or even Deep Springs”. “Even” Deep Springs? I’m envisioning all of the parents rushing off to research DS, and chuckling at what they find. Especially the parents of girls. </p>
<p>These schools may definitely be possibilities for some kids here, all the same. Reed loves kids from D1’s school, for instance, because they know that that particular school has a rigorous program that has successfully fed kids to Reed in the past. The Reed adcoms consequently are more forgiving about GPA. There must be other pockets of holisticity, to coin a word, in the LAC world.</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned, getting into Carleton is as much of a crapshoot as getting into a top 20 university. Seriously. Plenty of qualified and overqualified kids chasing just a few spots. It’s just on fewer people’s radar screens, that’s all.</p>
<p>In the interest of offering my son good alternatives, I’ve recently started mining a different sort of top-twenty list: the so-called “regional master’s universities”. I’m starting with the US News rankings, simply for convenience. There are many schools there that I know little or nothing about.</p>
<p>Last night I came up with a list of eight such schools that meet my son’s basic criteria: urban or major metropolitan location, with a full complement of science majors, and also offering Chinese language either as its own program or as part of an Asian studies program.</p>
<p>Here is the list: Villanova, St. Joseph’s, Simmons, John Carroll, Hamline, Seattle U, Santa Clara, and Butler.</p>
<p>Now, I’m sure these are all perfectly respectable schools. A couple—Villanova and Santa Clara—I’m pretty sure are actually quite good. But will they offer the same kinds of challenges and opportunities that a top-20 or even top-40 university would offer? For example, my son has done research and wants to continue as an undergraduate. Are schools at this level going to offer significant research opportunities, as opposed to basic lab assisting? Am I right to worry about this, or am I underselling these schools? Could it be that this is the right approach to finding hidden gems that could offer a great education at a bargain price, without all the headaches of the jump-through-hoops admissions process at so-called “better” schools?</p>
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<p>I’m sure. Briefly, the C and D were both in required, non-honors, general-ed classes of the “keep your notebook neat and you’ll get an A” variety. He found these classes utterly grueling, and I don’t blame him. But anyway, there they are on his transcript for all adcoms to see. The C was in the first semester of 9th grade, the D in the first semester of 10th grade.</p>
<p>I’m starting to think that in his essays he should subtly play up the fact that he has attended three high schools in two states. I know that many people consider moving in high school to be a big obstacle. Maybe his occasional slip-ups will appear less significant when his being uprooted is taken into account?</p>
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<p>Personally, I think Villanova and Santa Clara are a “cut above” the others on this list (not that you asked me, LOL). IMO, the rest of these schools tend to be more regional in appeal, so think carefully about whether he wants to be / stay in those areas.</p>
<p>I think I am confused. Well, I know that I’m confused. How do you compute UW GPA?</p>
<p>Off the 5 core subjects (English, math, foreign language, history, science). At least that’s what I understand – because schools are so different in terms of whether they also count in gym, music / band / chorus, art, and other electives – some do and some don’t, so the 5 core unweighted is the “cleanest” comparison. Then again, some schools do A, A-, B+ and other schools just do A, B, C, so it still isn’t ever perfectly apples to apples.</p>
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<p>I believe nearly every school computes it as A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. Therefore, the highest possible UW GPA is 4.0. Many also do pluses and minuses, where A- is 3.7, B+ is 3.3, B- is 2.7, and so on.</p>
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<p>This is why rank is so key. The bottom line is that your DS won’t be compared to kids who didn’t have the opportunity to take what he did. He will first be compared to his classmates and kids at like schools.</p>
<p>If the MV calc and other advanced classes were unique in his environment, he will score major points. Enough to trump the iffy grades? Doubtful at any ivy or peer, but maybe something a little further down the list.</p>
<p>I think the article posted on this thread where the reporter went inside the Middlebury committee discussions is very illuminating. Where they look at the candidates scores and say she shouldn’t have the slightly weak grades.</p>
<p>What I think people lose site of, on this thread and in general, is just how many great candidates these colleges have with no glitches. That when adcom are in that room with all of those applications and they can only take a fraction, they are not looking for reasons to admit. They will not parse this as a parent will and say but look at all those strengths, the C and the D were in unimportant classes and we all know how bright this kid is. They just see a C and a D that they feel should not be there given how intelligent this kid is.</p>
<p>Ds’s UW GPA is not on his transcript, so if we were to figure it out, we’d use:</p>
<p>96 – 4.0
92 – 4.0
86 – 3.0
91 – 4.0
90 – 4.0
94 – 4.0
92 – 4.0
100 – 4.0?</p>
<p>^^^ THat looks closer to 3.9 than 3.6 to me.</p>
<p>Then, maybe I’m an idiot. I swear I saw somewhere that ds’s UW GPA was a 3.3x, but he seems to think it’s a 3.7x. (I just made up those scores above; he did have a 100 in his PE class 
and a 99 in an honors elective, but most of his core classes are the lower to mid-90s and then the one 86 in BC Cal).</p>
<p>Could I have been in the wrong thread this whole time??? Doh! I guess I need to really figure this out.</p>
<p>I strongly agree with Pizzagirl’s assessment of your list, especially Villanova. </p>
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<p>Let me restate S1’s experience. S1 is finishing up at a school outside of the T30. He was a 3.4ish (high school) with a specific set of academic interests. He has parlayed his hobby and academic interests into a series of very intensive and interesting research projects. The first of these occurred during sophomore year, (I know of no one who’s gotten plum research jobs as a freshman). He has been listed as a contributor in one research article and, if all goes well, will publish his own article early next year.</p>
<p>In talking to his “smarter” friends, the ones who are attending schools in the Top15, he is the only one who has participated in significant research. As best as he can tell the competition for plum student research jobs at the Top15 is as or more intense than getting accepted into the school in the first place.</p>
<p>The image of students attending a school ranked 25 - 50 as nothing but a bunch of slack jawed dullards is no more accurate than the image of undergrads at Harvard strolling campus expounding on the subtleties of Kant or Descartes. Your son’s college experience will be what he makes of it and only vaguely influenced by those around him.</p>
<p>P.S.</p>
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<p>Without a doubt.</p>
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<p>Ouch, as far I can find there are no bargain prices.</p>
<p>3.875 to be exact.</p>
<p>It averages out to be 92.625, at some school it maybe an A or A-.</p>
<p>I STILL have a hard time believing the elite u’s actually hand-calculate the core unweighted GPA for 20,000+ applicants. And then what do they do when School X gives minuses and pluses and School Y doesn’t? I’d believe it more if transcripts were submitted in some electronic format whereby some computer program reads it, identifies the 20 (or more) courses that are the 5 core subjects, and spits out an UW GPA.</p>
<p>Youdontsay - don’t you need all his grades in high school to date? It looks like you’re just providing the most recent semester?</p>
<p>Completely off topic here, sorry. I dont know why it popped into my head. Does anybody remember USC having a really poor academic reputation many years ago? My sister went there and I remember people teasing her that it was the University of Spoiled Children, where rich people went when they couldn’t get into harder schools. Well, assuming Im recalling correctly, that reputation sure has changed, at least with respect to the Viterbi engineering school.</p>
<p>I have no idea what the colleges are reporting as their average GPA either. Some are obviously reporting weighted, some are reweighting and some do unweighted. Of course there are probably some, that do some strange alchemy to make their stats look even better. This whole process confuses me.</p>