Under 3.6 (GPA) and Applying Top 20 Parents Thread

<p>I know of two local results for Northwestern, both male - one accepted, one rejected. Both had solid ECs, but nothing spectacular. I don’t know their grades/test scores, but have reason to believe that the accepted student had a significantly higher GPA than the one rejected.</p>

<p>Well a regular decision result came in today. Accepted at Vassar! He was also accepted at American University’s honor’s program with a Presidential Scholarship. He liked American a lot, just came back from the honors overnight.</p>

<p>Rejection email from Stanford today. No surprise there (accept that I thought it would come on April 1st). That leaves only one remaining decision: Rice.</p>

<p>Mathmom, congratulations! An acceptance to Vassar is indeed something to be proud of.</p>

<p>Congrats, mathmom! I would be interested in hearing more about American’s honors program. S liked it when we toured there.</p>

<p>Keep your chin up, m-s … Your son is still doing great with his acceptances!</p>

<p>Post 1939:</p>

<p>nightchef,</p>

<p>BWRK = Bright, Well-Rounded Kids.</p>

<p>Term used by Rachel Toor in her book.</p>

<p>(EDIT: In her view, it was not a compliment, because, as you correctly inferred, the implication was Boring. It would appear, in reading her book, that this was the conglomerate boredom of so many similar profiles, as opposed to individual applicants being boring.)
:)</p>

<p>Congratulations to mathmom’s son! Vassar, wow. Another T20 score. Big congrats on the honors program and the $$ from American. Many families have shifted their focus from acceptance to scholarship now.</p>

<p>mantori, I commiserate with you on the news from Stanford. Like PG said, your son does have many options with excellent scholarship! The Stanford news surely came earlier and surprised a lot of people. S1 received the same letter. The earlier rejection from Oxford prepared him well for this. We added Stanford to his list after the EA results to have more financial aid options. I guess we don’t have to worry about this option any more!</p>

<p>He received another admissions email after the Stanford one. He got into Boston University, his first local acceptance!</p>

<p>Congrats on the recent good news, and sorry about the sneaky bad news. It seems like everybody is in good shape vis a vis their education, preparation for future lfe, etc with great acceptances.</p>

<p>Congrats to all and keep your fingers crossed for me, doubly, a year hence :-).</p>

<p>Mathmom: Congratulations on Vassar and American too! Feel free to PM me if you have any Vassar related questions.</p>

<p>twinmom, thanks for the offer. He will go back and visit again, and my older son has a friend who is there, so theoretically he should be in good shape.</p>

<p>Pizzagirl, he still likes American a lot. He had a great time at the overnight, liked the other kids - both those at American and the prospies. He doesn’t like the idea of the honor program. He think it isn’t fair that he would get a first class education while others are getting a second class one. And it isn’t just classes, there are field trips, dinners with professors - all sorts of stuff…</p>

<p>Congrats on the cceptances, mathmom! Lots of great choices. I am also happy to share any Vassar info that might be of help, but it is a little dated :(</p>

<p>Updates from this week: two waitlists (Carleton, Bowdoin), two rejections (Swat, Georgetown SFS). We knew Swat and Georgetown SFS were big reaches because of the GPA and in Georgetown’s case, geography, but S is glad he applied. </p>

<p>No regrets about where he applied or that he didn’t apply to more than eight. </p>

<p>We’re still waiting for two more schools.</p>

<p>I’m no parent, but my GPA is going to end up in the 3.6-3.65 range so I thought I’d contribute to this board. I got accepted to Carleton, Boston College, and Wisconsin-Madison, and waitlisted at Northwestern, Middlebury, and Amherst. Williams, Bowdoin, and a smattering of ivies are still to come, but acceptance into any of those schools seems highly unlikely.</p>

<p>Congratulations on your acceptances Handala. Of course, not to be picky or anything, but you did read the title of the thread didn’t you? Last I heard, 3.75 is not “Under 3.6”.</p>

<p>Sorry to come off a little snarky, but this business about “sorry to disappoint” is not going to win you many friends. Especially when there are a couple extremely talented students on this thread (trust me, they are not my kids but I know their accomplishments) who were not accepted at Stanford, although they were accepted to equally excellent schools. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that little aside. If it is meant to rub things in, I hope you learn a little humility in the next few years. </p>

<p>And if I am misreading anything, I apologize in advance.</p>

<p>My son was waitlisted at two top-20 schools: Grinnell College and Emory University.</p>

<p>His unweighted gpa = 3.46; weighted = 4.02
ACT = 32
SAT = 2130 (1450 verbal & math)
Eagle scout; hundreds of hours of community service; study abroad in Japan, etc. </p>

<p>So in conclusion, he did not succeed in gaining admission to a “top 20 school,” although Emory has offered him a spot in its Oxford college, with guaranteed transfer to Emory as a junior.</p>

<p>It is all good, in the end. He was accepted to the following:</p>

<p>Boston University
Trinity College, CT
University of California San Diego
University of California Santa Barbara
Willamette University (with a very large merit scholarship)</p>

<p>The decision will probably come down to Trinity, Boston, or Willamette (which has a close relationship with Tokyo International University next door, a huge draw in this case).</p>

<p>What surprised me the most about this process, is how much emphasis a few schools (not all) place on the unweighted gpa. My son flung himself into the most challenging courses he could take in high school. One school actually informed him during a follow-up call that “your gpa is below our applicant pool,” even though that school has taken other students from the school who maintained a high gpa by avoiding honors/ap courses and had lower test scores. So if any prospective student and parent is reading this thread, just be forewarned. The academic rigor and relatively high standardized test scores won’t help at some places.</p>

<p>In the end, though, he has some great choices, places where he can pursue his interests in Japanese and English.
:-)</p>

<p>^^^That’s also what we have gathered. It’s better to appear to have taken the rigorous courses with high GPA than to take “super difficult” courses and get lower grades. Our good friend’s son took the most difficult math course at his prep school, ended up getting a B, but his other classes also suffered because of amount time he was spending on the math course. </p>

<p>There has been a lot of good news on this thread. Congratulations to all of you.</p>

<p>@Handala,</p>

<p>There’s a huge difference between a 3.75 and a gpa below 3.6. But you clearly know that, as your post implies. </p>

<p>No one on this thread regards an unweighted gpa of 3.75 as a particular challenge. Hey, my son’s unweighted gpa of 3.46, coupled with other achievements, made him borderline enough at Berkeley that they requested some additional information. If his gpa had been as high as yours, he would have gained admission there, and very possibly to schools where he was waitlisted. </p>

<p>I remember your endless posts on the MIT board when you were denied admission. I’m glad to hear you will be going to a school that will embrace you.</p>

<p>

  1. Why would we be disappointed that your GPA isn’t low enough to qualify for this thread?
  2. Why would you imagine that posters on this thread would see your GPA as low?</p>

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<p>We got the Stanford rejection and the Rochester acceptance early. Is this a trend? Are colleges deciding that it doesn’t make sense to make everyone wait until April 1? I hope so. I don’t see any benefit to keeping kids in the dark.</p>

<p>Mantori, congrats to your S on the Rochester acceptance. I’ve heard such good things about the school on CC.</p>