That’s rough. I am sometimes not sure what schools are really looking for. To say that a kid with 30 A’s is clearly better than a kid with 28 A’s and 2 B’s, especially across different schools and teachers, is silly. More often than not, the kids with THE highest GPAs and SATs do well, but not as well as the kids in the next tier down.
In my town, in a strong rated HS, the teachers all take pride in stumping the kids on exams in the AP and Honors classes. It’s very hard to get an 91+ grade on an exam, since they tend to include a few questions covering material they did not teach or that can be found in the texts. You either just have to randomly know it from somewhere else, or guess correctly. They like to challenge the kids and think an A+ grade should be extremely rare.
So once in a while a kid has a “bad” test, and they get an 82 because they missed a couple of questions, but they have an A in homework average, participation, and end up finishing with an 88.5 and get a B+.
It seems as though colleges are focusing on kids who excel in rote memorization and academic perfection, with very little emphasis put on actual problem solving skills, creativity, emotional intelligence, resilience, and so forth - most of which matter far more than the prior in the career.
For us, D2 has very well with merit with other schools, and as of now, nothing from Utah (one of the lower ranked schools on her list), but she really loves the idea of Utah and SLC, so I am holding out some hope.
All running late this year, but it usually takes 2 weeks to shortlist so I guess interview invites will be sent in the next few days and they’ll be scheduled in the first week of April (15 min interviews, you get to choose a slot, generally 3-6pm MT over the course of about 5 days). Notification of winners will take another week or two so it might drag out to mid April or beyond.
Yeah, that is what I was going to say. When I see the 4.0’s all over, they are very often from California/AZ/Utah, etc. I am convinced this area of the country makes it easier to get a 4.0, probably a cultural thing. For example, A- for us drops you down from 4.0. Having a 4.0 generally means you got nothing wrong for 4 years on tests. We do not know anyone with a 4.0 here, and my youngest who is my most academic, has a 3.9 as a freshman. Like you, we probably have about 20 (out of 600 per grade) that will have a 4.0 AND take AP/H classes. They will go to Yale, Harvard, Cornell, etc.
This may be why the East Coast schools are offering more money to D2. I wonder if Utah (and other state schools further away that see fewer applicants from CT, MA and NJ) aren’t even aware of this.
The system they are using to hand out merit discourages students from challenging themselves. Sure my DD could have taken regular Calc and get an A+ as she did in all the classes leading to it, but she was also that child who sat in the classroom on her phone not paying attention and helping the kids around her who were having difficulty. This particular class and a new teacher, btw, actually challenged her in math for the first time ever. She taking AP Statistics and is sitting on a 102 average again, not being challenged. I would much rather have that child fighting for that B+, then that A + student sitting on her phone in the back of the classroom. In a way, I think it answers my question on whether or not this is the right school for her.
Agree with everything you said. It is extremely rare for a student to finish our HS with a 4.0 UW. My DD2 got one B+ in Spanish 3 We have an extremely weak foreign language program at our HS. She never got to take the SAT/ACT but it wouldn’t have helped her anyway with Utah. The top scholarship wasn’t an option because of one B+. My older DD had a lower UW GPA but higher rigor than D2. She scored high on the ACT and got the top scholarship at a different state’s flagship school. She finished her first semester with a 4.3 in CS in the School of Engineering. Had she applied to Utah she likely would have received no merit based on her GPA. Utah should take a more holistic approach for sure when deciding cutoffs but it is what it is for sure. I have learned two years in a row that the college admissions process is anything but fair.
I would agree for somewhere like AZ, where UW GPA is the only criterion this year and a huge proportion of kids get merit money. But it’s not really the case for Utah, the scholarships are going to kids with very rigorous course loads in addition to a 4.0. In prior years they set very high cutoffs for ACT scores as a weed out, arguably this is even more attuned to students who challenge themselves.
Utah just don’t offer that many merit scholarships overall compared to some other public and private schools. I’m guessing up to say 20 OOS presidential awards for perhaps 8000 OOS applicants, and even including Business Scholars and other programs there are only a few hundred OOS students attending with non-WUE merit each year. They have plenty of very capable students applying (eg 37 National Merit Scholars attended in 2019) and the overwhelming majority of students come from west of the Rockies so they probably aren’t thinking too much about how east coast schools structure their grading.
The good thing is that generous grading carries over to the college level too. The average across all majors is about 3.5 GPA and roughly 10% have 3.9 GPA or above (since merit scholarship recipients should be in the top 10% of the class, the 3.5 renewal cutoff really isn’t too much of a concern).
I don’t think @Twoin18 was referring to the number of APs, but moreso how it may be easier to get A’s in Honors or AP courses in different states. CT and MA have some of the smartest kids in the country, but it’s not easy to get As here in those courses. 4.0 UW are unheard of, even among the kids who go to Ivy League schools here.
Great point. My D1 also had lower UW than D2, also had a lot of rigor (including UCONN ECE courses). She went to Binghamton U, which is not an easy school to get into, and cruised to honors there. She said the courses were easier (or the same) so far than they were in her HS.
Binghamton is an adjacent state, so they know our state well, and made her a very good money offer despite having a 3.5 UW (all H and AP, and ECE)
Yes, it’s very disappointing, but that’s the unfortunate consequence of a non-holistic merit process and nothing can ever be fair to everyone. Other schools that are more holistic will have a different set of applicants that lose out, sometimes that is even based on their gender, race, background, etc. which creates a whole other set of issues.
There was a Californian kid last year who had the same issue after setting her heart on Utah, but got limited merit due to one B+. She got shortlisted for Regents at UCB and went there instead. I hope you have some other great options.
Yes, there are definitely kids who get As in the AP class, through hard work and doing extra credit assignments, but don’t get more than a 2 or 3 in the AP exam.
S has 3.97 uw. Happy he received WUE scholarship for $14k/yr, but a part of me can’t help but wonder if that one B+ prevented him from getting Presidential scholarship–$20k/yr. plus $5k/yr. housing stipend.
I did some research a week or so back, and in the past Eccles is chosen about a week after RD for the tippy tops (Ivy Day). My educated guess is decisions will be around April 15th.
As an example:
“The top three states by average SAT score are Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Minnesota. The bottom three states are Maine, Alabama, and West Virginia”
Meanwhile, CT is nowhere near the top in GPA, but WV is in the top 10 for GPA.
CT teachers seem to relish handing out the tougher marks
My daughter was accepted to the Kahlert STEM tower. It said ALL TOWERS on the 2nd line. I looked at the map and there are STEM room selections on floors 1-5. Although floor 1 are just cluster rooms. So, I assume you can choose a room on any of those floors in the STEM tower? If you hear different let me know! Thanks.
Answer from Housing:
You will be able to choose from any rooms in the Kahlert Village Community Engagement, Health and Wellness, and STEM towers, as well as the Engineering floor in the stem tower. The only areas in Kahlert Village that you will not be eligible for is the Outdoor Leadership floor, the College of Science first year community, and the Honors floors.
The biggest frustration for us is the lack of information. I have a nephew and two nieces, along with my son, who are all seniors this year. Combined, they have applied to 25+ schools. Utah and Berkley are the only two schools that have not released scholarship information. I understand COVID threw a wrench into everything, but other schools seemed to have figured it out. Meanwhile, Utah is stringing everyone along. I don’t know if all scholarships have all been awarded already, and he didn’t get one or if something will pop up in his portal at any moment. And you can’t get a straight answer from anyone in administration. Financial aid tells you one thing only to be contradicted by admissions. It’s pretty annoying.
Exactly Twoin18! When researching schools, narrowing down choices and finally applying we had a pretty strong understanding of each school’s approach when it came to scholarship awards. We learned ALOT from D1. Covid added some challenges but in the end, we had no surprises this year. D2 pretty much got exactly what we thought at each of the schools she applied to. It certainly helped to set her expectations in the beginning. D1 had a few disappointments but that was simply because we didn’t quite understand the process. Ultimately she ended up at a fantastic school and is doing amazing. It all tends to work out in the end (after some tears perhaps).
SP I am sure is Sage Point, but does Kalhert “All Towers” mean she can get any room anywhere including other LLC? That seems wrong, and I think there must be rooms not in a LLC or Honors classification.
