My son is super bright. He goes to a highly regarded prep school in the NE. This kid eats breathes computers. He programs in JAVA for fun!
His GPA is 3.66 his jr year. SAT 2050 (math 710, verbal 700). He is a legacy for MIT
What does anyone think about chances for:
MIT
Brown
Princeton (they mailed him stuff before we got on any list)
Carnegie Melon
Cornell
Dartmouth.
Other schools he’ll likely get into but not necessarily want to go:
WPI
Rensalleer
UMass Amherst
Any thoughts? Do we even bother applying to the Ivyies? I don’t want to waste visit time and application time if he most likely won’t get in.
Thx for any thoughts!
His math SAT score is too low (no offense) for most of these schools. Has he taken the Math 2 SAT (considering you need that to apply to MIT anyways)? What is his weighted GPA? Does he have any extracurriculars? Does he have any hooks? Does he have any AP scores?
What do you mean he is a legacy for MIT?
Selective colleges send brochures to a lot of students. There is nothing special about this.
GPA 3.66 in a selective prep school is not low. His GPA is probably on par with his test scores.
“Super bright” is relative, and MIT doesn’t consider legacy status.
SAT scores are too low for those schools. What are his safeties?
The question is what did he get non A grades in? It’s not all about grades, but for the highly competitive schools, there has to be a pattern of strengths related to the possible major. And then activities relevant to that (as well as some breadth.) OP needs to be learning what these colleges look for.
Lots of CS kids program. For the top schools, it’s not so much the doing (and/or loving) as much as what real challenges he has taken on, (not just in school or for his own fun,) and what comes of it. “Show, not just tell.” Read up from MITChris, on the college’s blog and in CC.
Also, there are lots of highly regarded preps in the NE. You and he need to be speaking with the GC, who will likely be encouraging kids in certain college directions- and not in others.
thank you for all your replies. I guess I didn’t have my email settings correct (who is the the dumb one?) and never knew anyone responded. Thank you albeit too late. We are still in College hell and trying to see our way thru. State schools are looking good to me now - save some money and reapply for Grad school.