<p>@mathyone – I think the number of APs taken varies tremendously by school. The vast, vast majority of students in our HS do not take an AP exam until Jr year. Students would need to be two years ahead in math in order to take AB or BC Calc Jr year, and then the other three academic subjects could be taken as AP. AP foreign languages would not be available until the fifth year of study, Sr year, assuming the student continued his FL from middle school. So, a student taking all honors classes starting in 9th grade may still only be enrolled in three of four APs Jr year and four, five or six Sr year. Our students are required to take the ‘regular’ or ‘honors’ level of a science before enrolling in the AP level, so many students do not take AP Science until Jr or Sr year. I realize this may be unique to our school</p>
<p>A handful of AP electives are offered: Econ, Studio Art, Computer Programming, Human Geo come to mind. Students have one elective class in addition to the four academic plus language plus gym/health that dovetails with the lab science sections. I think some high schools operate on different period/schedules that allow more courses per year.</p>
How many high GPA and otherwise qualified applicants with low test scores applied? Without knowing this, you can’t tell if the test scores had any impact on the admissions decisions.</p>
<p>The acceptance rates below are for Parchment members who had a 3.9+ GPA while taking 4+ AP classes over the past 3 years at varied combined SAT scores. The acceptance rate does decrease a bit at lower test scores, but it certainly does not suggest no hope for a high GPA student with a SAT of 2000. Sure it’s likely the lower scoring students are more likely to have hooks or apply to less stat-focused departments within Cornell, but it’s also likely that the higher scoring students are more likely to have stellar LORs, awards, essays, and similar, which could have as much to do with the increased rate of acceptance as the test scores. </p>
<p>Cornell:
2300-2400 – 61%
2200-2290 – 55%
2100-2190 – 45%
2000-2090 – 56% (small sample size)
Below 2000 – 1 out of 3 (too small sample to estimate rate)</p>
<p>@CT1417, at our high school, if a student takes honors/AP classes in all 5 core subjects, (starting math and language in middle school) and the rest every year in high school, then they end up taking 8 AP classes. I am counting 3 history/gov, 1 math (school requires a whopping 5 years of math starting with alg1 before the kids are allowed into calc), 2 English, 1 language (assuming they are doing a language where AP is offered), and 1 science (school requires regular science classes prior to any AP). So we do have some limitations; in general kids cannot just jump into APs. And if they got a 4.0 average on that schedule, which is the highest possible unweighted GPA–that is not enough to be in the 10% of the graduating class. I don’t know whether that schedule would even earn them “maximum rigor” from the GC since they can certainly take more than just the 8, and evidently at least 10% of them are doing this.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to suggest that all schools are or should be like this. However our school is not anywhere near as elite as the schools mentioned by the OP, and so it made me wonder whether the OP is in touch with what the other kids at the school are doing. I certainly had no idea how many APs the students at our school were taking until I saw the weighted GPA’s on the school profile sheet for my daughter’s senior class. And I was surprised by the implications, described in the above paragraph.</p>
<p>If we’re talking about an average US high school or worse, that’s correct. However, in an academically competitive high school like the OP’s D is attending, a score below 2000 would be considered “middling” at best, especially if her GPA places her in the top 10% of students by GPA.</p>
<p>At some competitive high schools, even a 2000-2100 would mean one is below the average of the overall student body of some highly academically competitive high schools. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not all such students. However, some adcoms I’ve met/known would have such concerns of some such students if the SAT scores were too low in relation to the school’s minimums or in relation to one’s high GPA and there was no counterbalancing strengths or plausible explanations. </p>
<p>There may be other possible concerns such as possible excessive parental help on homework, cheating on quizzes/exams, or possible favoritism from being a “teacher’s pet”. </p>
<p>It’s little different from possible concerns they may have of students having low GPAs and higher SATs such as the possibility they’re “smart, but lazy”, not very agreeable**, etc. </p>
<ul>
<li>A.K.A.: Doesn’t take to following orders or conforming very well, rebellious, marches to the beat of his/her own drum. Similar in some ways to how PhD students and academics judge each other on the subjective basis of “collegiality”.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Also consider that a higher than average percentage of the lower scoring APPLICANTS in the Ivy pool, are likely to have some sort of “something extra” that gives them reason to believe that they might be viable candidates. Sure, there are a certain number of totally delusional people who might throw out an application with no hope of admission, but I’d wager that most students with 1290 SAT scores, unlike most students with 1550 SAT scores, are not looking at super elite schools. The ones that are are likely to have something else in their resume to justify the application.</p>
<p>Granted, some of those kids might, like the OP’s D, be applying largely on the basis of super-high GPAs. But I’d also suspect that the percentage of hooked students among the 600-640 range is greater than that at the 750-800 range; the latter group doesn’t need a hook to make it worth applying, while the former does. So, a 6 or 8 % admit rate at that level at certain Ivies needs to be taken in context: that’s 6-8 % of a group likely to have a high concentration of hooked applicants. </p>
<p>In this case, I’m defining a “hook” as “something the college wouldn’t easily be able to get if it limited its admits to higher scorers.” It is possible that Cornell wouldn’t have a lot of URM students if it refused to look at anyone who had scored below a 1400. I don’t think, however, Cornell has any trouble finding students from good NE high schools in the top 5 % of their class.</p>
<p>That’s why my advice remains to target schools (once you’ve got the safeties lined up) a notch down from the Ivies and co. Not only will the SAT range be somewhat lower anyway, some of these schools, while very strong, might not have student bodies littered with students with 4.3 GPAs from top high schools, in which case the transcript does become a kind of hook.</p>
<p>The point is to make it clear to your D that she’ll have plenty of great choices even if the schools she was once considering aren’t among them.</p>
<p>Just FYI, from the college board, looking at the number of AP exams taken by students in the 4-year period from 2009-2012, there were 37688 students taking 9 or more exams and 28996 taking exactly 8. It’s hard to know how accurately that measures AP class enrollment since there are lots of students who take AP classes but not the exams, and also (probably far fewer) students who take AP exams without taking the classes. But it appears not all that uncommon to take more than 8 AP classes. Those number have skyrocketed from just a decade ago.</p>
I’d expect being a URM to be the most common hook among admitted students. If I filter the admit rates I listed earlier for only non-URMs, the change in admit rate from all races is very slight and still does not suggest test scores are having a great impact on admissions for top GPA + high course rigor students:</p>
<p>Cornell:
2300-2400 – 61%
2200-2290 – 52%
2100-2190 – 44%
2000-2090 – 40% (small sample size)
Below 2000 – Only 1 applicant with 3.9+ UW GPA and 4+ APs</p>
<p>In Cornell’s admission website’s summary of what they are looking for, they mention looking for intellectual potential as measured by course rigor and a passion for learning, character (they list honesty, open mindedness, initiative, and empathy), EC/communitiy/workplace involvement, essays, and reasons for wanting to attend Cornell. Elsewhere they state, "First and foremost, we look at your high school record, the rigor of your coursework, your grades, and your rank-in-class (don’t worry if your school doesn’t rank – that’s quite common). The personal application you write (essays, extracurriculars, etc.) is also a very important piece of Cornell’s selection process. Standardized testing plays a role, but probably not as much as you think. " The CDS markings of importance give a similar picture. Regarding test scores they say, they say they have no minimum cutoff scores and,</p>
<p>“Standardized test scores are only a small part of your application for admission. Let me say that again, standardized test scores are only a small part of your application for admission. SAT or ACT scores represent one Saturday in your high school career (ok, maybe two or three or four…)…”</p>
<p>So you can listen to what they say on their website and assume those qualities can override lower scores (a combination of GPA, course rigor, character, and personal traits, essays, LORs, ECs, reasons for wanting to attend, etc.), you can look at what has occurred in Parchment member admission decisions, and look at what has occurred with anecdotal examples in posters on this forum; or you can ignore all of this and assume that the low scoring students all are hooks, and you’ve got no shot at an ivy without high test scores unless you are a comparable hook.</p>
<p>At our kids’ school, APs were only offered to junior and seniors, which used to freak out many new admitted students’ parents in 9th grade (we are paying so much money here, our public school offered so many more APs). They didn’t offer APs in every subject because they wanted to be flexible with their curriculum. That being said, a lot of students took AP exams and often received 4 or 5 without having taken the course. I don’t believe number of APs offered at a school is a good indicator how “elite” a school is.</p>
<p>I watch Cornell’s decision thread every year. During the RD round, I do not see as many students getting admitted with below 700 scores, especially 650 and below. Someone may get admitted to engineering with close to 800 in math and 650 in CR, or ILR with high 700 in CR and lower math score. </p>
<p>I would say, their (students and parents) loss. I still say it’s inane to pick a college based on other people’s reactions. Listen to whoever said stop comparing and talking about colleges . In the Class of 2015 thread, someone said “Run Your Own Race” and the lightbulb went on for everyone. </p>
<p>I’ve had to listen to how my daughter is applying to a “junior” college and the only good school in that state was the flagship the speaker attended. The flagship is in the top 25 but it is also the antithesis of what D wants in a college. Trust me, D is not wasting her time stressing how to get into this flagship because some woman thinks lowly of her own choice. As for me? I still like this woman but my opinion of her went down a bit. I thought she was more open-minded than that.</p>
<p>As I said above, D ran into negative feedback (disdain) about her early top choice, making her doubt the school until the second visit. Now, she could care less what others think (luckily she always had this quality). If they think poorly of the school, they need not apply. If they speak poorly of the school to her, knowing she’s applying, they’re just rude.</p>
<p>@Data10 – I would guess that a fair # of those lower SAT admits are also recruited athletes, at least at some of the Ivies and the NESCACs.</p>
<p>@mathyone – I don’t think a HS’s rigor can be determined based on the # of AP exams offered. Our school profile shows that 97% of exam scores were three or higher. Now, perhaps that is partially a function of not allowing students to take AP courses until Jr year (with some exceptions). How do you think 10% of your HS class are managing to take more than eight courses? (Getting off topic here….sorry!)</p>
<p>We did not discuss college application choices even with our families. When they asked, we politely told them that DD had applied to a variety of schools, and they would be amongst the first to know when she made her matriculation choice.</p>
<p>DD was top 4% of her class. Her SAT total was just under 2000. She didn’t apply to any Ivy or similar schools. She did apply to one southern competitive LAC where she was not accepted.</p>
<p>But she applied to her top three choices, two EA and one rolling admissions, and had two acceptances before thanksgiving, and one the second week of December.</p>
<p>Everyone thought her college was a UC. It’s not. </p>
<p>The only important thing to HER and US was that the schools had all of the things on DD’s criteria list.</p>
<p>This OP’s daughter needs a criteria list, not a prestige list. Then she should find a mix of colleges that meet those criteria…and send off her applications.</p>
<p>I think some good points have been made here by Data10, atommom, and CPT. Calmom, although you are thoughtful and knowledgeable, I do not think your D’s story can be generalized to many others - same for Mini’s D. From what I see in the same geographic area and same types of schools, if you have a “blemish” on your application such as “lower” SAT or ACT, they will pick the kid(s) from your school with the 36 Act/1550+ Sat and stellar grades over your kid at HYP and other top Ivys. Some top LACs will be open to your kid, and hey your never know, maybe something on her app could tickle admissions in the Ivys, but I wouldn’t count on it. Yes, there are many great schools outside the IVys and popular schools and the OPs daughter no doubt can find happiness and success there.</p>
<p>Also, don’t count on ACT being a better fit than SAT. ACT has the science section and the reading section, which are both essentially reading sections, and are a test of speed reading. As I recall from above, OP’s D had lower 600s for reading. IMO, SAT reading is easier than ACT reading and ACT science. I have studied both of these tests myself, and the philosophy of the questions is different in ACT reading vs SAT reading. Additionally, as a fast reader myself, I think the time for the ACT reading is quite pressured. If you haven’t looked at the tests yourself, do so, and maybe you will see what I mean. I think it is easier to improve on SAT reading, but a good tutor who understands where the student is falling short is needed. Also for a top student who does well in math, tutoring to the “hard problems” i.e. permutations and combinations, and other areas that the student makes errors in should be able to be accomplished. The math on both ACT and SAT is actually pretty straightforward if you know the subject areas. There is no trig on the SAT, but there is on the ACT, I believe. ACT English and SAT writing are somewhat similar in that you need to know grammar and vocab. OP perhaps your daughter doesn’t really know where her weaknesses are in the tests, and she need to know if she wants to do better. Do I think that a lot of time and money can be wasted trying to jump through these hoops? YES and YES. However, this is the framework that is out there. If the OP’s daughter is determined to improve, she has many months until the fall test dates, and she can do a lot to help herself. Just doing practice tests without understanding where the weaknesses lie will not help. Try to do as many “real” former tests as possible under close to real test conditions.</p>
<p>If you have a good guidance counselor, now is the time to start looking for a college list that is outside the box. It is difficult to convince some kids that they must look at places other than HYP and Ivys, but to have a realistic list, even for those with 1500+, this is necessary. I have seen quite a few kids who thought HYP or Dartmouth or Cornell was a shoe in receive a big shock at decision time. “Even” Cornell rejects people with 800 test scores and excellent grades. The “secret” to not having a horrible shock at decision time is, as many others have said, is to find some schools for the list where the applicant is fairly certain of admission, and where the applicant will be happy to attend. Good luck to all.</p>
<p>Sorry to double post, but I did leave out a couple of things that may be helpful. SAT is not preferred over ACT. People get into HYP and other Ivys from Ny/NJ without ever showing an SAT score. From my kid’s school, I saw no one who reportedly had “lower” SAT/ACT (or grades for that matter) get into an IVY/ top college, and it is a very well regarded HS. Some kids who did not go to tippy top schools did transfer after one year to Ivys. I expect they did well in the schools that they went to in order to be able to transfer. Also, as to ACT superscoring - call the admissions offices of colleges that you are looking at to find out if they do it. Many top LAC’s and some universities do superscore ACT, but this is evolving, and not necessarily publicized on their website. Also, what some LAC’s have said in the past is that for ED, they may be more forgiving of “blemishes” since the student agrees to commit to attend. The percentage accepted ED has been going up for many of the “top” schools. Some of the LAC’s have interviews where a committed candidate can show their strengths and interest in the college. Interviews carry no real weight at many “top” universities.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that a high school’s rigor is determined by how many AP courses they offer. I said that I was wondering whether the OP’s assessment of the rigor of her daughter’s schedule is accurate within the context of her school, considering it is one of the most elite schools in the country, and that is unfortunately the context in which her daughter is competing. The number of kids taking 8+ APs has increased 3-4 fold just over the past decade.</p>
<p>@CT1417, How do they take more than 8 APs at our school? 8 blocks per year and the kids have a total of about 8 electives, typically 3 each in the junior and senior years. For example, they could take 4 years arts, and 4 APs as electives while upperclassmen; we have most of the APs and also a few dual enrollment classes. Among the elite schools, there seem to be quite a few offering more advanced post-AP classes, eg. multivariable calc. and I would think students getting that far have also done a fair amount of AP level work.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many APs average top students take at our school. My oldest took AP Comp Sci freshman year as an elective, a select group of sophomores take AP World and a somewhat larger group took AP Physics B (I don’t know what they’ll do with the new version of the course). Because students can take High school Biology in middle school, even students who don’t take Physics B can take an AP science as a junior, APUSH is taken by lots of kids and AP Lang by a smaller number. Senior year many students will take an AP Lang one of the AP Calc courses or Statistics and then there are all the other APs - Envirnomental, Gov, Econ, Art, Music Theory - all of which are offered by the school.</p>
<p>Many colleges, top rate ones, aren’t giving extra points for anything over a certain core of AP courses. BC Calc is considered a plus for those seeking STEM program entry, and if the most rigorous curriculum at a school means taking those APs, they can indirectly affect you, but sheer number of APs alone is not always counted anywhere. Also how well the school as a whole does do on the AP exams is looked at as well as junior year and earlier AP test scores. So what if you are taking AP courses at a school where most of the kids don’t take the AP exam, or do not so hot on it? </p>
<p>Hi everyone. Thanks again for all the thoughtful comments. A few of you maintain that my D is a pretty good candidate for top schools, but most of you are certain that she will be screened out, despite her super-high rank in a well-known, competitive HS. One person asked if I can get ahold of the school profile that the HS sends to colleges to see how they position themselves. Not necessary. This high school is a known HS. There is not an admissions officer on the east coast or in any top school who is not very familiar with this HS.</p>
<p>Some of you mentioned such schools as Rhodes, Elon, Beloit, Miami, Wittenberg, Skidmore, University of Delaware, Gettysburg, Boston University, etc. All GREAT schools. The problem is that these are the schools that the students in the 40th or 50th percentile of her class go to. She is top 5%. How can you tell a kid that all her hard work over four years does not matter? Why WOULDN’T a student who is 18th in her class be upset that the most competitive school might be able to get into is Elon or BU? I don’t blame her for being upset. After all, as she says, she could have taken it easy all these years, graduated with a 3.5 unweighted, and ended up at the same school.</p>
<p>The all-female schools are a great idea. I am almost certain she can get in to Smith, Barnard, and Mt. Holyoke. She is not interested. An all-female school is a hard sell. But she will have to decide just how important prestige is to her. Barnard or Univ of Maryland? Smith or Lafayette?</p>
<p>I am starting to generate a list of schools that she has a good/strong chance of getting into (targets) AND that she would consider:
-University of Michigan
-University of Southern California
-Tulane
-University of Maryland
-University of Rochester
-Colgate
-Lehigh</p>
<p>You get the idea. She is not interested in small LACs, except maybe Lehigh or Colgate. I know that the collective wisdom here is that she HAS to get interested in them. It’s just not what she wants. Any others to recommend that are similar to the above?</p>
<p>I think you should add Vanderbilt. My sisters ACT score wasn’t the best but she got in early. She is doing very well there, she’s very involved on campus and has gotten really great grades.</p>
<p>I definitely agree your daughter should retake the SAT and try the ACT this fall. The ACT may be better since then she won’t need subject tests. If timing is not the issue for her she might do better on it. I know a number of people who did a lot better on the ACT than the SAT.</p>
<p>Yes, have studied Naviance. I thought Tufts would be difficult to get into. The standardized test scores are very high, and they take something like 40% of the class ED. She wouldn’t apply ED there.</p>
<p>Do you all think EDII admissions are included in the statistics of students admitted ED?</p>