<p>My daughter's school just start the Cum Laude club. and it is by invitation only. The requirement is based on the highest GPA on the 15%. She has accumulated GPA about 4.3, the current quarter GPA is about 4.45. But she did NOT get in the club.</p>
<p>I expect tonight will be a nightmare to her and I feel terrible too. I would like to know how does that affect the college applications? She wants to go to Stanford and Ivies. Thanks.</p>
<p>I don't think that Cum Laude club membership is important, but being in the top 10% of the graduating class is very important for Stanford and the Ivies.</p>
<p>Dear Desperate: what counts are unweighted GPA and class standing. If your D's unweighted GPA is 4.3, neither of you have anything to worry about. </p>
<p>However, being new to CC, you should read the many posts on these boards that discuss the need to apply to schools beyond the Ivies and Stanford, since many many top students apply there, and there is very heavy competition for these schools.</p>
<p>You are right in time to start reading these boards, putting together ideas about applying to college, and taking part in these discussions. Keep it up, and next year this time you will be reporting on your daughter's successes.</p>
<p>if they invite the top 15% of the class or the top 15% of the whole high school. Her school does not do the ranking to the college. She has been taking quite challenging courses ( like AP Chem on Sophomore year instead of Honor Chem), she is taking AP Physics this year while the class only has 7 students because the teacher is a killer. But now she found out her friends who take Honors and then AP ( unlike my Daughter she jumps to AP directly)
has higher GPA and they are in.</p>
<p>The GPA point I mentioned is unweighted GPA. She is also taking community college course in the summer but the school does not count.</p>
<p>I am going to tell her what you said and hopefully she will not wet her pillow tonight. It has been pretty bad year for her as she did not do her SAT Math section well this March. Sigh!</p>
<p>Desperate, DadofSam is right. Your daughter may get into Stanford or the Ivies but a) Cum Laude club is not going to be significant, b) lots of schools have strange ways to doing ranking/GPA and the colleges manage to adjust, c) there are <em>lots</em> of very very very good schools outside Stanford and the Ivies and your daughter should start developing her criteria <em>now</em> and widening her circle of prospects <em>now</em>. You should read some of the very brutal admissions threads for some of the top schools this year as well as the thread here in the Parents Forum about Rejected EA/ED last year that has the ultimate outcomes and how the students feel about them. My D is so happy where she is that <em>she</em> would turn down Harvard if it was offered to her and Stanford, which had been an in-state sentimental choice at one time, isn't even on the retrospective radar screen. (Don't ask me about Yale though...I'm still grumped she didn't get in but my D is fine with it, long forgotten...which illustrates the point that most of the kids cope better than most of the parents.)</p>
<p>Don't worry. She sounds as if she's doing great. Cum Laude is an honors society for private schools, but each school gets to decide on the criteria used for becoming a member. (For example, at my son's school it was not based on grade point. Rather, each department nominated students and a student had to be nominated by at least two departments. This rewarded some kids who were outstanding in certain areas, but did not necessarily have to highest gpa in the class. His school used to select some students Junior year and others senior year, but went to only senior year, specifically to remove it from the college admissions race.)
It's a nice honor, but because each school selects students for it differently, it doesn't tell the college as much as your daughter's transcript will. During admissions, they will notice not only her gpa but the courses she took -- that she went straight to AP classes, that she took community college classes in the summer. The fact that she keeps challenging herself and does outstanding work is what counts the most.</p>
<p>fwiw, my S "forgot" to fill out the forms for National Honor Society last year (see old thread on boys' "wad" method of paper management), so obviously did not get in. When I spoke to our excellent GC, she said NHS has no "street value" in terms of colleges caring about it. They care about strength of program, grades/GPA and rank if school does it. I would guess Cum Laude society is like NHS in that regard. S got in as a Senior but, of course, irrelevant to college apps at that time.</p>
<p>Hi,
I was just one of six seniors elected to the cum laude society at our school. It is supposed to be awarded for academic excellence only, as the society feels as though there are other means to honor sports, other talents, etc.</p>
<p>It reflects being considered in the top 10% of the senior class. That means something. But, judging from my admissions decisions, it in itself does not mean a whole lot. Just honor your child for achieving this honor without trying to attach some other "worth" to it (ie. college admissions). It is an honor, and it's value to me runs quite a bit deeper than a thick or thin envelope.</p>
<p>Don't worry about it--Cum Laude Society membership is nice but not in the least a passport to college admissions, nor is not being a member a sign that your D will not get in hwere she wishes. At my kids' school over the past several years there have been students who got in to Harvard, Penn, Stanford, and other great "dream" schools without being named to Cum Laude junior year (they got in senior year after the college app proces was all over, so nice for the ego). And there hvae been kids who got waitlisted or denied at most of their top choices even though they were junior-year Cum Laude members. The main thing is for your daughter to keep her spirits up--as well as her grades, and ECs. Also, she should be sure when she gets her recs next year that the teachers she is getting them from are really are strongest advocates; not getting in to Cum Laude can be a bit of a political signal and you want to be sure that whoever did not advocate for her membership is not someone she is asking for college recs. However, I think students also have veto power over membership, so it might not have had much to do with the teachers.</p>
<p>I agree w/most of the comments. My #2 son was inducted to Cum Laude as a junior today, very selective for his school. Before you jump to conclusions on why your D was not selected, you should find out what criteria are used for your school. At ours, leadership and modeling mature behavior count in addition to academics; athletics and ec's don't count at all. It is a small enough upper school that the entire faculty votes for members--even the French teachers know my S who has studied Japanese. Not at all like the department-nominated system. Our school does not weight the GPA's, but of the 5 juniors inducted today, none of them were taking only standard classes (the "form leader" i.e. valedictorian, which is based solely on GPA, will be a 4.0 but all in standard classes, if history predicts).</p>
<p>Don't be the least concerned... many other factors are much more important. Of all, I think the most important is taking the most challenging classes offered.</p>
<p>If it wasn't your words of encouragement, my daughter would probably still be very down at this moment. But I think she is fine now, there are too many things to worry about.</p>
<p>This support I get from this forum is truly amazing!! Thank you.</p>