<p>Hi everybody, my son is an Asian male with a 3.35 weighted grade point average and 2200 sat (2140 single, 680 reading 750 math 770 writing). He is a Chinese male with a decent amount of extra activities like FBLA, FLDC and Robotics, although no leadership positions. He has teacher's assistant and hospital volunteer experience which provided a lot of community service hours.</p>
<p>He is also due to receive his SAT subject tests on october 25th for Math II and US History. I expect him to get at least 720 or higher.</p>
<p>The problem is, he did really bad freshman year and barely better sophomore year. only Honor he had was Chinese and then Junior year he got a lot of A-s in all his academic classes but English. Now he is in all AP classes aside from English and maintaining B+ and A- averages.</p>
<p>I am really worried for him. I know our state college, Rutgers, is probably a good choice for him but he does not want to go there since all his friends are applying to better schools in the top 20 range. Does anybody know some top 50 schools that he might be able to reach to?</p>
<p>His dream schools are Boston College, USC, and UNC but I think those are out of the picture</p>
<p>No, sadly he was only in Chinese honors junior year. He is taking about 4 APs senior year though in an attempt to boost his credentials and he is doing decent in them but I’m afraid it may be too late for a college to notice his improvement</p>
<p>He can always start at Rutgers and try to transfer if he is able to maintain a high enough GPA. The fact that his friends are applying to more top schools (which they probably have the grades for) is not a reason for him to compete with them. He needs to be someplace that he fits regardless of whether it is a top 50 school or not.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’m not sure why you would be interested in finding a top 50 school. College is hard. Top colleges are even harder. It’s not clear that his hs experience is rigorous enough prep. The SAT scores are great, but college success requires more than sheer brainpower. </p>
<p>Concentrate on finding a college that is a good fit. And if you can milk those score for good scholarship money… all the better. Good luck!</p>
<p>This is the son himself now, my mom posted this thread on my account haha. Although I do agree with what my mom said… Rutgers is a fine choice for me, yeah, but I would prefer not to go. I’m mainly interested in CompSci and Rutgers doesn’t have too great of a program for it. </p>
<p>I do agree with the transfer idea, but that’s sort of risky for me. My friends at RU have all told me it’s VERY easy to lose focus there. While I definitely won’t be taking college as a time to relax and mess around, I have to admit I’m prone to distractions. It’s an inherent flaw of mine.</p>
<p>Hi son. Welcome to the college world of distraction. It exists everywhere, not just at Rutgers. So to be successful anywhere you will have to work on that. </p>
<p>You could also start at a smaller school and start your prereqs and still transfer. There are a number of smaller LAC in PA that might be a less distracting environment for you.</p>
<p>Rutgers is a perfectly good school for CS (in the top 50 for CS in a widely read ranking, if that is what you are paying attention to).</p>
<p>Minnesota, NCSU, Stony Brook, and Virginia Tech are all respectable for CS, and not super-expensive for out-of-state.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a 3.35 weighted GPA might imply a rather poor unweighted GPA, which would hamper admissions to the above schools (though an upward trend may help). What is the unweighted GPA?</p>
<p>Some students do start at community college, transfer to the state flagship, then go on to PhD programs in CS. That may be a way to leave a poor high school record behind.</p>
<p>Note that if the poor grades were mainly in 9th grade, the public universities in California calculate their admissions GPA without them (although 9th grade course grades still have to be C or higher for the courses to count toward course requirements).</p>
<p>However, the UC comprehensive review will see all courses and grades, and UCs are expensive for out-of-state students. The less expensive and mostly less selective CSUs mainly use GPA and test score formulas. Cal Poly SLO (the most selective of the CSUs) does some more criteria than just GPA and test scores, but it is a well regarded school for engineering and CS, with a relatively low out-of-state price.</p>
<p>I think your best bet would be to have a really great freshman year at Rutgers and transfer if you aren’t happy there. I can’t speak for the finances of that move though, nor can I help with the distractions. Alternatively, you could go to a strictly tech institution like New Jersey Institute of Technology. I suspect places like WPI and RPI or the other tech schools might be too reachy and/or won’t offer merit aid to make them affordable.</p>
<p>Defining a top 50 school is tough.There are many lists i.e USNWR,Forbes, Washington Times etc.Decide what you want from college and research the methodology of the various lists if you must use a list.</p>
<p>My initial inclination is to send son off to Rutgers and have him prove that he is now a serious student. If he shows great work ethic then he gets to transfer. However, his comment about distractions makes me think that ADD may be a factor (don’t ya love the virtual diagnosis?) and that perhaps big state U may not be the best fit. Have you considered any of the Colleges that Change Lives schools? [CTCL</a> Members | Colleges That Change Lives](<a href=“http://www.ctcl.org/colleges/list]CTCL”>http://www.ctcl.org/colleges/list)</p>
<p>A school like Denison in Ohio would have son’s major and would probably love the 2200 SAT score enough to give him a merit scholarship. The smaller environment would offer less distractions - the smaller class size makes it harder to skip. I think it’s time to think outside the box and not care so much what son’s friends are doing.</p>
<p>If you are looking for a good college in CS, just look across the river at Drexel in Philadelphia. There is a Robotics scholarship that is available to members of a FIRST robotics team, but I think the deadline is soon if it hasn’t already passed. Here’s a link for all FIRST scholarships: [2013</a> FIRST Scholarship Opportunities | USFIRST.org](<a href=“http://www.usfirst.org/scholarshipsearch.aspx]2013”>ALUMNI | FIRST) They offer free applications when you visit. Great co-op programs. Another city college for B students that has a co-op program is Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston - [Wentworth</a> Institute of Technology: Boston, MA : Wentworth Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.wit.edu/]Wentworth”>http://www.wit.edu/)</p>
<p>Another techy college for B students is Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne Florida. Rochester Institute of Technology is one more. My son was offered a robotics scholarship at all of these with the exception of Wentworth, which doesn’t have one, but is quite affordable.</p>
<p>Just a question here…is the student seeking an education that is not available/rigorous enough at Rutgers, or the bragging rights that come with a “more highly rated school than Rutgers” because some of his academically more successful friends are applying to “top 20” schools?</p>
<p>The student might do best at a smaller environment than Rutgers–but it doesn’t seem as if the Mom or the Student is seeking so much as a better environment as much as a better “name.”</p>
<p>Although I agree that the OP should concentrate more on finding schools with good CS and other programs of interest in case he changes majors, not sure that he should rule out top 50 schools altogether because “they’re too hard”…especially not with a 2200 SAT. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen of undergrad classmates and undergrad tutoring clients, the ones who tend to be most overwhelmed academically in college…especially respectable/elite colleges are those with high GPAs and low SATs. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, those with low GPA/high SATs have had far fewer issues adapting to college level academics. Part of it is having a low GPA/high SAT score may just mean his grades are severely depressed because he’s attending a highly academically rigorous high school with high standards like the one I attended. </p>
<p>Moreover, not everyone finds college…even those in the top 50 to be harder than high school. Most of my HS classmates and I found it to be the opposite.</p>
<p>Found the high GPA/low SAT scorers attended high schools which had serious grade inflation and/or lacked academic rigor…especially considering most of them mentioned something about being able to “breeze through” without having to do much/any meaningful homework or having to put in serious study time to get As on exams/classes. </p>
<p>That really threw them for a loop once they fell behind on their assigned readings/problem sets and received their first papers/midterms back.</p>
<p>Can someone tell me what is considered a “poor” GPA?..and how can that determine what you will do in college, graduate school and career? A little bit about myself?..of course, years ago…</p>
<p>3.0 GPA in high school
1300 SAT (equivalent to 1900 on 2400 scale)
2.7 GPA (undergraduate Math/CS major at Michigan State)
3.9 GPA (graduate degree in Engineering, U-Wisconsin, no GRE exam)</p>
<p>23 years as software engineer. I could easily do management but firms no longer pay managers much more than senior technical staff, so why “babysit”? Society SAYS I am at top-5% in income BUT I live in the Washington DC area so the cost-of-living here swallows that up, but still…</p>
<p>I think we pay WAY too much attention to rankings, AP credits and the like. It is hard to determine from any of those metrics how one will do in college or grad school or on the job.</p>
<p>I think a lot depends on just how LOW the GPA is. In the case of this OP, it seems like the unweighted GPA might be below a 3.0. The OP kid himself says he gets distracted and didn’t do the necessary work for better grades. Who is to say that this pattern will change? </p>
<p>We know a number of low SAT/high GPA kids who were outstanding college students.</p>
<p>There are a number of very fine schools that have gone SAT optional because they realizes that the actual school performance of a student was a better indicator of college success than the SAT.</p>