DS fits in that group (33 act, 3.8 uw gpa). Going to Drake, and he is super excited!
Might be helpful/interesting to some here. While it is from Harvard-Westlake, which is considered one of the top West Coast prep schools, some of the info will be relevant to any high-testing kid.
If you scroll to the bottom, they broke out the acceptance per application for Weighted GPA ranges at all schools. HW average ACT is a ~32 so if your kid is hitting 33+ on the ACT they are going to have stronger tests scores than half the kids on that chart. There are likely some schools with specific relationships with HW that will affect this (or hurt it - I just noticed Wake Forest took 0 HW kids in the past couple of years - probably tired of them not coming.)
I would not look at this as gospel, but if your kid is at a welll-regarded HS, or even has a lot of APs, and 32+ ACT this might suggest some possibilities (note, the second chart is “regular” kids. The first is “special” ie. legacy, sports etc. Ignore the first one.)
People must be getting in via non-impacted majors in some cases. Important to state the major applied for.
Vitals for son:
3.73 UW at end of junior year, 4.05 UC GPA, somewhere around 4.3 for weighted GPA depending on whether you include community college classes. 1540 SAT (740 EBRW, 800 Math, 22 Essay). 35 ACT. 800 Math II, 780 Chem for Subj Tests. 10 AP classes taken and/or taking. Decent ECs, a couple of hooks very few people have. Programming internship with a startup gaming company. About 40 semester units in community college taken. Went to a fairly high achieving public HS with a majority Asian population, barely top 10% in his class.
Apparently the “safeties” that we thought actually weren’t safeties, most likely because of the high number of applicants at each school and the major applied to (CS). We never bothered reading any advice from any of the CC forums. He didn’t go for any merit, all the schools he applied for were “name” schools that were Top 40 for CS and that he actually saw the campus at one point in his life and where he thought he had a shot at getting in. All in or near big cities. Some, like CalTech, Columbia, Penn and MIT he didn’t think he had a chance while others that he had checked out and in some cases real familiar with (NYU, Santa Clara, DePaul, SJSU, Colorado, Michigan, UIUC) he didn’t bother with for one reason or another. He didn’t bother with EA or ED, partly due to laziness and procrastination, partly due to his 6 AP class schedule and mainly because he only had one school he really wanted to go to (Stanford) that offered ED. His counselor didn’t think that he would be able to get in for ED with that GPA, better to hold off and submit first semester senior grades.
Accepted: UC-Berkeley (L&S, CS, committed), UC-Davis (L&S CS), UCSB (CS in Engineeeing)
Waitlisted: Carnegie-Mellon (SIS), Northeastern (CS), UCSD (CSE), UCI (CS)
Rejected: Stanford, USC (CS), Vanderbilt (CS), Northwestern (CS), UCLA (CSE)
In the end, he got into and committed to the other school he really wanted to go to, UC-Berkeley. in summary he got behind the eight ball with his unweighted GPA but made up for it with test scores and other things.
@Lindagaf a 34 ACT will for sure get merit aid, but you’ll need to willing to apply/attend those that give it.
I’m sure you aware of places like Baylor where you’d probably get 22k, or LA state - I think it’s 20k… AZ around 10K? etc. There will be lots of options. Find merit where you want to attend is sometimes more challenging.
A relative with those stats:
Accepted: Reed, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State
Waitlisted: Brandeis
Rejected: Tufts, Brown
@CaliDad2020 yes, my son will be applying to several colleges that might offer merit, and which he is very interested in. He doesn’t have any high reach schools on the list at this point. Top choice currently is Syracuse.
@gallentjill , your D should look at Union (ny). Bs/MD option, and she would probably get some merit. We were really impressed by this one in our search.
My D was in this group, 3.8 GPA (was lower mid year due to senioritis) and 33 Act. Was accepted EA to Case Western with 25k merit, RD at American with 20k merit, Hunter College Muse Scholar with 4K honors award (tuition at CUNY is only around $6700), and waitlisted Macaulay Honors College. She was accepted in the joint degree program at JTS List College/ Columbia University and that is where she will be going in the fall. She only applied to 4 schools but we chose thoughtfully and “showed the love”.
@gardenstategal Thanks! Its on our radar. We will be visiting in a couple of weeks.
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D2 3.5UW/4.0W (not great FR year) 35 ACT 1540 SAT. She targeted only schools with aerospace engineering where likely to get merit. Instate for GA and TN (ACM). GaTech (reach) ruled out early due to fit issues. Attending Case Western with 25k merit. Also accepted with good merit at (and would have been happy with) UAH, Auburn, Embry Riddle, Ohio State, RPI, and Tennessee. No wait lists, no rejections.
Many from Georgia at Auburn.
I’ll be keeping an eye on these results. Have a kid coming up that will probably end up in the 3.5-3.6 UW GPA (we hope…) but tends to standardize test in the 95-99% range, so likely 32-33 (again, we hope). Will be interesting to see what the results for other students are. Our kid will be looking for mid-sized city-close school.
With our other kids/neices/friends, we’ve noticed a very big difference between 3.5-3.6 and 3.7-3.8. 3.7-3.8 kids with high ACT/SAT can usually snag one or two “top 20/sub 20%” school admissions - although not always the exact school they want. 3.5-3.6 have to look to a bit less selective schools, even with strong test scores, unless very high level sports or other exceptional and time consuming ECs mitigate the grades.
So keep posting if you want. We’re interested.
Now that most EA/ED and rolling decisions are in, wondering how the results pan out here
@billycat My son falls into this category. UW GPA 88.44, ACT 34, SAT 1480. He’s had acceptances to Penn State, Binghamton, U Denver, and Indiana U. He has yet to hear about any reaches, and it will be sometime before he does get news about a couple of them. I think he will end up at Penn State or IU. Maybe Syracuse.
I’ve been thinking about this while looking at stats of different schools. It seems to me that many kids have the attitude that they will apply to top-20 or even top-30 schools, but if they don’t get in, they will save money and go to their state flagship college. The drop-off seems to be at around the CMU/Emory/Tufts level (and Davidson/Haverford/Vassar for LACs). Above that point int he rankings, pretty much all schools report that greater than 90% of admitted applicants have a GPA in the top 10% of their class; below that point, almost all schools are below 80%.
So, my impression is that if you are in that group and have the money, you will go to schools like Colgate, Tulane, Case Western, Wake Forest, Wesleyan, etc., otherwise you will opt for the best public option.
@RayManta , I don’t agree with that. Kids with a 3.5 GPA are not getting into Tufts, Wesleyan, Vassar or most of the colleges you just mentioned, unless perhaps they are recruited athletes or hooked. A 3.5 UW GPA is significantly different from a 3.8 UW GPA.
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D19 3.5 uw/3.7w, ACT 30, accepted NYU (ED). Clearly they loved her essays and LOR. Unhooked, other than maybe originally (pre high school) from an underrepresented country, doubt that would swing a decision.
Classmate with similar stats accepted into Tulane, also ED, unhooked.
Very competitive public high school.
@Lindagaf , the OP gave a range of a 3.5-3.8 GPA. Why focus on the bottom of that range?
It also seems like you missed my last paragraph. With a 3.5-3.8, depending on the rest of your application, I think schools like Case, Tulane, and Wake are reasonable shots. Wesleyan, too. Whether your test scores are 1320 or 1480 obviously matters, however.
But, again, the main thrust of my post was that I think many kids in that range are going to state schools at a higher rate. I suspect, also, that kids who go to private school in that range are more likely to stay close to home, say within driving distance, in part because there are more schools with little difference among them.
Thought I’d revise this since decisions are out. With admissions rates going down on most of the colleges, I managed to get into all my safeties but was shut out or placed on waitlists for my matches and reach.
This is a great thread. This is my situation to an extent just a year later so hopefully keep getting good input. I’m 3.85 and 35. The reaches are so competitive.