<p>My D is a Junior at a Prep school in Southern Calif. I think Whitman would be great for her if she could get it. We'll probabily visit this summer, but only if she has a shot at getting accepted. Based on the PSAT and her prep work, I suspect her SAT will be in the 1300-1350 range and she will leave with 5 or 6 AP courses. She is also studying Japanese, went there to live and go to school last summer. She will end HS with 4 years of Japanese (a B average). She plays varsity basketball, very active in theater, writes for the newspaper and literary magazine and works as a tutor at an after-school program in the inner-city.
Thoughts? Advice? Thanks in advance...</p>
<p>Given the profile of the most recent class, it doesn't sound impossible--especially if she applies ED. </p>
<p>My daughter is going for an overnight visit at Whitman later this week. I am curious if the shool will impress her as much as it does me. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.whitman.edu/admission/profile/%5B/url%5D">http://www.whitman.edu/admission/profile/</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. Have you been there yourself? It really does sound like a great place. I'll be curious what your D thinks. It is definately on our radar and yes, I think ED would be the way to go if she really likes it.</p>
<p>I have never been there, but know of some happy students. My D and I went to a "Whitman on the road" slide show in our town last summer. (They travel the west coast. You can probably find one this summer.) . </p>
<p>While my daughter initially focused on some east coast schools, she is becoming more interested in staying on the west coast. Whitman is impressive and offers merit aid (a signficant factor for us).</p>
<p>I will post some comments later regarding D's impressions. BTW, she is a senior, already has her app in, and (fingers crossed) should have a good chance of being admitted. She went there this week because she wanted to see the school without being joined by hoardes of anxious students during "admitted students weekend."</p>
<p>Overall, pretty positive. D attended 4 classes and said 2 were very good and one seemed weak. Athletic coach was wonderful. Town was fine. Food was o.k.</p>
<p>Dorms were large, but she thought hers (Anderson) smelled bad. Alcohol seemed dominant (a complaint she has had about other schools she visited). D was a bit worried about the dominance of Greek system in the school's social life. </p>
<p>Overall, Whitman is very much in the running, but D is still considering the other schools to which she applied.</p>
<p>Californian--
Thanks for the report on your D's visit. The drinking thing worries me a bit. I know its going to be everywhere but my hope is to try and limit the exposure. The greek system is also a concern. My D is just not into that kind of thing... but we'll see.
Anyway, yours are the most direct comments that I've seen.
Thanks again...</p>
<p>For what it is worth, my D also complained about the prevalence of alcohol at Grinnell -- a school with no greek system.</p>
<p>Unless you go to a religions school, alcohol is a central thing at any school. Probably more so at state schools. I'd imagine it's about the same level of drinking at all the small liberal LACs. If you don't want to drink, you won't have to. But if you do, you'll find oppurtinities 2 or 3 times a week.</p>
<p>I graduated from Whitman a number of years back. What's funny is that talking with alumni from the early 90's and 80's it was clear that alcohol seemed to be more prevalent years ago. They talked about kegs out on Ankeny during the week happening in the 1980's and early 1990's. I don't think I ever saw public drinking happening in any of the residence halls (in people's rooms yes, but not in common areas). </p>
<p>What I found interesting while a student at Whitman was the number of people who never had tried alcohol in high school. Often times their first experience drinking alcohol was in college, but fellow students and the RA's looked out for one another. What was nice about college was when people did drink at Whitman, they weren't driving all over the place while drunk which seemed to be common for students at my high school. </p>
<p>I'd agree with the poster above about level of drinking probably being similiar at most places.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the insight. I agree that drinking, etc. happens everywhere in college - it certainly did with me - but I'd like to find a few schools where it isn't such a big deal.
In any event, back to the orginal question. Does anyone have any other thoughts on how the school would view a 3.0 in terms of admissions? 4/5 Honors/AP courses, plenty of EC's and 4 years of Japanese (perhaps Japanese 5 AP, if things go as they should).
Thanks in adavnce</p>
<p>Why not sent the admin office an email and ask?
I think you may need to help them put the 3.0 into some context vis a vis your kid's school. Whitman prides itself on having more than half of their kids rank in the top 10 percent of their school. Do you think your daughter falls into the top one--or two--deciles? If not, then your kid probably needs to show some other form of academic prowess. </p>
<p>My lay person's understanding is that language AP and language SATII tests do not correlate very highly with future college academic performance. Math and science tests, in contrast, are much better predictors of college GPAs.</p>
<p>This comes from the following link: </p>
<p>EXCERPT
A new report from the Educational Testing Service reveals that SAT II subject tests vary dramatically in their ability to predict college achievement. According to the findings, science and math achievement tests are the strongest predictors of college performance, while some of the language tests are the weakest. </p>
<p>The ETS has offered SAT II subject tests (formerly called SAT achievement tests) for several decades, but few colleges and universities have required applicants to take them. As a result, research had focused primarily on the validity of their more widely used counterpart, the SAT I Reasoning Test. However, a proposal by University of California president Richard Atkinson to replace the SAT I with an achievement test developed by the state spurred interest in more information about SAT II validity.</p>
<p>Atkinson has proposed that UC rely on a battery of SAT II tests until the state can develop its own test. Currently, UC requires applicants to take three SAT II exams: the writing test, one of the two math tests, and a third exam of their choice. </p>
<p>In response to the proposal, ETS researchers Leonard Ramist, Charles Lewis, and Carolyn McCauley-Jenkins undertook a detailed analysis of SAT I, SAT II, and high school grades as predictors of freshman GPA and performance in specific disciplines. UC also conducted its own validity study, based on data from its student body. </p>
<p>Of the two reports, the UC study has the advantage of being based on more recent data. The ETS analysis, however, is by far the more extensive and includes findings regarding the validity of individual tests that the UC report does not. </p>
<p>Of the SAT II tests for which data are provided, three are in the natural sciences and two in math. After adjustment for range restriction and other statistical artifacts, correlations between these five and freshman grade point average (FGPA) are striking. All science tests show correlations exceeding .5--and chemistry and math II tests have the highest validities of the 14 subject tests studied. </p>
<p>Among the remaining SAT II subject tests, only English composition (now known as Writing) had a correlation with FGPA exceeding .5. Subject tests for German language and European history showed considerably less validity. The Spanish test proved the weakest predictor of all and was the only test where the correlation between scores and grades fell short of 0.2.</p>
<p>Science/Math versus Other SAT II Subject Tests Correlations with Freshman GPA*
Science & Math English & History Foreign Languages
Biology .51 American History .47 French .35
Chemistry
.58 English Composition .51 German .23
Math I .52 European History .28 Hebrew .31
Math II .58 Literature .48 Latin .38
Physics .52 Spanish .17 </p>
<p>*Corrected for range restriction and shrinkage. Adapted from ETS report, Table 21. </p>
<p>The analysis also found that while science and math tests are sound predictors of future performance in these disciplines, their validity is enhanced by combining scores with results from the SAT I. When results on both SAT II science tests and SAT I were considered together, predictive validity for the same subject taken in college was the highest achieved for any subject for which an SAT II is available. Nonetheless, the incremental validity of adding results from SAT II science or math tests to the SAT I alone was modest--increasing predictive validity by .05-08.</p>
<p>Thanks for the very specific response. As a side note, I didn't see Japanese on that list of subject tests. I'd be curious to see how it scored.</p>
<p>D goes to a well-regarded prep school in southern california... the ranking in her school will not do her any favors. She's a bright kid but only recently started to understand what it takes to succeed in school. However, she has always loved Japanese and has made B's there, so I'm hoping that makes a difference. She hasn't taken the SAT yet but is prepping hard (private and Princeton Review) and the feeling is that a score in the 1300-1400 range (old test) is likely. Just don't want to waste our time with Whitman if that isn't in the ballpark...</p>
<p>It is definitely worth connecting with Admissions and asking for some dialogue with your particular student in context. Whitman seems to really value students who see that they would fit at Whitman and who can demonstrate how they could both contribute and benefit in being there. They do assess skills in writing, because I think it is a writing intensive core curriculum. While GPA and test scores matter, I think they weight other factors in more heavily than some LACs and really make an effort to get a sense of who the student is as a person who will add to the community. Since I know they have some particular Asian studies fellowships, I imagine her strength in Japanese would be a definite plus. I'd say don't let the stats stand in your way....</p>
<p>Californian: About those SAT II tests (and this is off-topic other than I'd like my daughter to consider Whitman), my d took the SAT II math thinking that that would be the most serious, responsible thing to do. She scored a 620 or a 630 (I think). Which put her in the 29th % out of all who took that test. Now normally I guess the best and brightest of math-types would be the ones who would bother to take the test. So although 620/630 normally doesn't look so bad, 29% looks egad awful. Obviously, she shouldn't submit that for next year (she's a junior). Or am I missing something here?</p>
<p>Yeah, SAT II math is typically taken by very strong math students, so a 600 to 650 score is sounds low EVEN IF IT REALLY IS NOT LOW. I don't remember Whitman's SATII requirements. I wouldn't rule out using it, but I would want to supplement it with a higher score in something else.</p>
<p>Investscoot: my D was admitted EDII. Although Whitman does not require SAT II's she sent them anyway. We considered her Bio SAT II strong in the mid 700's and the MATH IIc (that's the more advanced of the two Math subject tests) strong at 669. Although my D loves bio and thinks she will probably major in science, she is NOT by any means a math genius, just a solid math student who has to work really hard to get A/B's in higher level math classes. She felt 669 was a bad score for the advanced Math SAT II because her only friends who took that test are engineering whizzes and all scored in mid to high 700's. It took a lot of convincing on my part and the part of a college advisor that for a NON math whiz 669 was very good for the Math IIc test. Our feeling was that submitting this score emphasized that she was a well-rounded student.</p>
<p>Leonsdaughter: I'm curious about the EDI versus EDII. Is it about waiting longer for standardized test scores to come in, etc. or is there another strategy involved in choosing the one over the other?</p>
<p>ED I vs. ED II... Well, my D was still visiting schools after Thanksgiving; it just took her a while to realize that it was the ONLY school she really wanted to go to. We were really grateful that Whitman had ED II, requiring app only 15 days earlier than regular admission. For kids whose preferences don't crystallized until the llth hour it's a wonderful option. According to figures on the Whitman site and other sources, Whitman admits more than 50 percent of their ED applicants and less than 50% of the regular applicants, so there's definitely an edge with ED. One more comment re SAT IIs. My D took them at the very end of her junior yr, when AP Bio and Math Analysis were just completed and as fresh in her mind as possible. I believe that the downside of taking the SAT I multiple times is that all results will go to colleges. This is not true of the SAT II. If your daughter takes the math IIc again toward the end of her junior yr and does better, she can request that only that score be sent. Feel free to correct me, anyone out there, if I have this wrong.</p>
<p>Sorry, you have it wrong. All SAT tests go. It's the ACT test that allows you to only send certain scores.</p>
<p>what about kenyon? it's quite a reach for you d but definitely one of the best lac's.</p>