<p>Our darling daughter attends a very selective science-math high school. Not to brag, but to clarify the question - to give an idea, she has just taken AP BC calculus as a Junior - she got a C+ in the class, but a 5 on the AP exam. </p>
<p>She struggled with this school in her freshman year (in part due to ADD), and her grades show it. Her UW GPA is about a 3.3 or 3.4 (though its rising) She has only taken one AP so far (the aforementioned BC Calc) though all classes there are considered Honors by the school district, and she intends to take several AP courses next year, and a post AP math course. </p>
<p>I don't recall her exact SAT, it was like 750 M, 750 Reading, about 690 or so writing. </p>
<p>Her EC wont blow anyone away, but she's done stuff, including several years of color guard/winter guard. </p>
<p>She would like to attend RPI or Univ of Rochester. I am suggesting she look at our state's top tier state universities, at Lehigh and Lafayette and maybe Bucknell in PA, at Cooper Union and Barnard in NY, maybe CMU or Case Western, maybe a couple of the mid to better out of state state schools as safeties. And as a stretch she should apply to at least one or two ivies or similar. </p>
<p>My wife tends to go into panic mode and think darling daughter will end up at one of our state univ's second/third tier campuses. </p>
<p>Needless to say its real hard to make head or tail out of the relationship of admissions data to my daughter's stats, esp as I think she would have been close to a 4.0 student at a typical neighborhood high school. </p>
<p>I think you should try talking with the GC and see where past students who fell into the same GPA range that your daughter falls into, were accepted to. </p>
<p>If the school is as selective as you say, it’s doubtful that they are sending many students to second/third tier campuses. Do you happen to know what rank/decile your daughter is?</p>
<p>The GC has given us some ideas, and isn’t as pessimistic as my wife. A few kids DID go to the second tier state univs last year - we don’t know why, maybe they missed their ivy choices and had no othe backups, or maybe they were limited to state universities only (our first tier state u’s are VERY hard to get into) or maybe there was a special program. We could spend more time with reference the GC’s keep on admitted students, but its difficult as our daughter is not a standard student. They do not rank the students, but we are pretty sure her rank in the school would be fairly low. Kids from her school who go anywhere other than the Ivies or equivalent routinely say that college is “easy” after HS. </p>
<p>She is also interested in engineering and architecture. Will being female and applying for engineering help?</p>
<p>Check out her school’s Naviance data just to get a feel of where students of her GPA typically get into. As it stands, I think your daughter has a pretty solid list aside from Cooper Union, which is a very difficult school to get into.</p>
<p>I understand that your daughter is not a standard student because she attend a selective high school, but how is it that she differs from the students at that particular school? Is it to her benefit? </p>
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<p>I am inclined to say yes, because that is what I believe. However, the answer could prove to be something otherwise so do not take my word on it. By the way, if you’re looking for Ivy reaches, you could try Columbia’s engineering school, SEAS.</p>
<p>No I meant she’s also different from other kids at her school. Many of them are quite driven, and have been thinking premed since freshman year in HS. My kid is ADD, reflective, intellectual, etc.</p>
<p>She spent several summers at CTY and loved it. She’s that kind of kid.</p>
<p>Again she has a relatively low GPA, and no huge EC’s to compensate, but her SATs, her AP score, her CTY experience, all mark her abilities, IMO. Reading a listing of kids from her HS with 3.4 GPA’s doesn’t tell me (SAT apart) if they were comparable in other respects.</p>
<p>We visited Columbia, which she liked, and she would probably apply to the Engineering School. We are also thinking Barnard and even List, but I don’t think Colombia Engineering is possible from those schools, just liberal arts. </p>
<p>We also visited Cornell, and may look at Penn. Based on her CTY experience I think Hopkins might be a good choice.</p>
<p>I see. Well, I think the best thing is to try for the first-tier state universitites, as well as other reaches. I’m not sure how difficult they are to get into, but as I live in CA, our UC’s are supposed to be quite difficult, but I still think that even with your daughter’s statistics, that she would stand a good chance at many first-tier UC’s if she was an in-state applicant, and she would get into at least a second-tier one. </p>
<p>I do not think it is reasonable to think that she will end up at a third-tier campus, if not many of the students in previous classes from her high school did not end up at a third-tier campus. Remember, the majority of the class probably aren’t genii, no matter how selective the school is. (Unless I’m wrong, you know better than I do about this particular high school.)</p>
<p>You can’t just tell yourself “my daughter is different from the kids at her school with the same gpa/sat” and expect adcoms to do her a magical favor. </p>
<p>If you think a conversation with your daughter reveals her to be especially thoughtful, then the essays are a chance to show that side of her. </p>
<p>But don’t go out willy-nilly and tour Princeton until you have a rock solid list of safeties and matches.</p>
<p>No, I find that it would unnecessary to ask you to disclose your location as I don’t know what I would do with the information. I think I’ve offered my two cents already, and therefore: Good luck.</p>
<p>'“my daughter is different from the kids at her school with the same gpa/sat” and expect adcoms to do her a magical favor. '</p>
<p>I don’t. I just don’t trust the past stats. Which of course are never clear themselves - sometimes someone with better stats gets rejected where I think they wouldn’t and vice versa. Without the ability to see their complete transcript (let alone their EC’s, essays, etc) I find it frustrating using it to evaluate where my kid could get in. Thats why I decided to post here </p>
<p>And no, we aren’t going Ivy mad, we are looking for matches and safeties. What’s difficult is determining which schools ARE matches, which safeties, etc. Is U of R a match? Is it a stretch? I’m not sure, and I’m pretty sure there weren’t enough 3.4 students from DD’s school who applied there last year to avoid distortion by individual student’s idiosyncrasies.</p>
<p>To give another example of why her school makes the admissions go round frustrating.</p>
<p>Every school we look at, I mean every one, says that in looking at transcripts they want to make sure you have taken advantage of what was offerered. If your school offered one AP course and you took it, good. Well DD’s school offers a slew of post AP math and science offerings. No way she could take all those. Sheesh. I suspect they don’t really MEAN take advantage of EVERYTHING offered, but it adds to the general fogginess.</p>
<p>look at the 3.4/2200 students and see how they did. if there aren’t many of those, try the 3.5/2100 students. just look at comparably ranked schools as those you are interested in. if they did really badly at schools ranked 30-40 then expect Lehigh to be a reach, for example. </p>
<p>it won’t be perfect. but having real data to work with is still invaluable.</p>
<p>in the interest of family comity, your wife is right- at publiic institutions with in-state mandates and stats-based admissions formulae, a challenging GPA may spell trouble. And, you are right, too, at quality private schools with admissions considerations that drill down past the stats, credible indications of potential, commitment and positive direction can overcome a few flaws in the history. So. keep the trend going and find a teacher or counselor at the HS who will be a strong advocate- preferably someone known at the colleges you’re considering who can work the phone as well as the rec letter.</p>
<p>I would like to add a point: My school is similarly competitive; you will find many 3.4-3.5 students who manage 2100+ on the SAT, and they generally end up in top 50 universities/LACs. I don’t know if you can directly compare my school to your daughter’s, as I don’t know what kind of a rep your HS has, but I’d have to guess that your daughter’s GPA won’t kill her. But once again, knowing how similar students at your D’s school have done is very valuable info.</p>
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