Good luck to your student. The deferral to Tulane is a red flag. You have a day or so to find some safeties that he could live with. There may be something on the application that isn’t sitting right with admissions but the 4.0 UW is fantastic. He should have great options but try to find a few real safeties today. Since it is Friday, he should meet with counselor about releasing transcripts quickly, getting recs out from the school, going into emergency plan mode, etc. so that the last minute applications will be complete. (Our school has lots of rules!!) Again, good luck.
OP, your son needs to find schools that admit more than 50% of applicants, and ideally higher, for the school to be a safety. And you have got to let your son take charge of this. YOU are not going to college. Do not write any more essays for him. They can tell when parents do this. He has little time left to submit apps, but in May there will be a cleaing house list published by NACAC of colleges that still have spaces. Your son might need that list. I agree with others. The list has no safeties, though Wisconsin comes close. And just to make you aware, it is “deferred.”
The deferral is red flag at Tulane. It has to be the essays which were written by the parent and not the student. Although the ACT will not help at the more competive schools either. This student needs a true safety to make up for the weak essay - which may cause a shut out.
OP did your son apply to other UCs? On another thread you said he had several on his list.
None of those schools are safeties for somebody who has 30 ACT. Though he does have a good chance to get into at least one of them.
OP did she apply to all these schools on the “new list”? as listed on another thread.
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSB
UC DAVIS
UC SANTA CRUZ
TULANE
GEORGE WASHINGTON U
BOSTON U
MICHIGAN - ANN ARBOR
VANDY
EMORY
USC
What is the full list of schools she applied to so posters can give you an idea of which schools may be safeties?
UW GPA is more important than weighted at places where rigor is assumed/expected. So 4.0 UW is optimal.
30 is suboptimal though. (it’s just above 25th percentile at Tulane).
Universities that would be safeties would have 30 as their top 25% threshold (no need to go to top 10% threshold due to the terrific GPA).
For example - covering most states, the following universities have cut offs for their top 25% at ACT30 (meaning 25% students have 30 and above):
Auburn, UA HUntsville (Engineering/CS), Hendrix, Uofpacific, st mary’s CA, Udenver, UDel, American U, Florida State, Illinois Wesleyan, Bradley, Loyola Chicago, Butler, Valparaiso, Drake, ULouisville, UMD-Baltimore County, Babson (business), Bentley (business), Kalamazoo, Michigan Tech, UMN-Morris, St Louis U, Truman State, Montana State, Carroll Montana, Fordham, SUNY Geneseo, UDayton, Miami-Ohio, Ohio U, UCincinnati, Willamette, Penn State, Allegheny, Elizabethtown, UScranton, College of Charleston, TCU, Southerwestern U, St Edward’s, UHouston, Texas Tech, UVermont, JMU, CNU, Randolph, U Puget SOund, Pacific Lutheran, Marquette, U Wisconsin Lacross, U Wisconsin Eau Claire.
Find 2-3 that he likes and are within budget, FAST
@FedMaster The way you’re thinking of it is wrong though, for example I had straight A’s Junior (5AP Classes) and Senior year (4AP Classes) but my GPA is only a 4.32 because I was not allowed to take AP’s Freshman year and because of that it is holding my GPA down. I had a 3.73 Freshman Year, and a 4.625W Junior year and a 4.8W Senior Year. This is why most colleges don’t weigh freshman year as much as Junior Year, because most schools have a policy( at least in Cali) against taking AP’s freshman year. TBH must colleges don’t really care about your W GPA its mainly used to access your course rigor your UW GPA is what matters the most.
the simple and straightforward answer to the OP’s question is NO. None of the schools listed in her original post are safeties for anyone.
Oh come on course rigor is always more important than uw gpa. Someone taking regular classes all 4 years will be rejected when it comes to someone with a 3.8 and 15 AP’s
FYI essay was written by student - computer was hacked by a friend who thinks it is crazy I am using this site and wanted to make fun of “helicopter parenting”. I am foreign, so I don’t know much about the whole process. All essays were written by the son himself.
Is your child a US resident?
FedMaster, Schools really are only interested in UW. Rigor is another layer of review. So the compare apples to apples, they use UW. When the review rigor, the one who avoided hard classes is graded lower.
Yes (a US citizen). Father is US born and college graduate
In that case, I’d say all but Michigan are Match schools. None as safeties.
He could still be admitted at Tulane though in the regular round. I suspect he’ll be accepted to at least one match. But do push him to apply to a true safety.
Sorry, but post #50 sounds like a weak attempt to cover up blatant cheating of a parent who admittedly wrote their kids’ essay. No one believes the excuse, and its been used in various forms many times before when posters are called out on similar actions, that someone hacked the computer or posted without permission in their cc account or that you were “making fun of helicopter parents”. Posters didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. Please don’t cheat and then fib about it.
@jym626 I have never applied to college or attended college. I don’t know how I would be helpful in any form to my son. He is an excellent writer - published 4 times by local papers in socal!!.. You can say a lot of things about my family, but we are not cheaters.
@wishiwoulda: I believe you. But please check admission deadlines, cut those whose deadlines have past; then run the NPC on all colleges listed in #46, cut the ones that aren’t affordable, then present your list to your son when he gets back from school and have him select 2-3 from it, to apply ASAP (some deadlines will be Sunday!)
He sounds like a great student and you want to make sure he has these 2-3 universities where he ranks in the top 25% so that he has a choice in the Spring.
(He will then need to “express interest” at all privates, by filling out the request info form, emailing admissions…)
Methinks someone doth protest too much. Just going by the several posts posted earlier here http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1948827-how-can-i-show-demonstrated-interest-late-in-game-p1.html, with an attempt now to recant.
ASIDE:
@Jym626,
Polonius fits the topic.
Well said, @“aunt bea” ."No legacy is so rich as honesty ". (Another quote from William Shakespeare.)