College Discussion - View Single Post - REFLECTION "I wish I would have known "this" when I started the process!"

jamimom · 05-06-2005, 11:13 AM

Susan, don't know about Syracuse. Though S had very high SATs, his gpa was not up there, and a student at his school with the same SATs and slightly higher gpa did not get much merit money, and was turned down by a couple of state schools. Actually, his school would not have an impressive list of kids getting merit aid because the gpas tend to be deflated and non weighted and there are no AP designations given. Some colleges are not set up to look at AP tests taken and those scores and then adjusting the gpas. Don't ask me why they won't do it; they just won't. So you get kids who are rejected by UMich, UVA, Penn State who would not have been, had they gone to most any other school. Few kids go to the larger state school. Syracuse is private so, they just might have made the adjustment, but then I don't think his audition there was that great anyways as I believe it was the first audition for him, and he did it in October. He had visited the school earlier, and hated it (one of those visits to hell stories), but then looked at the school in a whole new light when he revisited for auditions. I do not recommend that school as one of the first auditions to do. Of course all of this is pure speculation since I don't even know if he would have even been accepted at Syracuse for MT, much less get a scholarship. But I am pretty sure that he would have gotten in as almost any other major. And so it goes with many of the schools; probably all of the schools on your D's lists would have definitely been accepts for a non MT program. It was the MT part that made them reaches for anyone. A bad audition, someone who just didn't like the audition, not the right type, etc and that's it with MT.

But had my son gone the MT route, he could have gotten some very nice awards at schools that would not have been on his list had he not been looking at MT programs. Since we did not apply for financial aid, the only type of awards that he could get are academic and most have a gpa/SAT dual requirement where he could meet one threshhold but missed the gpa marks.

05-06-2005, 11:13 AM	#34
jamimom Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Threads: 1 Posts: 2,985	Susan, don't know about Syracuse. Though S had very high SATs, his gpa was not up there, and a student at his school with the same SATs and slightly higher gpa did not get much merit money, and was turned down by a couple of state schools. Actually, his school would not have an impressive list of kids getting merit aid because the gpas tend to be deflated and non weighted and there are no AP designations given. Some colleges are not set up to look at AP tests taken and those scores and then adjusting the gpas. Don't ask me why they won't do it; they just won't. So you get kids who are rejected by UMich, UVA, Penn State who would not have been, had they gone to most any other school. Few kids go to the larger state school. Syracuse is private so, they just might have made the adjustment, but then I don't think his audition there was that great anyways as I believe it was the first audition for him, and he did it in October. He had visited the school earlier, and hated it (one of those visits to hell stories), but then looked at the school in a whole new light when he revisited for auditions. I do not recommend that school as one of the first auditions to do. Of course all of this is pure speculation since I don't even know if he would have even been accepted at Syracuse for MT, much less get a scholarship. But I am pretty sure that he would have gotten in as almost any other major. And so it goes with many of the schools; probably all of the schools on your D's lists would have definitely been accepts for a non MT program. It was the MT part that made them reaches for anyone. A bad audition, someone who just didn't like the audition, not the right type, etc and that's it with MT. But had my son gone the MT route, he could have gotten some very nice awards at schools that would not have been on his list had he not been looking at MT programs. Since we did not apply for financial aid, the only type of awards that he could get are academic and most have a gpa/SAT dual requirement where he could meet one threshhold but missed the gpa marks.