<p>DS has done better than we could have hoped for on his SAT and ACT - 2210/34 (I know, I know, don’t go there). His gpa is only about 92 due to focus issues. Should this affect how we are looking/thinking about schools? Does it improve his chances at schools with lower admission rates? Or will the gpa still be the decisive stumbling block?</p>
<p>It will probably help him in large state colleges. They tend to equally weight scores with GPA.</p>
<p>It depends, what do you mean by “schools with lower admission rates” ? Harvard? U of Michigan? Loyola Marymount? Lower than one in 15 applicants or lower than half?</p>
<p>Yes, it helps. How much depends on the school. The other factor that you need to consider is where that 92 average puts him within his class. There are schools where that’s a great (top 8 or 10% of the class) average, and there are schools - especially those that weight courses- where that would be bottom half of the class.
Meanwhile, be sure to give him a high five for doing so well.</p>
<p>Well, if the kid really liked CMU but wasn’t going to apply because he thought he wouldn’t get in, then yeah, the 2210 is probably a game changer. If on the other hand you’re asking whether the high SAT is reason enough to dump the kid’s existing college list for a set of “better” schools, then no I don’t think it’s a game changer at all. High SAT scores can help students get into a few more “reach” schools … but by itself it doesn’t mean the existing school list is obsolete. JMHO of course.</p>
<p>Schools on the potential list with lower admit rates: SUNY Geneseo, Marist, Cornell, and (maybe) Notre Dame…</p>
<p>What majors is your kid interested in?</p>
<p>My son with similar stats found that he had good luck with colleges with about a 25% admissions rate. i.e. Chicago for Early Action, Vassar (as a male), Tufts. He also got merit money at American. I think his SAT scores were a big help, as was a pretty rigorous schedule. I think he ended up with 7 APs and he’d gotten 5s on all the ones he’d taken before senior year. </p>
<p>We considered his entire list except American reaches. I think high scores mean you can reach a little higher, but you have to look at the GPA for safeties.</p>
<p>[Merit</a> Scholarships: Marist College](<a href=“http://www.marist.edu/financialaid/merit.html]Merit”>http://www.marist.edu/financialaid/merit.html)
^He should qualify for Marist’s top scholarship. He needs to maintain his “A” average.</p>
<p>Those are good numbers - they will help him at a lot of colleges. He will no doubt get into a several schools that will meet his needs. Just be smart about balancing the reach, match and safeties.</p>
<p>There are so many factors. What is your family’s financial need? Is his GPA weighted or unweighted? What will his recommendations say? How are his ECs? What will he contribute to a class of students? Those scores are great, but if they don’t have anything to back them up, they will not get your son into the highly selective schools. They have many, many 100 (4.0) students with those scores that they deny or put on the wait list. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Is 92 a low average at his school? Approximately where does he rank with a 92?</p>
<p>
That’s not really clear, since they don’t rank, but when I asked the gc, he said it would be in the top 35% at least.</p>
<p>^^So if converted to letter grades, a 92 would be about a B+ then?</p>
<p>Those test sores are A/A- test scores. With B+ grades and A- test scores there are many fine colleges that will be eager to accept him, probably not the very top schools but many good ones.</p>
<p>My son’s rank was higher, so the colleges I listed in my post #7 should probably be considered reaches. (We considered them reaches too, but I’d be a little more cautious if you aren’t in the top 10%.)</p>
<p>My son had a 92 average - which put him about at about the 30% for his class. He had a 31 ACT (Obviously not a 34 but still at the 98th percentile). Even if your school doesn’t rank (ours didn’t) the colleges will request the GPA distribution and have a pretty good idea where a 92 falls. At our school it was a B+/A-. Son also had 7 AP course - with 5’s, several national awards, varsity sports, etc.</p>
<p>For top-ranking schools - the ACT score didn’t make a huge difference because nearly everyone that applies has pretty high scores. It does make a big difference at more mid-level schools - they will offer merit money.</p>
<p>Notre Dame - son had a friend apply with a 1550 SAT, probably a 96 GPA, IB program, President of Student Body, etc. Didn’t get in. Any school that accepts less than 30% is going to be a reach.</p>
<p>My experience was (this was the experience for son’s whole class) if there was a huge inconsistency between test scores and GPA, unless there are compelling ECs, the top-ranked colleges go with the GPA - it’s more of a proven track record, not a one-time score on a 4 hour test. We were told over and over again in orientations that they were looking for consistency.</p>
<p>That said, I think it was totally worth applying to some top-ranked schools. If you don’t try, you never know and was a great life lesson for son. He realized in hindsight that if he really wanted to go to a top 10-20 school, he should have worked harder. Hoping it’s a lesson he takes to college with him. :)</p>
<p>My son, who just graduated from hs this June, had exactly this SAT score and about the same grades, for the same reason. He was in the second decile of his class, had 5s on a slew of APs. He did not get into Cornell, despite legacy status, or MIT, did get into UVA (instate) and the Virginia Tech honors engineering program. He did not apply to a ton of schools since it was pretty clear that VT would admit him, and VT would have been just fine with him. He ended up choosing UVA, where he took several courses in his senior year of high school and has had a very good experience so far.</p>
<p>My niece got accepted at SUNY Geneseo with strong grades but much lower test scores than your son’s–I’m not sure exactly what they were but I think in the high 500s/low 600s. She is a rising junior and loves it there.</p>
<p>I don’t know about your son, but mine has matured dramatically over the past year or so. I hear this all the time from parents of boys!</p>
<p>My son (just finished his freshman year at college) had a similar GPA but a higher ACT score. He didn’t get into any of the most selective schools he applied to but the high ACT scores got him into honors programs and merit scholarships at the rest of the schools he applied to.</p>
<p>I would second the honor program. Son did get into our state’s top notch honors program and received several merit scholarship offers.</p>
<p>I have a philosophical issue with some honors programs, but perhaps that would not apply everywhere. Merit scholarships would be good, since we don’t expect to qualify for much in the way of need, but at the same time can’t really afford our EFC.</p>
<p>100-point grade scales have some advantages. However, there is also a bit of a disadvantage. In our public high school, a student could have a 92 numeric average, but all grades are given as letters and if that student never got below a 90 (so all A’s on the transcript–no plus/minus either), she/he would have an unweighted 4.0.</p>
<p>In theory, with a 100-point scale, a student could have half 85s and half 95s and have a 90 average, which at another local school would count as a 4.0 (90 overall average, 90 is and A, A=4.0). So the grading scales are crazy. </p>
<p>If I were the OP, I would take a look at grades on a 4.0 scale and figure it out. That, IMO, will give you a better idea of the GPA.</p>