High GPA, low and lop-sided ACT-reach schools too reachy?

Parents Forum
1

For a friend:

u/w GPA at an average California public school: 4.0

weighted GPA 4.19

Rank #1 for u/w, but 19th, I think, for the weighted GPA

Average SAT of the school is 1551. Student has the following test scores:

SAT 1840 (W 700, CR 650, M 490)
ACT 28; Superscore 29 (Reading 33, English 32, Math 26, Science 24)

Two APs (APEL, USH): 5s on both

Student is retaking ACT, hoping to get to 30+
Student will take one subject test, Literature

Student’s biggest “hook” is being selected to spend a year in NYC at a well known ballet school in the pre-professional program.

Student has excellent essays and a strong passion for foreign relations/sustainable farming/environment.
Student is also a peer counselor and will get an outstanding LOR from counselor and teachers.

Are reach schools (think Ivies, Vanderbilt, etc) too much of a reach? Student has 8 reaches (from 5% to 35% admit), but has some safeties on the list including USF, SCU, Hofstra (free app) and Baylor.

I think she will qualify for a decent amount of need-based aid.

Feedback appreciated.

2

The chance page is probably a better thread for this.
I’d say 8 reaches is a bit much. Student should be sure to have a number of matches and not just reaches and safetys. And running the net price calculator on each school would be wise.

3

If she takes subject tests, she may need at least two for some schools that want them.

Has she checked net price calculators at the safeties?

Any UCs or CSUs?

4

Yes she’s a reach for schools like that. If she wants to go into dancing then she will need to audition and SATs are fror the most part ignored (that won’t help with sustainable ag). Have her try Oklahoma U.

5

Also, she has religiously affiliated schools of different religions on her list. OK with her?

6

At this moment, no CSUs, but we will talk about it. UCB, UCLA and UCSB are on the list. Other schools are Pepperdine and Wake Forest.

I did encourage her to try two SAT IIs, but it may be too late. She didn’t know about SAT IIs until I told her about them less than two weeks ago. School may have sent one student to a highly selective in the past X number of years, so she is a stand out there. It’s in a rural area about an hour outside of a major city.

She does not want to go into dancing. She loves politics, history, and the environment, and will likely apply to majors such as political science, international/foreign relations, and even environmental studies. She might minor in dance, or more likely, join a high level dance group without a minor, but not sure. She will submit a dance supplement upon my recommendation. She didn’t even know about that until I told her.

What’s at Oklahoma U? Dance? Scholarships?

Her sister is at USF, and she would be fine with that. I encouraged adding SCU, which they hadn’t known about.

So do you think she should apply to reaches anyways, even though the likelihood is so slim? She is a big fish in a little pond, even with the low ACT score.

They are not worried about finances, so I didn’t press them. Parents are divorced and they seemed to have managed to afford USF with a combo of need-based and scholarship. With two in college, they might get more. So, I am ignoring finances as per their request.

7

Oh, and Georgetown came off the list when she found out it required three subject tests. She probably would have done well on USH since she got a 5 on the AP exam, but I think that was soph or junior year, so at this point, hard to say how she would do. She’ll likely go into the Lit exam pretty cold.

Her dream school is Yale. She realizes with her ACT, it is near impossible, but she seems to understand. I try very hard to present reality to students without being overly crushing.

8

Here is a list of test-optional schools http://fairtest.org/university/optional though the W and CR are pretty good. There seems to be a lot of strength in verbal areas and weakness in math and science, which should help guide choices.

For dance she should do an arts supplement with dance resume, letters of recommendation from teacher or director (and not just about dance, about work ethic, character etc. She can also send a video cued for the best 3 minutes and clear info on which dancer is her.

She doesn’t have to major in dance or study it at all, but if she wants to dance, she should make sure there are satisfying extracurricular opportunities.

9

It’s okay to have a lot of reaches if you’ve got safeties you are comfortable with and you to into the process with your eyes open. Younger son with stats that were less than perfect and made things hard to predict, was rejected from all four of his reachiest reaches and it didn’t bother him a bit. I think it was harder for my older son, who was just about perfect from a stats point of view. I’m more concerned about the lack of rigor - two APs is pretty minimal and the iffy scores don’t help. It’s really too bad she didn’t take the US history subject test, she would probably have done quite well. Both my kids thought it was a snap after taking APUSH.

10

She really has little to no chance at an Ivy or Vandy. Her scores are much to low and while her gpa is excellent coming from a school you describe as avg, is not going to be enough of a game changer. The dance aspect is interesting, but if she is not pursuing dance in college it may not help. But you never know, so it is fine to reach, but she should concentrate more on finding a range of match schools she loves

11

Yes, ucb. I think family background is Catholic, but I don’t know that the student practices anything. Not sure if Pepperdine requires a statement of faith. I just know the older sister went to Univ. of Providence and then transferred to USF (weather!); both, of course, are Catholic schools.

Agree that course rigor is problematic, though it may likely be explained in the counselor letter. She was homeschooled/onlined schooled for two years including the year she spent in NY. She then came to the high school in her junior year. While she was one of the few dancers to actually work on academics while at the school, her academics weren’t that rigorous since she was dancing full time, 9-5, each day. It was afterwards that she realized she didn’t want to dance professionally, but she is still very involved in dance and choreographs everything for the school functions.

I, too, wish someone had told her about subject tests before last week! Oh well.

She will have a dance recommendation, and we are working on both resumes (regular and dance).

Agree that she’s lopsided, though she has all As in school so far, and is taking pre-calculus this fall, so certainly, for a non-mathy person, she’s challenging herself.

Her ACT Reading and English are in range, but yep, that math and science really drag it down (as does the math SAT).

I’ve encouraged her to really focus on math and science for the ACT retake.

Mathmom, my very uneven second kid was very fortunate to get into one reach (still not sure how it happened), but he did have a strong SAT score, at least. But I think she’ll be ok. She does have high expectations, but I have made it clear her ACT/SAT are low.

12

Personally I think that’s too many reaches with those test scores, and not enough matches/safeties. At several schools the really low math test scores may count against her. That said, the schools with 20% admit rates and under are more “reachy” than the ones that go up to 35%. Specifically, UCLA and UCB are reaches with those test scores. She needs to round out her UC list with some of the mid-tier ones.

13

I am now looking at some of the schools on the fair test site. Some good ones on the list:
Conn College, Colorado College, Wake Forest (already on the list), and others.

Agree about adding some other UCs if she likes them. What do you think? UCD maybe? Not sure she’ll go for UCR, UCI or UCSD-too close to home.

So, to conclude: some reaches are fine, but maybe take the reachiest off the list, add some of the test optional, and maybe another UC.

We can always reevaluate if ACT goes to 32.

Time to have another conversation.

14

I would suggest she find one rolling admission school…and apply to that. It would be nice for her to have an acceptance in the bag. I would have suggest EA, but those deadlines have passed.

15

She may want to carefully check what religion-related rules exist at each campus, particularly for the schools where religion is a bigger aspect on campus life (like Pepperdine), especially if the affiliated religion differs from her own.

16

Aren’t EA deadlines Nov. 1? Her essays are done. She could probably squeeze in an EA. Not sure where, though. I’ll look at the list again for a rolling school. List is still coming together obviously.

Any suggestions for either based on her profile? (IR, poly sci, environ studies, etc. with opportunity to dance)

17

Re: http://fairtest.org/university/optional

Be careful with that list – check each school’s own web site. The list linked above lists all CSUs, but only applicants to non-impacted majors at non-impacted campuses (CSUB, CSUCI, CSUDH, CSUEB, CMA, CSUStan) with a 3.0 HS GPA (for CA residents; 3.61 for non-residents) do not need the SAT or ACT score.

18

I am looking more at acceptance rates, mid-ACT (where listed), majors and if they meet need. Not sure student will go for some of these, but her ACT would work for Conn College and Colorado College, and both meet need and have majors of interest. Colorado College is more reachy with 18% admit rate. Wesleyan and Hamilton look interesting, too.

I’m going to check out Gonzaga, too.

Will check out Pepperdine’s requirements.

And of course her ACT is fine for the CSU’s should she want to apply. It’s not like she has a horrible ACT or SAT. The math (and science) just really pull it down.

19

“Any suggestions for either based on her profile? (IR, poly sci, environ studies, etc. with opportunity to dance)”

Shouldn’t that be the main question? Why is she interested in the schools on her list? If they have something special as far as programs offered or dance opportunities, she should search out schools that match her stats and then do the research to find the ones with some similar programs / opportunities. Or does she just want to get in the the “highest ranked” school she can? Her stats are very good for most schools. If it is because of finances (she is looking at schools that meet need, right?) maybe instead she should consider looking at schools where she would be a top merit candidate even if they don’t meet need. She may come out ahead. Guess it’s hard to choose if the parents are saying to ignore finances, but want a school that meets need.

20

Could you give a bit more information about geographical preference, size of school, urban/rural, etc. The reason I ask is that my daughter is a professional ballet dancer who does not want to pursue dance as a major but wants to continue to dance. So I have done research with that in mind. But I don’t want to recommend rural LACs if that’s not appropriate. For example, College of Wooster offers dance scholarships and you don’t have to be a dance major. But if Ohio’s a non-starter, that’s not very helpful advice.