Is it worth it to consider some highly selectively colleges?

College Search & Lists
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Hi, everyone!
My nephew had a 2.2 GPA his freshman year due to an illness. His sophomore and junior years have been 4.0s, but he was only allowed AP classes his junior year. He took 3 and got 5s on all.
He’s in his senior year now, taking 3 more APs and very confused about whether applying to a highly selective college (UCLA is his dream school) is realistic for him.

Extra info: he works almost 30 hours to support his family, he moved his sophomore year from Nepal to America, his extracurricular are quite good, he’s done some good volunteer work out of passion for it. No SATs due to COVID-19.

He says I don’t understand and that 9 APs are the standard…

Thank you to anybody who took the time to read this to begin with!

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Is he an international student? Is he applying for financial aid? Is he a California resident? What AP courses did. he take , which ones is he taking?

The answers to these questions are important.

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He is a permanent resident in Virginia, will be applying for financial aid through FAFSA.

Courses he’s completed:
AP US History
AP English Language
AP Psychology

Courses he’s taking:
AP Government
AP English Literature
AP Biology

His senior year math is Precalculus, he’s taking Calculus online, in case this matters. He’s taken a Physics Honors course, as well.

His GPA is a 3.4 minus senior year. If all goes well, it should move to a 3.6.

Hope this helps.

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Many schools don’t look at freshman year grades. He can’t get in if he doesn’t apply. His story of moving to the states is potentially an interesting one. He should go for it!

5

UCLA does not give need based aid to out of state students. He will be full pay there. If he wants to go to a selective school he needs to apply to schools that meet need. These will also require the CSS profile which is a more comprehensive financial aid form than the FAFSA.

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That’s a good thing to know. Thank you!
Are in-state schools like UVA or William and Mary a good idea? The average GPA reported for both these schools are 4.0+.

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For his in-state publics, his GC would be the best one to categorize schools. Does he/you have access to Naviance or Scoir?

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He has Naviance, yes.
Sorry but what’s GC?

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GC = guidance counselor.

If UCLA considers freshman grades–a question for others knowledgeable about UC admissions–then UCLA is not a realistic option regarding admissions and it is clearly not a realistic option regarding affordability.

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His HS Guidance Counselor.

You can use the Naviance scattergrams to see where his stats fall with regard to those accepted, denied, and waitlisted at a given school.

The GC’s opinion will likely be necessary as they (should) have the bigger picture of the student’s app (essays, LoRs, etc.), and offer greater context (beyond the scattegrams) of the admission patterns at the VA publics from that HS.

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UCs recalculate GPA from grades in 10th-11th grade, but all grades are visible to application readers (and minimum of C grades are required for courses to meet subject requirements).

Out of state students looking for money at UCs need to aim for merit scholarships, of which there are not that many big ones.

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As others have already so said, the UCs do not give financial aid to OOS students. The price tag for UCLA ranges in the mid-high $60k.

I believe UVA and Wm and Mary require CSS PROFILE as well as FAFSA in order to get financial aid from them. I do not know about the other Virginia schools. Your best bet price wise is likely to be one of your instate schools as they have sticker prices of about $30-40k, all things included, possibly less. The schools that tend to be more generous in aid, tend to cost more and require CSS PROFILE in order to get any of their money.

Run your financials through the Net Price Calculators in each college web site to see what you can expect to pay.

A meeting with the school GC with a list of issues that are pertinent to his personal situation, such as coming from Nepal, great adjustment to a compatible new school setting, illness, work, etc should be given to the GC so it can be included in the school letter of recommendation. Don’t rely on just verbally telling the GC or shooting off an email a physical list is important. These days, things like the LOR are extremely important. His GC is also the best source of info on his chances at the instate schools in particular.

Did he take any AP tests? Those results can be important with no test scores

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He’s taken 3- English Lang, Psych and US History- got 5s on all 3. He’s taking AP Bio, Literature and Government his senior year.
His counselor has said it won’t hurt to try. He’s unsure of how far he can try, however. He’s most confused about what should be his safety schools. He doesn’t meet average GPA for many but shouldn’t his improvement, taking highest advanced classes available and extracurriculars help in that regard?

What’s adding to the confusion are the scatterplots of these schools. They show a couple kids accepted with his stats or less. Obviously those students were very exceptional but will my nephew even be considered due to his situation…

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Someone in-state will need to comment on whether public universities in Virginia care about freshman year of high school. As far as I know nearly all schools care more about Junior and Sophomore year than freshman year. The uptrend will help quite a bit at many universities.

I have heard that most of the Universities of California and also all universities in Canada will not care about freshman year at all. However, as others have said financial aid will probably not exist at the public universities in California, and is also rare in Canada.

My wild guess is that in-state public universities would be the best bet. UVA and VT are very good universities. However, his guidance counselor would know better than I, or most of us, what your nephew’s chances are at UVA and at VT.

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If he’s interested in W&M, he could look into Richard Bland College as a safety. It’s is a two-year residential college, associated with W&M, with a transfer pathway to W&M’s 4-year programs. https://www.rbc.edu/ And there are all the excellent VA publics that aren’t as competitive as the top three (UVA/W&M/VT) - James Madison, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth - lots of good options.

It’s hard to tell much from individual points on the scatterplots. Those two outliers you saw could have been highly-desired recruited athletes. You can’t tell what strengths may have caused lower stats to be overlooked in a particular case.

What does he want to major in? If a liberal arts college would meet his needs, he can run the Net Price Calculators for some full-need-met and close-to-full-need-met colleges that aren’t in the absolute most competitive tier. These schools will be more holistic than the public U’s, and may find his background interesting and feel he would add a dimension to their class that would otherwise be missing. Plus they’d see the improving trend and have more flexibility to discount the earlier weak grades.

There are a few of these schools that accept particularly high percentages of Early Decision applicants. So if he were to look at, for example, St. Olaf, and feel like he would like it there, and if the NPC showed an affordable out-of-pocket, an ED application might be worth considering.

Dickinson, Denison, Union, Occidental are also full-need-met.
Allegheny, College of Wooster, Earlham, Beloit, Knox, Lawrence, Whitman… all of these meet more than 90% of documented need on average and could be generous (and some have need-blind admissions), so run NPC’s and see if any of them are projected to be affordable for his particular circumstances. Many of these are trying to become more diverse - being from Nepal isn’t a guaranteed “under-represented minority” bump for most schools, on paper, because it’s lumped in with all of the over-represented Asian sub-groups, but some of these schools do advantage Asians and even those that don’t could look favorably on his more unusual background.

He seems to me as if any school that really assesses students holistically as individuals would see his strength and potential. What he should try to do is get apps in by the Early Action deadlines, as much as possible. This puts him in a smaller pool and allows the AO’s to devote more attention to his application. If there are schools he particularly likes that have binding Early Decision, many have two ED cycles (one in November and one in January) so he could choose two ED schools as well as applying to others EA. William & Mary also has both EDI and EDII now (although it’s a pretty big reach).

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Thank you so much for the help! We’re setting up a meeting with his counselor and hopefully things will work out with whatever’s best for him.

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@aquapt you’ve been incredibly helpful! We’re looking into the need based liberal arts colleges and they’re both a much better fit for him.
The EA idea is also great. His applications are ready so he can get right on it. We really appreciate your help. :slight_smile:

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What can your nephew pay for college? What resources does he have? From what you have said, he does have a compelling story, much adversity overcome and comes from an underrepresented country. It is possible that a college will find him a great addition to their community. Perhaps he will get the financial aid or merit money that will make it possible to go to college that way. I encourage him to search for such colleges and apply to some of them.

However, if he needs a lot of money, such as full tuition or full ride, it’s tough to find schools that will come up with that kind of money. It certainly is no guarantee. Can’t count on it.

The crux of the college search is to find a college that will meet the needs of the student, will certainly accept the student, and is affordable to the student. If the student has a zero EFC, and also is determined to be full need through CSS PROFILE , if accepted by a school that meets full need, that need may be met. But these schools including UVA and Wm &Mary are highly selective. FAFSA only schools rarely meet full need when room and board are in the picture.

When need and the aid do not work out, a student generally finds a low cost local school , commutes , and works part time, which appears to be what he is doing now. The majority of College students do not go away to college. It’s rare enough to get a college to pay full tuition so getting living expenses paid as well is even more difficult

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I agree with @aquapt’s suggestion that you look at some liberal arts colleges that meet need and may also offer good merit for someone with your nephew’s profile. Many Midwestern schools are serious about increasing their diversity, and there may be a demographic “bump” for an Asian applicant, particularly from a less-represented Asian country like Nepal. On the other hand, a small LAC in the Midwest is a long way from UCLA. It seems that UCLA will not be workable from a financial perspective, so maybe this is a chance for your nephew to rethink what sort of school would be a good fit. My son, who is Asian and is at Denison in Ohio, spent time over his high school summers at UCLA and didn’t like it at all - he realized he would be happier in a smaller environment where he could form closer relationships with his professors, etc. Other kids prefer bigger schools.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE

Closing thread. Your nephew needs his own account if he wants to ask questions. For privacy reasons, asking for another person other than one’s child is not allowed.