If your child wants to attend a different college in the Fall, I would recommend your child call the admissions rep of their second choice school. Explain very briefly what has happened (“I deposited at another school based on the belief that I would be a business major if I met certain criteria, and the school has since changed the criteria”), and ask if it’s still possible to accept admission to that school (and also whether housing is still available, and whether the financial aid offer, if any, is still the same). If that admissions offer (which you turned down for IU) is still available then you can look at your options and decide which is the best route. In the long run, switching now will be much easier than transferring later.
I work with FGLI students and I had a student who lost a funding source and could no longer afford the school she committed to in the Spring. She called her second choice school and they still had housing/financial aid for her. So she withdrew her acceptance from the first school and deposited at the second school.
Or students from high schools that use very heavy weighting. A student from a high school that gives +2 for an AP course has an advantage for IU business direct admission over a student from a high school that gives +0.5 or +1 for an AP course.
I’m assuming you have some form of ongoing contact with McCombs - how do you feel about their programs (UG and MBA) now?
My eldest daughter is entering her 4th year at UT-A but not in business (She’s looking at a MS-JD 4 year track next)- but my youngest daughter is rising senior and is competitive for T25 schools (including T10/25 bschools) but not an “elite” candidate. Her chances at admissions into McCombs, Ross etc are low (<10-15%) like most competitive candidates (especially OOS for McCombs). My son is at UNC now, looking at the fall application for KFBS BSBA major but already starting to look at JD/MBA options.
We’ve all been to Austin and on UT Campus for multi-day visits multiple times - and have been to the UG B-School buildings, but spent quite a bit of time over at the AT&T Conference Center and Rowling Hall during family weekend presentations by their students. Nice facility, nice kids - so our impressions were positive.
The choice to change the standard for SA for next years progression(first year to second year) -after- the May 1st commitment dates is concerning though I’m not in possession of how exactly the offer for IU admissions for students not ADA/DA but planning on pursuing SA progression was proffered. Whether it was directly stated as set in stone guarantee or strongly implied to sell students on it probably doesn’t really matter all that much to -me- other than if it was widely disseminated that those SA progression standards could be changed ‘at any time’.
Regardless, I think it’s also imperative for parents to impart on their children to -always- have contingency plans for critical/major areas of their lives, especially if they aren’t in majority control of those decisions. Even if somebody is in ‘love’ with a school they’ve been admitted to - it’s helpful to at least run through the what/if scenario of what are your next best 1-2-3 options, when are critical dates, what are the steps involved, whats the implied cost of that decision, or implied cost of keeping that option open. Doesn’t have to be a detailed battle plan, but always knowing what your option B and C are in the event Option A falls apart is, in my opinion, not a waste of time.
FWIW, My son loved his first year at Purdue-Daniels (OOS) in Finance/Accounting, he did lament their lack of resources in finding internships for first year-to second year students, but that’s fairly common to focus strictly on the second and third summer students at all the schools (and recruiters) - and he probably would stayed there if he didn’t have a sophomore start guarantee at UNC for this fall. We did have other plan options on the table.
Honestly, wasn’t even aware that this is ‘a thing’.
I will say, and perhaps it’s the whole “in my generation” thing every generation does to the younger generations (and I may be older than a lot of the high school age kid parents here as we started late, and we’re on our last one) - I’ve kept my toes in the water on admissions practices for Veterinary Medicine and MBA programs, as I’ve continued to advise/mentor prospective students almost from day one of my own graduation… but having gone on deeper dives on the undergraduate scene for each of our three children starting about 6 years ago now…
I guess I’m no longer ‘shocked’ or surprised by the lengths High Schools, School Districts, Parents and Kids will go to to try to not just ‘massage’ their CV of accomplishments, but in many cases just straight up fabricate things out of the thinnest wisps of essence of nothing to beef up their profiles. I’ve spent a fair amount of my adult life, mentoring high school and college students towards professional school and thru graduation when they are are working in the field still needing help, as well as coaching competitive levels of youth swimming, soccer etc. I’m saddened by the number of parents/kids who employ questionably shady to completely unethical tactics just to (try to) land them coveted slots.
There are many course/GPA weighting systems across the country and it’s not necessarily that the high schools are trying to game college admissions/advantage their students. Often, colleges are looking at unweighted grades and have different ways to evaluate rigor so typically a school’s weighting system doesn’t really matter. I work in admissions at a highly rejective school and evaluating a transcript isn’t difficult, admissions peeps have all the info they need about the grading/GPA system in the school profile. For example, all South Carolina public high schools use a 6 pt grading scale…I don’t know the origin of that, but I’m sure it wasn’t to give SC students an edge in college admissions. We look at the unweighted grades by course and look at the applicant’s GPA relative to their classmates. We never compare GPAs across HSs (so, obviously we don’t recalculate GPA.)
The situation on this thread, with IU using the highest GPA on a transcript for Kelley auto admit, is unique for undergrad business schools. Certainly IU’s prerogative to have the system they want, but there are other ways, many suggested in this thread, that IU Kelley could employ that wouldn’t increase admission evaluation time but would strengthen their pool in several ways and decrease class size (if that’s what they are looking to do.) But maybe they are happy where they are with direct admit, I don’t know.
The question you have to ask is should Kelley allow for any standard admit/petition at all.
They would be fine in class size with just auto-DA - that was not the case as recently as 2023. If you believe there should be a path outside of auto-DA then its a question of what standards should exist that funnel to the desired class size and/or should Kelley reduce the auto-DA number by making those standards higher to allow the bring in of more SA. And should they do that with the GPA.
You bring up a great implied point which is almost all colleges are running software to get them to a place to score GPA on the march to “holistic” review - which sometimes I inaccurately refer to as “recalculating the GPA” but Kelley is one of the few where that actual number on the HS transcript means something very specific and is not holistic at all - very much meritocracy. And then you have to ask - if they do is it maybe because they find that GPA number to be not all that important?
The answer is neither. They’ve had the same SA standards for awhile. There was no “Class of 2029” stated standards - thats what came after May 1. Enrollees definitely had a reason to rely that the B standard would continue. But anyone going into any college who believes they have a guarantee of any standards or even a program to exist is mistaken from the jump. Same with - what was my plan if I didn’t meet the standard no matter what it was.
This is not what I implied, nor do I think ‘almost all colleges’ running software to ‘score’ GPA (if I correctly understand what you are saying.)
But that’s just it…the system they are using is not meritocratic, because transcript GPAs, whether unweighted or weighted, can’t be compared across high schools…there are too many variabilities that would make this a fool’s errand. So, there are students with an unweighted 3.0 GPA whose wGPA is 3.8+ getting direct admit (assuming they make the test score) and students with a 3.7 unweighted (only GPA on the transcript) or students with a 4.0 unweighted whose HS doesn’t put the GPA on the transcript who petition and don’t get admitted. That is far from meritocratic. I have no skin in the IU Kelley process but their processes absolutely have led to Kelley being overenrolled, having an overweight proportion of males, and a class that has a lower bar for entry than do many of its peers. And I mean no shade at all to Kelley. They can do what they want. Kelley is actually a good example of students who did have a 3.0 GPA in HS (or whatever GPA might have resulted in a 3.8 wGPA) still being highly successful in college and ultimately in their jobs. So, props to Kelley for running a relatively non-elitist process as some of their peers do.
My misunderstanding. Does this mean you look at the GPAs relative to classmates and UW by course with eyeballs and no report or AI to provide you a summary? I do not work in admissions but knowing several who do they use AI to provide them that data versus looking at each application to calculate the UW number and the relativity. In any event, the GPA at Kelley is not reviewed at all relative to high school or classmates which in my experience is a rarity.
What is the correct verbiage for an admissions system that uses only, and in this case, strict academic quantitative scores for admissions? I was under the apparently incorrect assumption meritocracy was defined in admissions in that manner. I like to use accurate words when I can - this is an actual question.
Yes, we use our reading abilities to drill down on the transcript. We have various ways we might quantitatively ‘score’ grades and rigor (and other factors) as we are reading the app. We can sort the applicants by HS by transcript GPA (or anyway we want.) There is no AI anywhere in our process. For now.
Yes there are schools who use automated systems to recalculate GPA. The CSUs have done this for decades. Some schools use Common App Courses and Grades, SRAR, or their own software where applicants enter their courses and grades, the system calculates a GPA how the school wants it done (could be weighted or unweighted, includes all courses or only core, what is a core course, eg. PLTW?), and the output is the school sees a GPA that they can compare across all applicants regardless the HS they came from. I am not sure how any school is using AI for GPA evaluation and/or recalculation. The systems I mentioned aren’t AI, IMO.
I don’t disagree that using quantitative measures is technically ‘meritocratic’. Some might call it ‘rack and stack.’ BUT and this is the important part, the way IU Kelley is using GPA is not meritocratic in practice because they aren’t basing the decision on GPAs that are calculated in a consistent manner (Iowa and Iowa state with their RAI calculation would be examples of meritocratic admission.)
So the IU Kelley process leads to the the situations that I mentioned in my above post…3.0 unweighted students with direct admit, and students with a 3.7 uw or even 4.0 uw students who don’t get direct admit via the petition process (which we see every year on these threads.) As long as things like that are happening, the process is not meritocratic.
The 3.8 weighted is completely un-meritocratic and unfair because schools where the weighting is
+0 remedial, elective, general
+.5 college prep
+1 accelerated/advanced
+1.5 honors
+2 AP
are considered the same as schools where
Honors= +0.1
AP= +.3
and that’s it.
All colleges (except Kelley) consider the wGPA in relation to the HS’ specific grading scale, so that they can tell how a student stands in terms of rigor and achievement, in relation to their class in general and (if highly selective) to the school’s applicants to their college.
Here is an example of school board politics involving GPA weighting, where one of the purposes for those who want heavier weighting was to favor college admissions and scholarships where high school weighted GPA is taken at face value (although there may be a belief that more colleges do that than actually do):
As long as there are colleges (like IU) that take weighted GPA from the high school at face value, these kinds of things will occur.
I wouldn’t say all. Some other colleges and scholarships also take high school weighted GPA at face value, with similar problems that IU business direct admission has in this respect.
But some other colleges ignore the high school reported GPA and grading scale and recalculate GPA their own way (unweighted, or with their own version of weighting).
Indeed, I should have said “all selective”. Where 75+% are admitted, it doesn’t matter all that much, especially if the college is trying to admit all who meet whatever minimum rigor/GPA they have, rather than cut as many as possible
Many colleges recalculate in various ways (removing PE, for instance, or whatever they consider non core…)
Those doing their own recalculations of GPA (likely those using SRAR or similar, but probably some others as well) presumably are not looking at the high school provided GPAs or the high school grading and weighting scales.
The IU method of taking high school weighted GPA at face value, also used by some other schools (University of Alabama used to say that on its scholarship web pages), is probably the least fair and consistent way, whose only apparent benefit is to minimize work for both the admission office and applicant.
Does GA Tech take weighted GPA at face value, if one is given on the transcript? It seems to say that under their evaluation criteria listed here Academic Preparation | Undergraduate Admission
The GPA we consider is the one taken directly from your high school transcript. We will use a 100-point GPA, if available, and weighted, if available. If not, we’re happy to consider a 4.0 GPA or similar and/or unweighted GPA.
If your high school does not provide a GPA or you have attended multiple high schools, we will recalculate a weighted 4.0 GPA (0.5 points added for AP, IB, Dual Enrollment, AS & A Levels) using core courses only.
Your insights are so helpful. It can be hard when high schools do things very differently. Again, my kids’ school is UW only, only core classes in the GPA, uses a minus system (A- is 3.7), no rank, very little dual enrollment and limits AP until 11th/12th. And AP science is a double block. Have a nice day. But this year they have about 12 going to ivies, 5 to Emory, 3 northwestern, 5 Michigan, 2 Vanderbilt - etc etc. BUT, very few go to elite southern state schools. There is a running joke that more kids get into Harvard than UNC. They place much better in NE, Midwest and CA. The best thing you can do is research the schools that have a good relationship with your high school and let the rest go. Let it go. My kids even have the extra fun aspect of their high level classes - highest is Accelerated and AP and Honors is below. This makes the SRAR feel like a nightmare. Will they look at the profile or transcript and actually know my kid took the higher level?? This year there was an issue with Northeastern. They have you fill out your grades in their system. It took weeks of back and forth and involved the high school guidance counselors and we were actually told to change the name on the Acc course to Hon for northeastern. Our school is about 10 miles from NE and has a 30% acceptance rate there. They know our school. And still…. You gotta let it go. Do your research and just do your best. I spent way too much time worrying about this. It’s not perfect, it’s not fair. I have a high stats senior getting ready to apply and I have made peace with the fact that it’s going to be what it’s going to be. I feel for these kids. I don’t love the IU admissions system for Kelley. But you have to research and try to make the best decision for your kid and budget. Again, Kelley, PSU, Wake and UNC are examples of completely different admissions paths to business/finance. It’s easier to roll the dice when you are open to other majors and can easily afford the school. But transparency when making these decisions is expected. It’s hard enough on our end, the least they can do is not make changes like this after May 1.
If we were in the shoes of management - this decision was probably overdue - or some similar decision related to narrowing the access to Kelley. And parents can crunch all the probability numbers they want and complain about fairness – but I will take a deep, sympathetic breath and suggest… the world your children are entering will never be truly fair. If they want to beat these “odds of getting in SA” – they have the power to do that. Your student has the power. Grades are not pulled out of a lottery bin - they are earned. If getting into Kelley is the priority, that can be achieved by a student with the academic ability to succeed in the classes. They did not lock the door to get through - they just made it a little heavier. You might appreciate that they could have dropped the entire Auto-admit ability altogether - and gone the application route (although I think that would result in full revolt). It might also be considered that Kelley made this decision to ensure a certain level of quality and long term success of its students within the program. Perhaps they are discovering higher standards are necessary to ensure the best candidates proceed in the program and are not struggling in coursework where they don’t belong.
