<p>Wow. Go away for a couple of days and you miss a ton. </p>
<p>Momt, we had the same situation. Son chose a school other than the one we would have chosen. Ultimately, we thought he should make the choice, since he has to live with it. But it was funny. I think he knew months ago where he wanted to go, but let it drag on because he was afraid that he was disappointing us by not choosing our favorite. Once I told him we were OK either way, he happily made the choice. </p>
<p>Very hard to know what the right thing is, but I do believe in fit, and he has a clear idea where he fits and where he doesn’t.</p>
<p>I’m a senior who had around a B+ average (which is about a 3.5 last time I checked) and a score of 1930 on the SAT. I got into both Reed and Bard College which are pretty good schools and I think if I had applied to more I would’ve gotten into more. Safety schools (all of which I got into) include: Bryn Mawr, and University of Vermont. My best advice is that even if the school might be a ‘reach’ school, you should go for it. I was afraid of getting rejected from a lot of schools so I really only applied to target and safety schools, and as a consequence when I got into all of them, was left wondering whether I shouldn’t have taken the risk, just to see what the outcome could have been.</p>
<p>Thank you for your very honest and helpful post! Best wishes to you! Where are you going? In my opinion you shouldn’t be disappointed with your choices and results - all fine, fine schools.</p>
<p>I had never thoguth of Bryn Mawr as a safety for B+ kids; I guess the few remaining all-girls schools are suffering. Bryn Mawr’s interconnections with Haverford are so extensive (classes; dining rooms; clubs; etc) that it is as close to co-ed as a single sex school could be.</p>
<p>anicholas, is that B+ average weighted or unweighted? It makes all the difference in the world, especially if you’ve been taking a substantial number of AP or honors classes.</p>
<p>Emmy,
I don’t know if your daughter is your oldest child (and first to go through this) or not. So my comments may not be useful. Your posts about your daughter sound a lot like where I was with child one several years ago. We live in a very academic, major university town community where starting in middle school, the college talk begins.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s lack of affiliation with the “smart kids” reminded me of the stance my daughter took in high school. The reasoning behind my daughter’s stance didn’t really come out until she was in college. High school was stressful and the kids D was in classes with were the kids of academics. These kids had a lot of expectations riding on them. D did not find the relationships with them to be rewarding during high school. The top kids tended to be more competitive, less willing to help a classmate with similar abilities out (fearful of loosing a few places in class rank, they were more than willing to tutor the bottom of the class for community service stars). D found the less competitive kids to be more rewarding in terms of friendship. Some of the higher achieving students she was in school with are her friends now (even though they are scattered all over the country, they connect on breaks and really look out for each other in terms of summer jobs, classes to take locally, internships). During the holiday break, I met kids from her high school I had never seen before (but had wondered why she wasn’t friends with them). She says that they frequently talk about how the ranking, parental pressure and competition really disrupted their ability to have meaningful friendships while in high school. When she chose he college, she specifically wanted to be surrounded by smart kids who were not competitive. She has that and has loved her college experience (although it is stressful in a different way-the work is challenging!).</p>
<p>Reed and Bard are both known for taking risks with high potential kids. D has a friend at Bard who Made a D for the year in APUSH and AP Bio as well. Her transcript was littered with C’s. What was the catch? She loved languages and was fluent in several. She also was an amazing artist who had won several awards. The friend at Reed had numerous Cs on the transcript but had done independent bio research while in HS.</p>
<p>D got into Vassar, Oberlin, Reed, UNC, Grinnell, Case Western and a few I can’t seem to remember with five Cs on her transcript and a 3.4/4.5 GPA. With the exception of Reed (doesn’t give merit) and UNC (instate), she was offered very attractive financial aid/merit scholarship packages). Having hooks and high test scores on APs and SAT/ACT can make a huge difference in where you are admitted. Perhaps the poster has a hook she hasn’t revealed to us.</p>
<p>If the poster doesn’t need financial aid, then having reaches makes sense. For my kids, we needed money and schools tend not to give much $$ to reach admits. We stuck with safety and target schools.</p>
<p>I think one theme that runs through this thread is that there are a lot of excellent schools for students with less than perfect transcripts. Our kids are proof of this. The media focuses too much on the ivies and the admit rates for those schools have struck an unreasonable fear in kids who would not be applying to ivies in the first place (and I proudly include my kids in that group of non-ivey applicants).</p>
<p>If I had a daughter in the B+ range, I would definitely check out Bryn Mawr; Mt. Holyoke; Smith and Wellesley (are there many other non-religious all girls schools?). At our school, which has a large brand-name oriented group, I have never heard of anyone visiting any of them–it seems that all-girls schools are simply taboo, especially for straight girls.</p>
<p>I suspect, however, that these are still excellent schools, with caring teachers, small classes and beautiful campuses. I have also told people that, given what I have seen of the Haverford/Bryn Mawr relationship, ut may be easier to meet straight guys at Bryn Mawr than at some of the similar schools which went coed.</p>
<p>Simmons College in Boston, because of its location, is very popular in our school district. The school is located in the Longwood Medical area and in the Fenway. Emmanuel College & Wheelock College are in same neighborhood. Simmons does admit men to its’ graduate programs as non residents. Many young women from here go to Simmons for nursing program. If you are a Red Sox fan, even better for you!</p>
<p>Just a word of caution here. I know a fairly strong student who was admitted to Gettysburg, Bucknell and Wellsley last year. Wellsley was a shock - that really was a reach for her. She felt most comfortable about Gettysburg - thought it fit her the best. Father was so hung up on the prestige issue - how can you turn down Wellsely, he asked? Well, she went to Wellsley and it was too much for her. She actually flunked out first semester. She is going to community college now and is in talks with Gettysburg to be readmitted there for the fall. I guess her dad has scraped the Wellsely sticker of the car by now. I’m just saying…</p>
<p>Why put kids in over their heads for prestige? Part of my son’s selection was the fact that he felt the kids were like him. He was downright intimidated by the discussions in the classes he sat in on at two of his semi-reach admit schools (where his SAT/GPA put him in the lower third of admits). He was right at home sitting in on classes at the match school he is going to.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom is so correct. D’s roommate from freshman year was in way over her head and ended up at Grinnell because the parents wanted her at the highest ranked school she was admitted to (according to US News). The girl took a medical second semester and left. She is now at Macalester and doing beautifully (it was where she wanted to be in the first place).</p>
<p>I know folks don’t like the SAT. However, I found the admit averages for the schools useful for both of my kids and where they would fit academically. Both chose schools where their scores were above the 50th percentile.</p>
<p>Hornet- I completely agree with your approach. We are looking at schools where d is in upper half of the range for two reasons: her comfort level AND to be more competitive for merit aid. My d straddles this thread and the 3.3-3.6 thread depending. On how you calculate gpa, but she is definitely more at home with the B/A- mindset than with the high achievers. So while she might get accepted at more competitive schools, it just isn’t a good plan for her.</p>
<p>So for the purposes of THIS thread, how do you think about SAT’s in the 75 percentile, and GPA’s in the 25th percentile, or less? I know it depends on a lot of variables. Assuming the “late blooming”, no H/AP one.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, I never worried about GPA because different colleges recalculate them differently and there isn’t a standard grading system. I only worried about SAT and ACT scores when looking at percentiles. I also know that my kid is in a very competitive high school.</p>
<p>Ahhh, that one is complicated! It depends so much on the kid. I leaned more toward the SAT with my son in making the choice. I may be naive but I figured the SAT was a flawed, but reasonable gauge as to how well prepared he was compared to the other admits. GPAs are calculated in so many different ways and schools vary so much. Flawed as it is, the SAT and ACT are standardized and may be a better measure than GPA in attempting to assess the peer group.</p>
<p>I do worry about my S this fall. His college is a match, but the engineering program was a bit of a reach. His SAT average was within the range, but his GPA was way under the average admit for engineering.</p>
<p>My worry is that although he has had a great senior year, he’s going into a rigorous major with kids who have been working hard all along to attain their high GPAs. He is on the lower end of the engineering admits, and I talk to him regularly about what is going to be expected of him, but I still think it’s going to be a big shock for him. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.</p>