<p>I’m sorely tempted to use a dummy ID to post a “chances” message using my actual high school stats aiming at the college I actually attended. Is anyone willing to confess to actually doing this?</p>
<p>I know it’s childish, but, well, aren’t we really all perpetually 17?</p>
<p>You still remember your high school stats? Wow.</p>
<p>Well, I remember my ECs and GPA. I’m sure I could make up a representative SAT score. I think the utes’ heads would explode if they found out that my alma mater accepted me BEFORE I took the SAT (“go ahead and take it and as long as your score is not terrible, you’re in”). I took the SAT the morning after my senior prom and I don’t remember much about it except that I did OK, but not great. I hadn’t been to sleep that night.</p>
<p>Since my school didn’t offer any AP courses, I certainly didn’t need to worry about w vs. uw GPAs.</p>
<p>Yes, but we’d have to remember to “re-center” our SAT scores! Up they go!</p>
<p>I confess that I remember my SAT scores but not my GPA…you may guess which was better. I was back in the era when SAT scores when to the “one’s” digits, i.e., not every score was a multiple of 10.</p>
<p>I’ve often been struck on the differences between then and now. I receieved virtually no college counseling and applied to a 3-2 engineering program centered around the local Navy base…pretty much took the path of least resistance, most convenience, heavily skewed by financial aid considerations, all the way through. Made a series of decisions that in 30+ year hindsight were wrong, starting with the fact that I had no business going into engineering…though that one took only about three years to resolve. Never thought for more than a fleeting instant about going some place “back East” and as to an LAC, my reaction would have been “what’s that?”, though, oddly enough, I had heard of the Seven Sisters and never dreamed that I’d have a daughter attending one.</p>
<p>The differences between then and now are indeed striking. College counseling? What’s that? I don’t think I ever talked with my guidance counselor one time. Ever.</p>
<p>I remember my (uncentered) old SAT scores (and Achievement Tests, which was what the SAT II Subject Tests were called) and my class rank, but GPA? I don’t think we even talked about that, I can’t recall ever hearing the term until college. We never heard of APs either, but I do remember a big deal being made over the 4 students (including me, from a class of 650 in Baby Boom NJ) who were named National Merit Semifinalists while we were all on the Advanced Biological Inquiries trip to hike the Katahdin Trail in Maine. My parents explicitly forbade me from applying to schools west of the Mississippi (“…or Hampshire”). I applied to 3 schools, got into all 3 of them, and picked the one most different from where I’d been living. I probably could have gotten into others, but it never occurred to me to apply anywhere else. In a bizarre twist, though, I do remember the subject and even some of the content of the essay I wrote for those applications.</p>
<p>And as an alumni interviewer now for my alma mater, seeing which of the students I interview are accepted, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t be admitted there myself in the current era.</p>
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<p>Thanks! I wondered about those numbers that I had stuck in my head all these years! With my 3 point lowish GPA, not sure if it would be good enough for UofM even instate today. No way would I get into my grad school today.</p>
<p>gotta remember how the culture has changed relative to college. Back in the 60’s and early 70’s, only ~25% of grads went to college, and this was a much smaller group of HS grads. Also during that time, now highly selective schools like Berkeley and UCLA accepted nearly every minimally qualified local applicant; a 2.8 plus test scores got one in…now it takes a 3.9. Things were so bad at 'SC, one could literally drive down Figueroa street, on the first day of class and apply and register same day.</p>
<p>I don’t remember my SAT scores, although I do remember being surprised by the % beside the number… and I really remember filling out one college application - in ink - with no prereading or prethought… The little box about “why college x” was filled with a kind of rambling “why not” . I was accepted with honors. Lord, what were the other kids writing?</p>
<p>I don’t have to check. I was a MAJOR slacker in high school, graduated solidly in the top 80% of my class. The only school I could get into was our local community college. That’s why I joined the Navy instead. I went to college after I got out.</p>
<p>Another sign of how things have changed. The sum total of advice from my HS guidance counselor consisted of this exchange:</p>
<p>“Have you applied to colleges”
“Not yet”
(She opens my transcript for a quick glance) “You should.”</p>
<p>I admit it makes me more nostalgic than dismayed.</p>
<p>I don’t think my counselor ever discussed college plans with me, other than to be very fussy when I wanted to drop calculus (“You’ll never get into college without calculus!” - Yes, I did and I had a roommate who couldn’t add negative numbers; I don’t think she had calculus). Thank heaven we didn’t need counselor recommendations back then.</p>
<p>Guidance Counselors? I didn’t even have one. I attended a small private christian school and we had no guidance counselor. I loved our principal, though, and she was very much the type you could speak with if you had questions. My parents didn’t go to college and my older sister ended up at a state school. I figured it was good enough for me, so I applied to that school only. I loved it there, but after seeing what’s out there, I know I could have had a lot more opportunity. That’s why we really researched schools when it came time for DD to apply. We didn’t want her to “settle”. </p>
<p>As for my ACT, SAT or GPA … I don’t remember any of it. I made good grades, but it just didn’t mean enough for me at the time to do anything with it. I didn’t know what was out there in the world!</p>
<p>I don’t remember details of my “stats”, but I only ever planned to go to my state school, as this was the alma mater of two generations before me. I do, however, remember that I did rather well on standardized tests, enough so that I got serious offers in the mail from several colleges. MIT was one and, being a music/fine-arts oriented person, I remember my father having to explain to me why this was a good thing. I, however, was not interested…</p>
<p>AMAZING how different things are today!</p>
<p>I never took the SAT, we had the Washington pre-college test. Have no clue what the numbers were or even meant. Dad was my GC and he said “in-state only.” I think I had a real GC but can’t recall talking to her. I applied to UW (Washington that is) with a GPA of 3.5. No GPA weighting for us. I don’t recall applying to any other schools although I looked at Evergreen State College which was fairly new and my Dad said “ummm NO!” I do recall that Bowling Green was the school that sent the most materials.</p>
<p>I remember my SAT scores vividly (yes, pre-“re-centered”) and if it were today, I would be lucky to be at third tier, instead of top 25, which is where I ended up (and performed very well). </p>
<p>It really is <em>that</em> much different now.</p>
<p>I still feel like my mom got jipped in the college process. She was a top-performing student in a city school in Indianapolis, but there was one hurdle between her and college…money. My mom’s family was poor and she was the only poor student in her honors level classes, so she wasn’t given the appropriate advice on how to go to college or what kind of money was available to her to go to college. She was not only a great student, but also was National Merit commended. She was recruited by Texas Christian, but she didn’t know how to make that work out being so far away. She ended up at IUPUI, did wonderfully for some time, dropped out to get married, dropped back in (when she got divorced), dropped out again to have me. </p>
<p>She’s doing very well for herself, but I know she still wonders where she could have gone if she was given the proper direction.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, I read an article about a 95 year-old woman that was finally graduating college this year as the oldest college graduate ever (with her grand-daughter). When I told my mom, she joked that she plans to beat her on that one ;)</p>
<p>I had good SAT scores, mediocre grades (parents, try not to move your kids after their freshman year in high school!) and applied to a small group of schools. I ended up at an all women’s college because a smart older girl I admired in my Chemistry class went there. My father’s comment was, “You’re going to a school without sports teams??” (I was/am big into spectating/playing sports.) A very well-thought out process, all in all. I was fortunate that notwithstanding the incredible time and effort that went into the college process :rolleyes: it worked out very well. I got a great education and made life-long friends.</p>
<p>We were so poor that I chose my college based on two things (reputation was not one of them): No application fee (typically $15 back then) and a co-op program so that I could start earning money after my first quarter. I only applied to one school - Ga Tech - got in, and got scholarship money that paid for my tuition and some of my room and board. By my calculations, I was $500 short for the year and browbeat the judges in a local scholarship competition to grant me a $500 “scholarship loan” so I could go. My grades were great - 9/635 - (in a time - unlike these days - when high GPAs were rarer) and my SAT scores were OK, but would not give me bragging rights these days. I <em>did</em> get an 800 on the Advanced Math Achievement Test (now called SAT-II’s), so I think that sealed the deal, admissions-wise. I was also on the swim team and the President of one of the larger clubs in HS.</p>
<p>But with the competition these days, could I have been admitted to Ga. Tech? Hmmmm… I certainly could not have gotten the (equivalent) scholarship money.</p>
<p>It’s amazing how “simple” those times now seem.</p>
<p>Ophiolite, I’m a bit like your Mom…I’ve done okay but it did hit me a decade or two back how much better I’d have done with some proper direction. One of the reasons that mentoring my D took on the importance for me that it did.</p>