<p>emmybet- congrats!! hope you’ll stick around in the other threads even though your d seems to be “rising above”!
My d on the other hand pretty much got straight B’s this quarter (albeit in AP’s and honors classes, she did get a couple of A’s in her regents level classes). She is not at all motivated by grades! Could care less. Some days I just have to breathe and remember to accept her for who she is (I was always a bit of a grade grubber, had a 3.9 in college!) I know deep down she will be fine! Just wish she hadn’t had her grades be the worst in her junior year! I know it won’t look good on her apps!</p>
<p>A wrist-slap on me: my D came home from rehearsal and explained the B. I misread the report card and now understand, based on numerical grades. She’s completely happy and I am, too. Just a little embarrassed to be a compulsive mommy…</p>
<p>cooker- The Robert Cook HOnors College at IUP sounds great. If D was interested in a larger university I would definitely have her look into it. Let us know what your D thinks of the experience. Congrats!</p>
<p>Tomorrow is the LAST exam of the year!! Whoot Whoot. S2 is exempt from the others so it is his last day! </p>
<p>So how do your kids celebrate? My son has a group of about a dozen friends who have been together for years…some since kindergarden. They have a pool party the last day of school. In high school they also started the annual ‘burning of the papers’ bonfire. Funny thing is, we notice less and less getting tossed into the bonfire each year as they decide to hang on to notebooks for study guides. I can not imagine how high the flames will go next June!! :)</p>
<p>A fun weekend. Most will start summer jobs on Monday.</p>
<p>Cooker, I know a few kids who went to IUP and one who graduated from the Honors College and I’ve always thought that the Robert Cook is the best honors college of our PA State Schools. I’ll be interested in hearing what your daughter thinks of it.</p>
<p>^kathiep,
I don’t know if you have checked out RIT but our son’s robotics coach, who was a college prof for years before relocating to our area, can not say enough good things about the school. Our son wasn’t interested (which irked his coach a bit…), but a few students head there each year from our program and really love it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What if you’re like me and have a 3.2 GPA and a 34 ACT? </p>
<p>Ahhh…you, CIA, bring a little excitement into their lives! They get to figure out who you are, in all your seemingly inconsistent glory!</p>
<p>^And they will being paying A LOT of attention to your essays. If they are vanilla/bland, you are not going to have much luck. Let them see why you are going to be a great part of their student community and what you will add to their university and you’ve got 'em!</p>
<p>Hey Emmmybet, which colleges is your D interested in, if you don’t mind? They sound really interesting.</p>
<p>blueiquana, Son will be visiting RIT this summer for this event - [RIT</a> College & Careers Homepage](<a href=“http://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/careers/register.php]RIT”>http://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/careers/register.php) My nephew just finished his freshman year there and really liked it, although it did sound like the workload was humongous. A few of the colleges on Son’s list have Robotics scholarships for which he will definitely be applying.</p>
<p>Three exams to go! The next thing to look forward to? Toy Story III on Saturday!!</p>
<p>^kathiep,
The RIT price tag can scare but the scholarships add up. I believe USFIRST works with RIT. I was surprised that GATech only offered $1k through USFIRST. After hosting the World Championships for several years just steps from their door you’d think they would show a little more love. I guess they don’t really have to. Sad. Otherwise it was on my son’s list. We visited and surprisingly my son really liked it. The urban setting didn’t bother him. It is more of a park like setting…although he’s grown up in a major metropolitan area so it doesn’t bother him as much. He still wants to keep the option for aero so the options narrow considerably. Let us know how your visits go! :)</p>
<p>blueiguana, Is your son looking at Florida Institute of Technology? [Florida</a> Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.fit.edu/]Florida”>http://www.fit.edu/) They are a little less expensive then some of the other techy colleges we are looking at, have FIRST scholarships, and the overwhelming majority of students are from out of state. A friends daughter just completed her first year there (LOVED it!) and her Mom did too. The admissions standards are lower then most tech oriented colleges which is why they may fly under the radar screen for many people. They were originally started by NASA Scientists and are very close to Cape Kennedy. They have their own College of Aeronautics with a flight line and an Aviation Computer Science major! [College</a> of Aeronautics](<a href=“College of Aeronautics | Florida Tech”>http://coa.fit.edu/)</p>
<p>^^ Re FIT
Why do you think their admissions standards are so low…
We think they are really low compared to the other tech schools—
On the “list” as a safety–However I think our student isn’t giving FIT much of a glance because of the low SAT/low GPA requirements…and the retention rate wsn’t really high.
There are a good number of out of state and internationals…</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Sometimes the admissions standards are low because the schools mission is to educate those students like my son who may not be the best test takers but want to be challenged and work hard. The retention rate is most likely low because the slackers can’t cut it. When I talked the young lady who attends FIT, her eyes lit up as she talked about her Chemical Engineering classes and the research opportunities. Here’s something from their website that appeals to us, </p>
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</p>
<p>I frankly don’t care how it’s ranked or how unknown a college is - I’m looking for one that fits my son. ;)</p>
<p>Putturani - thanks for asking! First let me tell you that she is intending to be a theater major, and hopefully as a BFA, so that drives our list. And because we live in Wisconsin, her public safeties are out here, while many of her preferred schools are in the east (not just because everyone likes it there, but also because my family is in Massachusetts, and she is very comfortable with that part of the country).</p>
<p>Quick list: Auditioned schools are Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University (high reaches); Adelphi University, Montclair State University, SUNY New Paltz (reaches). Non-auditioned schools: Bard College, Lawrence University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (BA program), and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The last two are safeties. </p>
<p>She is a good fit academically at all of these schools. All auditioned schools are reaches; the first two are the most selective artistically, and the ones with “names.” She may or may not add another non-auditioned school, and she may add a few more programs as walk-ins at the Chicago Unified Auditions in February.</p>
<p>I’m glad you are part of this group - please keep asking us questions. I can’t imagine handling this from such a distance! Good luck!</p>
<p>My poor D’s GPA has gone up with every single transcript and her class rank has gone down with every single transcript. I tell everyone who is serious about being near the top of the class that other students will take 6 or 7 APs Junior year and if they only take 2-3, their GPA will suffer. I’m not telling them that to encourage them to take 6-7 APs, just to let them in on the harsh reality. </p>
<p>D got straight As with 3 APs and 2 pre-APs, her GPA is 5.044 on a 5.0 scale and she went down from the top 12% to the top 14%. I’m kind of worried because we typically lose 10-20 people over the summer. If we lose 20, that may kick her out of the top 15% … which is really a blow to someone who has worked so hard to get such a high GPA.</p>
<p>missypie - that’s rough. I would like to think that colleges will know that competition at your HS is at a very high level. Anyone who gets all As has a stellar record! I know some scholarships, etc. are based on class rank, but I guess this is also why many HSs have abolished it. Hopefully the combination of GPA, test scores and rank will all work in your D’s favor, in a holistic admission process.</p>
<p>At our HS, there are kids like mine who come into their own the last couple of years, while there are many who coasted early and then fade into the background; I don’t know how many of each, though. I don’t think she can ever make the top 10%, because that only means starting strong and staying there. We’re hoping she’s higher than the 25% she was at last year at this time (they only calculate at the end of the year, and we haven’t received that info yet). Unlikely higher than 15%, probably no chance, so somewhere around 20%. This is all without weighting - I couldn’t begin to figure that out.</p>
<p>Nothing, including class rank, can be considered an “absolute” measure of a student’s ability or accomplishments. So many variables!</p>
<p>Kathiep’s recent post about why her son is looking at a school with “low admission requirements” prompts me to go on a bit of a tangent, but it might be helpful because I sense there may be some folks newer to the process here and some students.</p>
<p>My D is looking at schools beneath her stat-range because we want merit money, plain and simple. Her GPA is 4.3 (on 4 point scale, ACT 34, and she will be NMSF (PSAT 220, cutoff in our state is 214). She is looking at very good schools (all listed in Princeton’s Top 374), but most with mid-range stats of hs GPA 3.3-3.7, ACT 24-30, etc. My D is very attractive to these schools, not only because of academic stats but because she brings a level of musical talent that is above the typical applicant at about half of them. They are schools that offer the small LAC, close-knit, warm community, and fairly conservative (or not too liberal) campus she wants. We are hoping for something between three-quarter tuition and full ride.</p>
<p>Will she be challenged at these schools? Sure. The admission stats only show averages and mid-ranges. There are smart kids to be found at any of these schools. Right now she’s at a wonderful college prep school and although she’s in the top 3 pct, believe me, she feels challenged. One more thought: we’re confident that she’ll be challenged by the professors, even if she often is the highest “stat” in the room. We’re looking at schools that subscribe to the belief that (as DaleAlum eloquently said in another thread), “18- to 22-year-olds have a lot more to learn than to teach.”</p>
<p>Another route would be to look at the Ivies and near-Ivies, and she would certainly get in to some of them. But we want the merit money and believe she can get an excellent education AND be well connected for getting into grad school at these schools a notch or two down. That’s how we’re approaching it, fwiw. We’ll see how it goes.</p>
<p>What momofsongbird said. That is why I care at all about whether D is in the top 15% of her class or not. From my son’s experience, I know that many schools use class percentiles (top 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%) to compute merit money. In fact, Son’s school gave him a few thousand a year more when his mid-senior year transcript showed that he had risen from the top 20.4% to the top 19.6%…ridiculous way to award money in my book, but we’ll take it!</p>
<p>Oh cool Emmybet. I guess her situation does not apply to me then, because I am not going to be a theatre major. Thanks everyone for your advice on booking interviews - I looked a few already. So far so good but I felt my Indian accent became horribly prominent while I was speaking to those people. :S</p>