<p>Minnymom, DS’s application specifically said “We have determined that you are not in the top 9% of your high school class.” then it said there is another, statewide path and gave him the link to the calculator. He does make it according to that calculator. </p>
<p>I’m a bit stunned that he didn’t make it through his school. But it is a very competitive school, with 130 in his class.</p>
<p>Congrats to your DS, Minnymom!</p>
<p>@EricMetubiev2: yes ;)</p>
<p>Just a little clarification on UC: ELC means that you are in the top 9% of your high school class. It is the alternate path if you don’t meet the requirement of being in the top 9% of the graduates in the state, and is designed to ensure that students in poor and/or rural high schools with limited resources and few AP or IB courses still have a way to qualify. To determine ELC, they calculate if you are in the top 9% of your local school by measuring your weighted GPA in the “a-g” college-prep classes that you take in 10th and 11th grade, and comparing it to the historical distribution of GPAs in your school, so it is a very different calculation than how a high school calculates class rank, and it doesn’t matter at all how your classmates do, just what the historical GPAs were. </p>
<p>For highly selective and wealthy schools, usually ELC doesn’t matter because many more than 9% of students will be eligible in the statewide context. To see if you make that cut, you calculate your “admissions index” from your SAT or ACT score (so for example an SAT score of 600 on all three sections – no superscoring allowed – converts to a UC score of 240), and then look up your weighted sophomore+junior year college prep course GPA in a table to see if your UC score is high enough. So if your weighted two year college prep GPA is 3.6, then you need at least a 231 UC score to get in. So a student with 600-600-600 SATs and 3.6 GPA will get into some UC campus. (Which one is another matter, and much less predictable!)</p>
<p>It is an arcane system, but has the virtue of transparency. However, the weighted GPA definitely favors people who take AP or IB courses – unless they go to a school that doesn’t offer APs or IB, in which case the ELC path becomes the more important one. Bottom line: UC wants to see you take the most challenging courses available to you, but won’t penalize you if your school doesn’t offer much.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation, 2014ProfDad. </p>
<p>So do I read you correctly that his not achieving ELC status may not matter because so many from his school meet the statewide cut? His UC score is 278 with a 4.0+ weighted GPA. Is there any way to tell what his chances would be at San Diego and Santa Barbara? Waiting until March is going to be a killer.</p>
<p>I don’t think ELC means that much anymore. DS11 just missed ELC when it was top 4% of class. He still was accepted to UCSB and UC Irvine. ELC today only guarantees UC Merced I think. Our kids will have more options than that with or without ELC.</p>
<p>Yes, I think Minnymom is right that ELC only guarantees Merced. (It had been either Merced or Riverside for a while.) Of course, strictly speaking eligibility in the statewide context also only guarantees Merced, but if you are going to qualify one way or the other it is better to do it statewide than ELC.</p>
<p>It is hard to estimate chances at individual campuses, since they all do comprehensive review using different criteria and weights. But each has a summary of the specific things they look for linked from the right hand column of this page: [How</a> applications are reviewed | UC Admissions](<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/how-applications-reviewed/index.html]How”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/how-applications-reviewed/index.html)</p>
<p>DS has been looking at his myMIT account and received an e-mail that he was still missing information. He has been aware that one of his LORs has not been received yet, but failed to read the e-mail that said that MIT needed it by 11/19/13 5:00 EST. He finally remembered to ask the teacher yesterday (11/21/13) and the teacher said it was mailed 3 weeks ago. So…MIT did not receive the LOR by 5:00 on 11/19. I guess he’s going in the RD pool. 
Frustrating!!!</p>
<p>This is the same teacher that chose to do the Common App LORs offline and another school also shows his as missing. I’m guessing they weren’t sent, but nothing we can do. I’ve been trying to let DS handle it, but I just sent an e-mail to the teacher asking him to fax the LOR to MIT. I know it’s going to be too late, but whatever …</p>
<p>beadymom, I feel for you. We are in a very similar situation. I just found out tonight that DS’ school did not send transcript in time so the college put DS into RD instead of EA. This is a big problem for DS since he needed to have the EA status in order to apply to their BS/MD program. I called the college but they would not change it. I am very frustrated with DS’ high school as well as the college right now.</p>
<p>How awful, 4beardolls and beadymom! How frustrating that others dropped the ball in such a big way.</p>
<p>That’s interesting 4beardolls??? I have always heard that as long as you had the actual application in by the due dat, the college would not hold you responsible if the LOR’s, transcripts etc, didn’t make it by the due date, as this is out of your control. This is VERY sad! Can you ask the HS’s GC to call the school and explain it was his fault and not the students fault?</p>
<p>5boys, that is exactly what I have heard, too. I talked to the college admin on Friday and got no where so I asked for her supervisor to call me. Of course, no one called. I will call again on Monday. This ordeal is making me so sad that my DS said that he doesn’t even want to go to a college that treat people like that. This is unfortunate since it’s a safety that my (high stats) son loved.</p>
<p>How frustrating 4beardolls- out of your control yet you bear the consequences. Sometimes I long for the days of typewriters, copiers, and envelopes. That way, You control the burden and timeline.</p>
<p>I hope they will reconsider his app. I am sure you guys are beyond frustrated right now! I think it has just been a crazy admission season so far for everyone. I just pray to god that my DS gets into his ED school so this whole thing can be over with! Is the school that is doing this a public school? FYI, I just noticed on another thread that our boys got accepted to the same school:)</p>
<p>5boys, the EA/RD issue we have is with a private school and not with U of MN.
By the way, DS spent the summer at U of MN for an internship and he really loved being there.</p>
<p>Glad to hear that about UMinn:). We live in CA, so haven’t been to Twin Cities. He is a theater major kid, was originally going to audition for BFA programs, but changed his mind last minute to do a BA instead. He wants to double major I think. UMinn has a great theater program and it’s also in a great theater city! As far as the EA app, you might have more luck with it since it is a private school. I will keep my fingers crossed for you.</p>
<p>I understand the frustration with guidance. My son applied EA to a school’s honors college, which gives excellent merit money. He got his app in. His two teacher recommendations and the transcript all were on time. But no counselor rec. So I e-mail the counselor, who is new. She said she had not written the rec yet, nor had she talked with my son. He works as a guidance assistant! It’s not like she does not see him. He has been running passes to all his classmates for her, but she never schedules a time to talk with him! So I told her to get his resume from the college counselor – it’s on file since school started. From that, she wrote the rec. Still has not talked with him. I only hope this did not cost him scholarship money.</p>
<p>My son has added a few new schools to his list, as they have expressed an interest in his running. As of last night, one school did not have his transcript or scores, so I paid for scores. </p>
<p>This is getting old. I do not blame my son. He is looking at all options.</p>
<p>Hi, 5boys, I just wanted to tell you more about U of MN. As I said, DS was at U of MN-Twin Cities for an internship for 10 weeks this summer. He really loved it there. You can get around the city by bus and my son went to a lot of places without having a car (lake, Mall of America, etc…). The faculties and students are very nice. People in general are very nice for being in a city/metropolitan area. DS calls in “the Minnesota nice”. It’s a really big school though. I told my son that he has to keep in mind that his summer experience is not going to be typical, i.e., not as many students around etc… Also, he was there the best part of the year from weather stand point. Incidentally, I worked and lived in Minneapolis for 10 months in the past. I would have stayed there if not for family reason and… the winter :).</p>
<p>My son’s issue isn’t with the high school, it is with one of the colleges. They say they haven’t received his ACT Scores (which were ordered 10/11). We emailed the ACT folks and they said it has been available for the school to download for weeks. The other two schools we sent them to received them. This one college also says they haven’t received a teacher recommendation and his transcript. They are all in the common app and it says the teacher recommendation was downloaded. It says the School Report is submitted but not downloaded. I’m feeling like this admissions office is flaky. </p>
<p>S went to visit Northwestern with his dad this weekend. They drove to Evanston last night and went to the 11 am info session and tour. It was EXTREMELY cold for November- single digits with an even lower wind chill. His dad was having trouble with his vertigo and had a headache so between that and the cold, my S said “He was a negative presence.” S did like the campus but didn’t feel like the info session gave him very much information about the school that he didn’t get from their web site and promotional materials. He was disappointed they didn’t talk about the program he wants for very long. I think he said “two minutes”. He will apply, but they didn’t do anything to convince him he should love it. He ended up having to do all the driving (from Chicago to Detroit) on the way home because his dad was still dizzy. It wasn’t a great experience, but he’s not holding it against the school.</p>
<p>First application sent to CalPoly San Luis Obispo. UC apps in the next day or so.</p>
<p>@calla1
Don’t worry, your son goes to a high achieving school so they know that kids in that school are competitive. UCSD accepts about 20 to 25% of our local HS’s graduating class almost every year, so . . .</p>
<p>Just checking in to say hi and commiserate/hang out with other 2014 parents. D is in pretty good shape in that she has one acceptance under her belt, 3 other apps submitted, 4 more ready to go and just one more to work on. It’s been a pretty tense, rough road at times but, other than the stress of waiting to hear, I am so happy that the majority of her work around her applications is behind her. Best of luck to everyone’s kids.</p>
<p>There is a reason this time around I made d get her apps done in Aug/Sept. I didn’t even care what guidance thought about me sending emails asking for updates all the time. I wanted her stuff done and in and no problems way before deadlines. </p>
<p>Trust me, there was a night in December 2 years ago I chugged an entire bottom of wine myself - lol My son chose zero safeties, everything was a reach and he said he’d rather do community college than any safety. And his school wasn’t electronic yet so it was so nerve wracking waiting weeks while schools matched everything together.</p>
<p>I remember calling one school after the deadline when they said they didn’t receive his transcripts but I knew it was sent. The admissions person said that date was for applications, however some schools say all info must be in by this date. But I don’t believe someone can’t help grease the wheels - I’d have a good guidance counselor call and try and work it out.</p>