Got a letter in the mail today from the principal at D’s high school saying that there were some errors in GPA recalculations after 1st quarter grades, which were sent to colleges in the optional reports. He assured us that the corrected transcripts would be sent to the school “as soon as possible”. Sigh.
My daughter is a 3.3 range w. decent scores 27 ACT… We had to move to Ohio from NY in the middle of her Sophomore year. She seems to be doing well. No sports but SUPER involved in Musical Theater… She’s applied EA to Ohio State, Kent State and Siena college in NY… She really wants to get into OSU. I know her grades aren’t quiet there, but these grades came from 3 AP, mostly honors and a DE. She is now taking Math & Psychology at the local CC along w/ AP ENG.
Update Accepted to Kent State (but denied to the MT program) & *Youngstown University (w 2K merit award),
OSU Columbus campus denied admission, but they admitted her to the regional campus, W guarantee transfer to Columbus if she maintains at least a 2.0 & completes 30 credits her freshman year… No word yet from Siena in NY.
FAFSA compelted & I nearly choked when it showed our EFC!! Clearly whoever sets those formulas is not living in the real world!
Welcome, @rscgrad! Was she admitted to MT at the OSU regional campus? If so, that sounds like a solid path to Columbus.
The EFC’s are incredibly unrealistic in our world as well. At least you would be in-state for many of your schools. I’ve also heard that Sienna is generous with merit aid and they typically provide admissions decisions pretty quickly.
@dspflyer A. 93-96. 4.0. A-. 90-92. 3.7. B+. 87-89. 3.3. B. 83-86. 3.0. B-. 80-82. 2.7. C+. 77-79. 2.3. C. 73-76. 2.0. C-. 70-72. 1.7. D+. 67-69. 1.3. D. 65-66. 1.0. E/F. Below 65.
@klinska, that is awful!! Did the Principle say how the error affected the GPA’s? Overstated or understated?
@CoyoteMom, I’m sure the DC-Fburg commute will get old pretty quickly! For some reason it doesn’t bother me as much as going north on I95. We visited Loyola MD and F&M on separate days over the summer, and both times I was ready to turn around; joked if he went to Loyola he’d be 45 minutes from home but he could rest assured I’d never, ever visit! He’s always loved UMW so I won’t be surprised if he lands there. Applied to VT today kind of last minute; that’s another drive that could get old fast!
I just paid the GMU app fee so hopefully that will get a decision rolling. Nice your son got an email from the history department! Nada for my son (marketing). It’s a bit TOO close to home but has a wider range of courses than UMW and my son does like it.
@klinska and others with congrats over UMW – thank you! I was being a little shady about naming names as my S17 has a pretty specific list of schools he likes. Get a few margaritas into me and I’ll probably spill more!
UMW was the first college we visited, sort of on a whim because I felt like we were behind on the college visit game thanks to Facebook. And it quickly became the one to beat as far as he was concerned. He got the letter at the end of October. Had we known he’d hear this early from his favorite, we could have saved ourselves a lot of essays and app fees from a few low on his list.
@dspflyer The list @jmek15 shows, its a fairly good idea of what a 3.0 is…
But it’s not really a direct comparison 3.0 GPA is usually an average of many grades. For most H.S. schools I know of + or - don’t affect the GPA, but in university it does. At my son’s school an A-, looks exactly the same as an A where GPA is concerned. But in reality this varied a lot school to school. There is no one standard on this. The percentage to grade really vary in in S’s school even from teacher to teacher.
In short a 4.0 UW would be straight A’s, and a 3.0 would be a kid who got straight B’s.
Usually on this board we are comparing to UW (Un-weighted) GPA. My S’s school for example shows 6 different GPA’s on the transcript, UW, Weighted and UC GPA (10-12th grade only.)
University admissions compare different numbers. Many calculate their own GPA based on transcripts, trying to normalize numbers between different schools. We mostly compare unweighted since what classes are giving Honors (+1) points vary wildly from school to school & I’ve seen people post their kids have a 4.8 GPA which would be impossible at S’s school. (Tops out about 4.35)
Perhaps that’s more information than you wanted.
Our HS does factor in + and - grades into the GPA, so I guess it really does vary. 
@jmek15, the letter was pretty vague. And I have to say, the new online system the school implemented this year doesn’t give me everything the old system used to (like GPA and class rank). Kinda like the new Naviance. What’s the deal with “upgrades” giving you less than the previous version? Yes it looks prettier, but I don’t need pretty, I need information, dagnabit!
@klinska, yes WWU is making things tough. D was pretty down today and she said she was worried she wouldn’t have any other real options besides CSU. She likes CSU, but there’s definitely a better feeling when a student has choices. I dream that WWU’s EE dept will get their ABET certification before April and change the energy concentration to freshman entry. Yeah, that seems likely!
What a pita that your D’s school screwed up grades at one of the worst possible times.
We’re in a similar situation to @eandesmom where some schools will be do-able at a stretch but very tough to justify. For example, CSU is $23,000 ($22,000 if she gets into HC), while OSU is $34,000. D likes the sound of OSU’s renewable energy program better than CSU, but not $11,000/year worth (plus the extra cost of travel).
@momofa12, wow, grats to your S! I hope the overnight will go well and reinforce his choice.
@curiositycat333, on posting $$ (or anything else), everyone should just list whatever their comfortable with. No pressure!
@rscgrad, welcome! Now that we have someone looking at Ohio State we’ll have to specify which OSU! My D’s is Oregon State. What is MT? (Probably showing my ignorance!)
@snoozn -
MT is musical theater. I only know this because S17 is going for theater tech. He actually doesn’t care if the program is MT, straight acting or a combo, he just likes to tech.
Wow, congrats to everyone on the latest round of acceptances. It’s very exciting to read all this great news!
Definitely willing to contribute to the “outcomes” list.
Outcomes
What would be great to get it started is if folks can PM me their outcomes so I can get the initial list going. Then it should be easy to add in as they come in. That would be easier than combing through the posts for the info if htat works for folks.
Would that work?
@klinska UGH! Did you have many that needed Q1 grades or did they auto send to all? I would not be thrilled about that.
@tacocat333 congrats on UMW (can’t recall if I said that already or not lol!)
@snoozn did you ask the EE department what their ETA on ABET was? It might be worth really checking on. I can’t imagine your D not getting into the program but do understand the risk averse position to be sure. Your OSU pain is similar to my thoughts on Vermont. I know (if he gets in) that S would prefer UVM for a variety of reasons. I am not convinced he will get enough “more” out of it compared to WWU to justify the extra costs. The other schools are bit harder as that’s an apples and oranges comparison. How does one value the small LAC or smaller private U versus the mid sized state school? It simply isn’t at all the same and I struggle with that.
@snoozn and @mamaedefamilia congrats on WUE! If you look at the CDS I think it makes it even more impressive. Only a combined total of 7% of the freshman class at WWU recieve any kind of merit aid (either merit that goes to students that also get FA or non need merit students). Congrats!!!
@rscgrad welcome! The OSU regional to Columbus path sounds like a solid option, is that one she will consider? Our EFC makes me want to cry. And next years will be a complete joke as that will be with only one child in college.
Our GPA scale looks like this
A (4.0) 93-100
A- (3.7) 90-92
B+ (3.3) 88-89
B (3.0) 83-87
B- (2.7) 80-82
C+ (2.3) 76-79
C (2.0) 73-75
C- (1.7) 70-72
D+ (1.3) 67-69
D (1.0) 60-66
F (0.0)
@eandesmom–can you post the format for the outcomes again? I think there were some tweaks/additions to the latest that you posted–just want to make sure I send complete/requested info. And yes, they auto send to all (all schools for which a transcript request was submitted at the beginning of the app process). I believe the only school we have that wants 1st quarter grades is UVM, and they haven’t rescinded D’s acceptance based on what was sent initially, so maybe it’s not a big deal. Hope they get it straight–and also hope they can make the information more readily available to families as well.
My conundrum … I’ve heard through the CC grapevine that kids are starting to hear about UofO decisions on their portal. My son applied EA… but we messed up the SAT and didn’t get it in till last week, so I don’t know if they would make a decision that fast. As of this weekend portal shows complete.
Do I push S17 to looking at the portal this afternoon. He’s very independent and we are both not talking about the fact that mom spends time on CC. What excuse am I suppose to give to suggest he check it today. (I don’t have portal password info.) Plus I’m not 100% sure I want to push him to check right away. What if it’s bad news? What if there is no news? Perhaps I would rather live in ignorance a few more days till he’s likely to check. I’m just being stupid and anxious…
This brings up the question. Do your kids know you spend time on CC?
@curiositycat333 Yes, they know. But not how much!
My daughter makes fun of me for being online. Calls you all my ‘chitchat friends.’ “Ask your chitchat friends if they know…”
A few posts back (okay, a few pages back) several of you were talking about still getting ‘Apply Now’ material even after your child had already applied. One explanation might be that the student is in the system twice. We learned this the hard way. My daughter has a double first name (like Mary Ann). The coach recruiting her started an application under just the ‘Mary’, and when my daughter applied she used her full name (‘Mary Ann/ Jane/ Smith’). We started getting marketing material under both ‘Mary’ and ‘Mary Ann’ and didn’t think anything of it.
After she was accepted, we started having problems with records. Her merit award was lower than the NPC predicted, and when I called admissions they didn’t have her recent (higher) ACT score. They couldn’t find a state scholarship so many phone calls later found it on the Master List (told to look there by the scholarship organization) but not matched up with her file. Housing mix up. Meal plan she selected wasn’t correct. Final straw was when registering for the spring semester, her account was blocked because they didn’t have her final high school transcripts. Called the high school, had them resent (twice). Nope, college still didn’t have them. Daughter went to the registrar’s office and they couldn’t help her. I called in frustration and we finally figured it out - she had two files, two student numbers, so only a 50/50 chance of documents ending up in the right file. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard for the school to figure out that Mary Smith and Mary Ann Smith were the same student (and our last name really isn’t Smith, and she is the only one at the school with our last name), but they couldn’t make the jump. She only had one address, one SSN, one high school diploma, but there was nothing but trouble caused by that coach’s application.
She actually missed registering early (on a Friday night!) for that spring semester and the section of a course she needed was full by Monday when we got it straightened out. She was distraught. I told her to register for the other section, which was right during her sport’s practice time. Sorry coach, not her fault. A miracle occurred and a spot opened up in the preferred section within minutes of telling the coach. Funny how that works.
So, don’t worry about getting the marketing material after you’ve already applied. Student’s name might be in the school’s system under a few names or from a few sources - from the ACT, from the high school, from a college fair, as Matthew Smith or Matt Smith or Matthew Q. Smith. Worry if the school seems to be missing transcripts or LOR or outside scholarships.
Just got a big envelope in the mail…waiting for school to end. She should open it, right? LOL!
@“Queen’s Mom” so exciting! where is it from??
I can’t say. I need her permission to post. It’s our deal. I can open all mail except if it looks like an acceptance. She wants to be the first to officially know. I’m pretty sure it’s an acceptance. I left it in the mailbox so she can pick it up when she come home.
D is starting to get worried about affordability issues. Today she asked me how much we’re spending on oldest D’s upcoming wedding (yes, we’re going the traditional route since they are poor college students who have a good reason for getting married soon – no she’s not pregnant!). Anyway, I asked D why she wanted to know and she said because she was thinking that maybe we could give her that amount for college and she would pay for her own (far in the future…) wedding. I haven’t brought it up with H yet. He’s a bit paranoid and sensitive about money, but I think it’s a legitimate request.
@techmom99, ah, so many acronyms on CC and now I know another. My oldest D is a dancer so she certainly appreciates theater techs! Her dance major requires a theater tech class and the dancers usually do their own tech, except for big-deal performances. She loves running the light board.
@eandesmom, yes, I’ve been meaning to send my info – I’m just lazy! With the work you’ll be doing you shouldn’t have to search through the thread.
@“Queen’s Mom”, cool – good luck! Keep us posted.
@curiositycat333, you probably should just let him check the portal. Easy for me to say though, as I have all the portal passwords. Regarding CC time, here’s a common situation in our house:
I’m sitting on the sofa with my laptop.
H: “What are you up to?”
Me: “Oh, just looking at stuff on the web.”
H: “You’re on that college site again aren’t you?”
One of the kids comes over to check my screen.
Kid: “Yep – she’s on the college site!”
Everyone laughs at me.