@greeny8 I am with your D. I hate the cold weather and I grew up in a notoriously cold city. This is part of the reason I keep steering him to schools in TX. I don’t want to visit him in cold weather. Boston in March was too cold for me. Those spring break visits did me in. I do miss the anticipation of the next season, the changing leaves, the first snow, the spring flowers, but not the shoveling. I will never miss the shoveling.
When we went to tour Northeastern, they mentioned that they recalculate the GPA based on their own methodology. I don’t remember hearing that at any other colleges we toured but it must happen a lot. Anyone remember the other schools that recalculate?
ED scares me. What if they change their mind after they get acceptance? I know you can’t rescind the offer and I can imagine my indecisive S wavering. I really don’t think it will be an option for him. EA or RD will be his only options this fall.
My oldest went to UT. Not engineering student. MY opinions…Great Engineering school. Very large student population of whole school. if you don’t mind the Aug-Oct. heat and humidity, Austin is the most awesome city for college. So fun…Great downtown bar scene. Great world class food, and really fun…Wonderful school spirit…Need to find ways to make the school small. My d did that with greek life…The best part of UT, if OOS, with some effort, it is easy to get instate tuition for last three years. This is a savings of over 70,000 dollars. It was Cheaper than our instate flagships…They walk you through what you need to do on website. Even have an office that answers your questions, and helps you get residency…Besides Bama merit aid full tuition, one of the best deals out there for a top ranked state school…
I can’t speak of A&M. NO experience with that school…
D’s school has the same grading scale as @mtrosemom. I’m really glad that we don’t have the numerical scale since D is a little too lazy to strive for a 99 or 100 in every class.
Also, I live half an hour from Tulane and must say that it has an absolutely gorgeous campus with wonderful and intensive academics. The school is obviously not right for everyone (no school is), but I’m always happy to see kids consider it on CC due to merit aid since I know so many fantastic graduates from Tulane, many of whom choose to stay in New Orleans after graduation. New Orleans is such an amazing city for people of all ages that I honestly can’t say enough good things about it. Sorry for gushing! Tulane is definitely a major pride of New Orleanians since students there generally have good relationships with the community, so I am just really enthusiastic about it
My DDs school doesn’t count - or + in GPA. Since she has all A and A- (except one random B from sophomore year in an elective) she has about a 3.95 UW. So with honors and APs she has 4.4 or something. I’m sure each school will recalculate it differently.
Yup, our HS is same as @mtrosemom and @BusyNapping. Then Honors is +.5 and AP is +1.0. @jedwards70 I’m pretty sure most schools re-calculate, but I’ve heard of some that don’t ('Bama?). Usually the recalculation means looking only at the ‘core’ courses, and then doing something for Honors and AP/IB/DE so it’s consistent for all applicants. I know that schools like UGA actually advertise their logic for this, so it’s not such black magic. I’ve not worried about it much, because it is what it is. I’m pretty sure D’s GPA will not be what holds her back.
@CA1543 You have me a little worried that Tulane/NOLA might be a tad TOO warm for D. She wants warm weather, but she can be kind of whiny when it’s too hot. Might move it down a couple notches on the WBOD.
I just skimmed through all the new posts - lots to catch up on! I didn’t realize there were so many different systems for how to define grades and calculate GPAs! My kids’ school just gives letter grades, and +/- do not count (I think they get dropped from the official transcript, but not 100% sure). A=4, B=3, etc. Different teachers have different cutoffs (for example, in some classes you need a 93 for an A, but in most classes it’s more like a 90). The school does not weight GPAs, or provide class ranks. At first I thought this was strange (my own high school just did numeric grades based on %… 0-100, and did not translate these into letter grades). But now that I’m used to it, I am glad my kids’ school does it this way (less stressing about every little point, which is a better match for S who tends to get stressed out about his grades). However, about 10% of the class graduates with 4.0 so there are multiple “valedictorians.” I think that (as others have indicated) colleges are aware of some of these differences and often do their own GPA calculation.
S had a phone conference with an admissions counselor from my alma mater today (I posted about this last week…it’s a service provided to children of alums, separate from the admissions office). She gave some advice about essay writing and suggested some “likely” schools that fit with S’s preferences/criteria to add to our list of mostly reach schools. I was very happy to get these suggestions…now I just have to convince S to consider a couple of them! One that sounded really good to me was University of Vermont (has early action and good merit possibilities). I would love it if he would apply there early … but to continue a theme from earlier posts, it’s his list, not mine.
@payn4ward, I love using PL ExpressDeals also, particularly to a city that we know pretty well. Although you don’t find out the name of the hotel before booking, you know the general area and whether it’s considered 3, 4,or 5 stars.
I had to go back and see what @4beardolls was talking about…and there is no way, @MotherOfDragons, that you even in the top quartile. I seriously doubt many people use that feature, and I bet I compete with you for numbers of times used against.
Congrats to @dfbdfb’s D’s 4.0! I just looked at DD’s final grade - 4.0 but she almost didn’t make it. AP Chem was 89.6%. I wonder how she was able to cut it that close… It takes some real skills.
Also no difference at DD’s school. She had three A- but her school doesn’t show +/- so her GPA is calculated to be 4.0UW.
So glad junior year is finally over. It has been tough for DD to keep up her grade.
Our school also has the same grading scale as @mtrosemom . I did finally figure out the way they do the weighted GPA. Honors courses earn an extra .02, while APs get an extra .03. These “bonuses” are cumulative each semester, so if you take 3 honors and 3 APs, you would earn 3.02 + 3.03 = 0.15 extra points added to your cumulative GPA each semester. For instance, D17 has accrued 0.65 bonus through 5 semesters, and will gain another .15 this semester. Her unweighted GPA is 3.96, so right now her weighted GPA is 4.61. I think by the time she is done , she will have earned 1.12 “bonus”. This is definitely different than when I went to school.
On the college list front, D17 is actually starting to warm significantly to the National Merit full ride hunt. She is taking a serious look at UKy, and has been watching several videos on their site. This is quite ironic, because just a few weeks ago I signed up D19 for a gymnastics camp at UKy in July. D17 will be visiting family in Philadelphia then, but I couldn’t swing another airplane ticket to bring her down for a visit at the same time, so D19 and will have to handle the tour. Obviously there is a long way to go for both my Ds, but the thought of them potentially ending up at the same school 2000 miles away from home is a bit surreal.
@TimEnchanter Ill bet that’s how some kids on CC get such a high GPA on a 4.0 scale! I’ve never heard of the ‘cumulative’ rule. When I would see a kid post 4.0 UW and 5.65 W I would always shake my head like …what!? Congrats to your D!
We visited UKy a month or so ago when we were in town for another event. Beautiful campus. I self-toured, but I think it would be just the right temperature for D :). They are building a new Sciences building, as well as dorms (I think) and a student center. All will be up and running for our kids. Best cafeteria I think I’ve seen yet. Not bad for a state school!
^^Did you see any horses at UKy? D used to be on the equestrian team (TL;DR-she quit with my support because of an abusive coach after freshman year), and still loves (and misses) riding.
Regarding college visits and weather-D17 has four opportunities to go visit places-July, late Sept (fall break for our hs), winter break, and spring break. I’m struggling with where to send her when. DH really wants to wait for winter break to go with her to the Northeast. I feel like that’s stacking the deck unfairly since they get out of school in early december, and a january visit is the height of dreariness and “nobody there-ness” in the NE schools.
I think I’m going to say she can visit each school in the best light, so Florida schools in the winter and New England schools in the summer (which may backfire because she hates the heat).
The other thing to consider is the Fall break will be the time she can visit schools in session, so do I send her to her favorites then so she can really get a feel for the student vibe? Questions…questions…
We saw a few horses, yes. There was actually a big race in Lexington that weekend, so an exciting atmosphere.
As far as visits, are you applying Early or Rolling anywhere? Those I would concentrate on visits. If that’s a summer Open House, ok, but better in fall before apps go in. If it’s RD then it can wait. Personally, I want to be done with ‘required/show interest’ visits by October. Everything else will wait for accepted visits. That’s the plan now, anyway. If it’s close, we’ll have more flexibility.
@TimEnchanter KY is the only school that has managed to survive a visit and stay on dd’s list. She liked the campus and their full-ride scholarship can be used directly for study abroad.
@MotherOfDragons Our strategy is to visit the most likely acceptances/scholarship choices early. We see those as a priority bc they better love their most likely options. Schools which are going to require extremely competitive scholarships or are less likely admits, we visit last or not until after acceptances.