Let’s see if I can get this link into my post. It’s the Secondary School Report for Georgetown for last year. I was looking to see what the school report asked. Rigor of course selection is on there but I found “main factors contributing to lack of respect” accorded to the applicant to be interesting. First time I saw where the school flat out asked if the person is a conceited jerk.
https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/39hwlf4z261ykgtyggja17zazmnet0q1
@paveyourpath one wonders if the “one of the best I have ever encountered” is the filter criteria. I would be very very curious to know how many of those they recieve relative to the total offered admission, or conversely how many are offered admission that did not have that box checked…
Pretty funny about the conceit and lack of respect questions.
@paveyourpath – wow re Georgetown school report!! Pretty revealing - can’t imagine counselors filling that out & letting all the warts show but who knows.
5 pages and ~80 posts until we catch up to the “High School Class of 2017” thread.
We had a slow start until this year.
Our GC’s are off for the summer. They only work 3 days after school ends and start back up 1 week before school starts. That’s why I had DS17 order transcripts before school was out. I didn’t do that with DS13 and then everyone was asking for transcripts and it took longer to get them…
Need some opinions-if ds is taking the ACT again in September to possibly add 1 point to increase his merit aid chances and open doors to better scholarships at schools should I wait until after those results to submit scores to the colleges he is interested in or should i submit now (he has a 32 composite) and then submit the new scores if his score goes up? Also if you apply to a school that requires all scores be sent am I then required to send scores for tests taken after he sends in his application?
DS17 has a 32 composite and may take it in September to try for a 33. I have sent the scores to all colleges he has applied. I figure he will be accepted most places before the next scores come. I do not plan on sending anymore scores unless he hasn’t been admitted even if they require all scores.
I don’t know whether our GC is in office during summer so I just dropped her a note. She responded right away and emailed me a copy of the transcript (unofficial) the very next day. Our transcript is very plain. It just has weighted and unweighted GPAs, earned credit hours. And then 4 squared boxes with each years list of classes, final grades, grade points (unweighted) and credits for each class. I can see now D’s weighted GPA took a hit by all those electives she took during 9th and 10th grade to experience different aspects of arts, music, design and the like. Even though she has A+ on all of them, they still drags down her GPA, since none of those has any extra weights. AO can see that for Junior year, she focused on hard core academics only. She will do the same thing for Sr. year. I kinda hope college will recalculate weighted GPA for only core classes now :))
One other thing is D said her HS has no honor FL program. Except the AP version. So all the pre-AP Spanish classes dragged down her weighted GPA also. 
@eandesmom I wondered about the filter myself. “One of the best I’ve ever encountered” by itself is probably too stringent a filter but combined with some of the other questions, like the % of students in graduating class that intend to attend a 4 year college, mayput the recommendation into context. Sure is interesting.
@CA1543 A little concealer on the blemishes may go unnoticed but concealer can’t hide the real big, ugly warts. I wonder how schools handle that because they would be more concerned about their credibility. It sure is interesting.
@Tgirlfriend A lot of the top tier colleges don’t really accept dual enrollment classes and give a very limited amount of AP credit. My son is going to UChicago and he isn’t getting credit for any of his dual enrollment comp sci, math, and physics classes. The physics classes were at a CC and they don’t take any transfer credit from colleges that aren’t 4 year. The comp sci and math classes do not have an equivalent course at UChicago so they get no credit either. These were 2nd-3rd year classes at a good 4 year college too. We are fine with it but we did check it all out in advance. If he had gone to some of his other choices he would have started as a junior with his DE and AP credits.
My older son had an IEP and he did disclose it to all the colleges he applied to including top 10/Ivy schools. He got into half of the top 10/Ivy schools that he applied to which I think is pretty darned good. There was only 1 top school that we felt like he should have gotten into that he did not by the other students accepted from his school but it was a lottery type so it could have been a B he got in Latin that the others did not. Of all the schools he applied they were the least accomodating from the info on their website about accomodations so it may not have been a good fit for him anyway. He also was offered large merit scholarships from the rest of schools he applied where none of his friends with similar stats were which were mostly OOS schools that are sought after and don’t offer many merit scholarships. We have another friend who also disclosed (except to Stanford–he didn’t get in) and also did quite well with the top schools. Disclosing was my son’s choice and he always said he didn’t want to go to a school that didn’t want him He loves his school and is doing well. Because it is a top school and isn’t that big the disabilities office is small but they are super helpful and they know him by name. They are great because they keep things open ended where he can start with only basic accomodations but they are willing to add stuff mid quarter if needed where other schools weren’t. They also will contact profs for him since he doesn’t like to talk to them about it before they really know him and his capabilities.
@paveyourpath I liked the General Rating in the GT school report for “Sense of Humor”! :)) I still couldn’t have gotten in, though.
@dcplanner Crazy isn’t it, that S could have started as a junior when he started college!!! I use to say that I would not let D17 skip any core college courses based on her APs because I wanted her to to have a good experience, and not be stressed out. I’m still leaning that way, but boy…at some schools it’s a crazy number of classes that even someone like her, with an average number of APs, could skip/replace with a minor/second major.
We are at one of those schools now :)). Pulled into MSU tonight and picked up D, who’s been at her grandmother’s for the last week. She had already gotten her picture taken at the statue of Sparty, and walked around a bit. This campus is HUUUUGGGEE. I’ll give a full report after tomorrow, but it’s big. Large. Humongous. Very pretty, though. I compared sizes, and according to CollegeData, MSU is 5000 acres, and 'Bama is 1000 acres, so yeah.
I’d love to see this places when classes were in session, it must be crazy. Tomorrow is a full day program, with the morning pretty much occupied with the Honor’s College. Afternoon is flexible, with sessions on academics, living, and ‘playing’ sessions. We scheduled a departmental visit with an academic advisor for the program D17 would likely take, so that should be great. Our/her first departmental visit, and she seems to be OK with it. We talked through some questions tonight and she’s ready. Should be a good tune up for other schools.
It may be silly, but I wonder if adcom’s take into account how long a teacher has been on the job with the “one of the best I’ve ever encountered” category. You could be competing against a pool varying from about a hundred up to tens of thousands. And yes, I am now thinking about the fact that two of D’s LoR writers will be (I’m guessing here) 25 year+ veterans and the third maybe about 10 years. I wouldn’t actually switch, but it’s funny that two of the teachers who would give her great recs are quite young, but don’t teach in core areas!
@acdchai, thanks for sharing your S’s experience with disclosing his IEP. I’m really glad to hear that it didn’t seem to have a negative effect even in those top tier schools. If anything, sounds like he just kept out colleges that wouldn’t have been great matches anyway. I know I’m going to have to delve deeper into disability services at some point, but have not started. I should probably start digging around the web sites of schools on her list. Her IEP adviser at HS has been indispensable toward supporting D in reaching her potential.
I can’t wait for you school visit @2muchquan. I’m sure it will be entertaining. S’s councilor sent out transcripts just after school ended for review. S’s was fine so we didn’t need to request changes, but then he doesn’t have any dual enrollment or independent studies that can get messed up.
@snoozn I have hearing loss so I have experience talking to disablities services offices so if you have any questions, ask! My biggest advice is start gathering the information now.
@eandesmom - DD pretty much has a straight line for her GPA trend. 3.1 -> 3.7 -> 4.3 for her 3 years. I’m sure she’ll be considered at least a little higher than her mathematical average - but will probably vary greatly by school. She’s taken the new SAT. I’d like it if her test score (1470) reinforces her junior year performance in the minds of the adcoms. Though with all the craziness of the new SAT, I sometimes wonder if they’d have more confidence in an ACT score. 1470 concords to a 32 ACT, which seems to be somewhat inline with her 3.72 UW junior GPA (with 2 honors and 2 AP classes). But will adcoms see it that way?
Who knows. I guess I’ll find out in April.
@thshadow with no “e” 
Lovely that she has a SAT that matches junior year GPA!!! We do not so that doesn’t help. Nor is there a straight line unless you start at 2nd semester sophomore year.
Miserable test taker even with meds. Retaking ACT in Sept but with all the changes do not have high hopes at all. And, outside of merit that’s probably ok. But it would help on the $$ side to be sure. Admissions wise he’s not really after any reaches so is likely ok.
I imagine that the most rigorous check box is a sure thing for IB Diploma students.
If my interest in the school were entirely dependent on the scholarship and the extra point, then I’d wait. If you would be willing to attend either way, then apply now.
@snoozn So far the schools seem more interested in how long the recommender has known the student but it’s an interesting point at some point they may add in a question about the recommenders length of service as a teacher. GT is a little more specific than other LOR forms in that it has the teacher check the box for whether they taught the student junior or senior year (or both) as opposed to just asking how long you have known the student.
When we were discussing LOR back in the spring, the advice we were given is a junior year LOR is stronger than one from a teacher who the student has senior year because recs are written so early in the senior year they would not be given the same weight.
@2muchquan we would write you a LOR in support of how funny you are. 