@socalmom007 - She will apply for their full ride scholarship as it is also the app for Honors college (which I’ve been assured she will get into). But the full ride scholarship is very competitive. Hopefully, she can get some local scholarships and some College of Engineering ones.
More states are limiting WUE in one way or another. ASU has WUE but not for CS majors last I checked. MSU has a high cut off and starting this year you have to apply for it. I believe they only gave out 120 of them last year despite having a high OOS student population. This is what they state about last year’s awards: “The average ACT of MSU WUE recipients in 2016 was 31; SAT was 2020 (equivalent to 1430 on the new SAT) and GPA was 3.9.”
WUE is very competitive at many of the schools and some are dropping it entirely. I’d enquirered about it at OSU and was told that they’d dropped it for this app cycle…but that was a good thing as they only gave a few out anyway and this way those kids were eligible for their standard OOS merit awards which are stackable and WUE isn’t.
@NoelleCf congrats on MSU, it’s a popular WUE choice for kids at our HS. As is NAU for that matter.
@socalmom007 I expect my S to work as well although not first semester or quarter and definitely not more than 20 hours, preferably less. He will have ECs that will take up some time. It is possible though that he will get paid for one of them though which would be the best of all worlds. One of his schools who offers a ton of student employment will not allow kids to work more than 19 a week.
I wold prefer a job that involved minimal driving if possible, if he goes east he will definitely not have a car. One school may need one but that one is probably the least likely to be affordable anyway so it may be a moot point lol.
Just back from a long weekend where I didn’t even look at these boards. Not even through all the new posts. S17 did his last college tour before acceptances on Monday. (There were off for a teacher in service. LOL…) I’ll do another post in the AM about it.
Cal Poly My son will be applying to Cal Pol. He hasn’t done the app yet, but it will be his easiest. (His safety is another Cal Sate so it will get done.) Since we are in state, Cal Poly will be one of his cheapest options, but given he has decided to apply in CS it will be a reach for him. That’s OK with me as I think UCSC is a much better fit for him. (Where we visited this summer.) I agree it would be nice if all apps with this simple, except it’s so stats based it doesn’t give kids anywhere else but schoolwork to shine.
** Sports ** My D12 tried a pile of sports as a kid soccer, softball, swimming but quit when it started to get serious for the other kids it wasn’t fun for her anymore. S17 was never really a good group sports kid, although he would love to join cross-country but it conflicts with marching band. He hikes, runs, and did martial arts for 7 years. Right now he is involved in marching band…
** Car ** Bought a 3rd family car this summer. 18 month old Toyota Yaris, it’s mostly for my D12 to drive. But we all share. S17 now mostly drives my car. It’s unlikely he will take a car to college. Only if he end up at his safety where transportation to/from will be so difficult and it’s the only school I’d consider the possibility. And since I’m paying…
@endesmom I don’t remember what’s the parking on campus policy at Cal Poly. I didn’t pay attention since I never planned to send my S17 to a college with a car. (Except if he end up at Humboldt… but he tells me that’s really just a safety, it’s really not his top choice.) UCSC just told us that there is no parking for freshman or sophomores. (Change from when I went there.) But public transportation (bus) is very good, and he would live on campus as a freshman so I’d never consider it for freshman year. They even said there is now a regular bus over the hill.
@socalmom007 I’m from S. Cal. Both my kids learned to drive at 16. If not I’d still be driving them everywhere. I didn’t send my D12 to school with a car, it was a small school in a big city on the east coast & there was NO parking. Totally impractical. I don’t plan to send my son with one, but he won’t be applying anywhere in S. California. In S. California there is both Amtrak & Metrolink buses that functions. I now take Metrolink to downtown LA for work occationally and it works great. I had friends who’s kids went to UCLA, UCSD and UCSB and said the train was the best way to for their kids to get them home for the holidays like Thanksgiving.
I think it depends on where they end up at school. Small College towns like SLO and Santa Cruz, and Davis have good bus service, problem is more getting them to & from school on breaks. It’s a bit of a pain not to have a car at UCI and UCSD, although if you live on campus is fine. But UCLA, UCSB, USC, Stanford, San Diego State I think’s it’s quite feasible. Berkley it’s crazy to have a car, I just found out UCSC doesn’t allow freshman or sophomores to have cars. And at various Cal States it depends if you are a commuter or not.
@jmek15@caroldanvers and anyone else that has visited UMD: Did anyone get confirmation that they recalculate GPA for OOS to uniform MD scale? That’s what I was told on CC.
I find it interesting that the CC commonly held belief is that schools recalculate all GPAs when it seems that most schools post their competitive scholarship and honors program average GPA as a weighted GPA.
Question about the Pitt application, for those of you that applied. After you submitted your application, did they send you a list of questions to answer? Thanks, asking for my niece.
That does not mean that that GPA is not their recalculated GPA. For once I actually do agree with CC’s conventional wisdom. Most schools do recalculate GPA.
For non-automatic scholarships, I would not be concerned about posted stats if the description is posted as “avg applicant had at least” vs. “applicants must meet the following criteria.”
How much do I believe this? I did not weight my Dd’s transcript and obviously I could have. I didnt weight bc my area is full of craziness. Schools around here have no standard form. Some use a 4.5 scale, some a 5, but some use a 6. 6??? That is just nuts.
Every school asks GPA in terms of what scale. Just bc they list avg weighted does not mean it wasn’t their calculated weighted. When in doubt, call and ask. They will answer the question quite easily.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek i shouldn’t post at odd hours. I totally wasn’t clear. lol I think schools like UMD do recalculate for scholarship reporting. I don’t think they recalculate GPA for every single app. It’s just too time consuming. My D’s transcript for example is a big puzzle. The courses don’t even say AP or honors. You have to match up the code next to each class with the legend the school provides. Quite tedious. I don’t think schools devote that much time to each app beyond looking at the courses taken, grades, GPA reporting, rank if one is provided, and school profile. 10-15 minutes per app tops. Are they giving lots of temps to sit and recalculate GPA for each applicant? I seriously doubt it. It’s mere speculation on CC that it’s done. I posted a thread about this and no one has come forward with evidence that recalculating or unweighting is common practice.
For those of you waiting on your HS to submit materials, please do not be complacent. We waited over three weeks recently and were told numerous times that my DC’s transcript would be sent on time to an overseas school. When I finally was able to corner an admin person in the counseling office I found out that nothing had been done. I promptly drove to the school, got the transcript, went to Fed Ex and mailed it, etc. It absolutely would not have arrived on time for the non-negotiable deadline without my intervention. I am still reeling about this!
@itsgettingreal17 I have no idea if UMD recalculates, I didn’t ask. It seems like that would be so much work though. Now schools that use the SRAR for inputting transcripts I could see recalculating, since you have done a lot of the work for them. Since I am making the transcript for S I just googled for a grading scale and am going to use the one they use in Montgomery county MD.
One thing I found when I was googling was an article from 2015 about how Baltimore City Schools was changing their weighted GPA scale because they felt the one they were using was leaving their students at a disadvantage with respect to scholarships and college admission. So that seems to indicate that recalculating GPA is not widespread.
Congratualations to all the NMSFs again!!! Job well done!!!. Congrats to all who submitted apps and to those who already received admissions!!!
We are in no school land today due to holiday. Hopefully the last app will be completed and submitted. Teachers LORs are still pending with the first dead line fast approaching. We don’t have any rolling admissions on the list, so our wait game begins and will probably last for at least 2 months till first decision rolls in. Need to find some distractions…,
FWIW, when we visited U Mass Amherst, they very explicitly said that they recalculated GPA to weight according to their own criteria for admissions, scholarship consideration, and entry into the honors college. I am trying to recall other places that discussed procedures for weighted GPAs.
I agree that recalculating would be tedious. But I have no idea how colleges or universities would be able to compare candidates if they didn’t standardize weighting. What a logistical nightmare.
D’s school does not weight. Maybe the ad coms will smile upon her transcript because they won’t have to go to the trouble to reverse engineer the grades. One can only hope.
@caroldanvers I wonder if that disadvantage was for automatic scholarships? I know schools like Bama do not recalculate and their thresholds are based on whatever GPA is submitted.
I find it hard to fathom that extremely high achieving students from schools that don’t weight are at a disadvantage for competitive scholarships that are reviewed by committees.
when we visited our safety this weekend, i was chatting with the head of the health clinic and found out that bizarrely, they do NOT accept the immunization Trumenba—there were 4 alternatives (one of which was Menactra) that i cant recall off the top of my head, but she was absolutely adamant that Trumenba was unacceptable.
there was no explanation as to why and it IS possible this is the only school on the planet that has an issue with it, but if you are getting ready to start the vaccine series, you may want to verify with the school’s health clinic to make sure you choose the right one.
maybe someone here in the medical field can outline the pro’s and con’s of the various choices.
gpa OK, I was curious. I just called my dd’s #1 choice and asked about GPA. I asked if she would be at a disadvantage bc her GPA was unweighted. The answer I received, “We recalculate all GPAs for honors college and scholarship applicants, so no, she will not be at a disadvantage.”
Hi all, new to this discussion and I apologize if this was mentioned before. My son applied to Rutgers NB on Oct. 4th. Paid to have SAT scores sent from college board on the same day (not rushed). CB has the status as awaiting fulfillment still as of today. I read the issues a lot of families were having last year. I am hoping this is not a repeat. Does anyone have any insight? I would advise anyone requesting sat scores to do it as early as possible if your students know which colleges they are applying to.
