@Aguadecoco 100% agree that testing should just stop altogether. As if the process isn’t stressful enough!
I’ve forgotten who mentioned the giddy AOs talking about acceptance rates. We had the same experience both at Colby and Tufts at in-person tours last year. Colby was already TO so we assumed more people might have applying for that reason. At Tufts, it was the last thing that was said to the group before we left the info session. It was a student (!!) who off-handedly wished everyone well. He said he hoped to see them on campus someday, but the reality was 90% of the group wouldn’t get in. We all walked out dumbfounded. D21 was completely turned off. Neither school is on her list.
Even if the schools go online, is it very hard for the organizers to keep the testing area safer for kids and go ahead with the testing? They can make few students sit in a room and follow all the safety rules isn’t it?
D21 is still leaning toward the SCEA/ED - ED2 strategy. She has narrowed down the list of ED contenders to a few, she visited all schools on her list before COVID happened, she has been attending virtual info and student Q&A sessions over the past couple of months, and she feels comfortable eventually making that kind of a choice as far as being able to decide the fit.
That being said, I am telling her to go ahead and submit RD applications as soon as she is able (hopefully by the second or third week of August), and to prepare the ED contender applications…and then hold off on deciding/submitting those until just before the deadline. That will give us a bit more time to see how the various COVID strategies are working. If she still has three or four schools contending for the ED strategy by mid-October, then how each of those schools handle COVID can help her make the final decision. She plans on reaching out to students at those schools once fall semester has kicked in to see how the actual experience is playing out.
As far as the SAT goes…I have a feeling the September one (and maybe the rest of them too) will be canceled. D21 is studying fifteen or twenty minutes a day on Kahn Academy just in case, but she is refusing to stress about it. She would like to increase her score so she takes the studying seriously, but she is also prepared to submit the score she already has to all schools where she is at or above their average numbers (most of the ones on her list). She’ll apply TO to the rest. Then what will be will be. I think we have totally lost hope of her taking another SAT2 test.
If schools are made to go virtual/online only (either because of the county health dept or state mandate), our school districts won’t allow their buildings to be used for testing.
Can someone please tell Pitt to go TO already? It’s the only school on S21’s list that’s not TO at this point.
He hasn’t tested at all yet. Registered for (March, May, June) August and September. But at the rate things are are going around the country (not just here in PA), I just can’t see how testing can happen reliably for everyone. Like, even if we pull it off here, what about areas where the situation is more severe?
Anyway, Pitt is high on the list, a match, and in-state/budget for us. Just sending one up to the TO Gods at this point. LOL!
I also posted this in the UCLA board but I think there are quite a few people in this group from CA…
My D21 took the ACT last year without the writing portion. She plans to apply to UCLA and UC Berk and would like to submit her score, however, based on a reply I saw posted somewhere on these boards (and can no longer find) it looked like there was a possibility that you could only submit your score if you also have a writing score. Has anyone heard more specifics/clarification around this? She has a 36 is OOS, so it would hopefully make a positive impact on her application. Thanks in advance.
@nanosec I don’t think students need a writing score if they choose to submit test scores, but agree that has generally not been made clear enough…but USCB makes it clear on their website:
S21’s ACT test site is still a go for tomorrow. But, he’s not sure he can do it now. He had a concussion back in Feb, and had some reading/concentration problems. Has been fine for months.
This week, though, has been packed with a hard math class he’s TAing on zoom 8-12, the materials science class he’s taking, and ACT practice tests. He got through one fine on Monday, but has been getting progressively more dizzy during them as the week’s gone on, to the point where he has to lie down for a few hours. I wonder if it’s a lingering problem from the concussion. And this week was too much concentrated work online and off.
If he postpones though, who knows if there will be a next time. Ugh.
GPA recalculation by selective colleges, can we talk about this? Do some colleges look over the transcript in an eyeball sort of way vs others actually count the number of honors classes, include only certain classes, etc. and perform an actual calculation? My real question: high schools in my area give two semester grades. I was originally under the impression that colleges consider both semesters, as they are sitting there on the transcript and both are included the high school’s given GPA (obviously). Do some colleges consider only the spring semester grade as the “final” grade for a course, and possibly compute their own GPA accordingly, without including the first semester grade?
@evergreen5 I assume that colleges use any grades that were factored in for GPA by the high school and are on the transcript. Here, we have two semesters as well so that’s two report cards per year and those are the grades used to compute GPA. We used to have quarters, too, where quarter one and quarter two plus a final rolled up into the first semester grade but, when we did that, only semester grades showed up on the transcript anyway. I do think there are schools out there that only have a final grade for each class at the end of the year but I don’t think that’s very common.
Not sure about the semester issue and perhaps you know this already, but one thing I know is that some colleges – esp. big universities – have software programs to scrape the courses and grades off of transcripts and run them through their re-calculation formulas – that’s what the AOs then see. This is their way of making GPAs more comparable across schools and districts and for them to choose how they want to weight the rigor of particular classes.
And I imagine some selective colleges will filter out students this way – though few admit that…
@InfiniteWaves I don’t want to get your hopes up, but D21 did a virtual admissions session yesterday for PITT and they said they would be making an announcement about testing in a couple of days. So lets hope it’s going to be TO.
@AlmostThere2018 Sounds like bit of a black box from the applicant’s perspective, yet another difficulty in appreciating one’s relative position. The college’s published GPA numbers seem sketchy, if they actually answer those CDS questions. For schools that use a computerized, auto-scraping system, I wonder how they compare across high schools of varying rigor or whether they simply don’t account for that, since objective data on high schools is lacking.
My friend’s kids are UVA legacies. They got some kind of call with an admissions rep before applying as legacy and they were told only core subjects count - like her S17 dropped Spanish senior year to take AP Psych and was told they would not look at AP Psych at all, but Spanish would have helped having 4 years. So only math, science, history, English and fl come into play.
Makes sense. Though, next question is what are we comparing this to, as there is no indication of what is reflected in the CDS gpa data (if the college even provides that data). In other words, what’s the yardstick.
AOs make the admissions decisions (obviously), but institutional reporting staff put together the CDS. At some schools, the gpa recalculation methodologies for these two purposes are not the same.
Generally, I would disregard CDS GPA unless one has spoken with IR and knows how they calculate that number…often times they use whatever GPA is on the transcript, so weighted vs. unweighted, core courses vs. all, it’s just a big mess. One example, if weighted GPA on transcript is 4.0+ then 4.0 will be used in the GPA calc for CDS. Many schools choose to not even fill this section in on the CDS.
Both admissions staff and IR staffers are typically transparent about whether GPAs are recalculated for admissions or CDS purposes, respectively, and if so, what methodology is used.
@homerdog. We have 4 quarters and 2 semesters. The only thing on the transcript is the final grade which is calculated by adding the two semester numeric numbers together and dividing by two.
Re, grades, I remember looking into this some a few years back. Some college websites will tell you exactly how they recalculate grades. Some use whatever weighted GOA you give them! I remember that was the case with Indiana. If there are certain colleges you’re interested in, try googling that. And, of course, there’s the UC system recalculation. But, I can’t imagine a college using just the final semester grade, as the transcript will have all semesters listed. How do they account for grade inflation, I have no idea. I wonder if the more selective you go, if it’s just more holistic if a review, without a GPA recalculation?