My GPA is unweighted. The school does not weight GPA.
I haven’t brought up the PG or CC option to counselor yet. They certainly are trying to get me to focus on match schools, which I understand. Nothing else is missing. No disciplinary issues, nothing else I’m hiding. They are just trying to be realistic.
I do like my sport, but not in love with it. This is part of the reason why I’m deeply conflicted on what to do. Try to improve athletically, or focus on academics. I’m not yet sure what major, but I want to go to a target school for finance, ibanking, wall street, etc. For these jobs going to a good school is a must. Getting a 4.0 at a state school and applying for these jobs is almost impossible.
Grades - cumulative GPA 3.4, unweighted. Freshman year: 21% A, 71% B, 7% C; Sophomore year: 37% A, 58% B; Junior year 73% A, 27% B. Also does not include 2 summer college courses that I took and got As in.
Parents - definitely not pressuring me to get into Top 10 school. This is more of my own thing. I know people from my BS who ended up at Wharton, Harvard, etc. So I know what the big wall street firms look for. Going to a state school and getting a 4.0 won’t impress these firms. But graduating with an ivy degree will. Unfortunate but this is how the system works. Parents will definitely be disappointed if I don’t get into a top school, but they understand that my grades are not that great.
Haverford - is on my list because I want to be in a big city, and is a target school for many of the Philly banks. Also has my sport. Unfortunately counselor thinks this is a big reach as well.
I’ve been poking around other threads looking for more information about PG years for athletes and I’m still coming up short on the specific circumstances under which this is a good course of action for an athlete. Is it primarily for athletes that are already good enough to have gotten on the radar of college coaches who have told the athlete to seek a pg year for academic and/or growth/maturity purposes? In other words, should an athlete only consider a pg year if they have been told to do so by coaches at colleges in which they are interested? Or are there circumstances under which an athlete would decide to do this without college coaches telling them to pursue it?
I disagree with what you are saying, You are selling yourself very short. My two kids works in wall street, and there are many kids who did not attend IVY leagues. They went to other schools, worked hard and got job offers. Unfortunately I can not tell you name of kids as it will reveal my identity which I can not afford to reveal at this point. Many IB kids got hired from Temple, Drexel, Rochester and yes state schools too. I would say focus on Boston University or Haveford as companies recruit there too. I am talking about GS, MS, Lazard, Evercore, etc. Your prep school education will help you a long way. Believe me if you can, it is going to open doors as you will not realize now. Keep your head high and tell your story, good luck
You’re upward trajectory is commendable and will be noticed when applying. Keep it up in the falloff your senior year.
I, too, think you are selling yourself short. Focus on finding more matches that are acceptable to you. It could be more LACs (kids from many of them do well headed to Wall Street jobs) or great state schools like UMich ( I know several BS grads there with stats less stellar than yours).
If you are female, consider some of the great women’s colleges. Also, consider schools in other regions like the midwest who would love an east coast bs grad.
If your sport is fencing, pick the brain of @SevenDad.
Look at my thread that I have started, we are looking for need based aid, my third daughter is looking state school and their full rides, We are searching and see what happens.
Your parents love you and no matter what they will keep loving you. Parents do not measure your success with the money they spent on you. Parents want you to work hard, that’s all it is. Nothing else matters. They are and they will love you no matter what the outcome is.
I know I’m a broken record on this, but your BS education was about receiving an excellent high school education, which you did, not about the college results–your parents paid for the education and experience that would prepare you well for whichever college you attend, not acceptance at any particular type of college. Your grades are good and your match list includes excellent schools. Choose the college you like the best from the ones that accept you, put everything you’ve got into your college years, and then enjoy a career on Wall Street or wherever else your education and interests take you. You’re limiting yourself by this negative and false view of your opportunities when you’re actually in very good shape.
I’ll build on @ChoatieMom, you are likely set up for good grades in college. If you hadn’t attended a BS, the drop could have occured in college which would have hurt you in recruiting for investment banking.
I second the advice to apply to UMichigan. If you do well there in your first semester, you can apply to the business school, if that interests you. I live in a bedroom community of NYC, and I can vouch that there are plenty of kids from Michigan on the Street.
You should also look at USC. They may overlook your GPA for the sake of your scores. It, too, has a top notch business school. Also, NYU. Not sure if you’ll get into Stern, but you should try. Perhaps majoring in economics there, or math, will be a fine route to Wall Street. Believe me, all of these schools are well represented in Ibanking and consulting.
Oh, and one of my doctors just told me that his son, who graduated from Vanderbilt, got an analyst position at Goldman. What you’ll need to do for any of these positions is get top grades in college. I don’t think these banks and consulting firms are interested in the bottom half of the class at HYPS. But a top kid at one of the schools I’ve listed has a shot if they perform well in interviews.
I live in an area with many Wall Street employees and can vouch for the fact that many did NOT attend Ivy league colleges. In fact, many attended SUNY schools, Fordham, Drexel, Villanova, and other schools in NYC and Philldelphia. And they do like Econ majors.
Is the 3.4 on a 4.0 scale? Your grades show an upward trend which is good. I’d still apply to some reach. Colleges DO say they like kids that improve. Your scores are excellent, so IMO you do have a chance.
If you don’t love your sport, I would not continue it, unless there are other benefits to you. The time commitment for college sports is huge. And college is a time to explore multiple and new interests. (what sport is it, if you want to share?)
I don’t think the CC route buys much (unless you want to save $), and I think PG is a big waste of $ and just delays college. If you don’t get in where you want, then take a gap year and work, travel, do something meaningful, and reapply the next year.
All is not lost, despite your class rank and GPA issue. My kid had a bad first year due to concussions, but, like you, she brought her grades up. She was admitted to an ivy without any hooks. She wrote a good explanation under “special circumstances”, had good test scores and a challenging curriculum. Her ECs were average. Her essays and interview were good. She applied ED to the ivy and EA to several other schools.
Her friend, same TSAO school, had worse grades and a few disciplinary issues. Similar to you, she was diagnosed with ADHD at the end of Sophomore year. She was admitted to NYU (among other places.).
Both kids applied to a wide variety and were admitted to a number of excellent schools. One required full FA, the other required none.
My point is this - as with the chance me threads - no one here can predict your admission chances. IMHO, if you write a good explanation for your special circumstances and have good essays, you won’t be eliminated from the lottery at those highly competitive schools and you have a very good chance at getting in to a great college.
I listened to all the great advice. I retook the SAT and increased my score to 1540. My ACT increased to 35 composite. Senior year my GPA was a 3.7 and 3.65. Here are my results:
Early round:
ED: Brown (deferred then reject RD)
EA: Chicago (defer then reject RD)
So at this point I have no acceptances. My counselor freaked out and called the two schools that I’m on the waitlist for. Apparently Emory put me on their soft WL and have next to zero chance of getting off. He said that schools sometimes do this to boarding schools kids to entice more kids to apply next year. But he said I have no chance at Emory. The counselors have a TC with Columbia next week but told me not to get my hopes up because there are 4 other kids from my BS on the Columbia waitlist with much higher GPA than me.
The natural question after all these rejections is what went wrong? I thought perhaps one of my recommenders sabotaged me. But my counselor reviewed them carefully. Said they were fairly generic but nothing negative. In the end he said that my GPA put me in the auto deny zone for most of these schools.
I was surprised about Elon and Union. My stats are higher than their average. Counselor said that they probably yield protected me thinking that I would get in somewhere else. They said my options now are to apply to rolling admission schools or to UK schools.
I am extremely dejected. My parents are dumbfounded and are encouraging me to do a gap year. I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to go to community college or to one of the rolling schools. Feels like BS was such a waste.
Wow, that is a sobering story and I really feel for you. You effectively have a 3.6-3.7 GPA at a decently tough school. (Really, how much could a low first year GPA followed by solid A- work consistently for at least 2 years hurt?)
What went wrong? Did you mention in your essay that you had been diagnosed with ADD and/or disclosed test accommodations at school? Colleges may have discounted your strong standardized scores on that basis, especially ACT, which is more a test of time management than anything substantive. I know colleges are not supposed to do this, but…
I’m not sure if I missed it, but what is your demographic? Obviously you are super high SES (both parents Ivy or equivalent, fancy boarding school). If you are white or Asian, that would not have helped either.
I agree that Elon and Union must have been yield protection. Like I said, I really feel for you and your parents. There are many boarding school parents on here, and I am sure some can offer you more useful advice than just sympathy.
This is as much for others reading this as you. What happened to the match/safety schools from the list you posted in June? This list is really heavy on high reach (lottery) schools and light on match/safety schools. I don’t see any state schools that can often be a good choice. I’m surprised that your college counselor didn’t recommend a more balanced list.
Do you have any PG acceptances? Applications for most PG schools were due in January. If not either your counselor or you can reach out to some schools to see if they have any spots. Or check the list of colleges with space available - a list comes out soon. Option 3 is to take a gap year and reapply next fall to a more balanced list.
Try to remember that most of the schools on your list accept 5-20% of applicants so they turn away a lot of good students.
Sorry for your awful results. Too many schools on this list and way too many reaches. That’s what happened. There is no way you could to a good job on essays for over 20 schools.
From your original post:
Because your ACT improved, your counselor now thought it was OK to only apply to super reach schools and 2 match schools?
Go to a rolling admission school or take a gap year.
Some more background info that I forgot to include in my update post:
Disclosure of ADD: After a long discussion with my counselor and parents, we decided not to disclose. Reason is that my grades started to improve and he thought it looked like I was making excuses. He also said the same thing that @satchelsf about discounting top scores on ACT for students with extended time. So I didn’t disclose. Now I wish I had.
Grades: senior fall my grades were all A/A- and 1 B+. Winter term my grades were all A/A- and a C+. I really messed up in one of my classes and completely bombed the final. Victim of poor organizational skills, I guess. My counselor said that if it weren’t for the C+, the upward trend argument would have made sense. He said that they probably saw the C+ and thought I was too risky and probably couldn’t handle the work.
Demographics: yes my parents make a good living, and we live in a wealthy suburb. Both went to top schools, and am full pay at my boarding school. I am asian to top it off, which I’m sure didn’t help much either.
College Lists: my counselor did urge more safety and match schools. However with the strong performance in senior fall, I got a little over-confident. Plus it was exhausting to write so many essays, I simply ran out of time with the safeties. I wanted to prove to my parents that going to BS wasn’t a waste of their money. Going to state school or one of my safeties would have been a failure in my eyes, which is why I didn’t bother to apply to a lot of them.
I really wish I had done things differently. Hopefully this will help someone in the future not to repeat my mistakes. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Columbia, but that seems unlikely as well.
Oh and I didn’t apply to any PGs. After some more thought it seemed that gap year would be better than PG. I ended up not getting any interest from any coaches in my sport, so I thought that PG would be a waste of time.
@h1313276 I totally understand your situation. Our oldest son was in the same situation back when he graduated in 2014. Decent gpa, great test scores, EC’s, recommendations etc. As he was our first, we thought colleges would take into account academic rigor as well as the unique opportunities he pursued while at BS (attending island school for a term where he worked on a research team that presented findings to Bahamian government, went to Philippines with friends to shoot a documentary on child homelessness and abuse etc…) We also built an unrealistic list of colleges to apply to for engineering. (MIT, Harvey mudd, Georgia tech, USC etc.)
He ended up with zero acceptances. We were pretty devastated as you can imagine. In his dorm there were 8 seniors- 6 got acceptances and attended: Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Stanford, Georgetown. My son and a friend -both without any hooks - ended up with horrible results. We reached out to the schools he was waitlisted at and neither looked good. We quickly applied to a heavily marketed lower tiered school and he was accepted with a nice merit package.
He lasted 1 week at the school as it was such a culture shock. Imagine leaving the bubble of BS and being dropped into an environment that was entirely foreign to him. We brought him home, he got a job and took a gap year. We also began working with a college counselor to see where we went wrong and how to position him to reapply. She quickly pointed out his weaknesses - he did not have the background to compete as an engineering major. (He went on to sign up for sat subject tests, took an online physics class as going abroad a term had not allowed him to take upper level physics…) Got help with his essay topic choice and went about applying to colleges again that fall. His list was short- 3 colleges. One of the schools he was waitlisted at prior had told us that they accept almost all their students in the first 30 days of the application period. When our Son had applied the prior year, he hadn’t applied until January as they listed rolling admissions. He loved this school and reapplied in that window. Happy ending- he was accepted to all 3 schools- got merit money at all and is now a college junior at one of the top schools for his area of study.
We learned Sooooo many lessons throughout this experience as a family that we have used with our other kids. Our DS18 is a similar type student to his brother. We were much more realistic with his college list and he ended up with 3 nice choices. College admissions has become even more competitive in the last 4 years. Forget far reach and reach schools. Even schools that were possibles in his Naviance list, he was waitlisted/rejected. He ended up being accepted to his 2 liklies and 1 safety school. Even so, he is very happy with the college he will be attending as it is a perfect fit for him.
@h1313276 - Were you applying for a competive major like Engineering or CS?
So sorry about the Rejections. Hold your head high. Maybe or call Columbia and plead your case. Or do a gap year and make the most of it and reapply.
Which BS do you attend?