<p>My niece attends a challenging private school in the Boston area.
Her gpa is a bit better than B plus; she does take the most challenging curriculum and has some interesting ecs. Her sats were perfect-800x3; will have strong recs. All 5s on APs.
Her parents will not seek financial aid.</p>
<p>Which top tier schools heavily weigh the sats-relatively speaking- I ask because her gpa is obviously her weakness.
Thanks!</p>
<p>All top tier schools weigh GPA and rigor of curriculum more heavily than standardized test scores.</p>
<p>The “techier” schools would be a good bet. Cal Tech is notoriously test score driven. MIT less so, but I suspect your D would get a strong look. Rice is possible,</p>
<p>She needs to talk with her counselor and look at the Naviance for her school. Depending on the reptuation of her school, B+ may be less of an issue than you think.</p>
<p>Agree with quilah – this is really, really high-school dependent. Does she know where she is class-ranking or decile-wise?</p>
<p>I would assume a bit better than B+ equates to an A- average which could be easily in the Top 10% of the “challenging private school” your niece attends. Check her school’s Naviance and find out her class rank and her GPA may end up being fine.</p>
<p>All the women’s colleges will give her a second and third look. She is a strong candidate for Wellesley and Bryn Mawr (have no idea if she’s interested, but worth a look.) Agree that her GC will be the most helpful here. My kids attended a parochial school with a reputation for tough grading, no fluff in the curriculum (lots of homework, lots of writing, lots of rigor) and we were surprised by how well kids in the B- to B+ range grade wise did in admissions. Obviously, the higher the scores the more apparent this was.</p>
<p>So she may be absolutely fine as is. We’ve also observed that some of the SAT optional schools go nuts over kids with tippy top high scores regardless of the GPA-- helps their averages (if you know what I mean.)</p>
<p>And 5’s on the AP’s will mean a lot. If the recommendation describe a serious student (i.e. not a flake or a slacker) you don’t need to worry.</p>
<p>Absolute gpa is probably less relevant than relative standing in the class if she’s at a top private school like Roxbury Latin or Exeter or Andover. If she’s in the top 15% or 20% at one of those schools, combined with perfect SAT and 5’s on AP’s and strong recs, then she should be a competitive candidate at any college to which she wants to apply. One of the other good things about schools like that is that they have very experienced and savvy GC’s who will be able to give her a better sense of her chances than any of us will. But 3x800 on the SAT is quite a rarity - in the class of 2009, out of over 1.5 million students who took the exams (many of whom took it multiple times), there were 297 perfect scores. So congrats to your niece!</p>
<p>Not sure I agree that all top schools weigh gpa above test scores, especially not for a female. I believe there are only about 150 girls in the country who score a single-sitting 2400. That is a hook if ever there was one. And her grades aren’t bad at all if she’s from a truly rigorous high school. She shoot for the stratosphere.</p>
<p>My B+ kid got into Tufts, Chicago and Vassar as an example. (No perfect test scores - but he did have a 790 CR and a 790 on the US History SAT test.) It’s really high school dependent as others have said. My son’s GPA still had him almost in the top 5% of his class, he’d taken a rigorous curriculum and got 5’s on the APs he had taken. He also wrote very good essays - especially the school specific ones. Safety schools will love her scores, but for the top schools she will (probably) have to convince them that she is more than her GPA.</p>
<p>The GC at her school will know where kids with her stats get in. </p>
<p>Reed used to be less concerned with GPA than most schools of its caliber, not sure if it still holds true.</p>
<p>^ I think there’s a huge difference between a student with a 3.46 gpa (my son’s) and a student with a gpa above 3.5 At least, that has been our experience. My son became seriously ill his junior year and ended the year with straight B grades. He’s now a 4.0 student his senior year, but the senior year is too late. He was denied or waitlisted at all the top-20 schools to which he applied. What’s a B+? 3.3? 3.4? 3.5? 3.6? I do think you have a shot if the gpa is above 3.5. Better if it’s above 3.6.</p>
<p>Does she by any chance have a particular interest in math/science/engineering/CS or any of that sort of thing? Many, many top schools would absolutely love to attract female students with those stats into those kind of fields (particularly engr/CS, I think) - obviously, I say that assuming she has taken fairly advanced classes in those areas, but it’s something to think about. As someone else said above, look at the “techier” schools.</p>
<p>“Reed used to be less concerned with GPA than most schools of its caliber, not sure if it still holds true.”</p>
<p>GPA + test scores + class rank together count for 20% of admission criteria at Reed. [Reed</a> Magazine](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/spring2008/features/many_apply/5.html]Reed”>Reed Magazine: Many Apply. Few are Chosen. (5/5))</p>
<p>Has she/would she consider a Service Academy? West Point in particular (#1 rated school in the nation) might be just the ticket for her (and save her parents a bundle too).</p>
<p>I don’t thinks so, she is not an athlete and very liberal politics to boot.
But its a good thought, did make me chuckle.
Thanks.</p>
<p>If she can make a good early choice, look at colleges that have ED. High scores which are “locked in” can be very tempting to top colleges.</p>
<p>The record is incomplete. First semester senior grades can really help in this situation.</p>
<p>I agree with jonri. If there is an ED school she likes, they will like her test scores.</p>
<p>FYI there is a thread for kids with 3.6 or less GPA’s though that is of course not just kids from top high schools.</p>
<p>My DD, with a 3.7 weighted GPA from TJ and about 2200 SATs was accepted by Lehigh, RPI, and Case and waitlisted at WUSTL. She got a good aid package from RPI, which she will be attending.</p>