Well, it certainly wasn’t “science”. For G.P.A. I just put in his current G.P.A., his grades have been pretty steady so I felt safe doing that. For his SAT, our school publishes the range of test scores for both the SAT and our state tests. So, I took his state test percentiles and looked to see how kids at that point have traditionally done on the SAT, and I chose that number.
In addition, my goal here is really to look at safeties. My kid attends a school that’s very much a “pressure cooker”. It’s like college confidential in real life, where everyone is focused on getting into Harvard or similar schools. It’s done a number on his self esteem, but since it’s our local public school he’s kind of stuck. I really want him to see that he has options, and that there are schools that would love to have an incredible kid like him. I don’t want to take him on a tour and then have to say “but you probably won’t get in”, at least not at this early stage. So, once I figured out my “best guess” score for him, I subtracted 100, and I used that number. If it turns out he that he does better, and schools we thought were “matches” become “safeties”, that’s fine. I’d rather not have the reverse where we aim high and tour JMU or Davidson, and he falls in love and then finds out it’s not a realistic option.