<p>Kids in this situation will particularly benefit using Naviance and other such school specific tracking method. For instance, at my two boys’ private prep school where the gpa is unweighted and a 3.5 average is considered outstanding, and the school does not rank, I see kids who are at that level getting into ivies and other top schools. The LACs and the ivies seem to be well aware of the grade scale of this school and take it into account when evaluating the kids. There are schools that do not, however. Getting a kid into UVA or other selective state school or honors programs can and has been an issue. The data shows this very clearly. Kids don’t even bother to apply to UVA or UNC chapel hill from that school any more. The colleges that have a large pool of applicants from prep schools and other high flying public schools often have a special chart that they use to assess the gpa info.</p>
<p>If you are from an average, run of a mill public school, you have a problem if your kid is not in the top 3. Not percent but actual top 3. Many of such schools get one or two kids in the most selective schools. Unless the EC is strong enough to be a true hook, the kid is not likely to have a chance in gaining admissions to highly selective schools. Many books like “A is for Admission” written by former admissions directors are pretty clear on that point.</p>
<p>If your kid is in a high school that does not send many kids to top colleges, and has a lower gpa due to the weighting system and difficult course load, it is very important that the profile is accurate for the school and that the gc writing the rec highlights that this student has gone above and beyond academically, and the gpa just does not reflect the academic excellence because of the grading system. Don’t know if it will do any good, but at least the adcom just might pause, and look at the app more carefully. A lower gpa goes almost automatically in the reject pile at many highly selective colleges.</p>
<p>cpt,
Yes, kids with a 3.5 and great SATs are getting into top 20’s from his private school. The problem for us is- I’m sure my S may be able to get into a couple of great schools, we just can’t afford them. These stats won’t get you merit at any of the top 20 and that is what we need. So, we are looking at state schools and the gpa is an issue for merit since it’s unweighted and so low at his school - with #1 student having a 3.75. Early in the year, I didn’t think he would be very competitive, but he really prepped for SATs, finals and did very well and has chosen a rigorous Sr. year. Which is a great thing, and a great problem to have, but it does complicate things. :)</p>
<p>I think we all agreed at the beginning of this very long thread that there were way more than 20 schools in the top 20! At a very minimum I’d include the top 25 to 30 research universities and the top 20 LACs on the USNWR list.</p>
<p>"If you are from an average, run of a mill public school, you have a problem if your kid is not in the top 3. Not percent but actual top 3. Many of such schools get one or two kids in the most selective schools. Unless the EC is strong enough to be a true hook, the kid is not likely to have a chance in gaining admissions to highly selective schools. Many books like “A is for Admission” written by former admissions directors are pretty clear on that point.</p>
<p>If your kid is in a high school that does not send many kids to top colleges, and has a lower gpa due to the weighting system and difficult course load, it is very important that the profile is accurate for the school and that the gc writing the rec highlights that this student has gone above and beyond academically, and the gpa just does not reflect the academic excellence because of the grading system. Don’t know if it will do any good, but at least the adcom just might pause, and look at the app more carefully. A lower gpa goes almost automatically in the reject pile at many highly selective colleges."</p>
<p>I heartily disagree with this. My kids attended a public school that had kids in vocational classes all the way through AP. Many of the higher ranked kids were in those easier classes. My kids were not even ranked in the top 25% yet they did get into CC Top 20 LACs.</p>
<p>cptof the house, if it is indeed fact, I would love to see your documentation. I would hate to see kids dissuaded from applying to competitive schools when they might actually have a chance.</p>
<p>Maybe cptofthehouse has a different definition of “average public school” than most of us. I think of our school as pretty average, which it certainly is in this area (suburban NYC), but compared to schools in the US overall, it probably has slightly higher SAT scores, more APs offered, and better college placements than average. I do think that if a school doesn’t weight AP and honors classes all bets are off as to what rank will get you into good colleges. In our school the top 5% of the class are getting into top colleges except those few that have a high rank despite not being in AP classes.</p>
<p>The issue with class rank at a high school where all of the students are capable and high-achieving is why many high schools (especially privates) don’t rank. It just hurts those students at that type of high school. The colleges say that they can figure out (based on the school profile and the student’s transcript) rank. Of course they can, but that doesn’t mean they’re always going to. If the high school is known to produce students who, regardless of rank, do well once they matriculate to the adcom’s institution, then rank isn’t as important. The colleges want to be able to say that a huge percentage of their students come from the top 10% or 5% of their graduating high school class; if top high schools don’t submit rank but are known for providing quality graduates, then the college can admit a bunch of them and exclude them from the class rank statistics. </p>
<p>If your kid attends a high school which isn’t well-known to an adcom, then class rank becomes more important. There’s no existing yardstick to see how past grads from that high school did at Reach U. Being top 10% (or top 10) is then how a student demonstrates that they are highly capable.</p>
<p>CPT has been seriously freaking me out in this thread, and I thank NEMom from preventing me from having a total panic attack during my 2nd cup of coffee this morning!</p>
<p>Hey, Emmy. my S IS a really a great guy…who knows, sounds like if your D applies to any LACs with a good theater program, they might even end up at the same school!</p>
<p>Someone said that maybe its not a bad idea to start an additional thread which is “around 3.6 Applying to Top Schools” That really is more my S, since I don’t think we are officially applying to any top 20s.</p>
<p>We are going on a college tour starting next week! I’ll report back here if people are interested. Our itinerary is Vassar. Bard, (weekend touristy drive to Cornell because my H hasn’t done as much CC homework as me and we are placating him), Hamilton, Colgate, Skidmore, Bennnington, Bates, Conn College, Trinity, Wesleyan.</p>
<p>Whew. We have about 10 days; it’s our only chance to see any east coast schools since S is booked the rest of the summer and into a good part of Fall with theater. I printed all the Google maps out last night and I was exhausted from just contemplating all that driving! S has 6 interviews at the schools he is most interested in there.</p>
<p>Read “A is for Admissions” for starters, and “What it Really Takes to Get into an Ivy League School”. Look at Naviance data for average US high schools and see who and how many are getting into what schools. It’s pretty clear that this is the case, and the schools admit it freely. Of course, there are exceptions, many of them. But when the data is compiled and the percentages calculated, you can see that it is not the case most of the time.</p>
<p>Also as Mathmom says, you may not be in a typical high school. Around here there are some high schools that do as well as many well known private schools. Schools like New Trier, Scarsdale, Greenwich all have lots of kids going to the top colleges for a number of reason. But look at their average SATs. </p>
<p>It should not dissuade kids from applying to top schools, because the chances are so small anyways without hooks, that the additional lessening of the chances is not significant. And there is always that outside chance. For years at the large midwestern highschool near where we lived, one or maybe two kids would get accepted to the ivies/MIT, etc. This was for the last 10 years and so predictable that rumor was that there was a quota . BUt one year 4 were accepted to Harvard, and one to MIT. A windfall year with some highly talented kids. Every single one of them were Harvard material and there was a lot of nervousness as to who would be the two picks that year, but all of them did make it. And there was a big chasm between that group and the next group of kids who tended to go to the flagship U. </p>
<p>My son was a B student who got accepted to an ivy. He had very difficult courses, with lots of APs and worked on an unusual research project. The rest of his app showed him to be a very well rounded kid.</p>
<p>Your school’s info on who gets in with what where is the best indicator for what your kids’ chances are at various schools. The GC can tell you if there is no data service like Naviance. You can ask where kids with your kids stats tend to get accepted.</p>
<p>Don’t freak out, Greatkidsmom. The stats only apply to the absolutely most selective schools. Though the schools on your list are selective, they are not so tight on admissions that kids who are not the very top of the class cannot get in them. Wesleyan is probably the toughest go, and maybe Colgate. But a couple of years ago when my current college kid applied, a lot of kids we knew without tip top grades got into Colgate including son’s close friend and son’s gf. This close friend who is male got into a number of schools with an unweighted gpa of about 3.3, including Holy Cross, BC, Tulane with merit and Geneseo as well as Colgate. His sister with very high gpa and slightly lower test scores did not get into some of those schools a few years earlier.</p>
<p>Yes, don’t freak out Greatkidsmom, the whole point of this thread is that there is room for B+/A- kids at some great schools under the right circumstances. Both Colgate and Wesleyan have accepted kids with unweighted GPAs in that range. Wesleyan, in particular seems very variable. Some years they accept nearly everyone who applies, other years only one. They seem more interested in high SAT scores than Colgate, but have some outliers on the SAT scale. (Not on grades.) Colgate seems to care much less about SAT scores.</p>
<p>Also, my son with a 3.0 average but 2300+ SAT1 scores did get a number of merit offers. I agree that had his gpa been higher as it might have been at some less rigorous schools, it might have garnered him some more merit money. That is the problem with going to a school where the grade curve is steep. He may have also qualified for more outside scholarships. He may have had some issues in getting into honors colleges or even getting accepted as some OOS colleges. He had no problem in getting accepted to the most selective state schools, with merit money from our state. </p>
<p>My son’s good friend whose gpa was slightly higher,maybe a 3.2 with slightly lower maybe 2200 SATS was turned down at Swarthmore but was accepted at Wesleyan. He graduated from the same prep school as my son.</p>
<p>I think the message of what you are saying is that with excellent scores, kids SHOULD try for whatever reaches they truly love. Why not? I’m assuming your S, while having clearly some truly exceptional attributes, was not in the top 3 of his class (unless your school gives NO As?)? And that they shouldn’t expect anything. But that is the message of this whole thread - if you want to try, let’s see what happens, and help each other in the process.</p>
<p>I don’t think listing schools that “qualify” for this thread is necessary. There are plenty of school rankings lists, and many of them contradict each other. The OP already said that people would define “top 20” on their own. The point, I think, is that it’s not “Discussion regarding YOUR reach school of any kind” but “Discussion of reach schools that most people consider to be reach schools.” Maybe the definition should be based on acceptance rate … but this isn’t the place for arts kids trying to get into BFAs that take 1-2%, etc. (there are other threads for that). </p>
<p>What is clear over the past 2000 posts is that there are so many factors in selective school admissions that no one can predict the outcomes. I love my D1 and am proud of her 4.0, her 31 ACT (36 in Science), and all of her awards and accomplishments. I can’t help feeling strongly, however, that getting into her elite school was way easier because they’d never had an applicant from our HS before. Colleges love stuff like that. </p>
<p>My D2’s best friend wants to go to an Ivy that did take a student from our HS 2 years ago, and I can’t help thinking, “Darn, there goes THAT hook!” (plus the other girl was a URM). I don’t know how often they will take a chance on a new town, or some other little attribute. But that’s precisely my point - we don’t know. We’ll try to be realistic here, and supportive. And if you read back, you’ll see that even with these high aspirations, as SDon said, kids did weigh more on fit than anything else, when all was said and done. It’s just a little different here because many of them did feel they “fit” at a very selective school.</p>
<p>Many, many school systems no longer rank students. A lot of colleges where I’ve seen class ranking data state that 35-40% of high schools provide rank. Ours doesn’t, but provides a grid of XX% of students with between a 3.25-3.49, 3.5-3.74, etc., so it is not too hard to discern relative position.</p>
<p>It can get complicated when a school houses a selective admit or magnet program that represents only part of the school population. For example, kids in the selective program in our area have average SATs in the mid-2100s at one program, and low 2200s at another, with literally dozens of NMSFs among them and many taking full IB or ~8-10 APs each. The GPA matrix, however, includes all kids in the senior class and does not distinguish among academic programs.</p>
<p>This is where knowing how colleges view students from that program comes in handy. One of my kids was outside the top 10% and got into MIT EA, the other was top 25% and got into UChicago EA and Tufts. Naviance was VERY helpful in seeing colleges’ admissions behavior towards kids from each program. There were some schools where we knew the schools would view a 3.5/2300 with insane rigor favorably, and others where the GPA would pull him off the table. Both my kids’ results were pretty predictable in that regard.</p>
<p>This is where I will put in my pitch for students to submit admissions results to make it easier on future families! There are not always a lot of data points for 3.5/2300 kids.</p>
<p>And I agree with SDonCC about fit: neither of my kids picked the “highest ranking” school to which they were accepted. They did pick schools that fit their personalities and goals, and where they felt they’d thrive.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, this conversation is very helpful and interesting,</p>
<p>Thanks also, CPT…that further info on Colgate is helpful. We also did try to pick schools to consider not onlyt hat my S was drawn to but that we felt he had some realistic chanced of admission. Ivies seemed too far a reach for S without any hook.</p>
<p>Our school honestly doesn’t send many kids to top colleges…but then again, not many apply. The vast majority go to state schools. That said, S is in the IB program at the school, which is small but rigorous, and I hope that will help for colleges that don’t have a big track record with our school, to show S can do college level work and do it well.</p>
<p>By the way, as I’m typing this I’m listening to CNN reporting on that awful campground disaster in Arkansas, and my hearts go out to the families that lost children, and I thank goodness our children are all safe and well as I write this.</p>
<p>When you have kids with disparate qualifications, you should make sure your safeties cover the low point. YOu might as well shoot high for that aspect of the app as well. REally, you don’t know how any individual app is going to be taken.</p>
<p>I have posted here before, although my son was well outside of the GPA of the thread, because I believe that kids with the A-/B+ range can get into Top Schools. (Many moons ago the posters agreed that Top 20 really just meant Top Schools.)</p>
<p>I disagree with cptofthehourse Re: the requirement that you be in the top 3 students of your class to be accepted at even a top school, like Harvard. Perhaps it comes down to your definition of “average HS”. At my son’s HS (which I would probably consider above-average, but not nearly private prep school quality) students are ranked according to their weighted average. There are usually a few kids going to the Ivies, plus a few more going to MIT, Stanford, UChicago, and some of the elite State Us like UNCCH, UVa, or UMich. But this is out of a class of about 400, the overwhelmingly vast majority of which go to one of the state publics. Out of his class, my son was ranked about 25th, just outside of the top 5%. Yet he was accepted at Harvard with no major hooks. Now, I will admit that he would have been tied for Val if the school used UW GPA, but it didn’t and it did use W GPA to report class rank to schools. BTW, nobody “ranked” higher got into Harvard.</p>
<p>Naviance is your friend (if you have it). It can tell you how colleges view your school. Do they recognize that your school has a tougher grading scale and therefor a 3.6 from your school might get in where it otherwise might seem hopeless. Get familiar with Naviance and learn how to read between the lines on the charts. It can help you a lot!</p>
<p>If you are trying to show that your kid has really mastered certain subjects, even with a B+ grade, you might consider having them take two (or more) SATIIs in their strong subjects. A high SATII score can rally boost an application.</p>
<p>GreatKidsMom - I hate to add more to your already packed itinerary, but as long as you are already going to be in Ithaca to see Cornell, your kid should look at Ithaca College if he is interested in theater. It has a very good theater department and I believe is an academic fit as well.</p>
<p>Hat,most schools that care about these thing, and Harvard does, unweights the GPAs when they view them. They have to in order to be able compare kids on every kind of grading scale there is. Also your GC may have let them know that your son would have been first if there were weightings. Harvard well knew your son was for its intents and purposes, first in his class.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, your child’s chances at such school will depend on what has been accepted in the past. A parent’s evaluation of a high school as “average”, “slightly above average”, “very good”, “top” isn’t what counts. The most selective schools that go through careful application analysis, know what they consider the high schools, and what the conventional wisdom in the community is does not matter.</p>