<p>^ I should mention this is in the hardest courses possible. With 7 APs (one of which I already blew, 4 on Eng. Language and World History). And I’m still in the top quarter of my unweighted class rank.</p>
<p>I doubt the BFA’s you mention will care. Barnard will be toughest, maybe beyond reach, but given the rigor and rank I’d guess you had a very good chance at the others.</p>
<p>bump this is a great thread for this fall again–kids looking at Top schools with gpa around/under 3.6.</p>
<p>i agree; this has potential to be a really informative discussion, but since most of the posts are from a couple years ago, i’d love to know where those 3.5-3.6 GPA kids ended up going, and if they’re happy!</p>
<p>You can probably figure out who went where by reviewing the thread. I think that most posted acceptances. AFAIK, there was not a consolidated update however.</p>
<p>I’m one of the posters from the original thread.</p>
<p>My S had a 3.5 UW GPA (but in the Top 10%) and 35 ACT. He was accepted ED to Wash U in St. Louis, where he is now a sophomore. He is doing well, and enjoying it there. He has had to work harder than he did in HS and has decent but not stellar grades. </p>
<p>He has a good group of friends, mostly from an EC he does. (Don’t want to say which one and out him.) Has had a typical set of problems - roommate difficulties last year, one particularly difficult class that he struggled in first semester. </p>
<p>All in all, we are quite happy that he ended up where he did. CC was helpful in getting me to encourage him to consider schools outside of our geographical area.</p>
<p>My S fits this thread. He has a 3.6 UW and 2190 SAT’s. He is applying to Midd, Bowdoin… only top 20. He also has Bates, Colby, Whitman, Colorado College, Lewis and Clark, Sewanee, and a few others. He is still deciding between Midd and Bowdoin for ED. We will see…</p>
<p>S2 is now a soph at Tufts. Agonized over Tufts/Chicago til the very end (as in 8 pm on May 1st). Enjoys Tufts a lot, and there are many opportunities there in his field that would not have been available at Chicago. OTOH, he wishes there was more of the Life of the Mind vibe, though he has been pretty successful at finding friends with similar interests. GPA at college is comparable to HS GPA. Academic transition was pretty seamless, which we attribute to the insanely intense IB program he attended.</p>
<p>He has a single this year, but is still good buddies with last year’s roommate, despite S2’s epic messiness.</p>
<p>My long post vanished. Grr!</p>
<p>Anyway, I think I originally posted results in #2128. My son chose Tufts and as far as I know he hasn’t regretted it. He took one extremely time consuming course (EPIIC - a colloquium whose topic last year was Nuclear issues) which he did well in, and one really time consuming course (Arabic) that he was very worried about passing. (He ended the year with a C.) His other grades were mostly fine though second semester were definitely impacted by the time he had to spend on Arabic. In terms of making connections and having opportunities in International Relations Tufts has been all it promised. They gave him a grant to talk to people in India and Pakistan over winter break about nuclear issues. He’s had incredible networking opportunities. He took Arabic this summer in Jordan and discovered that in other places Arabic is not taught at such a fast and furious pace. Sometimes he complains that Tufts isn’t very diverse, but personally I think that describes all the top 20 and probably top 100 colleges to some extent - especially if you are looking for more economic diversity.</p>
<p>^^^ S2 is also an IR major, and Tufts really does have incredible opportunities. If there’s something you want to do (research project, online symposium), just go talk to a prof and there is funding, support, and a bunch of folks who are happy to join in. </p>
<p>S2’s HS was very diverse socioeconomically and ethnically. He also wishes there was more diversity, but we found that the kind of multicultural student body that both my kids grew up with does not happen at a number of colleges.</p>
<p>Sounds like ED is a must for kids with these stats–and demonstrated interest/match with the school of choice–oh yeah, that’s also true for kids at all stats level.</p>
<p>My student did not do ED. He applied to a couple of schools EA, which helped him gauge his strength in the applicant pool. Had he not gotten into either of his EAs, he likely would have applied ED II at the school he is now attending.</p>
<p>A lot of schools know S2’s IB program, and have a pretty good sense of how the kids are prepared coming out of there. Of course, that can cut both ways. Some schools knew a 3.5 UW in this program was an excellent GPA, but other schools still wanted that 4.0.</p>
<p>S2 also put in significant time on his essays, and that really paid off. </p>
<p>A focused, realistic list is imperative with lopsided kids. S2 did not bother with Ivies, but had a solid list of excellent schools. He got into four, was waitlisted at two and rejected at two. He also dropped three others after getting into one of his EAs. We figure that batting .500 meant he had a list that was well-balanced.</p>
<p>One of his teachers would only send recs to two schools; kind of a bummer since we felt it was the strongest rec he had. S had the teacher send it to his top two choices, and he was accepted at both. We wondered what might have happened if a couple of other schools had seen that letter.</p>
<p>No question ED can help if there’s a school you are sure you like. In October, my son was not willing to commit himself. He applied EA to Chicago (where it almost certainly helped - he got in) and to Georgetown (where he was deferred to the regular round and rejected). For him schools with less than a 20% acceptance rate put him below the cut-off point. </p>
<p>Thanks heavens we didn’t have a teacher being so miserly with the letters. My son’s teachers wrote letters that were not tailored to a specific school. If his history teacher had done this to him he would have been in trouble.</p>
<p>I agree that ED can be helpful for kids with these stats. Like Countingdown and mathmom, my S decided to apply EA to a few schools to see how strong he will be. I think a few of his safer schools will be eliminated if he gets into any of these EA schools. I think his chances are very good at all of them except Colorado College… and that is one of his top 3 schools. He will also apply ED to either Midd or Bowdoin ( we are going out for a visit this month), and then will ED 2 at the other one if he doesn’t get in ED to the first. I think he has a great strategy. He also just submitted an app to a rolling school that is OOS but offers the WUE…i.e in state price for OOS students. He did take my advice and did not get too overly passionate about ONE school, and really would be happy at any of his schools. </p>
<p>He has lop-sided stats, but like CD and MM kids, he went to a top private prep that deflates grades and sends 50% of the class to top 20 schools. He has taken tough classes, will have amazing LOR’s as his teachers rave about him, and has done tons of atypical EC’s with A LOT of leadership, 1500 community service hours. Also went to a pretigious boarding school in VT last semester on a rural organic farm, that matriculates most kids to top schools. His EC’s are all directed toward his intended major of ES. I am having him interview at every school he can, as he is a confident, well-spoken kid, and people always really like him right off the bat. He is still woring on essays, really don’t think they will be amazing, but will be good. He is lucky that most of his schools do not have extra essays.</p>
<p>Can you help with my dilema? My D gpa is a 3.3 and reading/math 1050. She has dyslexia but doesn’t necessarily need support. Should she disclose this in her app or not? She has an essay that has something to do with her LD. Helps or hurts?</p>
<p>^My son didn’t go to a top private prep, he went to a large public high school that regularly appears about in the middle of the county rankings. The don’t seem to practice that much grade inflation though. While I don’t think interviews usually make much difference, I know that my son wowed the Georgetown interviewer. (Didn’t get him in though!)</p>
<p>names1, you should start a new thread - your question has nothing to do with this thread and won’t get seen by people with good answers for you.</p>
<p>Sorry MM, I remembered incorrectly. Was your S in the IB program or just CD’s S? The IB program would compare to a private prep as far as rigor and also the defaltion of grades. At the public school in our area the kids get A’s if they just show up… not an education we wanted for our kids… and BTW, we are not rich, just sacrifice A LOT to send our kids to the school they are at…my car has 250 thousand miles on it and we haven’t taken a vacation in 10 years.</p>
<p>I was also under the impression that interviews don’t make much difference, but at I now think that at the small LAC’s they do. After my S’s first interview… for a small LAC, the interviewer called the GC and told her how impressed she was with my S… the GC said that was a good sign.</p>
<p>Just CD’s. That said the top students at our school get a pretty good education. They offer 24 AP courses, and a math course for the students who do AP Calc BC as juniors. They’ve got some science courses that are certified by Syracuse University (Forensic Science is super popular and there is also an Engineering Physics course I’ve heard praised highly). Lots of extra arts opportunities also.</p>
<p>That sounds like a good HS, if we had a HS like that our kids would have gone there as my kids like a diverse group, their one complaint about Private school. We live in an economically diverse town, my kids drive 3 hours a day to school. I have been going back and reading this thread… so interesting to see how it all turned out. Can’t believe it is me with a Senior now. One question, did your S and CD’s ever connect at college? It seemed they would have been friends if they ever met.</p>
<p>Mr D had about a 3.5-.6 unweighted GPA and is happily enrolled as a freshman at Vanderbilt now. She had lots of APs (10 total; 4s and 5s on most) and about their median admitted SAT score. She had some interesting extra-curriculars, but not tons of community service, and she wrote a decent essay.</p>