I’m curious what kind of college can an Andover student with a 5.2/6.0 GPA with a 1550 SAT attend? Does anyone have experience with this scenario?
I remember looking at this a while back. Andover publishes the matriculation data for their students. While there certainly a lot of kids who end up at Ivy+ schools, there are many that don’t.
Here is the matriculation list
https://www.andover.edu/files/CCOProfileBrochure2018-2019.pdf
Some surprises:
SUNY Polytechnic
Marist College
Sacred Heart University
Ozarks Technical Community College
For details on the scenario you mention above (5.2 GPA/1550), this is by no means average. You will need a Naviance account and look at the scatterplots.
Average Andover student here. Well, by your definition, I guess below average, since my Upper Spring grades brought my cumulative grades down to right beneath a 5/6. I believe your definition of 5.2/6 being the average grade at Andover comes from the school wide poll–State of the Academy? Cumulative grades have been on a steady rise (even Andover can’t avoid grade inflation!) ever since, but I believe the average cumulative grade for the Class of 2016 was still like 5.02/6. The cumulative grade distribution for Class of 2020 was actually skewed more to the right, but our class is known to be quite competitive. Still, having a 5.2 in our class would actually put you in Top 40%!
But because Andover doesn’t do weighted GPA, numbers themselves don’t really tell a full story. Although there are some students who take the hardest classes(Fluid Mechanics, Existentialism, Multi Calc, senior elective history, Organic Chemistry, etc)and get the best grades, most students get pretty good grades (around 5.5?) while taking mediocre classes(upper year taking pre-cal sequences: 330-360, 300s language, eng 300, history 300, and sciences 300s or 400s). The ones bring the grades down are either admitted to the school on a non-academic merit or trust their ego take courses that are too hard for them(haha). I am a “below-average” student by the number, but I also take all 500s or above(college level) courses except for English 300, a required subject for all uppers. I am quite extreme, because I end up always scoring 6s in my strongest classes while doing quite poorly(4s and 3s) in my weaker ones.
Still, my college counselor considers all the top tier schools–Ivy+s, UCB/LA, Carnegie Mellon–as "unlikely"s for me. My reaches would be schools like Tufts or UMich, "possible"s Boston College/University, and "likely"s UMass Amherst. I believe tiers stay the same for most students, except for those who are recruits or legacies. And the college counseling office told us that about half of the school will end up going to “Possible” or “Likely” schools…so, yeah. If you are coming to boarding schools for better college prospects, no luck unless you are an athlete, recruit, or URM. But obviously, most who have done their research, including myself, decided to matriculate to Andover or other great institutes knowing this would be the case. As of now I don’t have regrets…yet!
+) Also, while bad grades can hurt you, good grades don’t boost you as much. My senior friends who had rigorous courseloads all throughout and had 5.8+ cumulative GPAs did not end up in Ivy+s…so grades really don’t mean much…unless they’re bad;)!
+) On standardized testing, 1550+, 750+, and 5s on my SAT1/2 and APs, bla bla. That doesn’t do much when you attend a competitive school like Andover, though, where performance within the school holds much more weight. Of course, not having stats like above WOULD hurt you since everyone would have the credentials, some even before coming to Andover, unless you are, again, URM, athlete, legacy, etc.
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I’m sure the guidance office there could/would answer this question. Tough question as there are only going to be so many strong pushes for the very top tier with legacy and strong sports coming out ahead. Yet, some kids have other hooks which will make them viable candidates at strong schools. The reason no one can answer this question is, there are too many schools to chose from AND you aren’t giving any information on the candidate other than basic stats at a top boarding school. Essays and recommendations matter as do extra curricular activities. Geography and race matter also. Without know these factors it’s a tough equation to solve.
Yes, if OP is at Andover, he should work with the GC. If not there, a lot of this is speculation, he has no record, academic or other.
And as mentioned elsewhere many times, going to BS as a means to get better college acceptances is a losing game. Go to BS because you want a great education ----not because you want to go to HYPS.