<p>I had a 3.51 unweighted (about a 3.66) at a highly competitive public school in Connecticut with a 32 on my ACTs. I’ve been accepted to all the schools I have applied to, but, as I was accepted to my early decision school, I only applied to 3:</p>
<p>William and Mary (ED) - OOS
Fordham University (EA)
Tulane University (EA) - Full academic scholarship</p>
<p>Congrats Columbia2017. From my handle you can tell I’m a JMU alum. And we’re hoping to land there - we’d both be happy, but if there is some twist of fate and someone at W&M admissions hits the wrong key and sends us an acceptance letter, I’m going to lean on her hard to go to Williamsburg!</p>
<p>@JMU- that post made me laugh.
I fell in love with JMU when we saw it last year for the kids. Either one is good, I agree! I went to UVA (surprise) and D applied to all three. In at UVA, did RD at W&M.</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter. I know how hard she must’ve worked to get into UVA. Good for her.</p>
<p>D’s stats
3.5ish GPA
1140 SAT (excluding writing)</p>
<p>Prt-time job; several years of regular volunteer at church. </p>
<p>Accepted:
CSU Chico
U of Pacific (small merit aid)</p>
<p>Waiting to hear:
Sonoma State
UC Merced
UC Santa Cruz</p>
<p>found out this morning that my DS got into URI! Letter to follow in a week or so. Hope $ is involved!</p>
<p>ConfusedMom - Congrats to your S!!</p>
<p>ree - Thanks!</p>
<p>LINYMOM–did you see this thread about Lehigh?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/lehigh-university/1439004-merit-aid.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/lehigh-university/1439004-merit-aid.html</a>
Congrats to Wahoo, Columbia, Confusedmom & crizello!</p>
<p>My D has a 3.4 UW GPA and 27 ACT:</p>
<p>St. Ambrose - $12,000 yr merit aid
St. Mary’s (MN) - $15,000 yr merit aid
Illinois State University
Eastern Illinois University - $3,000 yr merit aid and Honors Program
University of Wisconsin Whitewater - $2,000 yr merit aid and Honors Program
Loyola University Chicago - $16,000 yr merit aid</p>
<p>She is going to UW Whitewater and was recently contacted by the admissions counselor to advise she is being considered for additional scholarships next month.</p>
<p>D attends a private catholic college prep school.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you on your journey :)</p>
<p>Just read through this thread and realized keeping up here might freak me out a little less than some of the other threads :). My son falls in the “bright kid who didn’t always make it a priority turn in homework when he was a Freshman and Sophomore therefore got several B’s and B+'s that probably should have been A’s” category. A combination of that and the “interesting” weighting at his HS and he sits a little out of whack GPA vs test scores:</p>
<p>HS - Top 25 ranked public HS in Ohio
GPA: 3.6 UW / 3.8 W (almost all Honors with 4 AP classes - school doesn’t weight much)
Rank: Top 20%
ACT: 33
SAT: 2130
SAT II: Math II - 750, Physics - 690
APs Calc: AB (5), Physics (4)</p>
<p>Two very focused ECs: 1) wrestling which he has been doing since 1st grade. Team Captain, All-Conf. Trains and wrestles almost year round. Recruited at DIII level. 2) Religious/Service Activities - mission trips to Ecuador and S. Carolina and participation in Fellowship of Christian athletes.</p>
<p>Planned major: Civil Engineering</p>
<p>Results so far:</p>
<p>Acceptances:</p>
<p>Ohio State (accepted into Engineering)
U. of Illinois (accepted into Engineering)</p>
<p>Waiting on (all RD):</p>
<p>Cornell
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Lehigh
Bucknell
Lafayette
Wheaton
Case Western
Villanova</p>
<p>Originally, I thought he had a good shot at the first three, but now understand they are likely long shots. He really liked Lehigh, Bucknell, and Lafayette when we visited them so I think there are very good possibilities with them. He’s fortunate in that I think he can find a good fit at any of the schools on the list. We visited 10 of 11 during Spring and Summer.</p>
<p>I realized this Fall I was a little naive coming into this. You get all this stuff in the mail from top schools based on test scores and think there’s a good shot. But you quickly realize that scores are only part of the equation (as they should be) and that they are competing against a lot of uber-achievers for a limited number of spots. Certainly when you come on CC you sometimes wonder what your kid has been doing for 4 years 
</p>
<p>Congrats to all on the acceptances so far and good luck during the next 2+ months. May all our kids end up in schools that are a perfect fit!</p>
<p>Matmaven - Welcome. Yes, some of the posts on CC make me wonder if people ever sleep! Can be rather overwhelming and hard on your self esteem.</p>
<p>Happy to report my DS received an acceptance to his “reach” (Bentley). While his GPA is hovering right around a 3.6, his SAT super score was relatively low (and let’s just say his ACT experience and results were not favorable). Regardless, I truly think that the students who are in this GPA bracket (and can show an upward trend) can have an upper-hand as well-rounded candidates. The extracurriculars, sports, leadership, and camps they attend specific to their major not only add to their life experience, they open up opportunities for recommendations from a variety of teachers. Finally, you read over and over again that candidates get caught up trying to present the strongest stats rather than realizing schools need students that will be involved, foster campus pride and, hopefully, become dedicated (and generous) alumni!</p>
<p>DS
3.6 UW ; 4.069 W
AP Calc AB (3); AP Gov (4); AP Lang (5); APUSH (3); AP Calc BC (12th grade); AP Lit (12th grade) 11 Honors course; 1 dual enroll in 9th grade
ACT = 34/12 essay; SAT = 1480/2130
National Merit Semi-Finalist</p>
<p>Accepted:
Bama - with full tuition scholarship + engineering
UAlabama Huntsville - with scholarship
Rhodes - EA (merit unknown until next month)
Susquehanna (20k/yr merit + 1k/yr if he visits by March)
U of Tulsa (merit unknown until next month)</p>
<p>Waiting on 7 more. </p>
<p>I was disappointed with Susquehanna merit (about 55% of current tuition) because I had heard they give out a lot of high merit. It is certainly good, just that other folks had my expectations higher.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At my kids school (private college prep PK3-12) high school courses taken in middle school appear on the transcript with a grade.</p>
<p>@LINYMOM My daughter was accepted to Lehigh several years ago in the School of Engineering and was offered a pretty good merit award, $19K/year. It was a difficult decision to turn it down as she did like the school.</p>
<p>spud17: Thanks for the info. Where did she end up going?</p>
<p>There are a lot of great acceptances here, but I think there’s a big difference between kids with WGPA of 3.6 and ok test scores and kids with 3.6 GPA (unweighted) with excellent test scores (e.g., 33+ on ACT). My DD had 3.6 WGPA plus an ACT superscore of 27. Her acceptances definitely would have been different if she could have hit 30 on the ACT or over 1200 on SAT.</p>
<p>Congrats to mathaven’s DS for the great scores and acceptances so far. I think you are right about Cornell, NU and Vandy. But I agree on Lehigh and Lafayette (in), as I’ve checked out those schools for DS.</p>
<p>Even though my DS isn’t in the 3.3-3.6 GPA category, I love checking in here because you all have such a great perspective. DS is an “A” student, but I enjoy threads like this and the Jewish B student thread more than any other on CC because you aren’t as intense as so many of the other threads! On some threads, the only schools they think are worth applying to for engineering are MIT, Duke and Cornell!</p>
<p>@Linymom - After DS got his 34 ACT, several adults suggested he consider CalTech, Penn, CM type schools. DS could never thrive in that type of environment, even though I think he could academically keep up. I esp think in the engineering field, the higher ranked schools would not result in a better job. My DS is all about a balanced lifestyle :)</p>
<p>I too love this thread and the Jewish B (even though we aren’t Jewish) because I am able to learn of so many schools we wouldn’t have focused on our own.</p>
<p>@amroy67 and @Longhaul and @LINYMOM - Congrats on the acceptances so far and I agree with all your comments on balance. </p>
<p>I’m sure there are HYPS and Ivy kids that are balanced but sometimes I read the profiles on chance and accepted threads and they seem a bit nuts. I start to wonder if these kids are really enjoying learning for the sake of learning and if they enjoy the scads of ECs (and if they get to spend any time developing relationship skills with family, friends, etc.). I’m sure there are kids that can do it all but it has to be incredibly tough or they are incredibly gifted.</p>
<p>Actually, the one thing that tends to get DS’s life “out of balance” is wrestling season. I know all sports and some EC’s can be somewhat consuming but I have seen from firsthand experience now with two sons the amazing grind wrestling is on kids from our area (probably one of the toughest areas in the country for HS wrestling). In-season it is 3+ months of cutting to and maintaining 7-9% body fat, daily 2+ hour physcial practices, matches during the week, tournaments most weekends where they may wrestle 5-7 matches. And to be competitive at high levels, there is training and club wrestling almost all off-season. </p>
<p>I have wondered going through this process if Admissions Committees understand the type of commitment and grind competing at relatively high levels in a sport like wrestling can be. I wouldn’t doubt participating in the sport may have taken a couple tenths off DS’s GPA. If that keeps him out of some schools, so be it. In my view, and I think his too, the experiences he has had and the life lessons he has gained are worth it. Would be curious if any of you have similar situations.</p>
<p>Hi, all, </p>
<p>wish I had found this thread months ago. S13 has GPA 3.6 (barely top 25% at our hs) but ACT of 35 & is NMSF (& we hope he will be NMF when notices go out next month). </p>
<p>He applied Computer Engineering to University of IL, Case Western, University of Texas-Austin, Carnegie Mellon & Miami of Ohio. He is fine with his limited list. I wish we had thought through the process a little more & applied to some other schools, too.</p>
<p>So far he has been admitted to UIUC, Miami, & Case. Still waiting to hear from Texas & CMU but he knows he needs merit aid to attend any of the schools except UIUC. It seems lots of people have heard from Texas so not sure where that puts him. CMU was always a long shot.</p>
<p>Matmaven: I do think colleges look at commitment to a sport like wrestling & understand the time and toll it takes on the kids. I also think they really like the teamwork, practice, dedication the kids show when they give their all to a sport & still come out with decent grades & test scores.</p>
<p>I have had a huge epiphany recently. I pushed S13 very hard & not sure he pushed back & started enjoying HS until late last year. S15 will benefit. Just told him that he can stop taking the language he hates after this year. He will have only 2 years & understands that he will probably have to take a foreign language in college but I want him to take courses that he enjoys. Instead of world language next year, he is taking computer programming - which, I guess, some would say is a foreign language! Also, made him drop down a level in math to take it more slowly. He will take Calc AB senior year (not BC) if he does this but I think he will be a happier person for it. </p>
<p>S13 is driven & ego is tied up in his AP classes, etc. Not so for S15 & I am starting to appreciate that. Will check in on this thread & the Jewish B student thread (sounds fun) before he starts applying!</p>