Where Can My Above-Average STA Son Expect To Get Into College?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th decile is a very obnoxious way to describe someone in the 40th percentile of the class. Unhook and GPA is like somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 my guess? If you are full pay ED wisely and you have a shot at a relatively stronger school that needs to fill fully pay seats.

I’d say the highest he could shoot would be the tufts, wake forest, bates, BC, BU level. Is he going to do standardized tests?

Any of the schools you named would be extremely unlikely under a 3.5! Maybe Bates, but the others are extremely competitive.

STA does not give GPAs on a 4.0 scale so your comment doesn't really apply. Boys in the 60% percentile of the class would be competitive for any of these schools based on recent STA admissions.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but I know several students in the class who did not fair well at the schools mentioned and they are in the grade range being discussed. Below the equivalent of a 3.5 is more like Syracuse, Penn State, lower ranked SLACs (all great schools btw).

[Anonymous]

BU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th decile is a very obnoxious way to describe someone in the 40th percentile of the class. Unhook and GPA is like somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 my guess? If you are full pay ED wisely and you have a shot at a relatively stronger school that needs to fill fully pay seats.

I’d say the highest he could shoot would be the tufts, wake forest, bates, BC, BU level. Is he going to do standardized tests?

Any of the schools you named would be extremely unlikely under a 3.5! Maybe Bates, but the others are extremely competitive.

STA does not give GPAs on a 4.0 scale so your comment doesn't really apply. Boys in the 60% percentile of the class would be competitive for any of these schools based on recent STA admissions.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but I know several students in the class who did not fair well at the schools mentioned and they are in the grade range being discussed. Below the equivalent of a 3.5 is more like Syracuse, Penn State, lower ranked SLACs (all great schools btw).

I'm not sure how this makes sense as those schools (although great) are among the 10 lowest ranked schools that STA grads have attended in recent years (last year being one example) and there is 60% of the class (about 48 boys) with grades beneath those of this proposed applicant. Sure, there are a few boys each year who end up with better or worse outcomes than their GPA predicted but the schools you list are among the least competitive schools STA grads have recently attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th decile is a very obnoxious way to describe someone in the 40th percentile of the class. Unhook and GPA is like somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 my guess? If you are full pay ED wisely and you have a shot at a relatively stronger school that needs to fill fully pay seats.

I’d say the highest he could shoot would be the tufts, wake forest, bates, BC, BU level. Is he going to do standardized tests?

Any of the schools you named would be extremely unlikely under a 3.5! Maybe Bates, but the others are extremely competitive.

STA does not give GPAs on a 4.0 scale so your comment doesn't really apply. Boys in the 60% percentile of the class would be competitive for any of these schools based on recent STA admissions.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but I know several students in the class who did not fair well at the schools mentioned and they are in the grade range being discussed. Below the equivalent of a 3.5 is more like Syracuse, Penn State, lower ranked SLACs (all great schools btw).

I'm not sure how this makes sense as those schools (although great) are among the 10 lowest ranked schools that STA grads have attended in recent years (last year being one example) and there is 60% of the class (about 48 boys) with grades beneath those of this proposed applicant. Sure, there are a few boys each year who end up with better or worse outcomes than their GPA predicted but the schools you list are among the least competitive schools STA grads have recently attended.

We will see how it shakes out this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the 4th decile? What is his GPA—that’s important

I think she means top quartile or first quartile?

Or maybe she means 4th decile so 31-40%tile. So about median or average for the grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th decile is a very obnoxious way to describe someone in the 40th percentile of the class. Unhook and GPA is like somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 my guess? If you are full pay ED wisely and you have a shot at a relatively stronger school that needs to fill fully pay seats.

I’d say the highest he could shoot would be the tufts, wake forest, bates, BC, BU level. Is he going to do standardized tests?

You're interpreting this incorrectly. OP's son is around the 60% percentile.

In any ranking system (school, investment managers, athlete stats) it goes Top 10% being first and top decile and then goes from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is in the 4th decile at St. Albans. He has no legacy or hooks. Where can he expect to gain admission to college? Does he have a shot at a T20?

I’m skeptical of this post. Does St. Albans even report deciles/quartile/rank? Thought not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is in the 4th decile at St. Albans. He has no legacy or hooks. Where can he expect to gain admission to college? Does he have a shot at a T20?

I’m skeptical of this post. Does St. Albans even report deciles/quartile/rank? Thought not.

No but i think most of the boys can guess where they are relative to their classmates by the later half of high school.
4th decile is sort of specific but my son could likely accurately guess which quarter he's in.
Boys seem to share their grades quite openly with each other plus the spread of classes gets quite wide (from basic to quite advanced) and the boys know who is in the top classes.

[Anonymous]

Random question. Are you looking at top 10-50 universities for your kid or for you? Would you be disappointed if your child went to a big state school ranked outside of the top 50?

[Anonymous]

This is such a difficult question to answer - there seems to be no rhyme or reason (at least not in the traditional way it once was) to "who gets in" to colleges these days. There are many articles/books/thoughts on this. Schools you thought were a safety aren't anymore. I would recommend working with a college counselor (right there at STA even) to give you an idea of where to focus based on his grades, interests, etc. They would be the closest to focusing you on where to look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is in the 4th decile at St. Albans. He has no legacy or hooks. Where can he expect to gain admission to college? Does he have a shot at a T20?

I’m skeptical of this post. Does St. Albans even report deciles/quartile/rank? Thought not.

No but i think most of the boys can guess where they are relative to their classmates by the later half of high school.
4th decile is sort of specific but my son could likely accurately guess which quarter he's in.
Boys seem to share their grades quite openly with each other plus the spread of classes gets quite wide (from basic to quite advanced) and the boys know who is in the top classes.

Interesting. My son says that on occasion he is aware of someone getting a particularly good grade, but has no idea what the rest of the class is getting. Sometimes a teacher will share the average, but my son says he doesn't know specifics. His friends' parents all relay similar sentiments. Seems like your son is learning grades from his cohort of friends. That could be misleading.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have this conversation with college counseling at STA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is in the 4th decile at St. Albans. He has no legacy or hooks. Where can he expect to gain admission to college? Does he have a shot at a T20?

I’m skeptical of this post. Does St. Albans even report deciles/quartile/rank? Thought not.

No but i think most of the boys can guess where they are relative to their classmates by the later half of high school.
4th decile is sort of specific but my son could likely accurately guess which quarter he's in.
Boys seem to share their grades quite openly with each other plus the spread of classes gets quite wide (from basic to quite advanced) and the boys know who is in the top classes.

Interesting. My son says that on occasion he is aware of someone getting a particularly good grade, but has no idea what the rest of the class is getting. Sometimes a teacher will share the average, but my son says he doesn't know specifics. His friends' parents all relay similar sentiments. Seems like your son is learning grades from his cohort of friends. That could be misleading.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have this conversation with college counseling at STA?

We haven't because I don't really care where my son is relative to his peers. I mean I "care" but I don't need a percentage.
I know what his GPA is and I know what schools are safeties/matches/reaches for his GPA. That is the only discussion we've had with college counseling.

For the purpose of this post on DCUM I can say that my son knows relatively where he is in the class. Once you get into the upper level classes the teachers often post the average grade for an exam. Or in some classes they post every grade (anonymously) so they can see every grade on the curve. It's not rocket science and my son is not using his guesstimate for any purpose. In fact, I've only ever talked about it with him once and he said it off hand. For all I know his latest thoughts on the matter are entirely different. Maybe his latest guesstimate has him in another quartile. Who knows. It's not important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is in the 4th decile at St. Albans. He has no legacy or hooks. Where can he expect to gain admission to college? Does he have a shot at a T20?

What’s his grade average range? 80-85? 85-90? 90-95?

[Anonymous]

I would say an outside shot in ED at T20 or 25, excluding Ivies/Stanford/MIT. And a good shot at Chicago, assuming high test scores.

[Anonymous]

Test scores are mattering again; what are those like?