What happens with the Big3 kids who have sub 3.0 GPAs?

[Anonymous]

If you do not have a junior and therefore do not have access to the various scattergrams for your school (plots of GPA + test scores) then do not panic. This information shows the admissions data for various colleges (real data of kids from your school who have previously applied) - you will feel much better when you see these charts - even accounting for the more competitive years the outcomes are very good for most students. If you are worried, then take a breath as there really are lots of good choices for your kids. You may have to let go of the Harvard dream, but there are so many great schools. It will all be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you do not have a junior and therefore do not have access to the various scattergrams for your school (plots of GPA + test scores) then do not panic. This information shows the admissions data for various colleges (real data of kids from your school who have previously applied) - you will feel much better when you see these charts - even accounting for the more competitive years the outcomes are very good for most students. If you are worried, then take a breath as there really are lots of good choices for your kids. You may have to let go of the Harvard dream, but there are so many great schools. It will all be ok.

For a 2.7 GPA, you're letting go of more than just the Harvard dream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:At most “good” public and private schools, the top 10% gets into the very competitive, elite colleges. By “good” meaning the schools like the W high schools and private schools like Sidwell. The only private and public schools that send a greater percentage to kids that are not top 10%, are magnets like TJ, usually the top 20%, and top private schools like Andover, top 20%. DC private schools including the Big3 are nowhere on par.

So kids with sub 3.0 gpas from the Big 3 go to the same colleges that the other 90% go including the 90% from public.

My older was in a big 3 and graduated a few years ago. More than half the kids in the grade went to IVY/NESCAC/Stanford/Northwestern/Chicago/topSLAC.

The rest went to places like NYU, Tulane and that tier. There were a handful that went to schools that some here would scoff at, smaller PA/OH SLACs but they were full ride athletes. There literally wasn't a school on the grade-wide list that I would shake my head and say "why go to 'big3' and end up there" - not a single one.

You need to specify what is “a few years ago.” It likely isn’t in the past five years. And if you account for SES, the sub 3.0 kids from the Big 3 go to the same colleges as the sub 3.0 kids from the W pyramid.

Class of 2020

Really? and HALF the class went to Ivy…. Stanford, Northwestern…. Top SLAC. You have to name this school that had this outstanding results!

Not impossible--2020 was a year when a lot of kids took a gap year and there were a lot of waitlist admits to top schools.
STA Class of 21, one third of the class went to these schools (Ivy, T10, top SLAC).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there are a decent number because I know a quite a few and have one. our school gives out a fair number of Cs and there are many kids with straight Bs/Cs. potentially even 25% of the class? What happens to them in regards to college? They seem to still get in fairly ok places?

What do you mean by "what happens"? Those kids will be mixed with public kids with sub 3.0 and end up somewhere 5th tier or 6th tier schools.

Fortunately for those kids, you are 1000x wrong.

[Anonymous]

DS graduated at one of the big 3 in 2020 with 3.1 GPA and got accepted into UNC, asian kid.

[Anonymous]

Tons of sfs grads transfer after one year of their not favorite college. So they basically spend a few weeks of their first semester at college applying to transfer out and getting peeress out do the way. Transfer rings not great socially but at least you get into a more prestigious college, program and alumni network for the long term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tons of sfs grads transfer after one year of their not favorite college. So they basically spend a few weeks of their first semester at college applying to transfer out and getting peeress out do the way. Transfer rings not great socially but at least you get into a more prestigious college, program and alumni network for the long term.

Lots of NCS grads do this too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS graduated at one of the big 3 in 2020 with 3.1 GPA and got accepted into UNC, asian kid.

Wow! Impressed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At most “good” public and private schools, the top 10% gets into the very competitive, elite colleges. By “good” meaning the schools like the W high schools and private schools like Sidwell. The only private and public schools that send a greater percentage to kids that are not top 10%, are magnets like TJ, usually the top 20%, and top private schools like Andover, top 20%. DC private schools including the Big3 are nowhere on par.

So kids with sub 3.0 gpas from the Big 3 go to the same colleges that the other 90% go including the 90% from public.

My older was in a big 3 and graduated a few years ago. More than half the kids in the grade went to IVY/NESCAC/Stanford/Northwestern/Chicago/topSLAC.

The rest went to places like NYU, Tulane and that tier. There were a handful that went to schools that some here would scoff at, smaller PA/OH SLACs but they were full ride athletes. There literally wasn't a school on the grade-wide list that I would shake my head and say "why go to 'big3' and end up there" - not a single one.

You need to specify what is “a few years ago.” It likely isn’t in the past five years. And if you account for SES, the sub 3.0 kids from the Big 3 go to the same colleges as the sub 3.0 kids from the W pyramid.

So you're telling me that the sub 3.0 kids from Whitman are going to Tulane, Richmond, Grinnell?

The sub 3.0 kids from the big 3 aren’t going there either nowadays

This.

And the big 3 college counselors aren’t equipped to maximize anything beyond liberal arts majors at tiny slacs for full ride prices.

I know DCUM people like to put down Tulane, but no way is a sub-3.0 GPA getting into Tulane.

The lower middle of the pack from "big 3"--typically right around a 3.0 do in fact go to Tulane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there are a decent number because I know a quite a few and have one. our school gives out a fair number of Cs and there are many kids with straight Bs/Cs. potentially even 25% of the class? What happens to them in regards to college? They seem to still get in fairly ok places?

What do you mean by "what happens"? Those kids will be mixed with public kids with sub 3.0 and end up somewhere 5th tier or 6th tier schools.

LOL. Not true at all.

I wouldn't LOL if it was my kid. Pay all that money and nothing to show?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of these students usually attend smaller SLACs such as Dickinson and Grinnell.

Maybe a decade ago, but the bottom 25 percent of Big 3 grads with a bunch of Cs on their transcripts are not getting into Grinnell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there are a decent number because I know a quite a few and have one. our school gives out a fair number of Cs and there are many kids with straight Bs/Cs. potentially even 25% of the class? What happens to them in regards to college? They seem to still get in fairly ok places?

What do you mean by "what happens"? Those kids will be mixed with public kids with sub 3.0 and end up somewhere 5th tier or 6th tier schools.

LOL. Not true at all.

I wouldn't LOL if it was my kid. Pay all that money and nothing to show?

We are LoL-ing because you are clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Nope. PP at 20:33 took the first shot.

Curious what you’re doing here. What would be your contribution, aside from gawking and snide comments?

For myself, I have kids in both and while they haven’t graduated yet, what I can tell you is that grading is much more rigorous in our private than public.

Half the kids in public have 4.0s, which is ridiculous. But when Bethesda Magazine published college data for our public, it doesn’t match the grade distribution. A lot of good colleges sure, but clearly a lot of kids with 4.0s out of a good public HS not going to top colleges. Grade inflation is a problem and the college admissions offices seem to know it.

On the other hand, at our private, only a couple kids graduate with 4.0s every year and there is no ambiguity about where they are accepted.

Head to head, I feel a lot more confident having a kid graduate from the private school with an UW 3.7 than the same for the public school, regardless of test scores and my skimming of college admissions results for the two I think backs this up.

Hey I get your defensiveness…no need to explain.

Likely therapeutic. It’s ok. I use my savings and treat it like a scholarship fund for my child’s T25 school, while PP explains why top private school kids are just as smart as top public kids. Middle of the road stats produce the same results regardless of public or private. That’s fact. But hard to hear when said out loud

I’m not sure what you have to offer to this thread. Your personal experience with public school has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's more to life than letter grades. My kid has learned a lot more about how to be a good student in private school than he ever did in public school. Showing up, handing in decent (not outstanding) work, and behaving himself should not earn him As but that's all it took in public school. My DS has a 3.2ish UW GPA in private school and he will be very well prepared for college wherever he goes.

Sounds like you are trying to justify money spent. That is not my experience in publics with my child. Going to T25 next year…

it was money well spent for my kid at a private. 3.6 GPA and going to an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's more to life than letter grades. My kid has learned a lot more about how to be a good student in private school than he ever did in public school. Showing up, handing in decent (not outstanding) work, and behaving himself should not earn him As but that's all it took in public school. My DS has a 3.2ish UW GPA in private school and he will be very well prepared for college wherever he goes.

Sounds like you are trying to justify money spent. That is not my experience in publics with my child. Going to T25 next year…

it was money well spent for my kid at a private. 3.6 GPA and going to an Ivy.

That 3.0 kid might have fallen through the cracks and not done work in a big public. The private might have been sitting on them and giving them extra help and there was nowhere for them to hide. They might have had more options for college because they wouldn’t have had close to a 3.0 in public. No way to know that, but many parents are paying for more than just college outcomes.