Rejections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having such a high SAT score with a relatively low GPA makes him look low effort.

I agree with this statement. It makes him look like a "good test taker" except that he likely didn't prepare for his tests in classes. Aren't there remedy pathways to correct low grades? I'm estimating that the OP's kid had a couple of Cs on his transcript to have a 3.58 gpa. I thought there's a way to fix these types of grades at nova high schools--am I wrong?

A 3.58uw is a mix of As and Bs. Sure, there could be a C in there, but 3.58 is a solid A/B student, which is pretty good in most places outside of NOVA, MCPS "W" schools and other wealthy pressure-cooker communities. As one PP said, 95% of schools would've accepted OP's kid, but he only applied to reach schools + two safeties. No targets.

And the bolded is exactly the problem and why kids/families are surprised. Solid A/B students are now getting rejected from schools that just a year ago or few years ago were targets. Not everyone can be a straight A student taking the highest rigor, while maintaining a job and three extracurricular activities and a notable research project. An admissions per was just the other day giving band activities low weight for extracurricular while acknowledging how time consuming it is and how much outside practice was required and noting that it takes a lot to stand out.

We have lost the plot. What are we asking from kids at this point? No wonder they are burned out and having mental health issues.

Op here,

I do agree.

+ 1 But it would help significantly if high schools and colleges were actually transparent and told students and parents earlier that is required for top schools is highest rigor, near perfect grades (from a school whose grading they trust, not fake 100 validictorians BS), plus SAT and AP scores to confirm the GPA and then either EC's beyond the ordinary or some Lifetime Movie level childhood trauma story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here,

Thank you all for the inputs.

I have just had the chance to read through all of the posts.
I will try to go through the answers and more insights.
The senior year 1 st semester grades the colleges got had 5As, 1 B in DE English and 1 C. He had 4 s in all the Stem AP exams and couple of others .. nothing below.

Now, we see we just applied to pretty much all reaches. As a pp pointed out thinking his SAT will compensate was very wrong, but we also did think his very high rigor with 12 APs in stem classes will help. We thought his essay wasn’t bad. He had passion in a sports, did it all 4 years with leadership and many awards. He picked 2 STEM teachers for his recommendation letters.
We kept looking at the 4.1 along with all these other elements and thought might be ok
( definitely not UVA where we knew he needed a 4.4 minimum. They deferred and gave us some hope that he might get in, in some of the others)


Personally I believe all of this is because of the uw gpa of 3.58; it has starkly stood out.

He has worked very hard and I hope he will get to go where he is meant to be.
We have also applied to Pitt.

PS
The 5 As in the 1st semester were also all AP classes including AP Statistics.

Sorry OP, really unfortunate that the counselor did not give feedback on the list. Question on the AP Stats, was that after taking AP Calc AB and BC? For Stem admissions AP Calc is the standard.

Along with AP Calc BC.

Ugh, well OP take comfort in knowing that your son is well prepared for college. I am crossing my fingers and toes for you for the waitlist. Please complain about the counseling to whoever you can in administration, maybe you can help another student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here,

Thank you all for the inputs.

I have just had the chance to read through all of the posts.
I will try to go through the answers and more insights.
The senior year 1 st semester grades the colleges got had 5As, 1 B in DE English and 1 C. He had 4 s in all the Stem AP exams and couple of others .. nothing below.

Now, we see we just applied to pretty much all reaches. As a pp pointed out thinking his SAT will compensate was very wrong, but we also did think his very high rigor with 12 APs in stem classes will help. We thought his essay wasn’t bad. He had passion in a sports, did it all 4 years with leadership and many awards. He picked 2 STEM teachers for his recommendation letters.
We kept looking at the 4.1 along with all these other elements and thought might be ok
( definitely not UVA where we knew he needed a 4.4 minimum. They deferred and gave us some hope that he might get in, in some of the others)


Personally I believe all of this is because of the uw gpa of 3.58; it has starkly stood out.

He has worked very hard and I hope he will get to go where he is meant to be.
We have also applied to Pitt.

PS
The 5 As in the 1st semester were also all AP classes including AP Statistics.

Sorry OP, really unfortunate that the counselor did not give feedback on the list. Question on the AP Stats, was that after taking AP Calc AB and BC? For Stem admissions AP Calc is the standard.

Along with AP Calc BC.

Ugh, well OP take comfort in knowing that your son is well prepared for college. I am crossing my fingers and toes for you for the waitlist. Please complain about the counseling to whoever you can in administration, maybe you can help another student.

Thank you so much.

That’s a good idea, I will ask the school about the counseling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello I’m Jayden Braden, I am 17 and I live in Northern Virginia.

I play a sport (soccer) but I’m not State Champion or Olympic Level.

I have great test scores but not a 1600.

I have good grades, a 3.9 unweighted. I’m not valedictorian.

I volunteer somewhere obvious like a hospital or food bank. I did the required hours.

I was a Boy Scout but I’m not an Eagle.

Summers I am a lifeguard at my local pool club.

My family has enough money for my state flagship, but not necessarily full pay at a private. I haven’t won any nationally competitive scholarships like Coca-Cola.

I wrote my essay on how college will help me broaden my horizons.

There are literally tens of thousands of applicants like me in every state.

I am applying mostly to colleges with a sub 10% admit rate.

Oh and I forgot to add that my parents are good for a full four year payment of $90k per year and I’m willing to ED if you’ll take me. Does that help?

[Anonymous]

Did OP ever share the student’s intended major?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having such a high SAT score with a relatively low GPA makes him look low effort.

Agree this was the issue.

My kid had a GPA/score mismatch (only 3.3uw, 34 ACT) and didn’t apply to CRWU specifically because of his GPA, even though I think it would have been a good fit. Our SCOIR indicated he’d never get in with his GPA, which CWRU seemed to be focused on even more than some other schools.

It can be tough to figure out targets bc these kids (always boys, btw) are sitting in that upper left quadrant as an outlier in SCOIR/Naviance. My DS had better luck with smaller schools which maybe looked more holistically at his app.

Another thought is he could take a gap year and reapply next year to a more balanced list. I concur with smaller schools that look more holistically. I too have a kid - also a boy - with much higher test scores than GPA. It was very hard to put together a list and know where he might fall because those dots in Naviance usually have aligned GPAs and test scores, but he did not. His test score was as high as you can get. His GPA was not.

He did very well in the end getting into a reach LAC.

[Anonymous]

White boys with great test scores and iffy GPA must ED to SLACs….you’d be surprised where they might get in!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having such a high SAT score with a relatively low GPA makes him look low effort.

Agree this was the issue.

My kid had a GPA/score mismatch (only 3.3uw, 34 ACT) and didn’t apply to CRWU specifically because of his GPA, even though I think it would have been a good fit. Our SCOIR indicated he’d never get in with his GPA, which CWRU seemed to be focused on even more than some other schools.

It can be tough to figure out targets bc these kids (always boys, btw) are sitting in that upper left quadrant as an outlier in SCOIR/Naviance. My DS had better luck with smaller schools which maybe looked more holistically at his app.

Another thought is he could take a gap year and reapply next year to a more balanced list. I concur with smaller schools that look more holistically. I too have a kid - also a boy - with much higher test scores than GPA. It was very hard to put together a list and know where he might fall because those dots in Naviance usually have aligned GPAs and test scores, but he did not. His test score was as high as you can get. His GPA was not.

He did very well in the end getting into a reach LAC.

Can you say which SLACs he applied to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sheesh, what school is this? College counselor did not do his job.

You must have kids at a private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having such a high SAT score with a relatively low GPA makes him look low effort.

Agree this was the issue.

My kid had a GPA/score mismatch (only 3.3uw, 34 ACT) and didn’t apply to CRWU specifically because of his GPA, even though I think it would have been a good fit. Our SCOIR indicated he’d never get in with his GPA, which CWRU seemed to be focused on even more than some other schools.

It can be tough to figure out targets bc these kids (always boys, btw) are sitting in that upper left quadrant as an outlier in SCOIR/Naviance. My DS had better luck with smaller schools which maybe looked more holistically at his app.

Not always! I have an ADHD girl with a GPA/score mismatch. (3.1uw, 34 ACT)

[Anonymous]

Need to stop banking on high test scores as the path to top schools especially if the grades don't match. A lot of them are holistic and prioritize grades and class rigor. My kid got into most of the schools they applied to (IU Kelley, OSU, UMD, Pitt, Penn State, VT, etc.) with a high GPA and great ECs while not submitting test scores for most of them. I also think that not going to a crazy competitive high school helped along with having a good balanced and realistic list consisting of primarily targets, a couple reaches, and a few safeties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Need to stop banking on high test scores as the path to top schools especially if the grades don't match. A lot of them are holistic and prioritize grades and class rigor. My kid got into most of the schools they applied to (IU Kelley, OSU, UMD, Pitt, Penn State, VT, etc.) with a high GPA and great ECs while not submitting test scores for most of them. I also think that not going to a crazy competitive high school helped along with having a good balanced and realistic list consisting of primarily targets, a couple reaches, and a few safeties.

These schools are not top schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In complete surprise.

Ds got into 2 safeties, waitlisted at 2 and rejected at all other public schools in VA and OOS.

The safeties are VcU and GMU.

Yes they are good schools too. But the results of the rest truly came as a surprise.

He had 12 aps, top rigor 1540 SAT lower gpa but to get rejected across the board…

He isn’t saying anything about it but I know it must sting and he didnt expect
it either.

I wish all of this wasn’t that hard.
I am just venting… surprise to me too.

I am sorry to hear that, OP. Did you apply EA or RD?

Last you my kid with similar stats got into both VT and UMD but she applied EA. These days many schools fill most of their classes in EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Need to stop banking on high test scores as the path to top schools especially if the grades don't match. A lot of them are holistic and prioritize grades and class rigor. My kid got into most of the schools they applied to (IU Kelley, OSU, UMD, Pitt, Penn State, VT, etc.) with a high GPA and great ECs while not submitting test scores for most of them. I also think that not going to a crazy competitive high school helped along with having a good balanced and realistic list consisting of primarily targets, a couple reaches, and a few safeties.

These schools are not top schools.

That's my point. You have to be realistic and not go after only the "top" schools that everyone thinks their child has a good chance at just because they have amazing SAT scores. We had a very practical and balanced list which led to her getting into all her targets and safeties. She got rejected from her 2 reaches (to be expected) which was fine because her favorite schools were targets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With a profile like this, aim for schools that want that SAT score in their stats. They will give you merit aid, even with the lower GPA.

My kids fit this profile, and we curated the list pretty darn well, I'd say. They had merit offers from every private college that accepted them (LACs below the top 15). We were correct in our assumption that the reach schools that don't typically award merit did not accept them at all due to the GPA. They had full pay WL offers at some of those schools (ranked 25-40), but in the end decided to go with the merit at smaller schools.

PP, can you share your list of “school that want that SAT score in their stats”?