Need help with College List

[Anonymous]

I think it's really to advise you as we know nothing about your out-of-state rigorous private.

Where does your kid fall in the class? Does a few A minuses and B pluses put him in the top 10%?
How many kids at the school apply to the same elite colleges?
Does the school have relationships with particular colleges (elite or otherwise?)

I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech.

[Anonymous]

Previous poster again:

When I said,
"I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech."

I meant---he is aiming low in his college list because his extracurricular list is really impressive. Not that his list is "low."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the UW GPA? I find the list odd for Engineering….USC? Duke? For engineering, I’d consider schools like CMU, Cornell, CalTech, Harvey Mudd, Lehigh, UCLA, University of Washington, Santa Clara

I am not sure since school doesn’t calculate but I am thinking in the range of 3.7-3.8.

Since we are in NC, almost everyone at his school applies to Duke. USC since he will be a NMSF and will get half tuition off if he gets in.

He does have Caltech, Cornell and CMU in his list as super reaches. Lehigh is a safety for him but too expensive and he doesn’t like the vibe.
Prefers east coast so not applying to Harvey mudd- too expensive,
Don’t prefer UCLA, uni Washington, as prefer to stay on east coast (other than some exceptions) and don’t want to pay oos tuition for pub unis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Previous poster again:

When I said,
"I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech."

I meant---he is aiming low in his college list because his extracurricular list is really impressive. Not that his list is "low."

He is not in top 10% but his school doesn’t rank so not sure exactly where he falls. He does have most rigor in math and science courses but have only taken reg Eng all years.

He also is applying to high reaches although I didn’t include it in the list ( Princeton, Cornell, cmu, Duke, u pen and a few others)

[Anonymous]

Isn’t NCState a safety with those stats? I have 2 nephews who got in to NCState engineering recently (in state) with much lower scores than that. They were coming from public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t NCState a safety with those stats? I have 2 nephews who got in to NCState engineering recently (in state) with much lower scores than that. They were coming from public schools.

Yes it’s a safety along with Clemson and VT. His school has 100% acceptance to these schools with his stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the UW GPA? I find the list odd for Engineering….USC? Duke? For engineering, I’d consider schools like CMU, Cornell, CalTech, Harvey Mudd, Lehigh, UCLA, University of Washington, Santa Clara

My main concern is his safety is...Clemson on there? My child did the same thing - better stats then yours and didn't get into any of their reaches. Targets only. University of Washington, UC Davis, UC San Diego are others to consider. If aerospace - CU in Boulder. Case Western.

I am pretty certain he will get into Clemson (based on his school’s scoir data, which is 100% for his stats). What did the scoir/ naviance data say for your kid for Clemson and other school he got in?
How did you decide what’s safety and target for him?

If he got in UC only

[Anonymous]

UCs are test blind so not sure if having better stats really helped him. He probably didn’t have much extraurriculuars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous poster again:

When I said,
"I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech."

I meant---he is aiming low in his college list because his extracurricular list is really impressive. Not that his list is "low."

He is not in top 10% but his school doesn’t rank so not sure exactly where he falls. He does have most rigor in math and science courses but have only taken reg Eng all years.

He also is applying to high reaches although I didn’t include it in the list ( Princeton, Cornell, cmu, Duke, u pen and a few others)

If he is not in the top10 percent of his class, his reaches seem very unlikely, even coming from a top private, particularly for engineering. I would build out the target portion of his list more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous poster again:

When I said,
"I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech."

I meant---he is aiming low in his college list because his extracurricular list is really impressive. Not that his list is "low."

He is not in top 10% but his school doesn’t rank so not sure exactly where he falls. He does have most rigor in math and science courses but have only taken reg Eng all years.

He also is applying to high reaches although I didn’t include it in the list ( Princeton, Cornell, cmu, Duke, u pen and a few others)

If he is not in the top10 percent of his class, his reaches seem very unlikely, even coming from a top private, particularly for engineering. I would build out the target portion of his list more.

Adding that I would put USC in the unlikely category, engineering admit rate is even lower than its overall rate of 10 percent. How excited is he about his in state public options?

[Anonymous]

While the superscored ACT was successful in making a lot of us feel like slugs, you should know that it is quite rare for a college to actually use an ACT superscore. And when the one-sitting ACT is a superb 35, it looks a little desperate to even mention the superscore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While the superscored ACT was successful in making a lot of us feel like slugs, you should know that it is quite rare for a college to actually use an ACT superscore. And when the one-sitting ACT is a superb 35, it looks a little desperate to even mention the superscore.

Your information is outdated. Most schools now accept the ACT superscore. Very, very few do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks fine. Thanks for rubbing it in.

Every time anyone mentions their “very rigorous private school” I cringe. Everybody thinks their private school is “rigorous.”

You should not cringe because the private schools will not all grade inflation. If anything they deflate. You can’t take tests over and over so this kid has great stats.

+1

Private schools are more rigorous than public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous poster again:

When I said,
"I would say that he is aiming pretty low with those extracurriculars but it's hard to tell without any knowledge of his high school.
If he had that GPA and extracurricular list from Sidwell he'd have a very solid chance at many top 20 schools.
He would never end up at Clemson, NC State or Virginia Tech."

I meant---he is aiming low in his college list because his extracurricular list is really impressive. Not that his list is "low."

He is not in top 10% but his school doesn’t rank so not sure exactly where he falls. He does have most rigor in math and science courses but have only taken reg Eng all years.

He also is applying to high reaches although I didn’t include it in the list ( Princeton, Cornell, cmu, Duke, u pen and a few others)

If he is not in the top10 percent of his class, his reaches seem very unlikely, even coming from a top private, particularly for engineering. I would build out the target portion of his list more.

He took band and engineering classes which are non-honors classes all through high school. I think that’s what is pulling him below 10%. His has the most rigor in other classes.

He really enjoys both so didn’t want to give it up for gpa boost but did end up being all district, all state player so the dip in gpa sort of made up.

Anyway, School doesn’t rank so not sure how much it matters.

Finding reasonable number of targets and safety is the purpose of this post.

[Anonymous]

Ok. His GPA is really a 3.7 and he isn’t top 10% of his class. Reality check. USC, Lehigh, CMU, Cornell, Cal Tech, Purdue are all reaches and highly unlikely. I wouldn’t waste REA on Princeton as it’s not happening. I’d also write off Duke as he isn’t top 10% and it’s not great for engineering. I also have no idea why you’d not pay OOS at a top engineering school but would pay for Duke. The CU Boulder suggestion is a good one but take a look at the stats because engineering admits had around 4.0 GPAs