If you have a kid at W&M or UVA

[Anonymous]

Of the students I know who got into W&M and UVA among my DCs' friends, they took between 7 and 10 APs. If they had a flare for humanities it meant the two AP English classes, the three AP History classes (US, World and Gov), a foreign language AP, ABor BCCalc and a science or two. If they had a flare for sciences: BC Calculus, Chemistry, Physics C (both electrical/magnetism and mechanical), the three histories. Then some of both took the AP Econs, AP Stats, Enviromental science and Psych. The last group are the easier APs. They gots As in them and generally 5s with a few 4s.

The ones who took it all went higher.

[Anonymous]

DD is at UVA, but got into (and strongly considered) W&M. Took 11 AP classes, had a 4.18(ish) W GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm looking at Yorktown's Naviance scattergram and a 4.23 GPA is the pretty clear cutoff - above that only 2 students were denied, regardless of SAT score. I don't think they care so much which APs you take, just that you have A's/B+'s.

Which would be about the top 10% at YHS. Surprise! I will note that that is the end of Senior year weighted GPA. So, may be higher than where your DC is now.

[Anonymous]

3 was fine for DD. They were AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, and AP Chem. She was an engineer, 710 SAT Math and 3.8 unweighted GPA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the better criteria to look at at this point is not GPA but whether or not your child is in the top 10% of their high school class. That figure is repeated (hovers between 90 and 94%) at convocation. UVA is looking (IMHO) for well-rounded leaders of tomorrow. But they also like to see top 10%. They also like to see a lot of APs too, but not all students are in schools that provide these and UVA knows that. My DC had 3 APs (not many) but took a college-level science course during junior year between junior and senior year. He had a 4.16 but that was about as high as his school went (he was no. 1). And ACTs of 34, then 36 on retake. However one of D.C.'s close friends came in with 64 college credits (I'm not making that up) because the community college was close to that DC's high school. Both got in. DC's friend could graduate early if he chose too because all of the AP and college courses taken. Frankly, your best bet is to be applying in-state from one of the counties to the south and west of the state where UVA doesn't receive many applicants. Or URM. Or international (73 countries represented this year). Or from a financially-disadvantaged background or a first generation student. Good luck!

Fcps high schools don't rank.
And how do you even compare that? My dd has friends with 4.0s who have never taken an advanced class, and she has a 3.5 with only honors and AP. Should she have taken the easy route for a higher GPA?

Yes.

~parent of FCPS high school junior (and learned this too late)

Can you elaborate? What have you seen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3 was fine for DD. They were AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, and AP Chem. She was an engineer, 710 SAT Math and 3.8 unweighted GPA

Those are the big three for STEM. The others matter less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two currently at UVA and they were both also accepted at W&M. The one who attended an Arlington public high school took 8 AP classes and 4 IB classes. The one who attended a private high school took 8 AP classes. They both also took probably 3-4 honors level classes.

Same poster. I agree with the person who said generally an applicant needs to be in top 10% to be considered. Doesn’t matter whether your HS ranks. The admissions officers for each region know these high schools extremely well and are able to determine on their own whether an applicant is in the top 10%, 15%, etc. and yes, they do look at the type of AP classes a student takes because as a PP said, some are much easier than others.

THis is the contributor who said ranking is important. Technically FCPS doesn't rank but PP is correct that the admissions officers know the precise rank. FCPS college advisors will not help your child get into UVA or W&M unless you fit the profile. They are the ones who have to steer the kids to the meetings when reps are on campus, when writing letters of recommendation (collecting them and putting them in the package), getting the transcript, helping write the essays. And, at graduation, all students with a 4.0 get a "valedictorian" medal. So yes, everyone at the school knows what the class rank is, which is why UVA can say at convocation "93.6% of you were in the top 10% of your class". There are many other ways of telling approximate rank such as honor society, AP placements, Naviance charts.

[Anonymous]

Also, if your child is a nominee for Jefferson Scholar, as mine was, the school must rank the nominated student. Even schools that "don't rank" like ours had to put a number down on the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two currently at UVA and they were both also accepted at W&M. The one who attended an Arlington public high school took 8 AP classes and 4 IB classes. The one who attended a private high school took 8 AP classes. They both also took probably 3-4 honors level classes.

Same poster. I agree with the person who said generally an applicant needs to be in top 10% to be considered. Doesn’t matter whether your HS ranks. The admissions officers for each region know these high schools extremely well and are able to determine on their own whether an applicant is in the top 10%, 15%, etc. and yes, they do look at the type of AP classes a student takes because as a PP said, some are much easier than others.

THis is the contributor who said ranking is important. Technically FCPS doesn't rank but PP is correct that the admissions officers know the precise rank. FCPS college advisors will not help your child get into UVA or W&M unless you fit the profile. They are the ones who have to steer the kids to the meetings when reps are on campus, when writing letters of recommendation (collecting them and putting them in the package), getting the transcript, helping write the essays. And, at graduation, all students with a 4.0 get a "valedictorian" medal. So yes, everyone at the school knows what the class rank is, which is why UVA can say at convocation "93.6% of you were in the top 10% of your class". There are many other ways of telling approximate rank such as honor society, AP placements, Naviance charts.

So does this mean that FCPS does not have valedictorians?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two currently at UVA and they were both also accepted at W&M. The one who attended an Arlington public high school took 8 AP classes and 4 IB classes. The one who attended a private high school took 8 AP classes. They both also took probably 3-4 honors level classes.

Same poster. I agree with the person who said generally an applicant needs to be in top 10% to be considered. Doesn’t matter whether your HS ranks. The admissions officers for each region know these high schools extremely well and are able to determine on their own whether an applicant is in the top 10%, 15%, etc. and yes, they do look at the type of AP classes a student takes because as a PP said, some are much easier than others.

THis is the contributor who said ranking is important. Technically FCPS doesn't rank but PP is correct that the admissions officers know the precise rank. FCPS college advisors will not help your child get into UVA or W&M unless you fit the profile. They are the ones who have to steer the kids to the meetings when reps are on campus, when writing letters of recommendation (collecting them and putting them in the package), getting the transcript, helping write the essays. And, at graduation, all students with a 4.0 get a "valedictorian" medal. So yes, everyone at the school knows what the class rank is, which is why UVA can say at convocation "93.6% of you were in the top 10% of your class". There are many other ways of telling approximate rank such as honor society, AP placements, Naviance charts.

I asked during our visit and the rep said FCPS is not included in the top 10% rank because they can only use schools that official report rank in their statistics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm looking at Yorktown's Naviance scattergram and a 4.23 GPA is the pretty clear cutoff - above that only 2 students were denied, regardless of SAT score. I don't think they care so much which APs you take, just that you have A's/B+'s.

Pretty much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two currently at UVA and they were both also accepted at W&M. The one who attended an Arlington public high school took 8 AP classes and 4 IB classes. The one who attended a private high school took 8 AP classes. They both also took probably 3-4 honors level classes.

Same poster. I agree with the person who said generally an applicant needs to be in top 10% to be considered. Doesn’t matter whether your HS ranks. The admissions officers for each region know these high schools extremely well and are able to determine on their own whether an applicant is in the top 10%, 15%, etc. and yes, they do look at the type of AP classes a student takes because as a PP said, some are much easier than others.

THis is the contributor who said ranking is important. Technically FCPS doesn't rank but PP is correct that the admissions officers know the precise rank. FCPS college advisors will not help your child get into UVA or W&M unless you fit the profile. They are the ones who have to steer the kids to the meetings when reps are on campus, when writing letters of recommendation (collecting them and putting them in the package), getting the transcript, helping write the essays. And, at graduation, all students with a 4.0 get a "valedictorian" medal. So yes, everyone at the school knows what the class rank is, which is why UVA can say at convocation "93.6% of you were in the top 10% of your class". There are many other ways of telling approximate rank such as honor society, AP placements, Naviance charts.

So does this mean that FCPS does not have valedictorians?

FCPS
has valedictorians but they are all the kids who graduated with a 4.0. The get a medal. One student speaks (at least at my daughter's graduation). So, yes, there are valedictorians but just too many of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two currently at UVA and they were both also accepted at W&M. The one who attended an Arlington public high school took 8 AP classes and 4 IB classes. The one who attended a private high school took 8 AP classes. They both also took probably 3-4 honors level classes.

Same poster. I agree with the person who said generally an applicant needs to be in top 10% to be considered. Doesn’t matter whether your HS ranks. The admissions officers for each region know these high schools extremely well and are able to determine on their own whether an applicant is in the top 10%, 15%, etc. and yes, they do look at the type of AP classes a student takes because as a PP said, some are much easier than others.

THis is the contributor who said ranking is important. Technically FCPS doesn't rank but PP is correct that the admissions officers know the precise rank. FCPS college advisors will not help your child get into UVA or W&M unless you fit the profile. They are the ones who have to steer the kids to the meetings when reps are on campus, when writing letters of recommendation (collecting them and putting them in the package), getting the transcript, helping write the essays. And, at graduation, all students with a 4.0 get a "valedictorian" medal. So yes, everyone at the school knows what the class rank is, which is why UVA can say at convocation "93.6% of you were in the top 10% of your class". There are many other ways of telling approximate rank such as honor society, AP placements, Naviance charts.

So does this mean that FCPS does not have valedictorians?

FCPS
has valedictorians but they are all the kids who graduated with a 4.0. The get a medal. One student speaks (at least at my daughter's graduation). So, yes, there are valedictorians but just too many of them.

This can't be right. All the kids graduated with 4.0 are valedictorians? That would be like over 100 kids.

[Anonymous]

^^ it is correct. There were 60 valedictorians in my DC's Langley High school class, our -- err -- 450? There is a thread on this right now on DCUM. I'll go see if I can find it. In their FCPS 125 were valedictorians last year. Yes, it doesn't seem right but that's what the publics are doing for anyone over a 4.0

[Anonymous]

Here you go 17:39. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/674374.page