1600 SAT, 10 APs, 5 DEs, 5 college math/CS courses. Kid wants UVA ED, but I think they can aim higher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 1600 is right around the 75% score for most top schools. It isn't that remarkable.

lol! Source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally think there is something wrong with the school if standardized test scores do not align with GPAs. If a student is earning straight As in all AP and DE courses with a near-perfect GPA, but cannot score at a similarly high level on the SAT or ACT, that raises a concern about whether the curriculum or grading standards reflect true mastery.

I recently read a thread about a student with a 4.2+ GPA who could not break 1300 on the SAT. How is that acceptable if the GPA is supposed to reflect mastery at that level?

I also think the reverse can be true. If a student scores a 1550 or 1600, especially if that is far above the average for their high school, but is still earning Bs or B+s while genuinely trying, then maybe the issue is not the student. Maybe the school’s curriculum, grading system, or expectations are too harsh or inconsistent.

At the end of the day, SAT and ACT scores are the equalizer because they cut through some of the noise and show how a student performs on the same standard as everyone else. That is why I think they should be weighted heavily, especially when they offset inconsistencies in school grading. FCPS is not ideal, and that should be taken into consideration when evaluating a student’s GPA.

Yea, well, you’re a goddamned idiot if you think that standardized tests measure anything with such precision.

This isn't a precise judgment - it is predicted range of expected college performance based on a range of scores and data from millions of kids who have taken the SAT and gone to college. There's nothing idiotic about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb question - how did he take all of these classes? My kid has 7 classes a year. 1 is PE, one is a non-honors elective, and math/Spanish are non-honors as the school doesn't offer an honorable track (just AP when you get to that point). So he had 2 honors classes and one AP. Next year will be the same. I spoke with the college counselor who confirmed he's on the most challenging track. Is this school just an even worse public school than I thought? She said they send alot of kids to UVA.

Smart to let other’s unassociated with your school to blindly guess about it, no name or location at all, rather than to trust the college counselor.

I don't know why I'm still surprised at how nasty people on this board can be. I guess I just keep hoping it will change?

Really just curious as to whether any other public schools offer such a limited range of APs because lots of poeple her seem to suggest their kid takes more (like OP).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 1600 is right around the 75% score for most top schools. It isn't that remarkable.

LOL no. The top schools have 1570 or 1580 for 75th percentile.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I went through Naviance and loaded all the scattergrams into the AI context and reran the list. Here are the updated results. Some of this was surprising.

Assuming a 1600 SAT, here is the current read:

George Mason Honors: 90-95%
Virginia Tech: 65-80%
William & Mary: 60-75%
Wisconsin: 40-55%
University of Washington: 40-55% overall, much lower for direct CS
Purdue: 35-50%
UMD: 30-45%
UVA: 25-40%
UIUC: 18-28% direct CS, 28-38% for CS+X/math-adjacent options
Michigan: 18-32%
UCSD: 18-28%
CMU: 12-22% overall, 4-10% for SCS
Cornell: 10-18% RD, maybe 15-25% ED
Georgia Tech: 10-18%

The interesting part is that the scattergrams did not move every school equally. The 1600 helps, but it does not erase the GPA issue at schools where the admit band from our high school is clearly much higher.

The biggest surprises were CMU and Cornell. They are still very hard and not safe at all, but the scattergrams showed at least some admits in a similar GPA range. That moved them into the “serious reach” category rather than “don’t bother.”

Wisconsin, Purdue, University of Washington, and UCSD also looked more realistic than expected for stronger CS programs, though Washington has the direct-CS caveat and UCSD has the UC/OOS/major-admission caveat.

Georgia Tech was the opposite surprise. It is an amazing CS school and still worth applying to, but the scattergram made it look much less likely because the admits seemed concentrated at a higher weighted GPA range. I would treat it as a high reach/lottery, not likely.

UVA also looked harder than expected from our school, but we would still apply because it is in-state and has strong overall prestige.

The schools that looked like “no one got in regardless” or “people got in, but not with a GPA profile close enough to my child’s” were MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, UT Austin, Penn, Columbia, USC, UCLA, Rice, and Duke.

So the current application list is probably:

George Mason Honors
Virginia Tech
UVA
Purdue
Wisconsin
University of Washington
UIUC
Cornell
CMU
Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD

Optional: William & Mary and UMD.

The way I am reading it now is: Virginia Tech is the strong baseline, Purdue/Wisconsin/Washington/UCSD are the practical higher-ranked CS options, Cornell/CMU are the serious reach shots, and Georgia Tech is worth applying to but should be treated as unlikely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I went through Naviance and loaded all the scattergrams into the AI context and reran the list. Here are the updated results. Some of this was surprising.

Assuming a 1600 SAT, here is the current read:

George Mason Honors: 90-95%
Virginia Tech: 65-80%
William & Mary: 60-75%
Wisconsin: 40-55%
University of Washington: 40-55% overall, much lower for direct CS
Purdue: 35-50%
UMD: 30-45%
UVA: 25-40%
UIUC: 18-28% direct CS, 28-38% for CS+X/math-adjacent options
Michigan: 18-32%
UCSD: 18-28%
CMU: 12-22% overall, 4-10% for SCS
Cornell: 10-18% RD, maybe 15-25% ED
Georgia Tech: 10-18%

The interesting part is that the scattergrams did not move every school equally. The 1600 helps, but it does not erase the GPA issue at schools where the admit band from our high school is clearly much higher.

The biggest surprises were CMU and Cornell. They are still very hard and not safe at all, but the scattergrams showed at least some admits in a similar GPA range. That moved them into the “serious reach” category rather than “don’t bother.”

Wisconsin, Purdue, University of Washington, and UCSD also looked more realistic than expected for stronger CS programs, though Washington has the direct-CS caveat and UCSD has the UC/OOS/major-admission caveat.

Georgia Tech was the opposite surprise. It is an amazing CS school and still worth applying to, but the scattergram made it look much less likely because the admits seemed concentrated at a higher weighted GPA range. I would treat it as a high reach/lottery, not likely.

UVA also looked harder than expected from our school, but we would still apply because it is in-state and has strong overall prestige.

The schools that looked like “no one got in regardless” or “people got in, but not with a GPA profile close enough to my child’s” were MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, UT Austin, Penn, Columbia, USC, UCLA, Rice, and Duke.

So the current application list is probably:

George Mason Honors
Virginia Tech
UVA
Purdue
Wisconsin
University of Washington
UIUC
Cornell
CMU
Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD

Optional: William & Mary and UMD.

The way I am reading it now is: Virginia Tech is the strong baseline, Purdue/Wisconsin/Washington/UCSD are the practical higher-ranked CS options, Cornell/CMU are the serious reach shots, and Georgia Tech is worth applying to but should be treated as unlikely.

I would be very careful about assuming Virginia Tech is a near lock. I have personally seen (and heard about) them defer/waitlist some very high stat kids. Might be better now that they got rid of early decision, but your kid should show interest and apply EA.

[Anonymous]

OP: How did you take into account the hooked cases (athletic recruit or first gen or urm) in those scattergrams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: How did you take into account the hooked cases (athletic recruit or first gen or urm) in those scattergrams?

They are anomalies like i saw a 3.75 GPA for UVA which I ignored in the scatter gram , obviously a hook but the rest are clustered consistently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I went through Naviance and loaded all the scattergrams into the AI context and reran the list. Here are the updated results. Some of this was surprising.

Assuming a 1600 SAT, here is the current read:

George Mason Honors: 90-95%
Virginia Tech: 65-80%
William & Mary: 60-75%
Wisconsin: 40-55%
University of Washington: 40-55% overall, much lower for direct CS
Purdue: 35-50%
UMD: 30-45%
UVA: 25-40%
UIUC: 18-28% direct CS, 28-38% for CS+X/math-adjacent options
Michigan: 18-32%
UCSD: 18-28%
CMU: 12-22% overall, 4-10% for SCS
Cornell: 10-18% RD, maybe 15-25% ED
Georgia Tech: 10-18%

The interesting part is that the scattergrams did not move every school equally. The 1600 helps, but it does not erase the GPA issue at schools where the admit band from our high school is clearly much higher.

The biggest surprises were CMU and Cornell. They are still very hard and not safe at all, but the scattergrams showed at least some admits in a similar GPA range. That moved them into the “serious reach” category rather than “don’t bother.”

Wisconsin, Purdue, University of Washington, and UCSD also looked more realistic than expected for stronger CS programs, though Washington has the direct-CS caveat and UCSD has the UC/OOS/major-admission caveat.

Georgia Tech was the opposite surprise. It is an amazing CS school and still worth applying to, but the scattergram made it look much less likely because the admits seemed concentrated at a higher weighted GPA range. I would treat it as a high reach/lottery, not likely.

UVA also looked harder than expected from our school, but we would still apply because it is in-state and has strong overall prestige.

The schools that looked like “no one got in regardless” or “people got in, but not with a GPA profile close enough to my child’s” were MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, UT Austin, Penn, Columbia, USC, UCLA, Rice, and Duke.

So the current application list is probably:

George Mason Honors
Virginia Tech
UVA
Purdue
Wisconsin
University of Washington
UIUC
Cornell
CMU
Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD

Optional: William & Mary and UMD.

The way I am reading it now is: Virginia Tech is the strong baseline, Purdue/Wisconsin/Washington/UCSD are the practical higher-ranked CS options, Cornell/CMU are the serious reach shots, and Georgia Tech is worth applying to but should be treated as unlikely.

I would be very careful about assuming Virginia Tech is a near lock. I have personally seen (and heard about) them defer/waitlist some very high stat kids. Might be better now that they got rid of early decision, but your kid should show interest and apply EA.

I agree but between v tech, uva and William and mary one will get through and at least Purdue or other god out of states so we have aligned expectations. You can see Virginia tech is not 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I went through Naviance and loaded all the scattergrams into the AI context and reran the list. Here are the updated results. Some of this was surprising.

Assuming a 1600 SAT, here is the current read:

George Mason Honors: 90-95%
Virginia Tech: 65-80%
William & Mary: 60-75%
Wisconsin: 40-55%
University of Washington: 40-55% overall, much lower for direct CS
Purdue: 35-50%
UMD: 30-45%
UVA: 25-40%
UIUC: 18-28% direct CS, 28-38% for CS+X/math-adjacent options
Michigan: 18-32%
UCSD: 18-28%
CMU: 12-22% overall, 4-10% for SCS
Cornell: 10-18% RD, maybe 15-25% ED
Georgia Tech: 10-18%

The interesting part is that the scattergrams did not move every school equally. The 1600 helps, but it does not erase the GPA issue at schools where the admit band from our high school is clearly much higher.

The biggest surprises were CMU and Cornell. They are still very hard and not safe at all, but the scattergrams showed at least some admits in a similar GPA range. That moved them into the “serious reach” category rather than “don’t bother.”

Wisconsin, Purdue, University of Washington, and UCSD also looked more realistic than expected for stronger CS programs, though Washington has the direct-CS caveat and UCSD has the UC/OOS/major-admission caveat.

Georgia Tech was the opposite surprise. It is an amazing CS school and still worth applying to, but the scattergram made it look much less likely because the admits seemed concentrated at a higher weighted GPA range. I would treat it as a high reach/lottery, not likely.

UVA also looked harder than expected from our school, but we would still apply because it is in-state and has strong overall prestige.

The schools that looked like “no one got in regardless” or “people got in, but not with a GPA profile close enough to my child’s” were MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, UT Austin, Penn, Columbia, USC, UCLA, Rice, and Duke.

So the current application list is probably:

George Mason Honors
Virginia Tech
UVA
Purdue
Wisconsin
University of Washington
UIUC
Cornell
CMU
Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD

Optional: William & Mary and UMD.

The way I am reading it now is: Virginia Tech is the strong baseline, Purdue/Wisconsin/Washington/UCSD are the practical higher-ranked CS options, Cornell/CMU are the serious reach shots, and Georgia Tech is worth applying to but should be treated as unlikely.

Good work. Appreciate the effort.

[Anonymous]

Weighted and unweighted gpa is all that seems to matter, no matter who says what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% chance this kid gets into UVA - anyone who says otherwise is just arguing for the sake of arguing.

You don't know that. You just don't.

Can you provide an example of any IN STATE kid with a 1600 not getting in? I'd probably extend that to 1550 as long as there aren't some sort of other (criminal) issues. This kid is 100% getting into UVA especially if they want to be there and show the smallest interest.

None of us can do that because none of us has access to all the data. And guess what? That includes you. Your access to the relevant data is no more or less imperfect than anyone else's, so your guess is just as much a guess as anyone's. No matter how many times you say it.

My instate kid with a 3.9UW and lots of rigor got waitlisted at UVA. 1550 SAT. Lots of rigor. So it does happen. He went to Michigan.

what was weighted gpa… anything below 4.2 is v v hard to get into uva with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First of all, some years close to 2000 students get a 1600, which is more than "a few hundred." And the top schools are notorious for rejecting many of them anyway.

Second of all, UVA has been on record for decades that it cares more about grades and classes taken than test scores and the record bears that out. Remember the school remains test optional.

The bottom line: UVA admission is not a given for this kid. Not even close.


This… a 1520 SAT with top rigor didn’t get into UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I went through Naviance and loaded all the scattergrams into the AI context and reran the list. Here are the updated results. Some of this was surprising.

Assuming a 1600 SAT, here is the current read:

George Mason Honors: 90-95%
Virginia Tech: 65-80%
William & Mary: 60-75%
Wisconsin: 40-55%
University of Washington: 40-55% overall, much lower for direct CS
Purdue: 35-50%
UMD: 30-45%
UVA: 25-40%
UIUC: 18-28% direct CS, 28-38% for CS+X/math-adjacent options
Michigan: 18-32%
UCSD: 18-28%
CMU: 12-22% overall, 4-10% for SCS
Cornell: 10-18% RD, maybe 15-25% ED
Georgia Tech: 10-18%

The interesting part is that the scattergrams did not move every school equally. The 1600 helps, but it does not erase the GPA issue at schools where the admit band from our high school is clearly much higher.

The biggest surprises were CMU and Cornell. They are still very hard and not safe at all, but the scattergrams showed at least some admits in a similar GPA range. That moved them into the “serious reach” category rather than “don’t bother.”

Wisconsin, Purdue, University of Washington, and UCSD also looked more realistic than expected for stronger CS programs, though Washington has the direct-CS caveat and UCSD has the UC/OOS/major-admission caveat.

Georgia Tech was the opposite surprise. It is an amazing CS school and still worth applying to, but the scattergram made it look much less likely because the admits seemed concentrated at a higher weighted GPA range. I would treat it as a high reach/lottery, not likely.

UVA also looked harder than expected from our school, but we would still apply because it is in-state and has strong overall prestige.

The schools that looked like “no one got in regardless” or “people got in, but not with a GPA profile close enough to my child’s” were MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, UT Austin, Penn, Columbia, USC, UCLA, Rice, and Duke.

So the current application list is probably:

George Mason Honors
Virginia Tech
UVA
Purdue
Wisconsin
University of Washington
UIUC
Cornell
CMU
Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD

Optional: William & Mary and UMD.

The way I am reading it now is: Virginia Tech is the strong baseline, Purdue/Wisconsin/Washington/UCSD are the practical higher-ranked CS options, Cornell/CMU are the serious reach shots, and Georgia Tech is worth applying to but should be treated as unlikely.

Apply for math or similar to Cornell ED…skip CS.
Hire a counselor to tailor application narrative….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally think there is something wrong with the school if standardized test scores do not align with GPAs. If a student is earning straight As in all AP and DE courses with a near-perfect GPA, but cannot score at a similarly high level on the SAT or ACT, that raises a concern about whether the curriculum or grading standards reflect true mastery.

I recently read a thread about a student with a 4.2+ GPA who could not break 1300 on the SAT. How is that acceptable if the GPA is supposed to reflect mastery at that level?

I think it’s important to add some disclaimers here.

What you’re saying is likely true if the student is a fairly neurotypical student who can handle the stress of taking standardized tests and doesn’t have physical problems with taking standardized tests or extreme hostility toward the tests.

But there are some people out there who are very bright and simply test poorly. My understanding is that most schools would make allowances for that even back in the 1980s.