NCS Reception

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, the person who feels they wasted the money don't seem to be blaming the school. She's simply saying that it didn't work out for her kid. Even with a 2300+.

As has been stated many times on this and other blogs, discordant scores and grades do not do as all as concordant ones, regardless of the HS.

So punish the kid for 2300+?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2310 wait listed at South Carolina?

Many states require state colleges to take majority of their applicants from in-state. My daughter applied to a out of state school (NC State) with top scores/B average (public) and she was waitlisted. She didn't accept the waitlist but instead decided to accept from the list of colleges she did receive offers from. She applied to 10 schools (accepted to 7, WL 2,rejected 1) and picked a male dominated major. NC State has to take at least 60% of students from NC. They often waitlist top students out of state but later accept them after accepted students decline offers. Hang in their 2310 and don't read too much into NCS in it's relation to your daughter's college acceptance outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2310 wait listed at South Carolina?

We are being trolled. I had a 3.2 kid at Ncs with less strong test scores and she ended up at Syracuse. The kids who are sub 3 are the bottom of the barrel at Ncs. They end up at sewanne, southern Methodist university, elon/college of charleston etc.

[Anonymous]

With 2310?

[Anonymous]

2310 from NCS at SMU? Now or a while ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2310 wait listed at South Carolina?

We are being trolled. I had a 3.2 kid at Ncs with less strong test scores and she ended up at Syracuse. The kids who are sub 3 are the bottom of the barrel at Ncs. They end up at sewanne, southern Methodist university, elon/college of charleston etc.

Wait a B+ GPA at NCS only gets you Syracuse???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2310 wait listed at South Carolina?

We are being trolled. I had a 3.2 kid at Ncs with less strong test scores and she ended up at Syracuse. The kids who are sub 3 are the bottom of the barrel at Ncs. They end up at sewanne, southern Methodist university, elon/college of charleston etc.

Wait a B+ average from NCS gets you Syracuse??

[Anonymous]

If you are getting wait-listed at the University of South Carolina, I question whether or not you know how to write your own name.

Signed,

A South Carolina native

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Sidwell parent, so I have no first hand knowledge about college admissions from NCS, but I assume its similar to Sidwell. My son got a wonderful education at Sidwell ( as I am sure the girls do at NCS), and whats more I watched him challenge himself academically and through community activities and studying abroad to be come an independent, critically thinking young adult. So I think the money was worth it, regardless of college.

That being said he has a B+ average (which I realize is better than a B of PP's DD average) and all this talk about getting into college being easier from a public made us nervous. Well, it turned out just fine. His Sidwell college counselor was very helpful. So far he has gotten into every college he applied to, one with significant merit aid. We are waiting to hear form the Ivys tomorrow. But he has so many top SLACs and others to choose from, we are very happy. He had wonderful EC's and recommendations because he excelled in one academic discipline and really threw himself into those classes. The bottom line is that you don't have to be a straight A student, or even close, to get into top 20 colleges and universities if you come from a highly ranked private.

But it helps if your kids is motivated to learn and really involved in something meaningful both inside and outside of school.The bottom line is that I am suggesting that the PP whose daughter's college choices didn't meet her expectations may not have been because of grades. It may have been because her daughter didn't exhibit a true interest in learning or something completely different. Perhaps her recommendations were just so so. It could be a lot of things but blaming the school seems unfair to me. And leaving a school for another school to increase your chance of college admissions is silly.

It helps to be a boy, though. Girls on average have better grades and need better grades and scores.

[Anonymous]

Similar to South Carolina with a 2310.

[Anonymous]

I thought more boys than girls get 800 on the math level 2 test. Shouldn't this have pulled more weight for a female?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought more boys than girls get 800 on the math level 2 test. Shouldn't this have pulled more weight for a female?

Grades get more weight, and girls tend to have better grades and apply in greater numbers. Acceptance rates for girls are generally lower than for boys as a result. This is just for Brown (and a quick Google search), but I think it's even truer for SLACs:

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/04/26/female-applicants-face-lower-acceptance-rates/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought more boys than girls get 800 on the math level 2 test. Shouldn't this have pulled more weight for a female?

Grades get more weight, and girls tend to have better grades and apply in greater numbers. Acceptance rates for girls are generally lower than for boys as a result. This is just for Brown (and a quick Google search), but I think it's even truer for SLACs:

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/04/26/female-applicants-face-lower-acceptance-rates/

I posted the above - mostly in response to the previous poster who talked about her son with a B+ average at Sidwell getting into top 20 LACs. That's actually in line with what I'd expect, and quite different than the results you might expect or get for a girl with a solid B average.

[Anonymous]

Folks, there's so much information out there now about how college admissions works. Start with the special section in the NY Times, and if you are really interested, there are a number of books written by former college admissions officers.

All the following are now true in the current landscape:

1. Colleges are seeing a relative scarcity of male applicants, and consequently it's somewhat harder for female applicants;

2. Colleges live and die by their US News and World Report rankings. One major stat that they can easily control is the acceptance rate. They seek high volumes of applications and use the Wait Lists more than ever before as a way to depress their acceptance rate in a way that still gives them to a student if that student remains interested. If a school can tell (don't underestimate the computing power available -- in algorithms they trust) that a strong applicant is unlikely to accept an offer of admission (in other words, if they think they are an applicant's "safety school") they are quite likely to WL an applicant with objective numbers above the average for that school. If that applicant is sincerely interested (and there are ways to demonstrate that) then the school might offer them a place off the WL, which does not count against the acceptance rate.

3. Colleges are not "punishing" a student with high scores that don't match up with the grades and recommendations. They are using decades upon decades of experience to project such a student as a much higher risk than a student with good grades/good scores (all-rounder) or great grades/lower scores (hard worker with grit). They are not bulls -- they are not drawn to red flags.

4. Colleges carefully read and put a lot of stock into teacher recommendations. The student who is a standout in one area and has a passionate teacher writing on their behalf may well do much better than someone with a higher GPA who doesn't have the stellar class and committed faculty advocate who demonstrates real excitement about their intellectual potential. So GPA alone has some limits as a predictor, even apart from the important issue of course selection.

5. Colleges have different levels of resources in their admissions offices. Some of the more selective private universities have more personnel and are more familiar with individual private schools than public universities with smaller offices that must depend more on the numbers.

[Anonymous]

So which is more exceptional - in sheer numbers here in the land of exceptionalism - 2300+ scores or 4.0 gpas with solid recs?