Was this a normal admit for weak PS student?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are all pretty common admits from mediocre students at our large public.

You mean the TOP public in your area, right?

No. It’s actually a great schools 4 with 40% farms.

These are not tough admits.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on the high school. At DD’s private school (in DMV), the kid with the lowest GPA last year went to Bucknell. More generally, the students at the bottom of the distribution have no trouble getting into TCU, College of Charleston and such. LACs like Oberlin, Kenyon, St Lawrence are other places where these kids go. Amazing, if you ask me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It really depends on the high school. At DD’s private school (in DMV), the kid with the lowest GPA last year went to Bucknell. More generally, the students at the bottom of the distribution have no trouble getting into TCU, College of Charleston and such. LACs like Oberlin, Kenyon, St Lawrence are other places where these kids go. Amazing, if you ask me.

Adding to the list of colleges where students in the bottom quintile of GPA distribution have matriculated in recent years:

American U, Elon, Kenyon, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Penn State, Pitzer, Purdue, Reed, SMU, Gettysburg, Hobart Williams Smith, Sarah Lawrence, College of
Charleston

[Anonymous]

Answering the OPs original question as they look to the college landscape for their HS junior, OOS public flagship admits have gotten a lot harder since 2023 (when your current college student applied).

Auburn, for example, released stats on the first round of admits this cycle and OOS kids who were admitted had a GPA of 4.27 and an ACT of 30.8 (that converts to roughly 1400 SAT). The defer line was 3.95/25.1 so the grades you mention would likely not have resulted in an acceptance. This info was released from Auburn directly so pretty reliable.

Most of these schools rely heavily on weighted GPAs and private schools simply don’t offer the number of AP classes the publics do (this is a generalization for sure so take it fwiw).

These days, the lowest third of the class seems to be looking to private colleges as well as the next round of OOS publics (Penn State, Ohio state, Indiana, South Carolina, Ole Miss) bc Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, and Florida are pretty hard admits these days (akin to what UVA, UNC, Michigan and Texas were a decade ago). Tennessee has gotten a lot more competitive too.

Hope that helps!

[Anonymous]

I think she did good to get into Auburn, Tennessee and Wofford.

I think the SAT helped. Most kids with that GPA probably would be test optional.