Colleges a step up from community college

[Anonymous]

What about McDaniel College? Used to be Western Maryland College.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently went through the college admissions cycle with 3.4 GPA DD from competitive public HS. She was varsity athlete, several AP's, volunteered, work experience, etc (solid all around, nothing spectacular) and we were encouraged to save our time/money looking at top 50. She applied and got into lots of 2nd tier state school and happily chose one. But was rejected at U of Miami (private) and Penn State, for example. So I guess I'm just shocked that a B/C student, no AP's could be accepted at a top 50 college (or find one that's a good fit). I'm wondering if pp was very fortunate or whether we were ill-advised in our DDs college search. But good for pp and her DC (and I didn't call you clueless, but my mind had a similar reaction).

I think it probably depends which high school you are coming from. At a school like Sidwell, anyone with a GPA over a 3.0 has a decent chance at some really good colleges. The grading is just tough at that school. Out of Wilson you are going to need closer to a 4.0.

[Anonymous]

Also really depends on SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Take a look at St. Mary's, Maryland's public liberal arts college.

[Anonymous]

I had a GPA of 3.3 or so from a good prep school and a pretty decent SAT score and I got waitlisted at St. Mary's. Frostburg might be an option though.

[Anonymous]

Because kids with LDs do expend so much energy and effort, I think high school's a good time to start to feel out where they're getting the stronger grades (of the Bs and the Cs, which subjects tend to be the Bs, where's the occasional A) and, for efficiency sake, making sure that if DC does electives in areas more related to them and, if she has the bandwidth to do an honors class in her sophomore and junior year (which she may - if her issues are expressing and manipulating material, rather than understanding it, a class with better students may actually provide a better context for her) that helps make the case for her specialization.

Colleges do get that you're likely to major in something and that the bulk of your grades will be in that subject, so start making the case that she'll be sucessful in some set of areas. Many of the schools we've talked about here would take a good look at the application of a student with demonstrated sucess in the area they think they'll major in, even with uneven grades overall.

That also helps you identify colleges because you can look by speciality or focus.

[Anonymous]

I have pretty extensive LDs, although also did a lot of honors and AP courses in high school and went to St Mary's years ago. I absolutely loved it, but they did have just about zero support for LD students, so disabled students pretty much had to figure things out for themselves and be their own advocate for testing accomodations and the like. That said, it's a small school so faculty were pretty easily able to adapt - at that time, I recall College Park had to charge an extra fee to students who needed extended time on tests, for example, because they needed to hire separate, extra proctors, etc. At St Mary's it was pretty easy for them to just let you sit in the back of the room for the extra minutes.

[Anonymous]

My brother had a pretty severe LD and did well at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. It's a small community with lots of contact between students and professors. The education is considerably better than a community college.