B Student at Big 3 and College Placement

[Anonymous]

Carelton...Brrr. My sense is SLAC's these days are looking for interesting kids to fill out their ranks. If you have a kid who gets decent grades and SATs but also raises chickens and started a business to sell the eggs and donate the proceeds to a food pantry, they will get consideration over a kid with decent grades and SATs who just volunteers at that food pantry. Kids who think outside the box a little. Kids who turn a passion into something interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how it works. Admissions tags the front of your kids' files with two figures: test scores and GPA, noting high school/weighted, not weighted. Each file gets no more than 6 minutes of attention at a SLAC. If the GPA and test score isn't sufficiently high, they move it into the "reject" pile. Usually two or three officers read each application just in case someone has missed something (2 min. per file x 3). Your goal is to get your kid to the point where they even open the file and find out your son has great letters of rec., or is something the college would like to have on its campus due to something disclosed in letters of rec. and personal essays.

11:18 here. If what you say is true, then those were 6 minutes of unusual interest in my son's file or they thought the GPA was sufficiently high warranting an additional look. Not saying what you state is not true, just wondering what the three interviewers saw in their respective 2 minutes that warranted admission to several good colleges.

Even though my son was admitted and it's now water under the bridge, if what you say has merit I'm now curious what prompted them to move past the 'B' average to the essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Carelton...Brrr. My sense is SLAC's these days are looking for interesting kids to fill out their ranks. If you have a kid who gets decent grades and SATs but also raises chickens and started a business to sell the eggs and donate the proceeds to a food pantry, they will get consideration over a kid with decent grades and SATs who just volunteers at that food pantry. Kids who think outside the box a little. Kids who turn a passion into something interesting.

I think you just answered my question in 11:54.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Carelton...Brrr. My sense is SLAC's these days are looking for interesting kids to fill out their ranks. If you have a kid who gets decent grades and SATs but also raises chickens and started a business to sell the eggs and donate the proceeds to a food pantry, they will get consideration over a kid with decent grades and SATs who just volunteers at that food pantry. Kids who think outside the box a little. Kids who turn a passion into something interesting.

But if you have a kid who volunteers at the food pantry and reorganizes it where it feeds 3 x the number of people it has over past years and then comes up with a way to buy fifty cent shirts at the thrift store and resell them for $2 and donating the proceeds to the shelter to purchase used books, I think I'd take a 2nd or 3rd look at that kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is Carleton regarded by employers in DC?

My experience was pretty good and I graduated when the school had a lower profile. However I also went to a highly ranked grad school so that plays a role as well. Most people in my industry are familiar with Carleton, sometimes because they are going through or have gone through the process with their own kids. Carleton has been in the top 10 LACs for quite a while now so anyone who has looked at US News usually remembers that. Carleton also has a pretty big and loyal alumni base in the DC area which can help in the job search.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: St Albans' (or GDS or Maret or Sidwell) -- pretty sure they subscibe to Naviance. That's going to be your best metric.

Sure, but Naviance is very limited in its focus on grades and scores. For schools with small graduating classes and many strong applicants, Naviance isn't that useful. At least it wasn't for our kids -- based on Naviance data, neither of them would have been accepted at the school they attend/ed.

It focuses on grades and scores b/c that's what it comes down to ultimately. Most kids at top tier privates are very similar except for grades and scores. B students from top private schools don't get into the top colleges. There are too many students with better scores and grades applying to the SAME schools.

Some of you seem to think that a "B" student at a top tier private is looked on as superior to the class valedictorian from some no name large public school from Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. I can tell you these public school kids get into Stanford, HYP, etc which is not the case with a B student from STA, NCS, Sidwell, etc.

Sure, grades and scores are the first hurdle, but there are so many kids applying who are in the same range that many other factors come into play. Naviance tells you nothing about all those factors, which in the case of my sons included the following: they had B's in English and foreign language, but A's in history and, more important, in the most demanding science and math classes their school offered (not reflected in their GPAs because the school doesn't give extra weight to those classes), they were nationally recognized for math achievement, they were recruited athletes, their recommendations were extremely strong (per the college counselor), and they both hit a home run on the supplemental essays.

As for your point re the valedictorian at the "no-name large public school" v. the B student at the "top-tier private", actually, the B student might come out on top depending on how the adcomm views each candidate's transcript in terms of rigor. Having been an admissions officer myself back in the day, I know that the area rep will be very familiar with how tough it is to get A's at a "top-tier" private and will factor that into assessing the candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do know. That was from the director of a SLAC you would know. 6 min. max - reviewed 3 times - first him, the director - then two assistants in case he missed something. Years ago when applied (or should I say decades?), everything was done by hand. down to the mailing and the writing out of the $50 check so one applied to say, four choices. So we applied to only a few schools. And it was difficult typing out all those applications. Now all it is is a few changes in the essay and a push of the button, so kids can file to 25 schools. So this Director's point was that whereas his school would get let's say 7,000 applications decades ago for a class of 400, now it's 30,000 for the same sized class. Oh, BTW, if you are legacy you should get a meeting with the director of admissions. MY SLAC did that for my kid.

BTW, the same Director constantly reminds everyone whatever you do, remember to change the name of the school in the essay. If you send an application saying "I've always wanted to go to Pepperdine to be near the ocean" and the application goes to Williams, the file is tossed. Files also are not read if late.

This is the problem with the internet. Some decent information included with some pretty obvious bs. Yes, grades and test scores matter as the first hoop to jump through. And yes the readers are very efficient at reading files. They are double checked and triple checked.

However, where you went off the rails was the silly 30,000 application number for a LAC. With a class size of 400. It is more like 7000. 7000 is still an enormous amount but 30,000 is just silly and untrue.

In fact Harvard had about 35, 000 applications. They accepted about 2000 students for the coming year. Harvard is not a SLAC.

Folks, check the common data sets for the schools your kid in interested in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is Carleton regarded by employers in DC?

My experience was pretty good and I graduated when the school had a lower profile. However I also went to a highly ranked grad school so that plays a role as well. Most people in my industry are familiar with Carleton, sometimes because they are going through or have gone through the process with their own kids. Carleton has been in the top 10 LACs for quite a while now so anyone who has looked at US News usually remembers that. Carleton also has a pretty big and loyal alumni base in the DC area which can help in the job search.

Thank you very much!.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:STA?

Trinity College, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, UMich, Boston College, Boston U, Harverford, Tufts, Tulane, maybe Bowdoin

Reaches: Wesleyan, Middlebury, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, maybe Cornell and maybe UMD

B students (even from STA) don't get into Haverford, Tufts or Bowdoin unless he scores 2100+ on the SATs.

Forget Cornell even with 2100+ SATs, he will never get in with those grades.

With a B avg, it'll depend a lot on what he scores on the SATs.

A critical point here is: where is the B average from? What school? Why? Simply put a "B" at some schools without grade inflation is not the same "B" as it is from a school WITH grade inflation. The top New England baoding schools...as an example.....just do NOT give out "A"s.. So, a student there with a B average will not be assessed in the same manner as someone from a local school where there is significant grade inflation. In other words, "A"a are given out like candy. YES, the other points noted on this thread will matter as well. No question about it.

Even "B" students from Andover and similar will not get into an Ivy, Stanford, etc. even with top SATs all in the 700s for all three parts. So you can talk about how some schools have grade inflation or not but for the very top universities, a student will not get in with a "b" avg without a compelling hook like for example an underrepresented minority with perfect SATs.

"B student" is so vague. In most selective private schools there are few C students, but on the 100 point scale anything between 89-81 would be considered a B - perhaps 70-80 % of the class falls into that category.