Lessons learned: 2025-2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

Can you ask senior parents? Anyone been there done that? Look at your school profile as well and maybe schedule a meeting with the college counselor?

What’s the end of 11th uw gpa? Scores? Major?

Also consider schools that discount freshman grades like Stanford or Emory.

Is a regular smart kid with no VIP parents or Olympics resume possible at Stanford or is that throwing the SCEA/ED away?

Start a new thread but imo it’s throwing it away bc early goes to hooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

The GPA ALWAYS matters most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

The GPA ALWAYS matters most.

Definitely not at some schools:
UChicago; Northwestern; Penn; Columbia; Vanderbilt; Rice and even Cornell (but they always seem to be looking for something very specific that none of us can figure out)

With Cornell, kids who get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford will routinely not get into Cornell.

Same with the fact that they may get into Dartmouth but not Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Harvard picks kids with GPAs down to 3.85 from our school. They only take 1-2 a year and grades doesn't seem to be the primary concern. To be fair, that's a strong gpa from our school but there would have been apps in the pile in the 3.95 range

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

Dartmouth likes our private school and always takes a few. I would add Notre Dame to the list of schools that likes really high, perfect GPAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

Dartmouth likes our private school and always takes a few. I would add Notre Dame to the list of schools that likes really high, perfect GPAs.

*I meant to say Dartmouth takes a few with slightly imperfect GPAs, but still high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Correlation likely isn’t causation here. The freshman year grades didn’t make a difference. It was other things in the app though I know that you have trouble accepting this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

Funny, our school never has that issue. Then again a perfect GPA is rare and rigor is almost always the driver along with a very high GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have questions for PPs who say GPA is king and stay close to Naviance/Scoir gpa patterns.

Our DC has a lower GPA than top kids bc he coasted during 9th grade and got a couple B+, but has since stepped up big time and been straight As since 10th on most rigorous course load. In fact some top kids (GPA wise) are not taking all of these most rigorous courses in order to maintain their 3.95ish GPA (unweighted and our school doesn’t assign higher GPA to tougher courses). Only about 18-24 get into each of these courses, you can count on one hand kids who are in all of the hardest tracks and getting As (my DC is). Question here is: would our DC still be looked at as a lower tier applicant from our school even when he is currently (in 11th grade) a top student? Should he plan to avoid popular schools the top GPA kids will apply to during ED round? SAT is very high if that matters in this context.

This is impossible to answer. I don’t think 9th grade grades are disqualifying, especially for boys, but at the same time students are compared to others at their school. If there are other students at your school who have the same-ish rigor and higher grades in ninth grade, they will likely be more attractive candidates if all else is about equal. At my dc’s school, looking at past data, certain Ivies seem absolutely consistent in that they have never taken a student with an imperfect GPA. For those schools it seems particularly unlikely, but of course you never know.

This is Stanford at our school. They say they don't look at freshman year grades but they absolutely do relative to other kids from the same high school. If a 3.99 overall is applying, they are going to beat out the 3.89 who had perfect grades from 10th grade on but a few Bs freshman year. It's all very clear in the data. There is literally a line.

Same at our HS for Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Weird.

The GPA ALWAYS matters most.

Definitely not at some schools:
UChicago; Northwestern; Penn; Columbia; Vanderbilt; Rice and even Cornell (but they always seem to be looking for something very specific that none of us can figure out)

With Cornell, kids who get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford will routinely not get into Cornell.

Same with the fact that they may get into Dartmouth but not Cornell.

From our school, gpa (plus test scores) are absolutely king. But we probably have fewer donors, legacies etc than other schools since we are a public hs.

[Anonymous]

For a normal high stats kid (with good ECs), perhaps it makes sense to apply to most reach schools during the regular round. The essays will likely be quite a bit better, after having done the early round essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Don't ED to a school that no one at your HS matriculates to.

2) Don't ED to a very small SLAC if a significant number of ED admissions are essentially pre-admitted through pre-reads for recruited athletes. The ED admission rate is very misleading but when you take out athletes (who are essentially pre-admitted at 100% by pre-reads and full coach support) and leave some spaces for institutional priorities (First Gen, Low-income, rural, legacy, donor), there is actually very little space left!

3) If you must ED to a reach, emphasize that it is a very long shot, and DC should keep working on applications with the expectation they will NOT get into ED. That will help them bounceback from a deferral or decline.

4) Do NOT panic and ED2 to a lesser choice just because DC is feeling panic/fear/worry about not getting in admitted to their true 1st choice ED1. Let them work through their disappointment, focus on the colleges in the RD pool and while they are writing essays they will fall back in love with their other options.

5) Your DC is still growing/developing through senior year. Over holiday break, DC thinks they may want a bigger, more urban campus (the opposite of their ED1) and also is rethinking major! While they may have been happy with getting into ED1 and being "done" with the process over holiday break (a true bonus), I suspect in the long run not getting in and having more options to consider over the course of the year will be better for them.

Just know, you won't be getting in Rd, where there's 10-12x the amount of competition and not that many more seats available.

Just stop. You keep saying that on every thread.

My own kid got into 2 Ivies, Hopkins and Pomona RD after getting deferred from Georgetown. Friends similarly did better RD, or were WL and got off WLs RD in May.

Quit trying to scare everyone.

NP: Can this PP elaborate? Obviously this is great to hear but how would the math work? All these report of 1-2% acceptance by the time RD rolls around sounds demoralizing. Is PP's kid hooked? Can you offer advice on how a high stats unhooked kid could have a better shot at better even one RD accept?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Don't ED to a school that no one at your HS matriculates to.

2) Don't ED to a very small SLAC if a significant number of ED admissions are essentially pre-admitted through pre-reads for recruited athletes. The ED admission rate is very misleading but when you take out athletes (who are essentially pre-admitted at 100% by pre-reads and full coach support) and leave some spaces for institutional priorities (First Gen, Low-income, rural, legacy, donor), there is actually very little space left!

3) If you must ED to a reach, emphasize that it is a very long shot, and DC should keep working on applications with the expectation they will NOT get into ED. That will help them bounceback from a deferral or decline.

4) Do NOT panic and ED2 to a lesser choice just because DC is feeling panic/fear/worry about not getting in admitted to their true 1st choice ED1. Let them work through their disappointment, focus on the colleges in the RD pool and while they are writing essays they will fall back in love with their other options.

5) Your DC is still growing/developing through senior year. Over holiday break, DC thinks they may want a bigger, more urban campus (the opposite of their ED1) and also is rethinking major! While they may have been happy with getting into ED1 and being "done" with the process over holiday break (a true bonus), I suspect in the long run not getting in and having more options to consider over the course of the year will be better for them.

Just know, you won't be getting in Rd, where there's 10-12x the amount of competition and not that many more seats available.

Just stop. You keep saying that on every thread.

My own kid got into 2 Ivies, Hopkins and Pomona RD after getting deferred from Georgetown. Friends similarly did better RD, or were WL and got off WLs RD in May.

Quit trying to scare everyone.

NP: Can this PP elaborate? Obviously this is great to hear but how would the math work? All these report of 1-2% acceptance by the time RD rolls around sounds demoralizing. Is PP's kid hooked? Can you offer advice on how a high stats unhooked kid could have a better shot at better even one RD accept?

I'd start a new post with your DC's stats?
It starts with stats, then look at major, EC alignment, essays, and LOR (what exactly did you give to those teachers)?
Ime with 2 kids, major matters a lot in RD with class shaping (along with gender).