Up and Coming School for Average Student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Christopher Newport for the conservative student. Demonstrated interest/their yield protection is very important.

CNU is definitely up and coming. This was a little known commuter school 20 years ago where most Virginians hadn't heard of it. It has steadily risen in the rankings year over year as well as student admit GPA/SAT scores. Most high school students haven't heard of CNU or don't really consider the school until they start serious college planning. I would say CNU competes with JMU, GMU and UMW for solid above average students (or average students that have taken a rigorous course of study (AP/IB)) that are serious about their education, want a small private school-feel and really nice facilities (almost all of the buildings on that campus are less than 20 years old). I would say that CNU is one of the best kept secrets in Virginia and the south east region; however, many students and families from Northern Virginia and New Jersey are starting to find that out when they visit the school, talk to the students and look at the credentials of the professors. I agree with the other posters that JMU is also an up and coming school but not for an average student, the competition to get into JMU by most of the students that don’t get into UVA, W&M and VTech drive the GPA/SAT scores above what most average students have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern U in Boston

LOL. It is definitely up and coming but to one of the top schools and not average at all. It used to be around top 100 a few years back it has moved up gradually and I think this year it was #42 in the country. Nothing average at all. The school is beautiful too.

+1

DD with 4.0 GPA and 1480 SATs did not get in (along with lots of other kids in the early rounds with similar stats).

Northeastern used to be a crappy commuter school but has rapidly risen in the rankings. There was a good article in the NYT about how they gamed the rankings but it is what it is.....definitely not a safety anymore.

I read that too. But honestly, I think the president is a genius. The outcome is they it are bypassing BU and BC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern U in Boston

LOL. It is definitely up and coming but to one of the top schools and not average at all. It used to be around top 100 a few years back it has moved up gradually and I think this year it was #42 in the country. Nothing average at all. The school is beautiful too.

+1

DD with 4.0 GPA and 1480 SATs did not get in (along with lots of other kids in the early rounds with similar stats).

Rejected? I am really surprised by that. What major?

[Anonymous]

If you're interested in the west coast -- University of Puget Sound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Avg. WGPA - 4.43"

I suspect this WGPA is the highest possible score Clemson can report and is kind of cherry picked.

I doubt Clemson early action admits, who don't have the benefit of more AP/IB classes as seniors, manage this WGPA with only an 1310 ave SAT.

Not to highjack, but I am so confused by some of the weighted "average" GPAs I see reported by schools. Even as a weighted GPA, how is it possible that 4.43 is the middle point at Clemson? For every 4.0, there is a 4.86? To end up with a 4.43 at the end of high school, how many APs would a student have to take (with straight As)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Avg. WGPA - 4.43"

I suspect this WGPA is the highest possible score Clemson can report and is kind of cherry picked.

I doubt Clemson early action admits, who don't have the benefit of more AP/IB classes as seniors, manage this WGPA with only an 1310 ave SAT.

Not to highjack, but I am so confused by some of the weighted "average" GPAs I see reported by schools. Even as a weighted GPA, how is it possible that 4.43 is the middle point at Clemson? For every 4.0, there is a 4.86? To end up with a 4.43 at the end of high school, how many APs would a student have to take (with straight As)?

Some school systems use a 5.0 scale and others even use a 6.0 scale. Since there is no standardization of the common data set, colleges can calculate and report however they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Avg. WGPA - 4.43"

I suspect this WGPA is the highest possible score Clemson can report and is kind of cherry picked.

I doubt Clemson early action admits, who don't have the benefit of more AP/IB classes as seniors, manage this WGPA with only an 1310 ave SAT.

Not to highjack, but I am so confused by some of the weighted "average" GPAs I see reported by schools. Even as a weighted GPA, how is it possible that 4.43 is the middle point at Clemson? For every 4.0, there is a 4.86? To end up with a 4.43 at the end of high school, how many APs would a student have to take (with straight As)?

Some school systems use a 5.0 scale and others even use a 6.0 scale. Since there is no standardization of the common data set, colleges can calculate and report however they want.

Exactly. I think the GPA piece of the CDS are the least useful element.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Avg. WGPA - 4.43"

I suspect this WGPA is the highest possible score Clemson can report and is kind of cherry picked.

I doubt Clemson early action admits, who don't have the benefit of more AP/IB classes as seniors, manage this WGPA with only an 1310 ave SAT.

Not to highjack, but I am so confused by some of the weighted "average" GPAs I see reported by schools. Even as a weighted GPA, how is it possible that 4.43 is the middle point at Clemson? For every 4.0, there is a 4.86? To end up with a 4.43 at the end of high school, how many APs would a student have to take (with straight As)?

Some school systems use a 5.0 scale and others even use a 6.0 scale. Since there is no standardization of the common data set, colleges can calculate and report however they want.

I watched a roundtable discussion for Amherst on Youtube - to show a vague snippet of how kids are randomly picked and so many smart kids get looked over. Anyway, one of the kids kids had a 6.5 GPA. I don't even understand it. I mean this is getting completely out of control. I know MCPS does it's inflation to be competitive but I just wish all schools would be on 100 point scale with a 5 point bump for honors and/or AP. It would take away the pressure of a 89.4 being a B and an 89.5 being an A.

[Anonymous]

"It would take away the pressure of a 89.4 being a B and an 89.5 being an A."

Back during the stone age, my HS graded from 0 to 100. I felt it was much more pressure. When graded from 0 to 100 in every class and then the four quarters are averaged, every single assignment counts and you never get a break.

The last week of the quarter and you have to chose is it better to study for the test or polish up your project. Not doing both will, without question, bring your GPA down from the 100% or the 91.3% you currently have.

With the MCPS system, imperfect it may be, but at least if you have worked hard all quarter and have a 100% average that is going to be converted to a 4.0, you can neither study nor polish because you will get an 89.5 and still get the 4.0 even if you take a break or have a personal problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"It would take away the pressure of a 89.4 being a B and an 89.5 being an A."

Back during the stone age, my HS graded from 0 to 100. I felt it was much more pressure. When graded from 0 to 100 in every class and then the four quarters are averaged, every single assignment counts and you never get a break.

The last week of the quarter and you have to chose is it better to study for the test or polish up your project. Not doing both will, without question, bring your GPA down from the 100% or the 91.3% you currently have.

With the MCPS system, imperfect it may be, but at least if you have worked hard all quarter and have a 100% average that is going to be converted to a 4.0, you can neither study nor polish because you will get an 89.5 and still get the 4.0 even if you take a break or have a personal problem.

I completely disagree. MCPS kids have it so easy. They are one of the only districts I know that bumps honors courses up an entire whole point. They also average letter grades with the higher grade of 2 always winning out. No where in this world should a 79.5 and an 89.5 equal an A for a student. And then if it is an honors course, they get a 5.0? A child in another district gets 95 in all of their courses but only a .5 bump on honors and gets a lower GPA. It just isn't right.

100 point system shows who is the best, not who had the easiest system or played the system to it's advantage. It also eliminates strange ways colleges report their GPA grades which are also very inflated to look more appealing. If kids want to be more stressed, that is their issue but kids shouldn't be broken down into a 4.0 system. Kids that get 91's are not that much smarter than kids getting 89's.

And by the way, when I was growing up in NJ, only a 92 and higher was an A

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colorado College, Kenyon, Macalester

Yeah, and if they don't work for you and you are looking for schools a little larger you can always try Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Ha, I looked at this thread for my truly average kid and fell out of my chair, Kenyon for average student, ha, ha. But one thing I do want to point out is that the admission rate when you get to the 35-70 range are not a great indicator of competitiveness. University of Georgia I thought would be a great choice for DD since the acceptance rate is 53% --- but the average SATs is 1344 and GPA in core classes GPA of over 4.0 - not average to me. Compare this to University of Tampa with an acceptance rate of 43% but SATs of 1130 and total weighted GPA of 3.4. The admit % can be distorted a bit, make sure you look at the whole picture. BTW, I am not sure my average DD can get into either of those two -- I was just pointing out the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern U in Boston

No chance.

So funny that Northeastern has become so hard to get into. It used to be not well thought of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"It would take away the pressure of a 89.4 being a B and an 89.5 being an A."

Back during the stone age, my HS graded from 0 to 100. I felt it was much more pressure. When graded from 0 to 100 in every class and then the four quarters are averaged, every single assignment counts and you never get a break.

The last week of the quarter and you have to chose is it better to study for the test or polish up your project. Not doing both will, without question, bring your GPA down from the 100% or the 91.3% you currently have.

With the MCPS system, imperfect it may be, but at least if you have worked hard all quarter and have a 100% average that is going to be converted to a 4.0, you can neither study nor polish because you will get an 89.5 and still get the 4.0 even if you take a break or have a personal problem.

I completely disagree. MCPS kids have it so easy. They are one of the only districts I know that bumps honors courses up an entire whole point. They also average letter grades with the higher grade of 2 always winning out. No where in this world should a 79.5 and an 89.5 equal an A for a student. And then if it is an honors course, they get a 5.0? A child in another district gets 95 in all of their courses but only a .5 bump on honors and gets a lower GPA. It just isn't right.

100 point system shows who is the best, not who had the easiest system or played the system to it's advantage. It also eliminates strange ways colleges report their GPA grades which are also very inflated to look more appealing. If kids want to be more stressed, that is their issue but kids shouldn't be broken down into a 4.0 system. Kids that get 91's are not that much smarter than kids getting 89's.

And by the way, when I was growing up in NJ, only a 92 and higher was an A

That all sounds very confusing. My child goes to a competitive private in another state. Grades are determined through the 100 point scale. My DD has an 89.98 in Spanish. Sorry, B+, no rounding to an A-. They do not give in to parent complaints like the public district where DD went to middle school and the high school in our district where they change the grade rather than listen to the parent complain and everyone is allowed to re-take tests or do corrections to bring up their grades. The kids in our public all have over 4.0. At DD's school, AP/honors classes are weighted .5 but not available until junior year (so advanced math freshman and soph year is not weighted). I doubt anyone has a 4.0 and few are close. The school gives Cs and Ds, which we never heard about in public school. Seems unfair, but the hope is the colleges know the school and understand the grading. I'm guessing the colleges understand that a 3.8 from her school is different than a 3.8 from our public school. At least I hope they do. It just seems there is no transparent way to compare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Christopher Newport for the conservative student. Demonstrated interest/their yield protection is very important.

CNU is definitely up and coming. This was a little known commuter school 20 years ago where most Virginians hadn't heard of it. It has steadily risen in the rankings year over year as well as student admit GPA/SAT scores. Most high school students haven't heard of CNU or don't really consider the school until they start serious college planning. I would say CNU competes with JMU, GMU and UMW for solid above average students (or average students that have taken a rigorous course of study (AP/IB)) that are serious about their education, want a small private school-feel and really nice facilities (almost all of the buildings on that campus are less than 20 years old). I would say that CNU is one of the best kept secrets in Virginia and the south east region; however, many students and families from Northern Virginia and New Jersey are starting to find that out when they visit the school, talk to the students and look at the credentials of the professors. I agree with the other posters that JMU is also an up and coming school but not for an average student, the competition to get into JMU by most of the students that don’t get into UVA, W&M and VTech drive the GPA/SAT scores above what most average students have.

Yes CNU is very popular right now among DC's 11th grade friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bucknell

Ha ha! My niece with above 4.0 GPA and very high SAT — she was close to straight A’s throughout HS — and her mom went there, was only waitlisted there.