Reply to Compared Against Peers

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Compared Against Peers - T20 Admissions"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Maybe the NYC privates and boarding schools have pull with admissions but the DC privates have very little with the top universities.

For our Big3 school the "line in the sand" for Duke is about a 3.9.  I know several kids with a 3.8, legacy parents who were TOP donors at the high school who did not get into Duke over the past 2 years.  
It's not something the high school can push through.  [/quote]

There are different lines in the sand because top universities recalculate GPA. This means a 3.9 isn’t really a 3.9 if there is not advanced classes. This is becoming a huge issue for top students who took hard classes and didn’t realize they were better situated and for those with 4.0 who really were not looked at favorable to colleges as they didn’t have enough advanced classes. It may be better to have to pay for private counselor to understand all this stuff. It is complicated.[/quote]

At my kids' school most of the top kids have taken difficult classes.  Maybe not to a person but there is a strong correlation between top GPAs and top classes. 
These schools (the Big3) are almost 3 schools in one:  the superstars, the hard worker/strong students who aren't superstars and the laggers/slackers. 
The superstars who have GPAs above 3.85 or so (many above 3.9) generally take hard classes.  The same thing that motivates a kid to do well all the hard general classes motivates them to take challenging electives. 
Again, not to a person but in general.

I've seen all the admissions data for our school and the acceptances really mirror GPA and unfortunately, most of the top 20 universities don't take kids below a 3.80 or even 3.9 (and some of us didn't even know there was a cohort of kids at our school that had grades that high...lol).  But they exist and they do well with admissions.  Legacy will get a dip down maybe 0.1 or 0.2 from the non-legacy kids.   But it's nothing like Duke taking a 3.5 instead of a 3.9. [/quote]

Many above a 3.9? Aren’t you the same crowd whining about grade deflation in private schools? Looks pretty inflated to me. [/quote]

Above 3.9 translates roughly into top 10 percent kids at Big 3 Privates. [/quote]

Correct and I think public school parents may not realize how small the classes are at these school. NCS/STA are 70 to 80 kids max, so top 10% is only 7-8 kids. Sidwell and GDS have larger classes, but I am not sure on the numbers. Someone else can chime in, but it is probably 125-140? So 12-14 kids in the top 10%. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics