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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][i]What about kids who didn't do well in 9th and 10th grades academically but got their acts together in 11th/12th? Say they end up with a weighted GPA in the 3.7-4.0 range but end up with a 1550+ in the SATs in junior/senior year. Basically, a good trajectory. Assuming these are male, White or Asian kids that want to do Engineering/CS with no legacy/hooks/sports. Are they pretty much fuc*ed? Will any "top school" touch them?

Would like to hear about schools that really look into the application and select such kids as well as personal experiences. Not interested in "you can get a great education at any school" posts, please.[/i]

Niece (ok, not a male) faced a somewhat similar situation when applying last year.   Had erratic grades for 9th and 10th grades, then got her act together and got closer to 3.9-4.0 for 11th and 12th (in a competitive suburban Cali public school), which boosted her cumulative GPA up to 3.4 or so.  Took SATs once and got 1280.   No legacy/hooks/sports/URM.   Knew she wanted a large school (for environmental studies/poli sci), and ideally one that would reflect her 11th and 12th grade performance rather than the years before that, so she focused on (stronger) state flagships with a relatively high admit rate, and applied regular rather than ED to show the pattern of improvement continued through senior fall.   She got into Indiana, Colorado, Arizona (and one of those odd 2+2 acceptances from Penn State); rejected from Wisconsin.   Chose Indiana.   Is ecstatic there, thrilled by the breadth of course offerings (and students) and faculty engagement, is making Dean's List.  (Interestingly, her best friends there aren't fellow OOS students but smart hardworking Indianans who are at IU for financial reasons.) The icing on the cake is that we've now learned (confirmation bias at work...) that Indiana -- which her parents really didn't know much about until now - is actually higher ranked on those "global university/reputation" surveys than the Ivy and NESCAC schools her parents went to, so they've happily passed the bragging rights crown to her.

This has made us all big fans of the state flagships, especially in cases like this where the application package is going to have some weakness to overcome.    It seems at virtually every level, the large state flagships accept a greater share of applicants than academically-comparable SLACs and private universities (and the stats you cite might enable your candidate to aim for more selective flagships like Michigan and Illinois and Washington, and for engineering maybe Purdue or Michigan State).  I'm not sure my niece's admission was because of "personal attention" to her application (as you wonder above) or simply because they'll accept applicants who seem relatively qualified and can pay full fare (and assume they'll just drop out if they can't cut it) - but it worked for my niece.  Of course, if by "top school" you secretly mean Ivy or "T20" then maybe this experience doesn't help you much, but realistically there are lot of state flagships in the top 50 or 75 or to 100 US schools, and a student emerging from those with a strong record isn't disadvantaged, either in terms of education or postgraduate prospects.   The outdated notion that the quality of the education available at a particular school is inversely correlated to that school's acceptance rate is silly, especially since there's so much good info out there nowadays (eg WSJ not USNWR) that disproves it.       [/quote]

OP.  Thanks for the detailed post and the anecdote.  I get the "there's a school for everyone" message..supply and demand, etc.  We would want DC to go to the best school possible for his profile but was wondering why a handicap is not available to such late-bloomer kids at top schools (regardless of how you define them) while it is available to perfectly normal kids just because of their color, race, gender, etc.  [/quote]
YIKES! Well there it is. You think your white "late bloomer" deserves to have preference over "those people." Really, this is just gross. [/quote]

Fu*k off!  What are you?  The thought police?  OP was asking a valid question that should be addressed by schools.  Do you think an ADHD white kid does not carry the same level of disadvantage as a black or latino kid with zero issues?  [/quote]

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