Reply to Is a 3.59 gpa fine for my 10th grade teen?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Is a 3.59 gpa fine for my 10th grade teen?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As long as you have money, then yes he will have lots of options in the T50-T150 range,

In MD, College Park is really the only in state option. The other lower level state options are pretty bad while the community colleges are even worse. It’s the one area where I really think VA is the only viable in state school system in the DMV.

So focus on searching for scholarship options, saving more, preparing for loans etc[/quote]

OP's kid isn't going to College Park from the bottom half of the class at Churchill. OP's kid can attend a different fine state college [/quote]

a 3.6 gpa--a B+ average-- is bottom half of the class? [/quote]

At Churchill, 58% of the class of 2020 had an unweighted GPA of 3.51-4.0. 85% of the class of 2025 had a weighted GPA of 3.51 or higher. (This is from the school profile shared with colleges.) [/quote]

OP-- we are also at Churchill and I have some older kids who've gone through the application process (and are URM) so I have some knowledge.  I honestly think College Park is out of the question unless junior year looks a lot different from prior years.  I know a lot of kids who I think were good students (I don't know their details but I know they were in several AP classes and I think got As for the vast majority of classes) who were not admitted to College Park. Several parents' expressed shock because they just assumed that's where their kid would be going.  (And now this makes me stressed  about my youngest -- she aspires for an Ivy and I'm nervous about her even getting College Park.)  Don't look at the generic UMD admissions numbers-- it is far harder to get in from Churchill (and other W's) than the majority of schools in the state.

I currently have a college freshman who went through the process after affirmative action was struck down and an older kid who benefitted from it.  And it seemed clear to me that schools are really not considering race.  I thought they would.  I thought that essays/activities that clearly identified the kid as black would help schools curate a class that included a lot of minorities.  I can't speak for all universities, but comparing the experiences of the two kids, I'm confident that most schools haven't been doing that and frankly, I think they'll be even more careful given the current political environment.  I tracked admissions numbers and many, many had # of admitted minorities plummet.  I think a lot of universities are replacing 'race' with 'income' as they try to get a diverse class.  And 'income' isn't based on your family's actual income (which they don't have access to when reading applications) but rather on the sociodemographics of the neighborhood, which is I think by zip code.  So instead of being put into a 'minority' bucket, we at Churchill are put into an 'upper middle class' bucket based on zip code.  (FWIW, I don't think they disadvantage high earners particularly, but it puts us far away from getting the URM bump that once existed).

My recommendation is that if your kid can succeed in AP classes, get them in to AP classes next year (and work on GPA also).  And also take a look at the various public schools in MD (UMBC, etc) to see what they're like.  But also look closely at out of state publics.  A lot of kids last year got into non-Maryland state universities (like Ohio State or University of South Carolina) and did not get into UMD.  (UMD wants to give a chance to students at HSs all over Maryland whereas other state universities don't give the same Churchill 'penalty.). And there are also a lot of small liberal arts schools that are pretty well regarded and have lower admissions standards.  
[/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