Reply to DD wants top SLACs But Doesn't Have Grades

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[quote=Anonymous]Reality check time, OP.   On the issue of grades, I have a TJ kid. So boy do I get that grade deflation is real and kids at some schools work harder for Bs than kids at other schools work for As.  I have a 4.1W/1530 senior not applying to Amherst, Willams or Swat either. Despite the high SAT. Because middle of the pack GPA.  So I am not busting on you. I am encouraging you to be realistic.

I would trust regional admissions directors to have a handle on whether your kids GPA measures up internally But when people say almost no one graduates from top privates with UW 4.0s, it’s the same deal as TJ. Almost no one graduates with anything close to an UW 4.0.  But the ones who do are the ones competitive for the Williams, Amherst schools.  And Amherst isn’t going to admit a dozen kids from your DD’s school. They will take 1 or maybe 2. Because there are lots of good schools, and only 400 or so slots. And many fewer after legacies, URMs, athletes, etc.

Reality is Amherst could easily fill a class of qualified kids who want to be there just from the DMV. But they want a kid from every state and a number of countries.  Geographic diversity.

A 31-32 ACT just won’t do it.

Here are the 25%-75% ACTs from the Common data set for last year.

Amherst. 32-34
Williams  31-35
Swat 31-34
Haverford 31-34
Bowdoin. 30-34

Your kid is at the 25% of these schools. You see this and say hey!  Kids get in with 31s. And they do. But yours won’t. The 31s URMs, recruited athletes, first Gen, legacies, nationally recognized at something  and other hooks.  And PP is right. Boys get in most places with lower scores. Your kid can waste an ED here. But an affluent, unhooked private school kid (or TJ kid) won’t get in with a 31-32 and middle of the pack grades.

But go down a bit, and the news gets better:

Grinnell. 30-33
Davidson 30-33
Kenyon 29-33
Hamilton 31-33

I would use an ED on this tier. Your kid is about median in test scores, but they are an unhooked.  So median =/= admitted.  So ED could actually make a difference between yes and no.  An ED Amherst has almost no shot. An ED Davidson or Kenyon might. .

And go down further

Macalaster, 29-32
Skidmore 27-31
Dickinson 27-32
Denison 29-31

These are your kid’s targets or matches based on test scores.  They hit at 75%, which an unhooked girl from the DMV needs to.  They will likely get in, so why waste an ED?

You can encourage your kid to swing for the fences and ED Amherst. Maybe she wants it so badly that she does it so she knows she did everything she could. But the smart move is to move down to the one level and ED a school like Kenyon or Davidson or Grinnell where ED might well be the difference between getting in or not.

And BTW— where do kids from Kenyon, Davidson and Grinnell go to grad school, law school, med school?  The same places as kids from Amherst and Williams. These are highly respected in academic circles.

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