Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Senior in private high school in DMV with better GPA, similar test scores and excellent ECs: admitted to safety, one match. WL at other matches and denied at reaches. Matches were those suggested on this thread.
I would suggest spending a good amount of time finding desirable safeties. Best of luck next year!!
Thank you for the info - can you give us the names of some of your DC's matches?
Would rather not- but every single one is listed in this thread as a match.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I heard from one admissions person (not an elite school) that they are very cautious with kids who have strong test scores but lower grades. She said it means the kid can do better than they are. She said they try to find out what is holding the kid back (lack of motivation? effort? distractions?) I am not accusing your child of any of those things. Just saying this person said they considered that combination riskier than the alternative (i.e. high grades, low test scores). Because the latter kids has figured out some formula for succeeding academically.
I thought this kid was in the top 25% of his/her private school class. And the top 15% are probably going to Ivies, so this is just a notch below. Seems like this is hardly cause for concern and colleges should be familiar with the grading profile of the Big 3 schools.
OP you just need to listen to the college counselor.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Senior in private high school in DMV with better GPA, similar test scores and excellent ECs: admitted to safety, one match. WL at other matches and denied at reaches. Matches were those suggested on this thread.
I would suggest spending a good amount of time finding desirable safeties. Best of luck next year!!
Thank you for the info - can you give us the names of some of your DC's matches?
Anonymous wrote:Senior in private high school in DMV with better GPA, similar test scores and excellent ECs: admitted to safety, one match. WL at other matches and denied at reaches. Matches were those suggested on this thread.
I would suggest spending a good amount of time finding desirable safeties. Best of luck next year!!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Someone on College Confidential posted this yesterday:
This is what I did:
I have a 3.5 weighted. which is approx 2.9-3.1 UW(my school doesn't give UW GPA), and a 35 ACT
I got into: UMich+Bates College(top choice via ed)
advice:
a.) Have other parts of your application that really shines-- and start your essay rly early to show that.
b.) do well on ur ap exams
c.) apply to a wide range of schools---don't hang on one tree
And the OP's son has a 3.65 UNWEIGHTED at a top private school.
And honestly, why aren't high schools giving out unweighted grades? What a scam. My DC's school gives out literal number grades and does not weigh the for AP. So an 89 on an AP is reported as 89 out of a 100 on the transcript sent to colleges.
Wow. Your school is really screwing things up for its graduates.
Anonymous wrote:I think some of the experienced private school parents posting in this thread had kids in HS more than a couple of years ago, and they don't understand how much more competitive college admissions has gotten in the last few years for UMC, unhooked kids in the DMV. My oldest DD graduated HS in 2015, had 3.5 UW GPA/35 ACT/NMF and got into schools like Duke and Swarthmore. My youngest is now a HS junior with a 3.87 UW GPA/1560 SAT and has been told both those schools are reaches and unlikely to admit her.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I think some of the experienced private school parents posting in this thread had kids in HS more than a couple of years ago, and they don't understand how much more competitive college admissions has gotten in the last few years for UMC, unhooked kids in the DMV. My oldest DD graduated HS in 2015, had 3.5 UW GPA/35 ACT/NMF and got into schools like Duke and Swarthmore. My youngest is now a HS junior with a 3.87 UW GPA/1560 SAT and has been told both those schools are reaches and unlikely to admit her.
I think it’s wrong to say college admissions has gotten more competitive. The number of kids hasn’t increased that much and they haven’t gotten smarter. The difference is more kids have stats above what used to be high enough for top 25 schools. The stats are inflated due to easier tests and prepping. Your oldest’s 35 from 4 years ago is a much better score percentile-wise than your dd’s 1560 today.
The acceptance rates at the most elite institutions decreased steadily. The problem is, that in the DMV and particularly at elite privates in the DMV, these are the schools that every student wants to attend.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/09/a-majority-of-u-s-colleges-admit-most-students-who-apply/
[Excerpt]
Of the 1,364 four-year colleges and universities we looked at, 17 admitted fewer than 10% of applicants in 2017, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available. That group includes such prestigious names as Stanford (4.7%), Harvard (5.2%), Yale (6.9%) and Northwestern (9.2%). Another 29 schools admitted between 10% and 20% of applicants, including Georgetown (15.7%), the University of Southern California (16%), UCLA (16.1%) and the University of California, Berkeley (17.1%). ...
The extremely competitive schools amounted to 3.4% of all the colleges and universities in this analysis, and they accounted for just 4.1% of total student enrollment. By contrast, more than half of the schools in our sample (53.3%) admitted two-thirds or more of their applicants in 2017, including such well-known names as St. John’s University in New York (67.7%), Virginia Tech (70.1%), Quinnipiac University (73.9%), the University of Missouri at Columbia (78.1%) and George Mason University (81.3%).
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I think some of the experienced private school parents posting in this thread had kids in HS more than a couple of years ago, and they don't understand how much more competitive college admissions has gotten in the last few years for UMC, unhooked kids in the DMV. My oldest DD graduated HS in 2015, had 3.5 UW GPA/35 ACT/NMF and got into schools like Duke and Swarthmore. My youngest is now a HS junior with a 3.87 UW GPA/1560 SAT and has been told both those schools are reaches and unlikely to admit her.
I think it’s wrong to say college admissions has gotten more competitive. The number of kids hasn’t increased that much and they haven’t gotten smarter. The difference is more kids have stats above what used to be high enough for top 25 schools. The stats are inflated due to easier tests and prepping. Your oldest’s 35 from 4 years ago is a much better score percentile-wise than your dd’s 1560 today.