In general you should avoid public schools as they typically want a high GPA. I don’t know why UVA was mentioned so many times. It’s not the right fit. This is a mathy kid. She should look into stem oriented schools and programs.

Anonymous wrote:OP, please consider Oxford and Cambridge. These schools will not care about your GPA. They will look at your AP scores.

If she has AP scores. Some of these private schools discourage them…

OP, please consider Oxford and Cambridge. These schools will not care about your GPA. They will look at your AP scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

Yet another example from DCUM. Math is “hard,” humanities are “easy.” And yet…

3.4? Did she get a “B” on her research paper? Makes it look “bought” if you ask me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

It just really depends what she wants and is looking for -- and also, it depends on your private and its track record

I might start with schools like USC, BU, NYU (has the new Courant school!), Wake, UVA, Tufts

Are you DC local. OP? At the Big3, a 3.4-3.5 will not get you into UVA. They want sky high GPAs even from the Cathedral schools & Sidwell. [b]The others could work if you did ED.

This. UVA’s 75th percentile has a 4.5; median is a 4.4; even bottom 25th percentile has a 4.2.

Those are weighted GPA’s. You can’t compare them to unweighted private school GPA’s.

My kids go to a private that doesn’t weight. The highest possible GPA is 4.0, and yet unhooked kids go to UVA every year.

I am not saying OP’s will get in, just that this comparison is irrelevant.

This is why I find GPA comparisons ridiculous. I don't know why colleges bother--I no longer bother looking at the data. Even MoCo, FFX County, and Arlington Co all weigh classes differently. For it to be somewhat useful, they should all only use UW GPAs and, even then you still need a lot more data to understand like average number of APs etc... which of course doesn't help with schools that don't offer APs.

Maybe but OP said that GPA is bottom half at the school. That translates universally. A bottom half GPA at a school is not likely to get into a t20, regardless of SAT

This candidate is a bit of a puzzle: strong school, weak GPA, very strong in math. The only thing that seems certain is that even with the best advice there will be a lot of uncertainty and stress.

I’d like to suggest a safety: apply early in the fall to the University of Minnesota. Minnesota has rolling admissions and a 75% acceptance rate. The Niche scatterplot, for what it’s worth, shows high SAT-low GPA kids getting in. This year the supplement was 200 words on why this major, which sounds like it would be easy for this kid to knock out. The math department is well regarded (tied, in this year’s USNWR reputation score, with CMU and JHU), and it offers a BS degree that does not require foreign language. It’s also a big school (which she wants) in a fun city. And you will save so much in tuition that the new boots and jacket will be trivial expenditures.

Assuming she gets in, that will put a floor under her possible outcomes, relieving a lot of stress and letting her focus on her most preferred schools. If by chance she does not get in, then you will all have early notice to panic. Which sounds bad, but is actually much better than panicking after ED results come out in December, because it will give you time to get more applications in to EA schools before the November 1 deadline.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

It just really depends what she wants and is looking for -- and also, it depends on your private and its track record

I might start with schools like USC, BU, NYU (has the new Courant school!), Wake, UVA, Tufts

Are you DC local. OP? At the Big3, a 3.4-3.5 will not get you into UVA. They want sky high GPAs even from the Cathedral schools & Sidwell. [b]The others could work if you did ED.

This. UVA’s 75th percentile has a 4.5; median is a 4.4; even bottom 25th percentile has a 4.2.

Those are weighted GPA’s. You can’t compare them to unweighted private school GPA’s.

My kids go to a private that doesn’t weight. The highest possible GPA is 4.0, and yet unhooked kids go to UVA every year.

I am not saying OP’s will get in, just that this comparison is irrelevant.

Right. But those of us with kids at a Big3 are telling OP you need a high GPA for UVA—like 3.8 at NCS/STA or Sidwell. It used to be 3.6-3.7 for UVA from the Big3 if you were a legacy/URM, but those days are over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

It just really depends what she wants and is looking for -- and also, it depends on your private and its track record

I might start with schools like USC, BU, NYU (has the new Courant school!), Wake, UVA, Tufts

Are you DC local. OP? At the Big3, a 3.4-3.5 will not get you into UVA. They want sky high GPAs even from the Cathedral schools & Sidwell. [b]The others could work if you did ED.

This. UVA’s 75th percentile has a 4.5; median is a 4.4; even bottom 25th percentile has a 4.2.

Those are weighted GPA’s. You can’t compare them to unweighted private school GPA’s.

My kids go to a private that doesn’t weight. The highest possible GPA is 4.0, and yet unhooked kids go to UVA every year.

I am not saying OP’s will get in, just that this comparison is irrelevant.

This is why I find GPA comparisons ridiculous. I don't know why colleges bother--I no longer bother looking at the data. Even MoCo, FFX County, and Arlington Co all weigh classes differently. For it to be somewhat useful, they should all only use UW GPAs and, even then you still need a lot more data to understand like average number of APs etc... which of course doesn't help with schools that don't offer APs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

It just really depends what she wants and is looking for -- and also, it depends on your private and its track record

I might start with schools like USC, BU, NYU (has the new Courant school!), Wake, UVA, Tufts

Are you DC local. OP? At the Big3, a 3.4-3.5 will not get you into UVA. They want sky high GPAs even from the Cathedral schools & Sidwell. [b]The others could work if you did ED.

This. UVA’s 75th percentile has a 4.5; median is a 4.4; even bottom 25th percentile has a 4.2.

Those are weighted GPA’s. You can’t compare them to unweighted private school GPA’s.

My kids go to a private that doesn’t weight. The highest possible GPA is 4.0, and yet unhooked kids go to UVA every year.

I am not saying OP’s will get in, just that this comparison is irrelevant.

Yes, UVA wants a 3.8 from the top DC private my kid attends. If you can get into UVA, you can get into an Ivy. I believe that outside of one ED kid and one athletic recruit last year, every single one of the other UVA admits were also admitted to an Ivy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

Rigorous HS curriculum? Full pay?

Pretty much anywhere except the most highly selective schools.

Yes, its a rigorous private and full pay. But she has a couple of Cs in language.

It just really depends what she wants and is looking for -- and also, it depends on your private and its track record

I might start with schools like USC, BU, NYU (has the new Courant school!), Wake, UVA, Tufts

Are you DC local. OP? At the Big3, a 3.4-3.5 will not get you into UVA. They want sky high GPAs even from the Cathedral schools & Sidwell. [b]The others could work if you did ED.

This. UVA’s 75th percentile has a 4.5; median is a 4.4; even bottom 25th percentile has a 4.2.

More than one C, even if in a foreign language, is going to make most of the names being thrown around unlikely. Look at schools with at least a 40 percent acceptance rate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

If they are ross, promys, canada/usa, sumac, it could hold a lot of weight. Get a recommendation from the collaborating professor since you have published work.
Small private school, extremely rare ECs, you are not going to find much of a clue from your school data. Focus on T20 other than the very top 5. Good luck!

T20 when OP said kid is bottom half of class with GPA? Absolutely no

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges should a student who has a gpa of 3.4 from a private school with 1550 SAT but strong math EC (multiple prestigious math camps and published research paper) and advanced math classes have a good shot at. She does not want to apply to LAC.

You have to research the schools and the major. The ones that my DD applied to (big state flagships) all preferred and prioritized kids with high GPA and high rigor over SAT scores. She is a business major and has gotten into IU, Penn State, Clemson, Michigan State, Pitt, Delaware, South Carolina, and didn't submit test scores but has a high GPA and great ECs applicable to her major.