Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Ivies hate TJ. Sorry. Don't shot the messenger. It is what it is.

There is some of this too. Reputation for being grinders and cheaters. I assume that teacher recs mean a LOT.

Every kid from our pvt high school that got into Ivy+ were well liked kids who added a lot to the community. Not just "volunteered at xyz", but at their actual high school. Tutors, Peer Counselors, etc. All of them had good personalities and were funny and happy. The recs, I think are huge missing piece. Two hypothetical examples of LORs for to students. Student #1 4.0 UW SAT 1580; Student #2 3.8UW SAT 1520:

"Student #1 is a very good student. They are always well prepared for class. They consistently are among the top performers in the entire school. Grades are very important to them, and they make sure that they always work hard to ensure that their grades are the best in the class. Indeed, they have the highest grades of any student that I have taught, and I have taught this class for 10 years. They are intensely focused on academic succes, and will work tirelessly to achieve their goals"

"Student #2 was one of my favorite students of all time. In addition to being one of my best students, I always looked forward to hearing them speak in class and their participation was always welcomed by the other students. Their questions were always very good, and sometimes wound up challenging the way I thought about the material that I presented. When I think of student #2, I think about her great smile and her funny quips that made the class enjoyable for other students. She was never disruptive, but always had a great sense of humor that lightened up a class that had an intense workload sometimes. During study halls, I would often see student #2 helping her other classmates work through difficult homework assignments. She was a valued member of our community, she had great school spirit and she will be missed greatly. Obviously her grades speak for themselves, and I don't doubt that she will be successful at the most academically rigorous colleges in the country."

Who do you want in your student body at Yale?

Short answer: top schools unweight GPA. what was the unweighted one?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Colleges calculate their own GPAs and those calculations include their own perceived rigor of the high school. But GPA is not the only factor, it never has been.

NP do colleges look at senior year (1st semester), junior then sophomore and freshman year transcripts in that order? Asking bc my DC has straight As in 11th and 10th but a couple B+ in 9th. Wondering about chances at T20. Other top kids (classmates) who had straight As in 9th now typically have 1-2 A- in 11th, but their GPA is still higher than my DC who is doing better in 11th in most rigorous course load. Who will be viewed as the stronger applicant academically?

Yes an upward trend is often very important and favorable. But which calsses is each taking and where are those Bs? It's the whole package though, not just the GPA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Colleges calculate their own GPAs and those calculations include their own perceived rigor of the high school. But GPA is not the only factor, it never has been.

NP do colleges look at senior year (1st semester), junior then sophomore and freshman year transcripts in that order? Asking bc my DC has straight As in 11th and 10th but a couple B+ in 9th. Wondering about chances at T20. Other top kids (classmates) who had straight As in 9th now typically have 1-2 A- in 11th, but their GPA is still higher than my DC who is doing better in 11th in most rigorous course load. Who will be viewed as the stronger applicant academically?

My hunch is that most AOs care way more about 10th and 11th than 9th. Stanford doesn't look at 9th at all. Some schools (Penn I think) care only about grades in core classes and not electives. If the B+ is in a subject that's not your kid's major area (e.g. B+ in math for a humanities major), that may have less of an impact. If your school ranks then the comparison will be obvious. If it doesn't, but both applicants are really strong academically, it will be about everything else in their application.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Colleges calculate their own GPAs and those calculations include their own perceived rigor of the high school. But GPA is not the only factor, it never has been.

No. Many colleges, including UVA, do not recalculate GPA and the AOs are pretty well versed in the rigor of the school they are evaluating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t there a cheating scandal at TJ? That lingers on for years.

There cheating scandals everywhere. What are you trying to say? Idiot.

This forum becomes more unhinged every day.

And mean. Pretty sure it is one tj booster (bo current kids at tj, just a tj grad) who insults any poster who says anything negative about tj. Living in the past, in la la land.

It’s not talking negative about TJ but the idiocy coming with it. It’s like saying all white males should be castrated because some white men are sex offenders. The reality is even worse than that with almost all sex offenders being white. How do you feel about that, you sorry little bigot?

Huh?

Yes

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

LOL. Demographics? Hook? Legacy?

Rigor matters a lot. Not only for getting into college and tough majors, but actually being able to handle it.

I stopped worrying about it because my kid was from MCPS STEM magnet program. Developed apps, was co-author in a research paper, 4.8 wGPA, 4.0 unweighted GPA, really rigorous courses, perfect SAT, 12 APs with 5's, Aced PSAT - NMS scholar, impressive volunteering, impressive ECs. Wanted to do CS. He applied to 5 colleges. And got rejected from MIT his first choice (as he had also expected), because he refused to apply to Applied Mathematics etc at MIT instead of CS. No problem, went to UMD. Chose it over U.Mich (too cold) and G.Tech (not gender balanced ha ha). Has done extremely well in college, amazing internships and a plum job offer in hand.

You are going to make yourself and your kid crazy if you start comparing why someone got into college. Totally worthless exercise. Thankfully, my DC's stats were so amazing and ECs so impressive that I never had a moment's doubt that there was any weakness in his application from his side.

MIT chose whoever they wanted to choose and I am 100% sure that there were many applicants who got an offer who did not have his academic or EC record. But, so what? I see more and more students from his HS magnet cohort not caring where they get in because they end up doing very well wherever they go, get really great internships and they all are landing in prestigious and well-paying jobs. And all of them are from donut hole families and so their college is costing them peanuts - and they are using that money to travel internationally with their friends.

The aim is to overall win at life - Health, happiness, family, friends, passion, being a good and giving person and finally success in job/finances. Not worry about college admissions. It is not an indication of your merit or your worth.

Just curious…what was the 5th college that he applied to?

CMU.
MIT and CMU - Rejected.
U.Mich, GTech and UMD - Accepted.

My kid's own ranking was MIT, UMD & GTech. If he had not got UMD and G.Tech he would have applied to more schools in RD. He was not really keen on U.Mich and CMU (Dad made him apply). No shade on U.Mich...it is just that it was too cold and gloomy outside of Ann Arbor. CMU - a great school but our son did not want to go to a school that was all very nerdy and not diverse in gender/race/majors (why would I pay $400K and not be even able to date?).

He had his tribe, career, research opportunities, internship ecosystem, network, social life in place at UMD even before he stepped on the campus. He was not coming from a small town with no other kid smarter than him, who would be just so thrilled to find his tribe in a big college. His entire HS program was populated with brainiacs and they were choosing UMD if they did not get into their first choice.

Even when he was choosing schools, he was doing deep dives and comparing courses, program structure, internships, employment space, industries, professors, their work, publications. He kept evaluating what opportunities a college could give him that UMD couldn't. Though, truth be told, he would have done well regardless of where he went. He is an old soul and super smart.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Colleges calculate their own GPAs and those calculations include their own perceived rigor of the high school. But GPA is not the only factor, it never has been.

NP do colleges look at senior year (1st semester), junior then sophomore and freshman year transcripts in that order? Asking bc my DC has straight As in 11th and 10th but a couple B+ in 9th. Wondering about chances at T20. Other top kids (classmates) who had straight As in 9th now typically have 1-2 A- in 11th, but their GPA is still higher than my DC who is doing better in 11th in most rigorous course load. Who will be viewed as the stronger applicant academically?

If you apply before the year ends (ea, rolling, ed), they are looking at jr year and below. Very few exclude freshman year grades

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Colleges calculate their own GPAs and those calculations include their own perceived rigor of the high school. But GPA is not the only factor, it never has been.

NP do colleges look at senior year (1st semester), junior then sophomore and freshman year transcripts in that order? Asking bc my DC has straight As in 11th and 10th but a couple B+ in 9th. Wondering about chances at T20. Other top kids (classmates) who had straight As in 9th now typically have 1-2 A- in 11th, but their GPA is still higher than my DC who is doing better in 11th in most rigorous course load. Who will be viewed as the stronger applicant academically?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Ivies hate TJ. Sorry. Don't shot the messenger. It is what it is.

Nonsense

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

What was the major?

It is the TJ backlash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have about 15 applying to Penn this year. DC didn't get in with top gpa and score. Among the five who are accepted, there is one unhooked kid whose gpa is at the lower end of the range, but I guess Penn likes her narrative better. No national award. Scattergram shows acceptance from 3.7 to 4.0.

My kids school (not in DC) has 8 kids going to Penn this year, four are URM (none had top gpa). One has a well known spike but is not in top 20% of class. Only two of the 8 kids are in top 10%. So for Penn its not GPA or rigor that matters the most. Only two of the kids had top rigor.

How do people speak so confidently about other people's children on this forum? Are you their college counselor? If so, shame on you for divulging their personal info. If not, shame on you for speculating about things you do not know.

DP. You sound like a deranged miserable middle class striver mom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t there a cheating scandal at TJ? That lingers on for years.

There cheating scandals everywhere. What are you trying to say? Idiot.

This forum becomes more unhinged every day.

And mean. Pretty sure it is one tj booster (bo current kids at tj, just a tj grad) who insults any poster who says anything negative about tj. Living in the past, in la la land.

It’s not talking negative about TJ but the idiocy coming with it. It’s like saying all white males should be castrated because some white men are sex offenders. The reality is even worse than that with almost all sex offenders being white. How do you feel about that, you sorry little bigot?

Huh?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have about 15 applying to Penn this year. DC didn't get in with top gpa and score. Among the five who are accepted, there is one unhooked kid whose gpa is at the lower end of the range, but I guess Penn likes her narrative better. No national award. Scattergram shows acceptance from 3.7 to 4.0.

My kids school (not in DC) has 8 kids going to Penn this year, four are URM (none had top gpa). One has a well known spike but is not in top 20% of class. Only two of the 8 kids are in top 10%. So for Penn its not GPA or rigor that matters the most. Only two of the kids had top rigor.

How do people speak so confidently about other people's children on this forum? Are you their college counselor? If so, shame on you for divulging their personal info. If not, shame on you for speculating about things you do not know.

Because their schools don't have toxic people like you! It's common for kids sharing their information among their classmates, nobody takes it that seriously. I don't see any identifying information being disclosed. It's completely anonymous. WTF are you talking about.

It's toxic to point out that sharing information about other people's children is a bad thing? Wild. Sharing your own/your kids' experiences here is great. Speaking confidently about the experience of multiple kids whose transcripts you have not seen, and are none of your business, is toxic. You have it backward.