Question About College Admission: GPA and Multiple High Schools

[Christine]

First off, how good is the college counselor/counselors at her school? My son & daughter went to two different private schools - she got great support and advice in the college application process. His was not so great. Some good thoughts I picked up along the way - grades and a well-written application essay are important, but just as important is a college that is a good fit for your student. Would she thrive in a large university where students are in large part in lecture halls, or would she be better suited to a small college with 20 or less in an average class? Is she going to cope well being far from home, or would she be happier easing into things by being able to come home weekends? Then there's money. What sort of financial aid is offered by the individual schools you are looking at? how are you planning to finance her education? if she must have academic scholarships in order to be able to go, that is a huge factor. Is your college counselor answering any or all of these questions? You are entitled to guidance-that is their job. Good luck! You will all survive this process!

The counselor seems fine. We've pretty much settled on 5 schools--each no more than 3 hours from home. She has one or two she really wants to attend. They are public colleges. We will be unable to get any financial aid because we make too much money (they don't care that my cost of living in Northern VA is astromical). Academic scholarships are out of the question. This is the "pay as you go" plan here!

 

[Christine]

Most colleges "re-weight" GPA's anyway, by removing all "fluff" classes and re-calculating the GPA only on the core academic courses. They'll know what they're doing.

This is what I'm hoping. I have *heard* that they throw out the religion grades from private schools and remove them from the overall GPA.