Still, she thought it an ominous sign that the first place she heard from turned her down. That second rejection hurt. UC Santa Barbara was far from her first choice, but still. Maia has good grades and test scores, but not great. Her grade point average ranges from about 3. City College -- would count in her favor, as well as her initiative in seeking them out in the first place.
But maybe not. Instead of listening to that advice, we moved her to our big, urban neighborhood public school for senior year. Her best SAT I scores were out of for reading, for math and for writing. She only took the test twice; I know many kids try it three or four times, but we take a dim view of that around here. So she took that one a second time and raised it to The highest possible score is 5.
That was pretty good, especially considering that the school scheduled those tests back to back on the same day. That meant six hours of solid test-taking, with no stopping for lunch and only a minute bathroom break.
Once teachers get to know her, though I guess we should have been prepared for bad news after we had dinner with a few USC professors last month.
After hearing her GPA and test scores, they began extolling the virtues of the city college system, where students often have better luck transferring to a top university after a couple of years getting their grades up.
