As we steam toward May 1, and beyond with the predicted heavy use of waitlists, let us know where you will be come the fall…Keep it short and sweet, and positive.
COMMITTED TO:
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS:
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION (A/D/WL) :
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE:
It’s been a hell of a ride. Wishing every student every success going forward.
In the class of 2021 thread it was suggested that we create a new thread for posting our children’s admissions decisions, and that we limit each to a single post without all the back and forth congratulations so that others can use it as a reference. Here is my daughter’s results using the suggested format but feel free to modify as appropriate:
GOING TO: University of Washington
INTENDED MAJOR: Biology or related major in the life sciences.
ADMISSIONS STATS: 3.96 unweighted GPA with 9 AP classes. 1400 SAT from single sitting fall of junior year. Average extracurriculars, mostly music and cross country.
ALSO APPLIED TO (accepted/waitlisted/rejected): Accepted to Western Washington, Washington State, University of Oregon, Lewis & Clark, Whitman, Gonzaga, and University of Puget Sound. Also applied to Occidental RD but they have not yet responded. No rejections or waitlists.
REASONS FOR DECISION: D21 wanted to stay in the Pacific Northwest, likes the idea of going to a larger school, wants to participate in a big-time Pac-12 marching band, very impressed with the new life sciences facilities, grew up following the Huskies, likes the idea of living in Seattle where we have lots of friends and family, close by not too close (3 hours by car or Amtrak) wants to room with best friend from HS who is also accepted, and aware that UW will be cheaper than any of the other private or OOS options. Has a variety of other HS friends also going to UW and playing in the marching band.
My daughter is going to:
Bryn Mawr College
INTENDED MAJOR:
Biology and Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice Studies
ADMISSIONS STATS:
3.9 GPA (unweighted)/4.2 (weighted), T/O. HS does not offer AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/Honors Classes. 21 college credits from classes taken outside of school.
ECs - Non Profit Organization Work, Quizbowl, Science Olympiad, Education Equity Advocacy, Griptape, NSLI-Y Mandarin, Local Youth Philanthropy Board, Local Youth Planning Board, New York Academy of Sciences Junior Academy
Awards - Quizbowl National Qualifier, Science Olympiad Innovation Award, Science Olympiad 3x medals, Yale Young Global Scholar
ALSO APPLIED TO (accepted/waitlisted/rejected):
Barnard (ED) - Deferred
University of Delaware - Honors program - Accepted
She applied to other schools but BMC was her ED2, so she withdrew as soon as she was accepted.
REASONS FOR DECISION: She wanted a small school and she liked the idea of woman’s college. She wanted to be near a city, but not necessarily in the city. She liked the idea of a consortium. Byrn Mawr College is in consortium with Haverford, Swarthmore and UPenn. Bryn Mawr has some really nice traditions like a lantern ceremony, the honour code, and May Day. She wanted to be close enough to home that if there was an emergency or she just wanted to come home, she could… but far enough away that she didn’t feel like she never left. We are about an hour and a half away. Bryn Mawr has a beautiful campus. It’s like living in a big castle.
COMMITTED TO: University of Central Florida (Burnett Honors College)-Orlando,FL
INTENDED MAJOR: Electrical Engineering
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS: D21-4.0 GPA (first 6 semesters of HS), ACT 32,33 (34superscore), did not test SAT due to Covid,9 AP scores, full-time dual enrollment senior year at state flagship. Science Bowl (4 yrs), XC (2 yrs), orchestra (2 yr), Country band (1 yr), Math League (1 yr), small town park and rec committee (1 yr), helped organize fundraiser for homeless youth (1 yr), few months of work at Dunkin’, XC rookie of the year, XC Varsity, Math League and Academic letters, selected for Perry Initiative and Girls State but unable to attend due to Covid situation. She also joined a few college clubs through dual enrollment that met virtually.
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION (A/D/WL) : Searching for merit and wanted warm weather so targeted colleges we thought she was likely to get accepted, and was accepted to all with merit: U of AZ (auto chart), U of AL (auto chart), U of AL-Huntsville (auto chart), UNM, U of TX-Dallas, U of SC, Furman, FSU and UMN.
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE: UCF was the front runner early on and I discovered on this site that it has a good reputation for engineering. She attended a UCF STEM virtual chat series for high school students over the summer. D is interested in Electrical Engineering, but definitely something STEM. She was accepted to the Burnett Honors College and received a partial OOS tuition waiver of $10,500/year and $2000 scholarship for one year. Orlando has weather that she thinks she will like and the dorms look great. It is in an area that looks promising for internship and research opportunities. We have not been able to visit any of the campuses on her list other than our local flagship. I think she is what some would refer to as an “average excellent” student. She was not receiving any full-ride scholarships, but we found the schools listed above were affordable options with merit scholarships and/or out of state tuition waivers.
COMMITTED TO: Hamilton College (ED2)
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS: homeschooled, 3.98 UW GPA, SAT2 Chemistry 740, courses include 9 APs (submitted scores of 4s) from respected online providers and 36 college credits from community and four-year colleges (in-person and on-campus attendance). Congressional Gold Award, Girl Scout Gold Award, regional champion for two years running in one common competitive sport and outstanding national athlete in one athletic pursuit that is uncommon. In that uncommon athletic pursuit, D21 co-created a new category in which thousands of people (measurable on social media) now participate. She’s been pursuing this activity since she was very young and most everything she’s done her entire life is related to it, including journal articles she has published and volunteer activities, and she’s been the subject of regional and national newspaper articles and a few podcasts.
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION (A/D/WL) : Harvard (REA, deferred), University of Vermont (Accepted with highest OOS merit award), University of New Hampshire (accepted with highest merit awards and scholarships), also applied to other schools but withdrew applications when accepted to Hamilton ED2.
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE: Open curriculum, strong sense of community, love the way they handled COVID issues, close to ADKs and nature, love the emphasis on writing and speech, loved the campus, had good rapport with students when she visited (pre-COVID), great career services program starting in the first year, love the emphasis on how a student can be who they are and study what they love.
COMMITTED TO: University of South Carolina (Honors College) Received OOS tuition waiver plus $500/yr merit
INTENDED MAJOR: Chemistry
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS: 3.8UW, 4.6W, non ranking HS, 33ACT, 10APs, 1 Dual Enrollment. Major EC’s: marching band, scholastic bowl, math team, year round PT job
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION (A/D/WL) : University of Alabama (Accepted - Honors and 28K merit), Clemson (Accepted with TBD merit), UIUC (Accepted with 5K need/merit hybrid) - in state flagship, Tulane (Accepted - Honors and 22K merit), Elon (Accepted 6K merit)
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE: Wanted a big school with big school spirit in a warmer climate than home where she could continue in marching band. Loved campus location (right in capitol city) and tour. Honors College admission with its extra advising, small classes and other perks sealed the deal. According to her: “It feels like home”.
COMMITTED TO: Miami University (Honors College) Received OOS tuition scholarship $36,650 plus $2000 PFP finalist or $38650 per year
INTENDED MAJOR: Nursing
STATS: 4.0UW, 4.46W, non ranking HS, 35ACT, 10AP’s 1DE, EC’s Varsity Softball, XC, Interact Club, Key Club, Volunteering,
APPLIED: Bama (accepted 28K merit) Delaware (accepted 17K merit) Clemson (accepted merit tbd) Saint Louis University (accepted 28K merit) Wisconsin (accepted no merit) Maryland College Park (accepted no merit) Virginia Tech (accepted no merit) UNC (waitlisted)
REASON FOR CHOICE: Highest merit money, beautiful campus, direct admit nursing and AP credits accepted.
Congrats! My freshman has been so happy at Miami!
COMMITTED TO: Wellesley
INTENDED MAJOR: Biochemistry
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS: 4.0 UW, 4.85 W; IB Diploma; 35 ACT; volunteered in community medicine in South America for a summer; extensive local community volunteering; high impact leadership role at the high school
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION: Applied ED1 to Wellesley so no other apps
REASON(S) FOR HER CHOICE: She finds the student body to be intellectual, interesting, supportive, feminist, diverse and engaged, which is just what she wanted; she fits with the desire of many students there to change the world; current students say that the “cut throat” reputation isn’t a thing any more since grade deflation was eliminated; she really wanted to have access to a city and loves Boston; also wanted access to professors/small classes so really only looked at LACs.
COMMITTED TO: Boston University ED1
INTENDED MAJOR: Behavior Health or Health Sciences
STATS: 4.0UW, 4.5W, class rank 4th out of 214, 3AP’s, 4DE, SATs 1320 (submitted to all schools, even to the schools that were more of a reach), 2 years Varsity Lacrosse, rides horses and shows in English Equitation/Hunter ring for 10 years, captain of equestrian team for 4 years, Honor Society (officer senior year), student council (office senior year).
ALSO APPLIED TO: (she withdrew all apps when she got into BU ED)
-University of South Carolina-accepted with minimum of $10k/yr merit
-Furman University-accepted with $23k/yr merit
-University of Delaware-accepted (in state, merit money not announced until later, but based on previous years would have been about $1500yr)
-University of Kentucky-was accepted to Honors college with $12.5k/yr merit (but was never actually accepted to school since she withdrew her application in December)
-Boston College-withdrew application but likely would not have been accepted.
REASON FOR CHOICE: Big school in a large city really appealed to her, but also the stronger focus on academics really appealed to her. She really wanted to feel challenged and she definitely will be. When we visited in September we were really impressed with their testing facility and COVID protocols. And she really liked the overall vibe on campus. BU is more expensive then the rest but they gave us $37k/year in financial aid which makes it quite on par with the other schools, except for the instate flagship that was too close for her. Another big factor was BU has a very competitive riding team that runs out of a top notch show barn that we were able to visit while we were there in September.
University of South Carolina was a strong contender with their top notch honors program. And they may have given more merit if she ended up being excepted to the honors program. But she knew applying ED to BU meant she would give up the option or even the possibility of knowing if she would make it into honors. BU was a reach for her so we were both pleasantly surprised that she was accepted. Applying ED I think really gave her the little bit of extra she needed to get in.
GOING TO: Roanoke College
INTENDED MAJOR: Chemistry/Secondary Education
ADMISSIONS STATS: 2.5 end of junior year, up to a 2.7 by first semester senior year (big turn around story that AO’s commented on), 5 years high school soccer (captain), 4 years high school basketball and AAU. Awards: Soccer all-league, best second son I’ll ever have, kindest person in our house.
ALSO APPLIED TO (accepted/waitlisted/rejected): Accepted to Keene State, Western New England, Xavier (OH), College of Charleston, LaSalle University, Hartwick, Wichita State. Rejected from Salve Regina.
REASONS FOR DECISION: Loves the way core classes are handled. Several science education majors to choose from, good size, great support. Beautiful location. Contained campus. Every interaction with school has been honest and yet positive.
S21 COMMITTED TO: Duke ED
INTENDED MAJOR: Mechanical Engineering
STATS: 4.0UW, 4.54W, 8 APs + college level math, 35ACT, 800M SATII, 770 Physics SATII, All State and National musician, yr-round travel athlete, math and science bowl, science internship, math & music tutor for low-resourced kids.
ALSO APPLIED TO: way too many to list, but pulled pre-decision. Accepted to U of Arizona, 35k merit/yr.
REASON FOR CHOICE: Loved Duke’s first-year hands-on engineering program. Very interdisciplinary, lots of certificate programs, DukeEngage, loved campus. Huge Duke BB fan (Dad is a Duke grad).
My 2021 HS son:
COMMITTED TO: Wofford College
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS:
COMMITTED TO: Dennison University (accepted with merit for spring/waitlisted for fall)
SHORT SUMMARY OF STATS: Class rank 1/18 (small, rural public school). 4.0 unweighted (not sure of weighted average). Took lots of DE courses - school does not offer AP’s). SAT - 1320 (applied TO to most schools). Yearbook editor, academic challenge, art club, student council, class officer, NHS, band, worked 6 months
ALSO APPLIED TO, SHARE THE DECISION (A/D/WL) : SUNY Fredonia (accepted with merit), University of Rochester (accepted with merit), Haverford College (WL - sister attends), Skidmore (WL), and Wake Forest (WL).
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE: wanted small LAC with an art program, 4 years on campus housing, good COVID protocols, felt very welcomed on campus, excellent financial aid
S21 committed to: Brown (ED)
Stats: 3.95 UW, 4.45 W, 10 AP classes
SAT 1590, Math 2 SAT subject test 800
Took multi variable calc, linear algebra and differential equations at college through extension school (4.0 gpa)
ECs, runs three seasons (captain) pretty good, but not recruitable level, math team (captain), summer jobs lifeguarding and math tutoring, some volunteer tutoring and special needs soccer volunteering, extracurricular math team (has scored well on AMC and AIME but hasn’t made it to USAMO), NHS, NMF, Presidential scholar invite. He attends a middle class, mid level suburban high school and is not hooked in any way. We do believe (but haven’t read them so who knows) his letters of recommendation were a strength in his application.
Also applied to: UMass Amherst (accepted, in state), U Michigan, U Wisconsin, UCLA, UCSD, UC Berkeley (all apps pulled when accepted)
Was also planning to apply to: Cornell, WashU, Duke, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern
Reason for choice: We were able to tour precovid and he immediately loved the vibe, diversity, campus and open curriculum. He is a STEM kid, but wasn’t sure he wanted to go to a school where most of the students were STEM majors. He also wants a collaborative environment over a super competitive one. He also, liked the size. He wanted a midsize to large school. I love the fact that he will be 1 1/2 hours away. It really is the perfect fit for my fun loving, liberal, intellectually curious kid.
Committed to: The Ohio State University-Columbus (International Affairs Scholars Program)
Major: Data Analytics w/ a concentration in either Public Health or Business, planning to minor in a foreign language and possibly public policy
Stats: 4.2 GPA (3.96 UW, hardest curriculum available), lots of ECs including Rotary Interact President and Student Council, and several school based awards.
Also Applied to: I was accepted to University of Arizona (35k/yr merit), Arizona State University (15.5k/yr merit w/ Barrett Honors College), Miami University-Ohio (13k/yr merit), Purdue University (Honors College), and Denison University (25k/yr merit). I was only rejected by Georgia Tech.
Reasons for Choice: My main reason for choosing OSU was the very strong Data Analytics program with mulitiple concentration options. I was also given International Affairs Scholars there, which gave me a great opportunity to make such a large school feel smaller. I grew up in the area and have always loved the buckeye culture, so I was super excited when I got in. I love OSU’s campus and its proximity to downtown C-bus, so all of the factors led to this being my number 1 school.
COMMITTED TO: Smith College
STATS: 4.74/5.0 WGPA, 3.92/4.0 UWGPA, 1540 SAT, 1500 PSAT + National Merit Finalist, moderately good ECs, 11 APs/IBs, 4 dual enrollment classes, good essays, good recs
ALSO APPLIED TO:
Columbia - rejected
Cornell - waitlisted
Swarthmore - rejected
Barnard - deferred ED, then waitlisted
Georgetown - accepted
Tufts - rejected
Haverford - accepted
Wellesley - accepted
Mount Holyoke - accepted w/ scholarship
University of Maryland - accepted to honors college (in state)
University of Vermont - accepted to honors college w/ scholarship
St. Mary’s College of Maryland - accepted w/ scholarship (in state)
Colby - waitlisted
Carleton - accepted
Oberlin - accepted w/ scholarship
William and Mary - accepted as monroe scholar
Macalester - accepted w/ scholarship
applied as a math major, but now intend to major in government and gender studies
REASON(S) FOR YOUR CHOICE:
I have loved Smith since I visited it in 2019! I was also accepted to the STRIDE program, which provides a paid research opportunity for 2 years and a scholarship. I love the government program and am really excited about the opportunities offered.
Wow, Smith will be lucky to have you! Congrats on your success and on so many awesome acceptances.
Here is my daughter
Committed to: Texas Tech University
Intended major: electrical engineering/minor CS
Short summary of stats:
4.0 UW, 4.96 W, 36 ACT, 1590 SAT, rank #3 of 478. 14 APs, ECs engineering camps, paid research apprenticeship in electrical engineering at Texas Tech last summer (online: COVID)
Also applied: University of Alabama
Mississippi State
We were chasing merit and needed huge merit but D did not make NMF.
Our local state university, Texas Tech gave 27,500 in renewable scholarships between admissions and engineering department. This amounts to a FULL RIDE which is just what we needed.
Coupled with D’s increase in anxiety and her not wanting to go really far from home. This made the decision easy.
We were pleasantly surprised in the amount of merit from engineering. I believe the apprenticeship last summer was a major factor.