acceptance letters

My daughter applied to Furman (non binding) and was told she would be notified by 12-20. Do you ever receive notification sooner? If so, how soon should we expect notification?

Furman has a very high acceptance rate (due to nonqualified applicants “self-selecting” and not applying) so if the concern is getting in, I wouldn’t worry about it.

the response from happy alumnus makes no sense. Furman doesn’t accept everyone and has standards. Any one receive an admission decision yet??

Nothing yet.

@cocdad, you ought to develop some reading comprehension skills before posting something like that. You completely misread and do not understand my post.

Happy alumnus the admissions office even said your comment is too general. Almost every university has min admission stds.

Good luck to those waiting to hear. Both of my Ds graduated from Furman and had a great experience there.

@cocdad, of course as you wrongly spun my post, the admissions office would have responded like that.

Here’s my post:

Furman has a very high acceptance rate (due to nonqualified applicants “self-selecting” and not applying) so if the concern is getting in, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Does that mean that Furman does not have admissions standards? Of course not. Furman is a well-regarded school.

What it means is that people who probably wouldn’t meet Furman’s standards just don’t bother applying, and so the pool of people who apply is largely made up of people who do meet Furman’s standards, which are quite good.

So please stop distorting my post due to your own issues. Thanks.

I thought you were the happy alumnus. Sounds like you are the angry defensive alumnus.

It’s been my experience with friends who attend Furman that you can pretty much expect notification on the date listed in their website . Although, when we attended Fall for Furman in Nov, they did give several students there that applied ED , their acceptance letters when they signed in for registration . Notification was supposed to be the next day. Great surprise for some.

@cocdad, no need to engage in personal attacks. Please follow the rules of this site.

@HappyAlumnus - perhaps the site rules don’t specifically say so, but common sense would tell posters that the aim of the site is for posters to be helpful to others. Your posts on this thread are anything but and really reflect poorly on Furman.

As to the original poster and the original question:

My D’s HS is very highly ranked with one recent national publication ranking her HS in the top 25 in the nation. Over the past several yrs 56% of those who applied from her school were accepted by FU. In some years none were accepted. A scatter chart shows the lowest ACT ever accepted by Furman from her HS was a 23 - but that could have been an athlete or other special circumstance. I also see a student with a 31 ACT who was wait listed. But generally speaking over the last few years a 28+ ACT combined with a 3.6+ unweighted GPA from her HS got into FU with only the one waitlisted exception noted above. But FU probably looks at each HS differently.

My D was accepted with a merit award and she found out last night. FU is one of her first choice schools. She is waiting to here back from a couple other schools before making her decision. Best of luck to you and yours.

@123Angus My son was also admitted yesterday with a merit award. Do you know if this merit award means that they most likely will be ineligible for the Lays or Duke scholarships?

While I don’t believe he is trying to be unhelpful, based on his previous posts Happy Alumnus took a few courses at Furman years back but did not get a degree from there. Therefore he may not be as knowledgable about Furman as parents of students, current students, or alumni. Since he isn’t speaking as a representative of Furman, his posts shouldn’t reflect poorly on them - they are his opinion.

I think there are several reasons for a high acceptance rate. The one Happy Alumnus mentions - unqualified students not applying - is an accurate reason. I taught in public SC high schools for 16 years, and my students with average stats would not apply to Furman because they knew they wouldn’t get merit money and they couldn’t afford or wouldn’t borrow the $50,000+ a year price tag. In addition, the president before the current one decided to increase enrollment, starting with the class of 2015, so that equated to a higher acceptance rate.

No matter the acceptance rate, Furman is a rigorous school, and maintaining a high GPA isn’t easy. In fact, I think in my older Ds class of about 600 graduates only 4 had a 4.0. But both Ds had great experiences there, got a well rounded education that challenged them, and were prepared to go on to law and medical school.

Congratulations on the acceptances, and the merit awards

@carolinamom2boys – As I understand it, you can still apply for the Lay and Duke Scholarships, which involve a separate online application; but it you don’t make the cut on that, you still have the merit award that was based on your initial application.

If I am mistaken on this, someone feel free to correct me.

Thx @gandalf78

@123Angus, nothing that I have said does or is intended to reflect poorly on Furman. I have plenty of family members who graduated from there, as far back as the 1800s, and it’s long been considered the best school in South Carolina.

What I posted–that people “self-select” and only people who meet Furman’s standards generally apply–is what my Furman classmates always told me, as explanation for the high admittance rate. There is nothing wrong with that.

@HappyAlumnus you may not have intended to come off as unhelpful or grumpy but that was the result as some readers see it. Karl Marx has a famous line about intentions. Perhaps you just had a bad day.

A nervous parent or student simply asked about odds of acceptance and your initial reply wasn’t helpful and a later reply not particularly friendly. At least as far as my Ds HS goes, admission to Furman is not about self selecting and many good candidates do not gain admission. Furman is indeed a fine school but I see no debate about that point in this thread.

It is great that you have family who attended Furman dating back to the 1800’s, clearly something of which to be proud. I’m a first generation college grad - a 2nd tier State U. My father began his career working at a shipyard and one grandfather a coal miner and the other factory worker. But I couldn’t be prouder of them either.