I am currently a rising senior and am beginning my college applications. I am very interested in Georgetown, Brown, and Pomona and similarly selective institutions but fear my credentials are insufficient. I have a 3.7 unweighted GPA and a 3.87 weighted with unimpressive athletics and ECs and a 33 ACT. I am planning on taking three subject tests in the fall and am enrolled in 5 APs for the next year. Freshman year I took 1 honors class, sophomore year I took 1 honors and 1 AP, and junior year I took 3 Honors classes and 2 APs. I attend a private HS and scored poorly on entrance/placement exams due to sickness and have been placed in a rigid course track and have been in lower level math and science courses and the rigour of my schedule and low gpa are concerning. Can anyone recommend how best to proceed from my situation. Personal stories and any advice would be highly appreciated.
My best initial advice would be to start looking at safety and match schools where your stats fall at the 50-75% mark. Your list should take into consideration 1) finances 2) potential major 3) location 4) size. Start with schools you think you have a great chance of getting into, pick 3 then find schools where you think you have a good chance of getting in, pick 5. At that point, you can look at schools like Georgetown, Brown and Pomona which are most likely reach schools for you. Save those reach/lottery schools for last.
I am strongly considering a major in economics with a minor in political science and programs like Oxford’s PPE would be ideal. I’m trying to find some scholarships to apply for and I am also considering going to an easier state school where I have a chance for better financial aid. My counsellor told me some safeties for me would Boston University, George Washington University, and American University. Is it worth taking one year in a community college and transferring into a better/reach school, does it help my chances?
Your school’s Naviance will be more reflective of your specific circumstances, but I wouldn’t see BC, GW or AU as safeties.
Here’s an awkward question: you say that you have been locked into a less-rigorous courseload b/c of low entry scores, and it sounds as if you think you should be in the more advanced levels- but you haven’t excelled in the ‘lower’ level classes. Can you square the circle?
I agree with you on the safety school point, I was merely pointing out what my counsellor had told me.
As for my performance, freshman year I was retaking Algebra 1 and taking physical science, Honors English 1, Spanish 1 (also again), theology 1, world history 1, Fine art 1, and health.
First semester I neglected my work and made a minimal effort in all my classes and got As three B’s and a C. Second semester I tried a little harder and made all A’s and three B’s. At the end of freshman year I had around a 3.4 and sophomore year I think I had somewhere around a 3.9 and brought my gpa up and that’s where I have been since. I’m not too sure about my junior year gpa but currently my W gpa is a 3.87.
I’m a bit worried that your GC is calling BU, GW and and AU safeties. They are great matches, but high stat kids get rejected there as well. You attend a private school so perhaps the guidence counselor has more of an insight into your chances than we do. I do want to point out that many people get fooled by American becuase it takes such a large percentage of its class early decision.
American admits 85% of the early decision applicants but only about 20% of the regular applicants. So while it may be a safety for ED, it really isn’t for RD.
I have taken the ACT once and have never taken the SAT, should I take either one before doing my applications?
A 33 ACT & 3.7 UW puts you slightly above the median for BU (32 ACT & 3.8 GPA), making it a match for you. AU had a spoof year where it had a more selective acceptance rate, but for AU 2021 it was ~30% overall with a 28 ACT/1260 SAT and 3.6 GPA. GW is comparatively easier to get into with an acceptance rate of ~42% for 2022.
BU is a match, and GW & AU are safeties.
BU 2022: https://dailyfreepress.com/blog/2018/03/22/bu-admits-class-of-2022/; I definitely wouldn’t treat it as a safety. For your class, the acceptance rate will be <20%.
The grades can be an issue for the first 3 you named, and the rigor of your courses/track. Econ can sometimes be math aware, where they want to see strengths.
5 AP in senior fall won’t give the adcoms much insight. Your grade report will come in as early as Jan or mid-Jan, but by then, you may have been through the first review. Anything you could take over summer? And ECs matter. Any chance what you see as unimpressive would make more sense to us, than it does to you? Don’t arbitrarily omit, thinking they have to be big titles or world class. Adcoms look for a pattern. It’s up to you to try to get a read on what each college likes, values, and looks for, so you can better assess your match (as well as then show it, in the app and supps.) This comes from what they say, what they show, and sometimes other info- not public forums or blogs.ecp
If you need fin aid, please run the NPCs/Net Price Calculators, linked on each school’s FA page. Often a good predictor, assuming parents aren’t divorced or self employed.
BU is known for not having the best FA offers. Not at all.
If you want poli sci, see what experience you can get between now and applying. Any vol work in, eg, a rep office. Or advocacy work with a community organization, the sort where you show up and are involved.
Get a Fiske Guide or Princeton Review.
Thanks for the clarification. Could you recommend some safeties within my range with generous financial aid?
You’ll need to run the NPCs with your particular detail.
“Could you recommend some safeties within my range with generous financial aid?”
Just my opinion: I think that (i) Safeties; and (ii) Affordability need to be very high on the list of things that a student who thinks they are heading towards university needs to think about before starting their senior year of high school. As such this is a very good and timely question.
Thus the first question: What is your budget? You need to figure this out.
Assuming that the budget is less than $280,000 for four years, the next two questions are: What is your home state and how are the in-state options there? Have you run the NPC on the schools that you are considering?
Also, your unweighted and weighted GPA are not very far apart, which makes me think that you have relatively few honors and AP classes up to now. Taking 5 APs your senior year is going to be a lot, particularly since you will also be dealing with college visits and applications. Plan to need to work very hard during your senior year of high school.
I noticed that you used the English spelling of “rigour”. Do you have any citizenship other than US?
I do think that you are likely to be headed for a very good school in a bit more than a year. Whether Brown or Pomona will be among your choices is not so clear.
I’d suggest looking at some LACs that are much less selective than Pomona (which accepted 7% last year) but that also promise to meet full demonstrated need. A while ago, I crosschecked the US News list of national LACs with its list of schools that promise to meet full need.
Here are some LACs that say they meet full need and are in the 20s range at US News: Barnard, Bates, Colorado College, Kenyon, Macalester, Oberlin, Scripps, Univ. of Richmond, Wesleyan. And here are ones in the 30s and 40s range: Bryn Mawr, College of the Holy Cross, Connecticut College, Franklin and Marshall, Lafayette, Mount Holyoke, Occidental, Pitzer, Trinity (CT), Union.
I don’t know if any of these are safeties (certainly not those in the 20s), but there should be at least two or three that are pretty solid in economics and political science and where someone with your stats has a reasonably high chance of admittance (way more than 7% anyway, if not much more than 50%).
There are just a few national universities that are outside the top 20 and also on the “meets full need” list. Two are Boston College and Tufts, which could be considered, but they’re not easy to get into. It’s good to have a range of selectivity in your applications, though, and they’d fit in somewhere between Georgetown and GW.
Even if a school says it “meets full need,” by the way, you still have to run the NPCs to see if their opinion of what your parents can pay is way off from your parents’ opinion. That can be a problem.
Also, if you can get into a good school you can afford, I don’t think going to a community college in hopes of transferring to a better school would make any sense at all.
@Wilson98 Tufts is just as –if not more– selective than Georgetown.
What is your home state? (Both your own state’s public colleges and others through reciprocity agreements may be excellent and affordable options.)
Are you female? (Scripps would be a reach for you, but not a high-reach like Pomona… and Scripps students can do the Pomona/CMC PPE major. Pitzer, which can also access this major, does not admit 30-40% as stated above - their admit rate for this year’s entering class was 13%. Scripps admitted 24%. CMC 9%. Pomona 7% )
Potential match schools with PPE programs:
University of Richmond https://ppel.richmond.edu/index.html
University of Pittsburgh http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/academics/politics-and-philosophy-major
Tulane https://catalog.tulane.edu/catalog-15-16/majors/pecn.html
Potential safety schools:
Denison University: https://denison.edu/academics/philosophy-politics-economics
University of Arizona (Honors College) http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ggaus/
Juniata College: https://www.juniata.edu/registrar/poes/philosophy-politics-economics.php
Denison and Juniata are “Colleges That Change Lives” schools - the CTCL profiles help to paint a picture of what’s special and attractive about these schools:
https://ctcl.org/denison-university/
https://ctcl.org/juniata-college/
Our school doesn’t weight Honors classes and we are allowed to take 1 ap starting sophomore year. So I took 1 ap sophomore year and 2 junior year.
GPA 3.73 UW 3.87 W.
My school does not weight honours classes and they have a strict AP track. Starting sophomore year students can take one AP (mine was World History) and after that if you get at least a B+ or a 4 on the test you can take as many AP classes as you want/can for junior and senior year. Also would it be good to take the ACT again? I took it once and got my score and I don’t know if I’ll improve or drop so kind of a dilemma.