Thanks. She had to DIG around a lot to find it.
My DS accepted with $15,000/yr merit. He has 4.17 wgpa, 33 ACT, varsity sports for 4 years (captain this year), weekend job, decent ECs otherwise, including summer program at William and Mary in history. 11 APs, all 4s and 5s on the tests. He visited once but that was pretty much his only demonstrated interest. Honestly, I think he hit the sweet spot. With a higher gpa and better test scores, he may have been waitlisted. Heâs competitive but not too competitive, which seems to be Americanâs jam.
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Iâm wondering what you mean by this? Competitive but not too competitive?
What kind of kid goes to school there?
What is the social life like at AU, do you recommend any LLCâs?
I applied and was accepted for Communications. Is AU much stronger than some flagship state schools in this area, aside from in the area of politics? Iâm not interested in congressional internships, etc.âmore so I am thinking about media production and PR, marketing.
What sold you ok AU?
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AU looks for students who want to go to AU, not because they see it as a backup if they donât get into Georgetown or an Ivy. So when they look at essays, they want to see things that make students attracted to AU, not DC as a whole. Thatâs also why they highly value demonstrated interest. The more you tour a school, open their emails, etc the more likely it is that the school is your top choice.
The school likes to call its students âchangemakers.â While corny, itâs not too far off. Almost every student that passes through AU has some vision for how they want to make a change, or what they want to accomplish. Students are extremely driven, not necessarily just in the classroom, but also in getting internships, jobs, and other professional opportunities.
AUâs social life is mainly centered around clubs and extracurriculars. For communications, most students make their friend groups through classes and clubs like student media organizations. While LLCs can be a good starting point for students to make friends, itâs not the end-all be-all. They donât have too many options for students in specialized programs, though. Living Learning Communities | Housing & Residence Life | American University, Washington, D.C. | American University, Washington, DC
AUâs School of Communication is top notch, and the program is extremely hands-on compared to similar schools. Iâd suggest looking into the PR and Strategic Communication major, it seems like a good fit for what youâre describing.
Iâd suggest emailing admissions and asking to speak with a tour guide. AU allows prospective students to chat with tour guides to get a student-view on the university without having to visit campus. You can email your admissions representative (they go by state) and ask to talk to a tour guide that is in your prospective major/program. Contact | American University, Washington, DC
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This was all so helpful, thank you!
does anyone know how much the acceptance rate was this year?
AU doesnât normally publish acceptance rates until the Common Data Set comes out, typically in the following Fall semester.
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What was the acceptance rate last year?
39% for Class of 2024
64% for Class of 2025 (they had to overaccept due to under enrollment because of covid)
41% for Class of 2026
AUâs AR typically is in the 35-45% range with the exception of the covid enrollments.
Thanks for that info. Tried to find the common data set myself on AU website for 2021-22 but the link still takes you to the 2020-21 data for class of 2025.
Daughterâs letter stated over 19K applications for 2K seats for class of 2027. Wouldnât that mean an acceptance rate of just 10.5%? Could that be?
No, the 2K seats is the projected enrollment. They offer many more students admissions hoping to achieve their projected yield. I would suspect the admission rate is somewhere between 35-45%
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No. The admit rate has to be higher than the number of seats they have. So while 10.5% of the applicants will be in the class, more than that have to be admitted because students will choose other schools.
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The CDS for that year isnât available but the info is on the NCES site: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/facsimileView.aspx?unitid=131159&goToReportId=6&surveyNumber=12&year=2021
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Positive shake you seem to have a lot of knowledge about AU. Here is one for you âŠthe collegevine chancing app was updated in the past few weeks. Daughter went from a target/40% range to a safety/97% for AU. Other schools shifted too but not like that. (Her inputs didnât change) I know their algorithm isnât perfect but seemed like that was way off. So you may have others that comment on that, too. 
Those chancing tests are very superficial when it comes to most schools, since they arenât holistic like admissionsâ offices are. A student could have a 4.0 and a 1600 SAT but still be rejected from any school because their essay lacked personality, or they didnât do any ECs. Or, especially for schools like AU, they could have all of the above, but they just donât seem to fit with the general vibe of the student body and get rejected because of that. They also donât take into account the influences on an acceptance rate. You daughter likely got that high a chance because the calculator is seeing that AUâs AR went up, but it only went up for one year because of covid, and AU had to accept more students to make up for pandemic under-enrollment. The calculator doesnât see that.
My general thinking is those calculators are fun, but nothing more. Algorithms look for who you are as a number, not as a student and person, which is what AU and almost every other school looks at.
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I just played around with College Vine. I think there is a mistake in their code. I think there is a way to report problems - maybe you could let them know?
Other chances look the same/reasonable to me. American went from the 60s to the 90s fur my own kid, and that doesnât add up based on the inputs.
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I think college vine is using AU 2021 acceptance rate of 64% and not the 2022 rate of 41%.
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Can someone tell me more about the University College program? It looks interesting from the website, especially as a way to make the transition to college easier, but wasnât sure about the actual satisfaction of the students in the program. Pros and cons? If a student registers, can they change their mind before they put their deposit down, or can they withdraw if they donât get admitted to the cohort they were interested in?
thx!
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University College is a program where students live on the same hallway as students in their âComplex Problemsâ core class and related classes in a cohort.
Pros:
-Students get a built-in community during their freshman semester
-Extra support in the form of a cohort of TAs and other professors
-Students get UC exclusive events/field trips/etc
-Students are guaranteed to get a seat in a required Complex Problems class, so they donât have to worry about registering for one in Spring if Fall seats run out
Cons:
-Students are limited in the number of classes to choose from. UC hosts about 30 seminars, whereas the normal CP program hosts anywhere from 40-50 in a Fall semester.
-Students canât be in another program that has a living component (honors, CBRS, all-female housing, etc)
-Since the class only lasts one semester, for Spring the program kind of disappears.
Students can withdraw up to a certain point before classes/move in start, itâs up to the program directorâs discretion.
Theyâre having info sessions soon:
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