it was in the acceptance letter
D was accepted with 18K Presidential scholarship! Undeclared major, but interested in journalism and pre-law. She is excited about living in DC, she has only been in DC once before when she was in 9th grade. We did not visit, for those who have, how is it? How’s the neighborhood?
She has 9 college acceptances so she has some decisions to make! AU is one of the top 3 (at the moment!) she is also considering UCLA and Trinity College. The drawback to UCLA is that we live there, also it is very large, 30K students and the classes are large with a professor:student ratio of 19:1. Did anyone visit AU for a whole day and sit in on classes?
BTW we did not show a lot of “demonstrated interest.” She went to the website and signed up for the mailing list, that is it. They did not send a rep to her school or have any local events in Los Angeles that we were aware of.
As far as her stats, GPA was about 3.8UW/4.3W, 4 APs (and 3 more in senior year plus one community college class), all 5’s on her AP tests, ACT was 34. She attends an all-girls Catholic High School (but she is Jewish!). Activities were 2 offices (Jr. and Sr. year) for YMCA Youth & Government, founder of 2 student clubs, founded and organized a yearly charity event at her school, volunteered as a camp counselor, had a summer job as an usher, skated roller derby (but quit senior year due to school and other activities).
For those who were denied or waitlisted, she had those decisions as well, out of 18 applications she had 9 acceptances, the rest were denials and waitlists. I thought it was excessive to apply to so many but we have learned that there is a certain amount of randomness at a point where the applicants are similar; it becomes a subjective decision by the admission dept. There are factors such as “rounding out the class” with factors such as what part of the country you are from, or special talents such as abilities in music or sports, or just how much one person liked your essay. We are not taking any of those rejections personally. She will be an excellent addition to any college class and I’m sure the same is true for everyone on these forums.
Let’s hope everyone can attend college in person on campus in the Fall! Stay healthy!
@jugetyjig The neighborhood is incredible (I live locally and am an alum). A lot of people are inspired to attend after DC field trips — especially west coast students. I’m sad — my daughter decided not to accept her offer.
My daughter was accepted to AU but we never had a chance to visit figuring we would attend an accepted students day. We don’t have a feel for the students or the spirit of the school. She is a poly sci major and excited about being in DC but is worried that it’s going to be ALL about politics. She is also worried about what she perceives to be a lack of school spirit, small campus, and lacking social life. Academics are extremely important to her but school spirit and social life/making good friends is a close second. Can anyone tell us what students are like, how is the school spirit, and what the campus is like?
@TBSB2024 The campus is small in comparison to a state school or a non-city school, but it’s a pretty decent size. Not small enough that it’s a 5 minute walk across campus but not big enough that you need a bus to get to class. There is a lack of school spirit since it’s not a sports school, but I think there’s definitely some spirit. The students are VERY politically active. It’s considered the most politically active campus in the US. Not everything is about politics, but most stuff is.
BTW I’m an incoming freshman who has a lot of friends at AU and who has visited twice.
@TBSB2024 i was able to tour right before everything closed and i know a few people at AU, party life seems pretty fun. i know that there’s 18+ clubs around the area. i personally loved the campus than other dc schools because it felt like a tight-knit community. not too big not too small. im also going to be a poly sci major and it seems like the perfect campus for that major! i hope that helps : )
Not that this matters lol, but I’m just curious if AU published an acceptance rate this year? The only place I saw one was on College Kickstart which states it was 38%. It says out of 20,072 applicants, 7527 were admitted.