My daughter was rejected. OOS, 1190 SAT, 4.32 W, 10 honors classes, and 5 dual enrollment classes. No AP as her school does not offer those.
She’s fine with it and was probably going elsewhere anyway. I’m bummed. I loved our tour of Auburn. It seems like a very special school. Best of luck to everyone else!
I’m very sorry to hear that. Just remember that Auburn seems to use a very restricted evaluation of students that boils them down to numbers only. It seems to speak volumes if a school cannot spend the time to review ECs, letters of recommendation, resumes, etc. Even huge places like Texas A&M are able to do a holistic review of each student. Best wishes for your future!
My daughter was just accepted today. OOS, GPA 3.8W, SAT 1070. We are shocked. It is her top choice school, but she truly didn’t think she’d get in.
She has average ECs, but she does work two part-time jobs, one of which has given her experience in her major. We also visited campus and met with the undergraduate admissions officer for her major. She and my daughter really hit it off and had a wonderful conversation. My daughter was also very persistent in following up with her (and with her general admissions counselor) over the past few months.
My daughter got deferred and is crushed. 3.5, 28 ACT, varsity basketball and soccer, she has some AP but not a ton. So while her GPA and score isn’t great I thought it would still be OK. She is interested in Graphic Design and scored a 5 on her AP art portfolio which I thought was good but she wasn’t accepted. Does anyone know how likely it is to get accepted in the regular pool if you were deferred? We have a visit scheduled in February and I don’t know if we should go not knowing if she got in as it will only get her hopes up that much more and make it harder if she doesn’t get accepted in March. We waited until the 3rd EA to see if she could get ACT up more but did not. I am concerned that we made the wrong call waiting until the 3rd round but nothing we can do now. This is really hard 
Has she visited campus previously? Did she meet with anyone in her intended major? If not, I’d recommend going and doing that. I’ve heard that Auburn does look at demonstrated interest. And for non-STEM majors, I was told that the department often has to advocate on students’ behalf’s to help the general admissions department understand that success in certain majors is generally not tied to typical metrics (GPA/test scores).
Thank you so much for responding! She was supposed to visit in the fall but tore her ACL playing soccer so we rescheduled for this February. I wasn’t sure if we should still go since we don’t know if she will get in but it sounds like we definitely should as it might help. Thank you so much for this advice! This is her number one pick so I really hope it can still work out. This is really a stressful process!
I agree that a visit is worthwhile. Reach out to a professor and schedule a 1:1. Your DS will want to send the school a “letter of continued interest” and having details provided by the professor can add a lot. Plus, no matter the outcome you will want to know that you did everything possible to increase her chances. A deferral is not a “no” so keep fighting!
Thank you so much for the great advice! We will definitely do this. It is so very hard to not know but you are right that she needs to do everything she can. Thanks again! It means so much to get the support and advice.
For the more experienced Auburn families here, is it safe to assume that the majority of the scholarships available through “AUSOM” (Auburn University Scholarship Opportunity Manager) are mainly need-based? The 2nd essay question that applicants have to complete leads me to believe that AUSOM is more helpful for finding need-based scholarships rather than merit-based. Any help/advice appreciated, as my kid is totally burned out on college apps/essays already. 
You can do a search of all scholarships available and see what may apply to your child. There are descriptions for each. We did not find any for COSAM, out of state that were not need-based. But I believe there were quite a few for engineering?
Auburn Student Here! Most AUSOM scholarships are going to consider need, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that only kids with “extreme need” are going to receive the scholarships. PLEAST STILL Apply through AUSOM, even if you don’t think you meet a “need”. Most people I know who applied got some sort of scholarship. There aren’t many university specific scholarships outside of AUSOM, so if you are in search of other scholarships then your choirs should talk to their guidance counselor about local scholarships for your area.
For that need essay, I recommend focusing on areas that may cause your child to need a scholarship but can’t be represented through the FAFSA, like: Do they have multiple siblings that you are also having to save money for their education?; Do you live far away where travel costs for them to go home may be high?; Is your child planning on attending a graduate school(where they would want minimal undergrad debt)?; etc.
@SchoolLover22 @lahurley01 Just wanted to say thanks to both of you for the helpful advice above. I’ll mention that there’s potential benefit in submitting the AUSOM app, in hopes it might motivate the kid to actually complete it. Senioritis appears to be in full swing, both in terms of doing high school assignments and college scholarship apps!
My daughter got rejected. She did test optional, GPA 3.81, apparently only 9% with a GPA of 4.3 are getting accepted with test optional. She has always been an honor student, National honor society, sports, and worked last two years after school. Thinking decision may have not been an holistic approach not sure. Waiting to hear back from schools she got deferred at like UNIVERSITY of Tennesse and South Carolina. She go a presidential scholarship at Saint Joseph’s University for 4 years and they offer a 4+1 program to get a masters, which my son did. More students are going South which is harder.
Sorry to hear, I just posted my daughter got rejected, there are many other schools that are great too!
@SchoolLover22 You are not alone! My DS is so very done with it all!! Hang in there:)
Sorry to hear about your daughter. Auburn is definitely not a holistic approach when it comes to admissions, and it is not truly “test optional”. Applying without scores puts a student at a huge disadvantage.
Sounds like she has some great options…best of luck with the decision!
AU seems to be getting much more selective than they have in the past.
That seems to be the trend. A couple of years ago, they started using CommonApp and application numbers skyrocketed. Maybe fallout from COVID too…hard to say. I think last year the overall acceptance was around 40%, and test optional was under 10%! It will be interesting to see what this year’s numbers look like.
I’ll repost this link again, as it’s quite apparent what joining the Common App did to Auburn’s freshman application count starting last year. It wouldn’t surprise me if Auburn’s freshman applicant acceptance rate dips below 40% for the first time ever this year.
A significant drop in acceptance rate seems to be a common outcome when big state schools elect to move to the Common Application. For example, the flagship University of Illinois campus in Urbana-Champaign moved to the Common App the same year Auburn did, and it’s acceptance rate fell from about 63% to 45% in 1 year, very similar to the drop Auburn experienced last year.
Does anyone have experience of their son/daughter getting deferred in EA and getting accepted in RD? (Especially last year when apps were up) Just trying to figure out the odds of acceptance after being deferred. I know there are many variables, but just don’t know what to anticipate in March