thank you!!
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White female from rural NY town
16 years old
Major: biology or forensic science where offered
Rank: 6/220
8 APs (only 8 APs offered at her school) - 5s on all
Lots of meaningful ECs (very committed athlete, writer, published research, etc etc). Superb essays. Rural and Small Town National Recognition Award, etc etc.
Dartmouth - Rejected
Brown - Rejected (her application was AMAZING - so many people said so. Her video was just so wonderful. We are wondering if her age worked against her, but understand obviously it is Brown)
Boston College - waitlisted (again, never a sure thing, but fairly surprised here)
Syracuse - accepted - Leadership Scholar plus large grant
Lehigh - accepted - Trustee Scholar
George Washington U - accepted - Presidential Scholarship
Penn State - zero merit
U Rhode Island - top merit scholarship but declined her acceptance already
Syracuse is the front runner and we were there yesterday for the admitted event for the leadership scholars and it was amazing! Going to visits to Lehigh and GW in the next few weeks. All schools are about the same cost of attendance.
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S23 is now done. Slightly disappointing, but not surprising as we were warned the top 20s are a reach for everyone.
White Male
Upper class
SoCal Public school
4.0UW/4.4 W GPA
1570 SAT (1 take)
3 honors
10 AP including all the language, math up to Calc B/C, APUSH, APEC, German, Psych and Bio- All 5s and one 4 in German
National Merit Finalist
Eagle Scout
Jr. Black Belt (working on black Belt now)
Law office Internship
Economics for Leaders at UCLA (summer program)
A few clubs: quiz bowl, chess, robotics in 9th and 10th (one officer position)
Assuming letters of rec were good (his teachers like him and the German teacher had him all 4 years), he even had a supplemental letter of Rec from his Scoutmaster to Princeton (his SM is a Princeton alum)
Essays were mostly good. I would say his UC essays were his best. USC supplemental essay
was a missed opportunity to show his intellectual curiosity which is his biggest strength.
He applied as a history/pre-law to most, but business to ND, Fordham, U of Arizona, and U of Alabama.
Results-
Denied-Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton (his top choice deferred EA), Duke (his 2nd choice), Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, USC, UT Austin, UCLA, and UCB
Waitlisted- UNC Chapel Hill, UMich, UCI
Accepted- William and Mary (applied RD, but early acceptance was a surprise as a Monroe Scholar), Pepperdine (regents scholar and George Pepperdine Scholarship), Case Western (honors and 38K merit), Fordham (21K and not the NMF scholarship which was disappointing, but he threw this application in for a “just in case” and did not do the supplemental essay), UCD, UCSD, UCSB, LMU (17K merit), Cal Poly Slo, University of Arizona (full tuition scholarship), University of Alabama (full ride NMF package).
We were pleasantly surprised at his success with the UCs (as many smart and talented kiddos get rejected from all and they don’t accept SAT score). Guessing the ECs were just not strong enough to break into top 20. Clearly the strong numbers are just a baseline for top 20 and the people we know that got into Ivies had stronger ECs.
We did not start planning for college until beginning of junior year. If we had started earlier, not sure how much he would have changed. He took the time to be a kid and enjoy life a little. He could have entered all kinds of competitions and probably won, or maybe worked on some research, but he just wanted to have some down time.
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Where is he going to attend?
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He is still deciding. Next week we visit UCSD, UCSB, and William and Mary and then I’ll update!
We visited Pepperdine last Friday and he loved it. It is a very small school though. Maybe too small. We’ll see. You can’t beat the faculty and student kindness there and also the gorgeous location.
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He’s got great choices (with some great scholarships), and it sounds like he used his time in high school very wisely. Congrats to him!
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Just wrapped up an eventful and exciting season of college apps. Here are my results! Will keep activities and awards vague to prevent doxing.
Demographics: Asian, Male, Cali
Intended Major: CS / Engineering
ACT: 35
GPA and Rank: 4.00 UW/10AP (all 4-5s)
School: Large Competitive Public School
Hooks: None (low-income)
Awards:
- 1st Place Tech International Award from FAANG Company
- Research Grant from Tech Company
- 1st place State/National Government Award CS
- 2nd Place International Piano Competition
- 2nd Place Cybersecurity Competition from DoD Contractor
ECs:
-
Music: national/international piano competitions
-
Piano Outreach
-
Research Intern @ DoD Lab: first-author of research paper
-
Created competitive cybersecurity team
-
CS Nonprofit Outreach
-
CS Research @ T10 Uni
-
Summer Job @ different DoD Lab
-
President of CS Club @ School
-
Captain of Cyber club @ School
-
Robotics Outreach Mentor
Accepted:
Stanford University (CS)!!
UC Berkeley EECS (Regents Scholar, full-ride)
UPenn (SEAS)
Dartmouth College
Cornell University (Tradition Fellowship)
Rice University
Georgia Tech CS (Provost Scholarship & Stamps/Gold Scholarship)
Vanderbilt University (MOSAIC RD)
UMich (CoE + CS Advance Selection)
RPI (Leadership scholarship)
Waitlisted:
CalTech
UCSD
Harvard
Rejected:
MIT
Committed to Stanford! GO CARDINAL 
!!!
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You had an amazing run this year. Congratulations on all your hard word and your acceptances!
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Class of 2023 DS
1560 SAT, NMF
9 AP’s (All 5’s) 3.85/4.0 UW
Poly sci/history major
3 college level Internships related to major & volunteer work related to major
Over 150 hours volunteer work
Several EC’s
Distinctive leadership role + a few other leadership roles
Rural applicant
No hooks or legacies
Accepted EA
Michigan State (in-state)
Michigan (in-state)
Denver (Honors College, generous merit)
Vermont (Honors College, generous merit)
Accepted RD
George Washington (good merit, did not apply HC)
Accepted RD for Guaranteed Sophomore Admission
Boston University
Waitlisted
Georgetown (deferred EA)
Northeastern (deferred EA)
Northwestern
Leaning hard towards GW but like the price of Michigan much more.
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S18 had a similar profile and choice between GW and staying instate and saving money (UCLA/UCB). He’d always wanted to be in DC but was very glad he went to UCLA (to do public affairs) then moved to DC after graduation. He had options to spend a quarter in DC and do internships there (though in his case it was remote due to Covid). He talked to a friend of a friend who had taught at GW before deciding and even they advised him to stay in CA.
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Hi everyone! Thought I’d share my results as a member of the class of 2023. This is my first post so I’m sorry if formatting is off.
White Female at a public school
Journalism Major
1510 SAT
Valedictorian (3.98 unweighted gpa, all but 1 of the APs offered at school, all 5s and 4s)
Awards- strongest part of my application. Not getting too specific here but more than 40 journalism awards, more than 10 of which were national. Many of these came with scholarship/prize money. If you want advice on entering journalism competitions let me know!
Extracurriculars- main ec was editor-in-chief of my hs newspaper. Also had two paid journalism internships, one unpaid journalism internship, two free summer journalism programs, various other journalism ecs. Also involved in student government and president of 3 clubs.
Acceptances- Northwestern University Early Decision!!!
Waitlists- none
Rejections- none
So excited!
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DD23 results
School - Top 10 Boarding School (2 yrs started as a repeat Junior
GPA- was over a 4.4 W 3.99 UW at Public school 94 at BS.
Rank-school doesn’t rank but highest grade
average is 96. School well known for grade deflation .
ACT- 36 in one sitting
EC- pre-professionally trained ballet dancer 25hrs a week prior to BS, and dance focus in BS (7 days a week). A few clubs and other activities, internship.
LOR’s- I am sure they were excellent, her BS has teacher comments on each report card that are long, personalized and so well written.
Essays- not sure, her common app one was really good.
Classes- mix of AP’s, honors, arts electives 6 HS math classes and 5 science.
Submitted Arts/Dance supplement where it was accepted
Intended major - math/statistics/comp sci/data sci related but undecided
REA- rejected Princeton
Rolling- accepted Pitt with full tuition TE scholarship
Accepted Bama Presidential +
RD-
Accepted- Hamilton, Colgate, St. Lawrence (41k TE scholarship plus 9k additional merit)
Wait listed- Amherst, Vassar, Syracuse
Rejected- Williams, Wesleyan
Advice- don’t apply to Syracuse as a safety unless you have time to show demonstrated interest they really want that. We didn’t visit or show any at all.
Colgate had the best FA but if you have offers from similar schools that are very different amounts don’t be afraid to reach out to request an appeal, you might just be surprised.
Don’t bother REA to an Ivy without a hook if you come from a BS that typically admits multiple athletes to each Ivy.
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Congrats on her acceptances! So many accomplishments. I agree about REA to an Ivy. Good luck to her!!!
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I am local to GW. I’d pick in state Michigan in a heartbeat. It’s a top school and in state.
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This is extremely insightful AND accurate. Thanks so much for sharing @AnonMomof2
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Most would. But he wants a smaller school, be in a large city, and get out of state/the Midwest. With a poly sci major there are a lot of advantages to being in DC. Most would not pick GW over Michigan, but I’m not sure the prestige of attending Michigan would change his personal outcome. If he hadn’t received merit from GW there would be a different conversation happening. Georgetown was his first choice.
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There are lots of advantages to going to school in D.C. if one is interested in politics and poli sci. Another option that seems to be on the board for your son is U. of Denver. State capitals are the next best thing to the national capital for politics (but less competition for internships, generally), and if your son’s looking for more of a “traditional” college feel than GW, he may want to give DU a second look as it would also be a big city outside of the midwest and DU is about half the size of GW, while still remaining a midsized university, closer in size to Georgetown than GW is.
All that said, I loved GW and considered it seriously for myself. No bad options, here!
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If DU’s generous merit makes it approach the cost of Michigan, I’d consider DU. I have a daughter in law school there. Fantastic school.
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DS Accepted Northwestern ED, ACT 35, unweighted GPA 3.8, five APs previously taken (44555) with four more enrolled, decent ECs (robotics, school leadership, school awards, serious research, social justice), long history of a specific niche academic scientific interest, amazingly talented writer with great essays.
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Responding as the parent of an average (and awesome) student. I honestly never considered her “average” until I discovered CC, but holy cow…the stats of many of the kids on this board are mind blowing!
I am sure there are people looking for outcomes of kids that are not as high achieving, so here goes:
White female from a competitive large public HS in MA
No hooks
3.6UW (School does not weight)
2 APs (not available until junior year), 10 honors level courses
1290 SAT (she did not want to put her time/effort into this as she is a historically bad standardized test taker, and knew she would apply TO to most schools)
Varsity sport, captain 2 years
Competitive dance (5 years)
Member of one club
Approximately 100 volunteer hours (split between two organizations)
Applied as a Psych major
Applied EA everywhere except for USD and Lafayette, which don’t offer EA
Accepted:
Elon (w/merit)
U Delaware (w/merit)
C of Charleston (w/Merit)
Lafayette
Chapman
Waitlisted:
LMU
USD
Richmond
University of Miami (FL)
Denied:
Villanova
Clemson
She is happy with her options and is likely headed to Elon in the fall. We both loved the two visits we had there. She really wants a friendly, collaborative environment in warm weather and was aiming for schools with 5-10k students.
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