Hi,
Currently, AU is my top school, and I am looking to see if I have a good shot at acceptance into the college, acceptance into the honors college, and/or potential for merit aid.
GPA W: 4.29 (out of 5)
GPA UW: 3.90 (out of 4)
ACT: 28
Extracurriculars: Have held political internships, on Model UN, other various political/academic clubs, and sports
Your GPA and extracurriculars make you a good candidate for acceptance to AU. Obviously at AU ED 1 or 2 will give you a much greater chance of acceptance. Your ACT is low for acceptance into the Honors College or Merit. You need to be in the top 25% of candidates to get merit at AU. Their ACT range for the middle 50% is 28-32 according to their website (other’s place it at 26-31). If you want to shoot for the Honor’s college, then you need to improve your ACT. American does super-score, so that is really helpful. Please know that AU is not known for being generous with merit based aid.
Would you recommend going test optional then?
No I would not recommend going test optional with a 28. Please understand that the Honor’s program is highly selective. A very small percentage of students are accepted. You would have to have something very unique on your application or extraordinary essays to get into the Honor’s College test optional. My son was an AU Scholar which has been replaced with a larger Honor’s college. He was on the low end of the AU Scholar pool with a 31 ACT over 4.0 GPA and he competed at National competitions in two different extra curriculars. He said his fellow scholars were all as or more accomplished. He said the Honor’s college students ( only 20 at the time) were so above and beyond. I am not trying to discourage you, but I have seen so many students count on Merit scholarships or acceptances to a particular program in order to attend a college only to be disappointed with their results. If you need Merit or feel that you have to be in the Honor’s college, then your best option is retake the ACT to get a higher score. AU also has grant aid which is based on financial aid needs.
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