Hi I was wondering what my admissions chances were for Elon EA (I applied a few weeks ago) and my chances for the leadership fellows. Elon is my top pick, but I did not apply ED just in case financials do not work out.
White Female
Pennsylvania
attend one of the best high schools in PA
Academics:
Weighted GPA: 3.8
SAT: 1310
Senior Year Classes:
AP Studio Art
AP Government and Politics
CHS calc
CHS argument and rhetoric
Honors research science
Extra Circulars:
-Cross country/ track and field- have been very successful individually and as a team. Made the state championships every season. Captain senior year cross country.
-Key Club secretary
-Global Scholars
-Have hosted two exchange students throughout high school
-Best Buddies- work with kids with disabilities. I am a peer buddy which means I am committed to a one on one friendship and required to go on at least two outings a month.
-Worked as a lifeguard this past summer
iCan Bike volunteer, a program that helps kids with disabilities learn how to ride bikes
Church youth group member - vacation bible school counselor the past 3 years
From what I understand, ED is the most competitive of the three Elon pools; ED, EA, RD. Your stats are fine, but not exceptional. Am I correct in assuming you visited the school? Demonstrated interest is very important to Elon. I suggest you correspond with your admissions rep and emphasize that ELON IS YOUR FIRST CHOICE. Tell them that the only reason you didn’t apply ED was for financial reasons.
That said, not sure how financials will work out. Elon really doesn’t give much merit money.
I would not count on becoming a leadership fellow. You are a long shot.
I thought I read that ED has the highest acceptance rate, then RD, then EA @college582 and the avg SAT for a leadership fellow was 1220 so the OP is doing very well. The GPA is lower, but I believe Elon weighs the gpas, because they all seem to be over 4.0.
So sorry about the typo!!! Yes, EA is the most competitive and ED has highest acceptance rate. Your GPA is 3.8 weighted, average Leadership fellows is 4.31. My DD is also interested in Leadership Fellow, but we came across something that told us ECs of accepted and declined applicants and her ECs weren’t even close. I just now looked for that info for you but couldn’t find it. That said, You should absolutely still apply!!! She will too! You don’t know unless you try and you may very well get into the Leadership Fellows program. I just wanted to give you honest feedback to manage your expectations. I wish you great success!
My DD stats are:
White Female
New England
Weighted GPA 4.19
Every single core class at honors level except Level 5 & 6 Spanish
AP Us Hist & AP Lang and Comp Junior Year
AP Comparative Gov & AP Enviorn Science Senior Year
Other senior year courses are Level 6 Spanish, Honors English and Honors Pre Cal. Elective is Humanities.
ECs/Awards:
President of the United States Gold Medal for Community Service Sophomore Year
Presidents of the United States Silver Medal for Community Service Junior
Freshman class award for History
Sophomore class award for English
National Honor Society
Circle of Friends/Best Buddies: 4 Years, President Junior year
After School Volunteer with special needs kids 4 years
Boys & Girls Club Keystone Service Club 4 years
Appalachia Service Trip one week each summer for 3 years (like habitat for humanities)
Church Youth Group 4 years
Church Junior Deacon 4 years (volunteer during sunday school / church services)
JV lacrosse 2 years
Works 15 hrs/week at deli
I may be forgetting something, but that’s about it. Doing it off the top of my head.
Thanks for clearing that up @college582 regarding EA and ED! Your D’s ECs look very impressive in terms of committed volunteer work. I’m no expert, but I bet she has a real shot. GL
Why is EA more competitive than RD? Is that just at Elon? From other school threads I have seen, schools always seem to take more from the EA pool than RD pool? Elon is on my D’s list for next year, so am following closely…
@3mamagirls it IS different at every school. That said, during our tour of Elon last Fall we were very specifically told that you have a much higher chance of getting in if you apply ED. In past years only about 500 kids apply ED and around 88% are accepted… with EA just under 50% of almost 7,000 applicants are accepted and 60% of around 10,000 regular applicants. As you can see, your best odds are with ED. In fact, according to those statistics you are better off applying RD as opposed to EA. Let me repeat that… According to those statistic you are better off applying RD as opposed to EA. I believe the high acceptance rate for Elon ED is due to two factors. First, yield… yield (the percentage of accepted students that actually enroll) is a factor in rankings and, understandably, Elon is interested in increasing it’s national rankings. Second, Elon simply pays attention to interest… the fact that Elon is a student’s absolute first choice means a lot to Elon admissions officers. (Which is why I suggested to @citymama9 that she really correspond with admissions so that they know Elon is her first choice and she only applies EA for financial reasons.) Oh, one more thing… Elon tends to be a back-up for Wake Forest and other similar schools. Many students applying ED at another school just go ahead and send an EA app to Elon but don’t really plan on attending. Elon tries to weed those applicants out. So, there you have it. Let me emphasize, I am just Mom like you and by no means an expert, but you have my two cents for whatever it’s worth. Hope I helped. Oh, ps. My DD’s second choice is Miami of Ohio and during that tour we were specifically told your best chance is ED (of course), but after that you have a better chance with EA as opposed to RD. Go figure.
My D got accepted to Elon last year and up until she heard from her dream reach school (GW), it was her first choose. She applied EA. At the time she did show that she was very much interested. She met multiple times with our local rep. At first they did not give any merit, but right around Decision time (mid april), they did give her some. That made her choice much harder, but in the end, for politics/IA had to choose GW. If GW had rejected her, she would definitely gone to Elon. At the time she got accepted EA to Elon, she had 28ACT and around an UW 3.5 GPA. But had tons of EC’s and volunteer work. So i think if under the EA process you show that you are truly interested, and its not a “safety school” , then you should get accepted if your stats/EC’s are good. Communicating with your Rep is a great start. For EA this year though, the decisions have probably already been made though.
BTW I think they sometimes defer, which might also skew the acceptance rates. Some of the EA’s that were not accepted were probably put in the RD pool and then accepted.
@3mamagirls, @college582 summed it up pretty well. There is a ton of competition between schools in the research triangle and Elon is striving to compete with the more prestigious schools in the region by increasing its yield and lowering acceptance rate. Elon has a small inferiority complex and is committed to doing everything it can to move up in the world of higher education, especially in NC. If you commit to Elon ED and meet their baseline metrics, your chances are high. Every ED acceptance helps push Elon’s metrics up into that next tier of competition.
EA on the other hand, much harder. They know that those applying EA also applied or will apply to Duke, Wake, etc., and based on rating/prestige would choose those over Elon. So the school does not want to accept someone simply to be turned down in favor of the local competition. They will put those who are not exceptional or have not shown a ton of interest back into the RD pool and see what they get after others have been turned away from top tier schools. Good news is that there are still a lot of acceptances RD since they have to fill the class at the end of the day.
My daughter was deferred EA with a 32 ACT but accepted RD and given merit. At the EA time-frame Elon was not her first choice and she would have gone to Richmond or Villanova had she gotten in to either. She had not visited the school and had not show any real interest above the application. That is the applicant Elon knows is in the EA pool and wants to avoid.
While Elon was never my daughters first choice until the final day when she knew her fate at the other two, she now cannot think of going anywhere else. She has fallen in love with the school over the first semester despite blowing out her knee and having to deal with getting around campus on crutches. She has a great group of friends, loves the social aspects of Elon, and feels there is a good balance between academics and other activities/programs the university has to offer.
I followed CC religiously last year, living and dying with my daughter over the college acceptance experience. What I learn; it is a crap shoot at best and unless you are going to an Ivy League school do not fret too much over the rejections. Find a few places where you can see yourself for the nest 4 years and once your fate is decided, go make the most of what has been offered. If you dwell on the past and what might have been, you will never find what could be.
@Dross3667 Wow - thank you, that was very helpful. My junior D is definitely not applying to Duke or Wake. We are from the west coast, and she will be visiting in April. She is drawn to the Journalism/Communications program. Yes - we have them out here in CA, and Chapman is a great school that the programs seem in line with what she wants, but she doesn’t want to go to Southern CA. She is expanding her horizons to live in a different part of the US. We are having a hard time finding the right “fit” for her. On paper, Elon seems to check all the boxes except that the location seems to be a little isolated. Does your D think that is an issue at all?
She will be applying to 2 other schools EA because those EA acceptances are higher than RD (she has a grand total of 3 on her list - LOL - hopefully she can add a couple of others). That’s why I was so surprised to see that Elon defers (rejects?) more than accepts during EA round, so she might just have to determine which round to apply (assuming she likes it when she visits next April).
We are trying to do research on our end, but not many people our way know much about Elon. We have a friend of a friend who goes there, and might try to meet up, if possible. This board on CC is not nearly as active as many of the other schools, so it’s been a little tough.
@3mamagirls - the size of the town was a concern of my daughters as well. She was also interested in the College of Charleston mainly for the city itself and bowed out of a very secluded but really unique school in Sewanne (university of the south) because she could not see herself without shopping or entertainment within 40 miles.
However, it really has not been a problem at all for her now that she is at Elon. She rarely has the need to leave campus or the surrounding area and when she does the town of Burlington has a ton of stuff a short drive or shuttle ride away. You simply cut through a few residential neighborhoods and all of a sudden you have Target, Barnes & Nobles, Lowes, etc. There are restaurants and a full fledged Mall that has most of the staples. Enough students on campus have car that they seem to get around when they need to or take the shuttle.
It is not a hip area or a cool college town, so I don’t want to over sell it. But what you see as the town of Elon that feels so small is really only a small part of what is around the campus. And while it might be a bit harder to get to, Greensboro is only 25 minutes away and is a sizable city. That got my daughter comfortable enough in the end, but she has yet to even think about venturing that far. Everything seems to really happens within walking distance of campus.
As for the EA application I don’t want to discourage you from applying in that round. If you look at the numbers, of the 10,000 applications 66% of all application are EA and at a 50% EA acceptance, over half of your acceptances happen in the EA time-frame. So while the rate is lower than ED or in total, the number of acceptances is the highest of the three rounds.
And while I believe there are rejections at that point, my recollection is that many get deferred. You might have to research that a bit more or put that out as a question in CC, but I think it is less about them wanting to reject kids at that point and more about wanting to see what else comes along RD and who pulls their application after getting into their first choice ED or EA. So they seem to be more selective in who they say yes to EA.
Glad your daughter wants to spread her wing and experience something different from what she knows. I encourage my daughter to get away from Ohio and see a different part of the country. The nice thing about Elon is that you get the southern hospitality that NC is know for, but it is also a pretty diverse campus in terms of where students come from. New England is represented well, as is the rest if he eastern seaboard and the south.
@Dross3667 Thank you - this is all very helpful. As I mentioned, no one from around here goes to Elon, so it’s nice to hear some information. My D definitely wants to join a sorority, but hopefully that’s not 100% of the social scene there in such a small town. Do you know anything about this aspect? I don’t want to steal this thread, so if it seems better, can I PM you?
Does anyone know if the EA notification is via portal or a call or a letter? I heard the ED were calls but wanted to get a sense of what you have heard.
I applied ED. I got an email the night before they said the decisions would come out. It had a link to my portal saying I got accepted. The next day I got a call, and then a letter came a week later. I’m guessing it will be through the portal for EA as well.
@chappmom5 my daughter applied (and was accepted) ED. Her states are above near the beginning of his thread. She received no email notification the day before, no phone call before acceptance. She received a phone call the day (or two?) after. We actually were keeping an eye on College Confidential the night before notifications were due. When we saw someone received notification through the portal, she checked and found out she was accepted. Best of luck!!!
I stumbled upon this post while reading about Elon on CC. My daughter is a year behind where you all were at this point last year. She was just accepted EA at Elon this week w/ a 31 ACT, 3.8 (UW) GPA, 5 AP classes, and tons of ECs like SCA Pres, managing editor of school paper, internship w/ marketing firm. We thought she’d be a candidate for the merit scholarships but was offered nothing. Many parents in the EA 2023 EA thread are reporting that they’re shocked their kids didn’t receive aid either. Do you know if Elon offers aid later? Esp if this is a backup school for Duke and WF? She won’t be attending w/out merit aid. Would be interested to hear your thoughts and if your kids ended up at Elon, thoughts about Elon, etc. Thanks!
I ended up at Elon for the first semester of my college career, and I have since decided to transfer out. Elon kids did not care about their education, only about partying every day. I was keen on finding people like me, who wanted to study but found none. I would not recommend. I would visit my friends at State, Duke, UNC and be so jealous of the environment on their campus vs Elon’s.
