Chance Me for Bates College

I am considering applying RD for Bates College and was wondering if I could get any input on whether or not I have a shot at getting in. I toured the campus over the summer and had an on-campus interview during this trip that I think went pretty well. I am a prospective biochemistry major and currently go to a public high school in NH.

Here are my stats…
-GPA (my school only does weighted): 4.11
-Class Rank: 28 out of 241
-SAT: 1380
-ACT (not planning on submitting): 30
-SAT Subject Molecular Bio: 710
-I have taken majority honors classes in the past four years and have taken 5 AP Classes in total (Comp Sci, Bio, Environmental, Chem, and Physics)

And here are some of my extracurriculars…

  • Part-time job: Worked at a grocery store my sophomore and junior year and as a restaurant hostess senior year
  • School Newspaper (10,11)
  • Marine Science Team (Team Captain position held Junior & Senior yr) (10,11,12)
    -Science Olympiad (11,12)
    -Yearbook Club (10,11,12)
    -Senior year internship in an AP Biology class (similar to a TA position) (12)
    -Model United Nations (11,12)
    -Volunteer at local library with technology help (10)
    -Science National Honors Society (11,12)

I have stayed on the high honor roll for all four years of high school and have three recommendation letters (one is from my guidance counselor and I have two strong letters from teachers I have recently had).

Thanks for the help!

Are you male? If so, that helps. You seem like a solid applicant. I think your senior year AP assistant position is a plus. Your essay is going to be really important. They will want real insight into your personality. I don’t know if you have any interesting hobbies or other “out of the box” activity, but if you do, it won’t hurt to list it.

I expect it will be a very competitive year. Best of luck!

Regardless of what your hs calculates for you, you need to come up with the unweighted gpa. Otherwise, we have no idea.

Is part of 10th volunteering at a library the extent of your community service?

Lindagaf- I am a female applicant. I wrote my essay about how I discovered my interest in oceanography and marine biology so hopefully that is a positive asset to my application. Thanks for the feedback!

@lookingforward If I had to guess, my unweighted GPA is probably around a 3.7-3.8. Any classes that I received an A- or B+ grade on my transcript were usually AP or honors level, so hopefully that doesn’t look too bad on an application. I have done more with community service at my church, but I only listed the library volunteering on my common app because I would consider it to be one of my longer-term commitments and I had other extracurriculars I felt would be more important to put on my application. Thanks so much for the feedback!

I think it’s really hard to gauge regular decision chances at a school like Bates given that they only require the common app. It seems like such a fantastic college I could well imagine just about every kid who’s aimed high during the early decision rounds and not been accepted elsewhere submitting an application there. Once regular decision comes around I think it’s very hard to demonstrate genuine interest in Bates through your application. I’m baffled as to why there isn’t a supplement.

@Jon234 There was a supplement until the 2017-18 cycle. They got rid of it on the basis of making the app more accessible to all. That’s the official reason. ?

I suspect it had more to do with driving up app numbers, as so many colleges have done in recent years. And it was a smart move, because retention rates are staying the same, which shows they are choosing applicants well. I think as Bates and similar colleges continue to become more selective, the supp essay might return.

You can often demo interest in how you build the app package itself. The more you understand their values, the better you can know how to show what you do show.

Our experience (and this can likely be different than Lindagaf’s) was that community engagement (which covers comm service through other sorts of involvement in the local community) mattered. They have a center for this and it can be a choice in the senior project.

It’s why I asked if you had more service. You might want to let them know the rest of what you’ve done. @Lindagaf, did you think this had any impact?

OP, I think your application will get a serious look. It’s hard to predict beyond that, but I would put your odds above 50%!

@lookingforward , my kid was accepted to Bates with some, but not a lot of, community experience so I don’t think it makes a huge difference. He was, however, engaged in a number of different activities (athletic, music, etc) which probably suggested to most LACs that he would be involved on campus in a number of ways.

If you have committed to volunteering at church consistently over time, yes, you should list it, even if it isn’t lot of hours. As already mentioned, Bates does like community service. The bigger reason though, is that Bates has an active and popular multifaith chaplaincy and your activity in a church group might show your interest in being part of that. I might even consider listing that above your other volunteering position.

Bates considers interest important. They are more likely to admit you, I believe, if they think you will enroll. I see no harm in sending an email to the regional admissions officer, asking if you should submit your test scores, which are basically both the same. You can ask if it’s worth submitting one over the other.