Chance me for Lehigh ED 1 :)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Lehigh University
1

I love Lehigh and therefore I am applying early decision 1.

Demonstrated interest: 2 tours and information session, will attend the open house, and scheduled an interview for October.

Major: Finance

GPA UW: 3.75 (4.0 scale)
W: 4.1

Class Rank:
Top 20% of 500

ACT: Composite 29
English 29
Math 30
Reading 30
Science 27
Writing 22

Subject Tests:
U.S. History 670
Math 1 630
Literature 700

EC’s:
H.S. soccer for three years and varsity for one year
FBLA member for one year, then elected as Vice President for one year, and then promoted to President
Innovation and Economics member for two years
DECA member for two years
Full Court Peace member for two years
Volunteer Head soccer coach for 4 years for the same team. Around 140-160 hours of it.

.
Work Experience:
Worked in a soccer shop freshman year, was promoted to manager as well.
Worked as a summer camp counselor for soccer for freshman and sophomore year summers
Currently working all year and summer long at a after School program and Summer Camp.
Head Counselor at summer camp
Head Counselor for after school program

Rigor of Courses:
7 honor classes by end of Junior year. Also I am taking French IV Honors, English III Honors, APUSH, and Chemistry Honors.
Senior Course Load will be AP Environmental, AP Psychology, AP Gov Poll, English Honors and some other non-honors or AP prerequisites.

Awards
National Honors Society
2nd Place for Information Systems Management for FBLA in the state
4th Place for Marketing for FBLA in the state
High Honors (3.7+) for every quarter so far, and will most likely accomplish high honors for my entire high school career.

Essay: 9/10
Recommendations: 8/10 and 9/10

Any guidance and information would be a tremendous help. Thanks!

2

Great job on showing interest, solid gpa, decent ECs. I think you have a decent shot at ED1.

If I were to make one suggestion to improve your odds, it would be to make and effort to raise your 29 ACT score by a point or two. You are already in the Lehigh range, but at the lower end. That could put you are risk if Lehigh has a particularly strong pool of applicants this year. jmho

3

@Much2learn Thanks for your input. Do you think that it will help if I don’t need financial aid?

4

@studyhard13 “Do you think that it will help if I don’t need financial aid?”

I don’t think so, per the lehigh website.

“Need-blind admissions. During the admissions process, Lehigh does not consider the family’s ability to cover tuition when making admissions decisions. (It is only during the waitlist period that Lehigh considers financial circumstances, among other factors.)” www1.lehigh.edu/financialaid/glossary

You are a solid applicant, and you may well get in. You can see the distribution by ACT score here: http://www1.lehigh.edu/admissions/undergrad/profile/

I am just suggesting that since you are on the low end of the Lehigh range, a small improvement in your ACT would raise your odds, and take some of the excitement out of it. You can also see that they will not admit students who don’t show interest, no matter what the score, so you get an A+ for that.

Lehigh uses “the highest score in each subject” so even only improve on some parts of the test, it could be helpful.
http://catalog.lehigh.edu/informationofgeneralinterest/entranceexaminations/

I would consider getting an online tutor and working to improve the sections you have the lowest scores on such as Science, and English. Science can be learned fairly easily and should not take a huge amount of practice to score above a 27.

5

Absolutely it will help if you don’t need financial aid! I agree you should try to bump up your scores. My son took the Kaplan Prep class and bumped his ACT composite score by 5 points. We didn’t qualify for financial aid either. I definitely think you should apply. Keep us posted!!! Best of luck!

6

@kikkydee “Absolutely it will help if you don’t need financial aid!”

I am wondering whether you are sure about that, because the Lehigh because their website says that it does not matter. It says:

“Lehigh does not consider the family’s ability to cover tuition when making admissions decisions. (It is only during the waitlist period that Lehigh considers financial circumstances, among other factors.)” www1.lehigh.edu/financialaid/glossary

I will be the first to admit that all I know about this subject is what is posted on the website. If what the website says is not really what they do, then perhaps you can share more about it.