Chance me for Northeastern!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northeastern University
1

I honestly have no idea if I’ll get in. Looking at the stats of other students from my HS who applied, I’m in between the people who got accept and the people who got denied (although I’m leaning towards the accepted area just by a little bit). I know that Northeastern’s acceptance rate has been decreasing over the past few years and will most likely continue to do so this year, so where I stand may be a problem. My college essay is exceptional, but it mentions nothing about how worldly I am, which I know Northeastern puts a big emphasis on. Also, if I don’t get in for Early Action (which I applied for), I could be deferred to regular decision or get into N.U.in which is a program in which students travel abroad for the first semester (I doubt I’ll get accepted to that though because I did not mention anything about traveling in my essay, although I did check off the option saying that I wanted to study abroad during college at some point). Alright. Here we go.

Race: White
Gender: F
Major: Engineering (which may be a problem considering I have never taken an AP math class, but I have taken two AP physics classes. I’ve gotten As or A-s in all of my honor math classes.)
Applied to Early Action
GPA (weighted):4.501/5
GPA (unweighted): 3.83/4
Class Rank: barely in the top 20% of almost 300 students
SAT:1390
SAT (superscored): 1420 (750 reading, 670 math)
Extra Curriculars:
Volleyball for two years
Rugby for the other two years
I’ve had a part time job for over a year now and I work 2-3 days a week.
Member of many clubs (SWE, Feminism club, GSA, school literary journal)
Community Service:
-volunteered for an organization that helps underprivileged kids in our city (two years)
-Member of a club that organizes many food/ donation drives
-helped out at a summer camp for underprivileged middle schoolers and taught them how to play rugby

AP classes I have taken/ am taking (7): AP Physics 1 (B+), AP U.S. History (A-), AP Lang(A), AP Psych, AP Physics 2, AP Govt., AP Lit.
High Honors classes I have taken (higher level than honors, but lower than AP in my school): Chemistry, Biology, English 9, English 10, World History.

NOTE: I have only gotten three Bs in my HS career. Two of them were in Freshman year in High honors English (B-) and high honors Biology (B) and one was in Junior year AP Physics 1 (B+). I have never gotten a C or lower.

I have three fantastic rec letters from two teachers (one physics, one english) and one from my guidance counselor.

In my essay I explain that I was severely sick for the majority of freshman year, so that brought my GPA down.

2

I’m also in my school’s National Honor Society and was in Spanish Honor Society.

3

Your SAT is a bit low, so I would say Northeastern is a high match / low reach. Your GPA should help.

quote. Alright. Here we go.

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At least last year, there should be a checkbox style option for explicitly stating if you were interested in NU.in - what you check that will be much more important for NU.in admission vs regular admit.

I assume this was casually mentioned and not a big point in the essay. If it was, that could be a negative.

Good luck!

4

Mentions of illness etc. should be addressed in the GC recommendation, not the essay.

5

Illness could be covered in the essay if this is what the essay was about. It could have been a major part of the applicant’s life and he/she wanted to write about that. Without reading the essay we don’t know whether this was a good or bad topic to write about. All depends how it was covered.

6

@bookmangoes as you suspect already, NE is a reach for you. My S has similar stats and applied to engineering. I definitely consider NE a reach for him and am not expecting him to be accepted during the EA round.

7

@WilliamNYC If illness is used as an explanation for low stats it should always be corroborated by a guidance counselor.

8

Yes @TomSrOfBoston of course. Your initial post however mentioned that illness should not be mentioned in the essay. That’s a blanket statement and casts doubt on the OP’s decision to write about that. It’s a personal essay and can be about anything.