Chance me for Pomona ED II?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Pomona College
1

Hey all, fell in love with Pomona when I visited it recently and I was wondering what you guys thought of my chances to get in for ED II. Planning to major in Neuroscience and maybe something with Computer Science. Any feedback/advice is greatly appreciated, thanks :slight_smile:

GPA: 3.75 UW // 4.70 W
SAT I: 2090 Superscored (CR 740 M 690 W 650), not planning to submit atm
SAT II: 760 Lit, 640 Math II (retaking), 730 Spanish (lol)
ACT: 32 (E 29, M 30, R 33, S 35) <----working to improve this to at least a 34 this upcoming ACT test date
Rank: none at school
AP: Spanish Lang (5), Spanish Lit (5), English Lang (4), US Gov (4), Art History (3)
Senior Year Courses: AP Stat, AP Literature, Honors Latin American History, Honors Philosophy, Honors Anatomy & Physiology, Mandarin Chinese II, Theology 12 (mandatory
)

Recs:
Decent, nothing too special from teachers tbh. Counselor one will be great

EC’s:
School - President of Tri-M Music Honor Society (lots of hours spent promoting music appreciation and doing music-related community service), President of China Club (promoting asian culture and organizing trip meetings), Model U.N. (leadership team, travel team where I’ve won numerous awards at local & out-of-state conferences), Peer Minister (grueling work planning annual spiritual retreats for kids at my school)
Other - Around 10 years of guitar (played 4 years for school band), learning Mandarin for ~2 years.

Work Experience:
Certified referee, will be reffing youth soccer games as a linesman (later as a head ref when I get enough experience I guess)

Community Service:
-Have helped set up logistics the past 5 years for an annual fundraiser for orphaned/impoverished children in a small town in the Andes region of Peru.
-Tutored/Helped at learning center for under-privileged kids

Summer Activities:
-spent 1 month at Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan studying Mandarin
-Been to Leadership course @ Duke, Medicine course @ Johns Hopkins

Essay: Common App one is great, used failure prompt to talk about my inability to hold a conversation in Mandarin when I visited China in 2014, and how getting to know a Taiwanese exchange student led to me overcoming my past embarrassment and learning a lot at that month-long course in Taipei (mentioned above).
-Supplement: chose prompt about what’d I do with a $4000 grant, talked about researching sociological and economic effects of 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, work in progress


Info:
State - FL
School - Private
Ethnicity - Hispanic (son of Peruvian immigrants)
Gender - Male
Income Bracket - not one penny of financial aid will be given to me

This is my high school career typed out for you guys
let me know what you think. Is it better for me to apply ED I? Because I still think I need time to work on my supplement and the like. Thanks a bunch in advance!

2

My daughter was admitted with similar stats so you have a chance. Plus you are male which IMO is a boost. Good luck and my suggestion is to write an awesome essay that shows passion within you.

3

Hey! I think you have a pretty good chance of making it into Pomona. I just wanted to tell you that you have to submit all SAT and ACT scores, so unfortunately, you would have to submit your SAT scores! (The same thing happened to me haha). And oops, I think if you’re not finished with your supplement yet/you haven’t had anyone to edit it, definitely to apply ED I. Also, your scores will probably not arrive in time for the deadline, although Pomona told me that they’re pretty lax about the scores (apparently they read the applications near the end of November once they’ve gotten all the scores). So I think if you’re planning on applying ED I, apply now and send all your scores. I also believe that ED I probably has a higher acceptance rate than ED II (i think?) so if you’re really interested in Pomona, it would make more sense to apply ED I.

4

@ravensclaw – Unless I’m reading this incorrectly, it’s not true that “you that you have to submit all SAT and ACT scores”. The link below is a current webpage regarding Pomona’s testing requirements. Note that Pomona SUGGESTS but does not require that all test scores are sent.
http://www.pomona.edu/admissions/first-year-admissions/testing

5

@AsleepAtTheWheel Hahah ok that was my philosophy at first (bc my SAT scores are also not great) but they have an entire page on their philosophy about sending all scores, which emphasizes how much they care about sending all the scores (http://www.pomona.edu/admissions-aid/admissions/first-year-admissions/testing-requirements/sat-and-act-test-reporting).

6

@ravenclaws – Thanks. Regardless of the length of their (full-page) explanation, the first page (linked above) says that they ‘suggest’ and this second webpage says that they ‘recommend’ that all scores be sent. They do not ‘require’. And if they don’t require that all tests be sent they should not expect that all scores are sent. As I understand the system, there’s no way that they can tell if an applicant has taken a test and not sent the score.

Furthermore, their explanation is totally lame. How can they say in one breath that they’ll consider only the best scores while in a prior breath they say that kids who are well-off enough to take prep courses and to take the tests more than once have an unfair advantage? This implies that they will ‘level the playing field’ by penalizing the kids who have taken the test more than once and have improved. And in my mind, this is typical bleeding heart horse excreta.

Bottom line from my standpoint – If you want all the test scores, then require all the test scores. Otherwise, your policy is even more unfair, as some kids will follow the recommendation and others won’t. Well, at least the smart ones won’t.