Chance of getting into Occidental College?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Occidental College
1

Hi there! Occidental College is my top school and I’ll be applying for Early Decision I. I want to major in film and minor in graphic design and computer science at Oxy, though my heart is set on film as I’ve been practicing it since I was 8 years old. Here are my sats:

Objective:
SAT I new: 1230 (R&W: 600, M: 630)
ACT: N/A
SAT II: N/A
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.81
Weighted GPA: 4.08
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 20-30%
AP (place score in parenthesis): Took many AP classes, didn’t score so high on the AP tests.
IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP English Literature, AP Art History, AP U.S. Government, AP Physics II, AP Calculus BC, Chamber Choir (audition-based entry), film and media studies, and I’m doing an independent study in computer science.
Awards: Robert Bectel Award (awarded to technology savvy students), Green Dragon Foundation: 1st Annual Youth Volunteer Award (I produced video content to the foundation which funds my high school and other local projects), two 2nd place state-level awards from TSA (Technology Student Association) for Digital Video, 1st place regionally and statewide level of the National History Day competition (produced documentary).

Subjective:
Extracurriculars: Head of tech department for all plays and musicals my school has put on for the last 3 years
Job/Work Experience: My friend and I have created our own multimedia company/studio, which specializes in film, graphic design, and score composition. We have gotten clients throughout our small rural town to create media for local’s businesses. Also, I’ve worked for a youth summer camp as a counselor for a few years in a row.
Volunteer/Community service: Slightly over 50 hours, nothing huge.
Summer Activities: Practice filmmaking and computer science.
Essays: Good, well written.
Interview: Yes, planning on it.
Creative supplement: Yes, I will be submitting my film and graphic design portfolio.
Teacher Recommendation: Yes
Counselor Rec: Yes
Additional Rec: From 3 other teachers.

Other:
State (if domestic applicant): PA
Country (if international applicant): USA
School Type: Public, rural
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: $180,000/year

Reflection:
Strengths: Great professional past experience, very large GPA increase over the high school years (10% GPA increase between freshman and sophomore year), strong teacher recommendations, no need to apply for financial aid.
Weaknesses: Not top of class, not the best SAT scores (though I believe they’re close to the average of an Oxy student).

Thanks everyone!

2

Two strengths that you may have overlooked (possibly because you have no control over them):

  • Rural PA. Oxy probably wants geographic diversity, including more rural students and more Northeastern US students.
  • Male. Oxy probably wants gender balance, which means more male students (applicant pool is over 58% female).

Primary weakness is SATs. According to the CDS, the 25th percentiles for enrolled students in Fall 2016 were 600 CR, 600 M, 610 W. Your scores are hovering around those levels.

I would guess a solid chance, but not guaranteed, if you apply ED. If you want to study in the LA area, you might also consider Loyola Marymount or Chapman. These are not liberal arts colleges, but they are small by university standards and are somewhat less selective than Oxy.

3

@Corbett thanks for your reply!

I retook the SATs in June and the scores have yet to come out- I’m expecting a 1300 or above.

4

If you can get ~650 SATs (which would be about the average level for an enrolled Oxy student) instead of ~600 SATs (which would be below average), then your ED chances would probably be pretty good.

You might find this chart to be interesting (not sure how up-to-date it is):
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/occidental-college/student-life/diversity/chart-geographic-diversity.html

Oxy students from CA: 266
Oxy students from PA: 6

This is why geographic diversity is working in your favor. All else being equal, Oxy would rather admit a 7th student from PA than a 267th student from CA.

5

@Corbett Ah I see, thanks.

Do you think a college like Occidental would deny/defer an ED applicant due to having a lower than average SAT scores even if everything else looks good?

6

Everyone has some vulnerable spot in their app. Knock everything else out of the park. I think you have a very good chance at Oxy, esp if you profess your love and appy ED.

7

Sure. For Fall 2016, Oxy only accepted 100 out of 211 ED applicants (or 47%). In other words, they rejected more ED applicants than they accepted. So clearly there were a lot of ED applications that they didn’t like, for whatever reason. In some cases, the reason was probably test scores.

As noted above, my guess is that you do have a solid shot at ED admission, even with the existing test scores, because you seem like a good candidate in all other respects. Hopefully you can address that one weakness.

8

@Corbett Just to note - I called the admissions office a few weeks back and they said that their ED admission acceptance for fall of 2017 is 58%. I wonder why it increased so much since last year.

9

We can only speculate. However, the general trend over the past few years has been towards greater reliance on ED admissions – at many schools, ED admits now form 40-50% of the entering class. Oxy was well below this level for Fall 2016; as noted above, there were 100 ED admits, which was only ~20% of the ~500 new frosh.

So Oxy has room to expand their ED admissions, and perhaps they are moving in that direction. Colleges often seem compelled to compete for the lowest acceptance rates, and boosting ED admissions is one way to make the acceptance rate lower.

10

@Corbett Ok, June SAT scores are in. My superscore of my January and June SAT is 600 R, 690 M = 1290 total. How is that for Oxy’s admission stats?

11

As stated before:

So my guess (and it’s only a guess) is your chances are better than 50%, especially if you apply ED. And it makes sense for you to apply ED, since Oxy is your top school and you are not concerned about financial aid.

12

@Corbett Ok, so what factor(s) is/are lessining my chances of getting in ED? What’s holding my chances back?

13

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that a slam-dunk ED admit would have SAT scores that exceed Oxy’s averages in all respects. Your scores appear to be above-average for math, but below average for critical reading and writing. Your overall SAT score appears to be average or near-average, but not above-average.

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that this will still be good enough for you to get in, given your other strengths. So yes, you should apply ED. Odds are favorable, just not an automatic slam-dunk.

Again, these are only guesses. I am not an Oxy admissions officer, and have no particular insight into their admissions practices.

14

Did you get in?

15

@losangeleno I did! :slight_smile:

16

Congrats! I’ll see you around campus then :slight_smile:

17

I called it. Congratulations

18

@Corbett Thank you!