Chances at Admission?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
1

Hey all, I’m applying to both Emory College and Oxford and I’d like an opinion on chances in each. My major will be political science. Sorry if this is painfully long haha, but please be brutally honest; here’s my numbers:

3.5 unweighted - 4.5/5 weighted
11 AP’s, 5 in AP US History, AP World History, AP Human Geography and 4 in AP English Language and Composition, I got a poor score on AP Chem and haven’t taken my other tests yet; other than those I’ve taken mostly honors.

(My school doesn’t provide class ranks, will that hurt me at all btw?)

ACT Composite: 33
Subscores - Reading: 36
English: 35
Math: 30
Science: 31
National Merit Commended Scholar

Activities:

Debate: Specifically policy debate (I’m actually trying to get into the Emory debate team especially), I’m the captain of our team and have been for 2 years now. I am currently ranked in the top 25 teams nationally by the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) and ranked in the top 40 teams nationally by the University of Michigan. I’m going to the national championship this year in April (TOC if you know what that means) and also the National Urban Debate Championship. I’m from Chicago, and I won the city championship last year and hope to do so again this year. I do a lot of coaching and teaching for our team because we have no present coach, and I’m in charge of most of our organization and curriculum in class. I also volunteer to judge middle school debaters in the inner city and coach them as well as younger high school students. All the work and travel from being in charge has led to a decline in my grades, although there is still an upward trend in my years, but I hope the value of my experiences outweigh that. Lastly, I’ve attended debate camps at both Gonzaga University and Michigan University for over a month each where we worked daily for over 8 hours.

Theater: I also work as a professional actor in various theaters across Chicago getting paid for both stage work and for a few short films. I starred in Brighton Beach Memoirs as Eugene and received high reviews from the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Red-Eye and more. I’ve been in more than 5 professional productions, but my participation has slipped a little as debate takes over more and more of my life.

Park District Volunteer Work: As a counselor in the summer for 280 hours as a theater specialist in arts camps helping kids. I did this in my first year, sophomore year and partially junior but fell off after because of debate camp.

School Choir: In my Junior and Senior year I was in the boys tenor/baritone choirs and performed a couple times although debate conflicts made it hard.

Museum of Science and Industry Internship: At the MSI in Chicago I worked to teach kids about the heart and other functions of the body within the anatomy exhibits using Ipads and programs to help encourage learning.

Beyond that are smaller activities like 2 years club baseball, piano, church group, and autism awareness club.

I’m also getting recommendations from my AP Composition teacher, my AP US History teacher and the debate team sponsor.

Is this going to be enough? Sorry for the length, but thanks in advance!

2

Hey, I’m a fellow policy debater a small debate school in Georgia.

I’d say you have a decent shot considering you debate experience and qualifying to the TOC. It definitely makes you different among the other candidates in the admission process. Hopefully it makes up for your GPA being on the lower end. I’m not very qualified to say this but I’d probably say you have a pretty good chance.

I like your username by the way.

3

I really wish the GPA wasn’t like that but at least the ACT breakdown is congruent with their interests along with their hobbies and EC’s. If applying RD, your chances are okay"ish" for main campus and perhaps quite solid for Oxford (whose GPA is a bit lower than main…the SAT scores aren’t that different so the ACT won’t help you more for Oxford than main).

4

So, in all honesty I got a D my first semester in AP Chem. It was the worst class I’d ever taken and I the teacher hated me/wouldn’t help. Does this mean my application is dead in the water? Has anyone with a D ever been accepted?

5

Hi - for what it’s worth my son is a freshman at Emory - he did not apply to Oxford. His SATs were 2180. Not amazing but respectable. His subject tests were all middle 700. His GPA was 3.97 or something like that unweighted. He had one B. Weighted it was 4.26 I think. We believe the rigor of his schedule and his performance in those classes coupled with great references is what tipped it in his favor. From what he tells me the kids with the high SATs/ACTs and decent but not stellar classroom performance are the ones who are struggling.

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Hi there, I’m currently a freshman at Emory

quick rundown of my stats, 3.6 GPA UW, 35 ACT score, did alot of MUN, Debate (multiple awards), and All-State musician in California.

Quite honestly I think your extracurricular (debate) should put you over the top. Your GPA is slightly subpar however I think your EC covers it quite well and your test scores will not hurt you nor aid you. I’d say you have a fair shot though!

And to the person above, I think its unfair to state that kids with high SATs are struggling. I’d say I had a pretty damn high ACT score and subpar GPA however I attained a 4.0 this semester (oh and I’m a premed major). I guess its all about dedication and hardwork

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@thecoolboy1234 : Congrats! But up the ante on the course selection lol Select at the upper range of your abilities if you can. “Pre-med” to me always spells: Extremely careful course and professor selection. I hope you’re a little different but many pre-meds aim below their AP/IB credit or abilities in terms of choosing courses (Also, in general, never say pre-med major…doesn’t exist)and professors. Anyway, I think they meant with admissions. It does kind of look like Emory likes higher GPAs better than high board scores (unless those board scores are APs/IBs)

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@bernie12 thanks! Yeah I guess there is no such thing as a pre-med major so my major as of now is NBB. While it is true I am careful in the courses I take I still try to keep my course load as challenging as possible! Although I’m majoring in NBB I’m hoping to double major that with Mathematics if my schedule permits!

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@thecoolboy1234 : Put QSS on the table as well:http://quantitative.emory.edu/prospective/qssmajor/ :Probably has better teaching and a more relevant and modern approach to the material…click the biology option which has an NBB subconcentration (where there are up to maybe 3 math/computationally intensive electives: Computational modelling, Computational Neuroscience, and physical biology). If you get farther along, maybe consider this fellowship if interested: http://compneurosci.college.emory.edu/students/undergraduate.html .As you can see, you won’t be the first majoring in those two. This program appears to put you in good company and also the program flies under the radar so when you become a junior, if you apply, you may have a legit shot. There aren’t but so many math and physics oriented pre-meds or even NBB majors for that matter. I think it is definitely designed to cater to the rare at Emory interested in these disciplines and to prepare for graduate work, but I imagine it can server pre-MDPhD and pre-MD students who plan to continue research, quite well (especially when they apply to top tier medical schools that highly appreciate the mathematically and computationally inclined among the applicants).

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Also, please tell me you’re taking a decent biology instructor (hint: not Cafferty)…that is more important than even choosing a good chemistry instructor as lots of biology 142 concepts are on the MCAT and tested quite rigorously (meaning you’ll want a teacher that puts more effort into their course and exposes students to applications, case-studies, and legit problem sets. Poor Cafferty is so lazy that even his problem sets are multiple choice, and he only lecturers in class).