<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I was recently deferred from Ohio State and was just wondering what my chances at getting in are…</p>
<p>GPA: 3.65
ACT: 27
I work a job and an internship during the school year
No disciplinary problems
Ohio resident
Fairly involved in clubs and sports</p>
<p>My daughter was just rejected for the second time. She was allowed to appeal because she increased her ACT to a 27 after applying early. </p>
<p>Her stats were:</p>
<p>GPA: 3.875 unweighted, 3.90 weighted
ACT: 27
Top 25% of a competitive high school (99% attend college)
Honors and Accelerated classes (but no AP)
Captain of a varsity sports team and athletic honors
Co-editor of yearbook
200+ hours of community service
Very active in many extra-curriculars, including other leadership roles
Triple legacy (mom, dad and brother) </p>
<p>I’ve decided the two big weaknesses she had were not being in the top 10% of the class (OSU is very vocal about having a majority of accepted students in the top 10%) and being from Ohio. OSU was bragging in the alumni magazine about how hard it is working hard to bring in as many out-of-state and international students as it can and, from what I am reading on the blogs, out-of-state kids with similar stats are getting in while in-state kids are not. If you are in the top 10% of your class or have some other unique trait (first generation college student) you might still have a shot - good luck! </p>
<p>Unfortunately, OSU has turned to looking more at test scores than grades because grades are so inflated. In a day and age when the top 25% of the class has above a 3.9, schools have to look to class rank and test scores to make sense of the data. In order to improve their institutional ranking, they have to turn down a certain percentage of students every year. They manage to play both sides of the fence by allowing in a lot of transfer students (that way they get to have high stats averages while also increasing the size of the student body and bringing in more tuition). </p>
<p>Having said that, I don’t think that anyone should obsess so much if they don’t get into OSU as a first draft pick. Seriously, another school would LOVE to have you. I know it seems depressing to get turned down by your first choice school, but I would look at it as an opportunity to go somewhere else. Most people I know who decided to go elsewhere after getting rejected from OSU are very happy. They ended up at a smaller school where the instruction was more personalized. You can appeal and fight to get into OSU all you want, but you may find that after it’s all said and done, you’ve been fighting and appealing for an experience that is rather vast and bureaucratic. The campus is huge, the classes are huge, the experience has its ups and downs. OSU is a good school and the state’s flagship, but it’s by no means the only school worth attending. </p>