<p>i am a junior from orange county, CA. i have had my heart "set" on Elon since summer after freshman year (although i haven't been to campus yet, i will before i apply!). i want to go sooo badly and i feel as if it has everything i am looking for in a college. </p>
<p>about me:</p>
<p>4.0 weighted GPA
2 APs this year, 2 APs next year (senior year)
officer of make a wish club
president and founder of a community service club
CSF Award- 4 years recipient
Dolphin Pride Award (Com Service) - 4 years recipient
NHS - 2 year recipient
4 years of both Water Polo and Swim sports teams
Member at-large of my city's youth board
attending a well known nationally ranked high school
involved in my church
haven't taken sat/act yet (i estimate i will get somewhere around a 1800)</p>
<p>basically, i am not the smartest person ever. i am only taking 4 APs total in high school (i know that's embarrassing compared to other people). however- i consider myself well rounded. i do well in school, sports, and community service. community service is especially important to me. i am very ambitious and hard working. i want to be a business major, and after go to law school.</p>
<p>i hope to apply early decision or action.</p>
<p>what are my chances of acceptance? regular and early decision?</p>
<p>also, i neeeeeed financial aid. it's a must. how good is elon about giving partial scholarships to students like me? </p>
<p>any/all advice is greatly appreciated. thanks so much!!!!</p>
<p>Elon is not necessarily a school for the “smartest person ever.” It’s a school for smart people who also do a lot of other stuff - which sounds like you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with “only” taking 4 APs - only at a place like College Confidential would that be considered a weak schedule. From what I’ve seen (my daughter is a sophomore at Elon) Elon is heavily populated by kids who took a lot of honors classes and a few APs, and got mostly A-s or B+s. These same kids were also playing varsity sports or dancing or involved in theater, along with running a couple of clubs and involved in some sort of community service.</p>
<p>Elon’s Early Decision acceptance rate is much higher than their Early Action or Regular Decision rate (in the past few years, Early Decision applicants have an 80%+ acceptance rate, while EA and regular decision acceptance rates hover around 50%).</p>
<p>However, I would be very hesitant to apply ED to a school I hadn’t visited. I understand that you are from CA and it’s hard to get to NC, but ED is a binding decision.</p>
<p>In the same vein, ED at Elon does not really have a lot of “wiggle room” with Financial Aid. Elon isn’t known for giving a lot of FA, mainly because their price is significantly lower than many other private colleges to begin with. If you are accepted at a $50K school and get a $17k scholarship, or you are accepted at a $38 k school and get a $5k scholarship, your net cost is the same. Elon is the $38k school.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to guess someone’s chances of admittance to any college, and Elon even moreso. I’ve seen a lot of cases on CC and even at my daughter’s high school where people with similar stats get different acceptance results at Elon, and sometimes kids with higher stats don’t get in but kids with lower stats do. That said, based on your post I think you seem like a good fit for Elon.</p>
<p>I agree, don’t apply ED to a school you haven’t visited, or without having visited others. If, after visiting Elon and others, you still feel that Elon is your number one first choice, and you don’t care about comparing financial aid offers, and you want only to know if you can afford Elon, and the FA calculators (or conferring with the Elon FA office) don’t show that it’s hopeless, go ahead and apply ED to give yourself the admissions boost; your GPA and expected SAT suggest Elon would be a match. If it turns out you can’t afford it, you’ll decline the offer and apply RD to more affordable schools.</p>
<p>My 2 cents as another Elon parent: Try to re-calculate your GPA as Elon will; you may be pleasantly surprised, as they weight honors and AP courses pretty well, but you don’t need a perfect GPA. Keep at your studies to maintain your best GPA. Next, prepare well for the SAT, and plan to take the ACT as well. Some do better on the ACT, and a good score on either or both will certainly help you.Take both more than once, and prepare seriously.
As for FINAID, we found Elon to be very helpful. Work with your folks to complete the FAFSA and CSS Profile carefully, using on-line stategy guides and realizing 2012, if you are HS class of 2013, is the year that counts for the “picture” of your family’s finances. And apply for every outside scholarship you can find- Fastweb is good search resource. Every little bit helps, believe me.</p>
<p>Lastly, never get fixated on one school. Give yourself a broad range of options; there is more than one college where you can be happy and succeed. ED increases your admission chances, but decreases your FA chances. The school knows you are committed, so there is little need to entice you with FA. I recommend applying EA, and working hard to get the aid you need. A visit to Elon, which you should make if at all possible, will probably make you more determined to go there, but make other visits, too.</p>
<p>“ED increases your admission chances, but decreases your FA chances. The school knows you are committed, so there is little need to entice you with FA.”</p>
<p>Here I disagree, and have seen no evidence. The school doesn’t know what you can actually afford (FAFSA/Profile don’t capture all family issues), so low-balling could keep out an otherwise desirable student. If their offer is too low, you’ll decline it and cast a wider net at RD time elsewhere.</p>
<p>But if you apply ED and are accepted (much better acceptance rate) how can you then decline? Applying ED, you agree up front to enroll if admitted and withdraw all other pending applications.</p>
<p>P.S. After reading other posts, including by vonlost, in the finaid forum, I see how that would work. After all, they can’t make you attend and force you to pay what you don’t have. I still like EA over ED, so you have options.</p>
<p>I have a son at Elon and a niece at Chapman. The schools are very similar in stats. Financial aid can be significantly higher at Chapman. Is attending out of state most important? Both are excellent schools.</p>
decline the offer and apply RD to more affordable schools.</p>