Hi! Curious about Commonwealth Honors College Admissions this year and who’s gotten in.
I applied Early Action with a 1580 SAT, 4.5 weighted GPA and 8 AP exams taken (5s on Physics C Electromagnetism, Physics C Mechanics, APUSH, French, and Macroecon, 4s on Microecon, Comp Sci, and BC Calculus). Not taking a heavy course load senior year though comparatively, only one AP (Chem) and 3 other honors classes. Didn’t get an invitatation to the honors college or any merit scholarships.
Accepted to Isenberg and to Commonwealth Honors College! 14k scholarships too
(got email on Thursday)
OOS applicant
3.9 uw
31 ACT
school doesn’t rank (competitive school though)
9 AP’s and 1 honors class (didn’t send in scores)
Really strong EC’s with leadership positions that had an overall theme to it
Great essay that was unique
I think pretty good rec letters although I didn’t read them
I was pretty surprised about the honors college because I didn’t do their optional essays
My daughter did not get into the Honors College at UMass Amherst today despite a 4.7 weighted GPA, 1560 SAT, 8 APs and being in the top 3% in her class. I am sure there are hundreds of students invited to the Honors program with far less academic credentials. I had walked out of the admitted students event with my son a few years ago when to my surprise he was not invited to the honors program, at that time I did not know the invitation came with the admission letter so I foolishly went to attend the event. He went to another state university which is ranked much higher than UMass and received merit scholarship as well. He applied there, after we walked out of UMass.
This is the reason the FLAGSHIP of the UMASS system is ranked 74 th in the country and does not attract the majority of meritorious students from its backyard. It is time MA residents pushed back and ask why the public college system of a state known for EDUCATION fares so poorly !!
Accepted for CS-CHC-2k Deans Award (IS)
@Bethune707 I think the reason UMass Amherst is ranked so poorly is due to the fact that it is in New England in general. All the top students apply to the Ivies. The fact that Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge does not help as well.
SAT I (breakdown): 1540 (790 Math / 750 CR+Writing / 16 essay) single sitting
ACT (breakdown): Did Not take
SAT II: 800 Math II, 730 Physics
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): ~3.7 (5.5 on a weighted scale of 6)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 15%, school isn’t more specific than that.
AP (place score in parenthesis): Physics 2: 4, Statistics: 5, and US History: 5
IB (place score in parenthesis): NA
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C, AP Chemistry, AP Goverment, AP Economics, AP English
Q1 BC: B+, Physics C: A+, Chemistry: A-, Gov: A+, Econ: A, English: B-
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Qualified for the AIME (American Invitational Mathmatica Examination) this year and got a 6. Placed 4th for the Circuit Lab during the Science Olympiad Massachusetts state tournament (not sure this one is major though)
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
-Programming Club (Current President)
-Science Olympiad Competition Team Member (Informal group leader)
-Varsity Wrestling
-Have been playing piano and guitar since 8th grade. I take lessons an hour a week and practice for about 6.
-Bee keeper
Job/Work Experience: none
Volunteer/Community service: Taught English to members of the Greek Navy via Skype.
Summer Activities: An internship at Philips on QRS detection on an electrocardiogram; wrote a short research paper on my findings.
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Spent around 2 hours on them the day they were due.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: AP US History 9/10. Good guy: talked about history/ politics a lot after school.
Teacher Rec #2: Honors Precalc and Trig. Hopefully good. 8-9/10?
Counselor Rec: 10/10 - I have known her for 3 years now. She’s told me to my face she would be including that I am the most passionate student for physics she had ever seen.
Additional Rec: 10/10 Rec from the person I did my internship under.
Other: Can speak Polish
Applied for Financial Aid?: Didn’t apply for it
Intended Major: Computer Science
State (if domestic applicant): MA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public- Consistently top 15 in the state.
Ethnicity: Polish/Greek
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 200k+
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Mom didn’t graduate High School, but that kinda gets canceled out by my dads PhD, so not really I guess?
My son was also not invited, which really surprised us. He applied to their biochem program and I’m wondering if that’s why. He’s 5th in his class and has amazing scores, grades, ECs and course load. (ACT 35, SAT 1580, NMSF, etc, etc). He’s got 3 friends that all got invited to the Honors program - 2 for Isenberg, 1 for CS. So it’s got to be a numbers thing (as well as credentials obviously). What program did you apply to?
@Bethune707 Also, if your daughter attends UMass Amherst, she can apply for admission to the Honors College in the Spring.
@nightowl914 I applied for the physics program, which I don’t think is one of the more selective ones, though I’m not sure.
@nightowl914 I too applied for UMASS (in-state) EA and didn’t get the CHC or any money (I know in-state usually doesn’t get any $ but many people I know still got the 2k Dean’s award). I have a 1540 SAT, 34 ACT, 4.75 weighted GPA, NMSF, top 5%, etc. The valedictorian of a neighboring town who applied for bio also failed to get in the Honors program. Is anyone else in the same boat?
@Bethune707 What school did you end up in?
Massachusetts in state:
Umass Amherst accepted into Biomedical Engineering program, no honors collage no merit … so disappointed in Umass Amherst, what’s up with that we were really hoping for this one but without merit or honors collage it’s not worth it. Could it be that DD didn’t send her SAT score just ACT score? She got a 1450 SAT score. We are just shocked because we were counting on this for affordability.
Do they ever reconsider?
Any advice appreciated.
Stats: 34 ACT, 3rd in class (of 250), 3.95 uw GPA 4.65 w, 8 AP classes, very involved in music program, captain of Tennis varsity team, etc.
WPI Presidential Scholarship $31,000 for each academic year of your undergraduate program. Umass Dartmouth accepted and 15 k a year merit. DD accepted into Chemical / Biomedical Engineering and Northeastern scholarships 27 k a year merit and Honors collage. All Still expensive for us though she only qualifies for 5500 loan …
The whole original concept of public state honor colleges has flown out the window, and it’s all because of money. I was a grad student at UMass in the early 90s when their CHC started, and it was billed as a way to keep the best and brightest in-state students at the state flagship. That’s long gone. Now Mass students are going to MD for honors college, MD students are coming to MA for honors college, and so on. Why? Because they can lure in a bright OOS honors student by throwing a scholarship bone to them that will not lower their COA equal to in-state, but will make the student feel like it’s more of a financial possibility, paying varying amounts more for the “honors college” status. OOS students who will end up paying more v. IS students–follow the money. And it’s not just UMass, it’s a lot of honors colleges. I’m not knocking the students who get in–kudos to them. But the original intent of many of the state honors colleges was to keep bright in-state students. Not anymore. College is a money game in the end.
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We couldn’t even bring ourselves to go to accepted student day, the whole agenda was full of Honor’s collage info sessions.
I am so surprised to see the amount of in-state talent that got no merit or honors invite … I think they are using it as a way of attracting out of state students.
That’s too bad you didn’t go to accepted student day. We did go and despite the rainy weather we had a great day and were really impressed with the campus, the speakers, the professors and the students. My son is really looking forward to enrolling in the fall.
I know it is disappointing to not be invited to CHC but I hope that doesn’t cause people to completely rule out UMass. They did say they recieved 42,000 applications this year. Thats a whole lot of applications and a whole lot of highly qualified students. My son was not invited to CHC but he was not expecting to be.
I truly believe it is a wonderful campus and a great learning opportunity.
Best of luck to everyone! I hope everyone finds their perfect fit!!
Here to report that my in-state student was just accepted to CHC with a sizable merit scholarship. He was actually admitted ED to another school, so was in the process of withdrawing his apps everywhere else when he got the word from UMass, but it seems there is space for in-staters at CHC. Stats:1520 SAT and 3.4 GPA (unweighted), for what it’s worth for your discussions.
@booklady123 would you be able to share what merit scholarship he received, and Congratulations…
@MomNama, It was just listed as a “Dean’s Award” for $9,000. Notification came with the admission decision along with the CHC notification. Each was a paragraph in the acceptance letter. His regular financial aid award was not included, however, so we don’t know what need-based aid he would have received (if any).
Nice…thank you.
Hello All! Welcome to UMASS!
Last year i was on the same boat as many of you(students) and i am here to share some insights that i have figured.
CHC admission is very competitive here. ALL schools have at most 3 students that are offered.
{My school: only 3 students got offered, 2 of them took it and 1 of them went to BU;
A few friends of mine, ranked 1st 2nd 3rd 4th from a nearby public school, only top 2 got into CHC}
If your parents are making past 60k for family income, UMASS will not give you a lot of scholarships if any
{UMASS’s teaching principle seems to be favoring students of self-development, first generation, and non academic talent oriented}
Scholarships pools are as followed(Dean: 2k, chancellor: 6-10k; flagship: 6k)
A lot of students get into CHC after the first semester of freshman year. {this was my situation too}
If you think about it: 30k tuition with no scholarship is financially more affordable than private college 60k tuition with average 20k scholarship
LMK if there are any questions i can further answer
@HC1006, my son’s acceptance letter said “Dean’s Award” but the amount was $9k. So maybe there is a range for that one, too?
Weighing some options here so forgive me if this sounds weird: does it feel strange to have access to “better” (housing, advising, access to opportunity) than most of your classmates? Does the rest of the student body resent CHC students?