<p>My D was invited to the ADS competition in Feb. Does anyone know if all students participating in the competition start out on an equal playing field? Or will the 35 and 36 ACT students have a huge advantage over the 32 and 33 ACT students? I realize that a test is involved. I'm wondering if the strength of the ADS test results is what determines the largest awards, or is it holistically considered, with ACT scores, high school grades, class rank, EC, and test scores (and interview) all considered. MY D has a 4.0 UW GPA at a full IB school where she is currently first in her class. She has lots of great EC with leadership, but her best ACT was a 32, not enough to qualify for the Professor Assistantship at MSU. Will she have a chance with the ADS?</p>
<p>I believe that ADS awards are solely based on how your D will do on the test itself, but I would check with someone from admissions or financial aid, congrats to her for qualifying!</p>
I have heard from others that the test is virtually impossible. There are questions about fertility rates in Vietnam during the '70’s and other esoteric topics that are pretty much multiple guess. The general consensus was that it was the hardest test anyone had taken and that the weekend was more about marketing MSU than anything. My son is 2nd in his class, 35 ACT, 2280 SAT, NMSF, etc. and - due to family affiliation with MSU - has MSU as his first or second choice. We are treating the weekend like his applications to Northwestern, Yale and Chicago…a shot in the dark.
Have you inquired about the assistantship? I suspect if you tell the Honors College that it is important to you and might be a deciding factor in choosing MSU they would work very hard to find one for you. If you message me, I might have someone you could contact.
If I remember correctly roughly 1500 students take this test, and the invited students have a choice of two different weekends. We found that those with near perfect statistics, and who do well in the written test have a much higher chance of being selected for a telephone interview prior to being awarded one of the few prestigious scholarships. MSU folks do an excellent job of hosting the students and their parents during the weekend; overall, irrespective of being selected, the experience is highly worthwhile in getting to know of numerous academic opportunities.
As somebody who has gotten some money from ADS, I can say that the test wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be. There were weird topics, yes, and there was a large percentage of questions that I guessed on, but there was stuff I knew too. It really was an informative weekend, separate from the test. And as far as I’m aware, getting the interview depends on how one performs on the test. After that, I guess everything else is considered to determine scholarships.