Really? I’m very frustrated.
How should I go about turning this deferral into an acceptance?
Instate?
@sinjbad yes
@sams1623 that’s VERY odd. Unless you wrote an essay about your interest in another university, then I don’t know what to tell you. You may want to call admissions because this could easily have been a mistake.
well what do your grades/GPA look like? do you have any EC?
@sinjbad My essays were fine. I’ll give admissions a call tomorrow…but I’m not going to outright ask if the deferral was a mistake.
@satxcollegekid ~3.2 UW GPA, phenomenal ECs, 10/10 CA essay. Maybe it was the GPA?
Is the GPA weighted or unweighted? Even if it’s unweighted, that may be the problem. OSU is getting harder and harder to get into. Were your first semester grades good? That could help and provide an entree into a discussion with the admission folks.
@suzy100 GPA is Unweighted. 3.7 first semester. Is that high enough to make a case for myself?
Also how likely is it that an admissions representative would read this thread and be able to discern who I am? Paranoia…
Yes, I think it is.
I don’t think OSU admission folks are monitoring these threads, but even if they are, I don’t think anything you’ve said here would impact you negatively.
If OSU is a top choice, I would consider having your GC contact admissions and find out what the deal is and tell them about your first semester grades. Also, make sure that your school sends those grades to all of the schools where you have applied. If you aren’t comfortable asking your GC to do that, then I’d try to find out who your admissions rep is (you can usually find this on a school’s website), tell them that you were deferred but very interested in attending, attach a copy of your first semester grades and ask if there is any other information that you could provide that would be helpful. Good luck to you!
According to the latest common data set for Ohio State, the 75th percentile ACT is 31. This would probably put OP in the top 1% of applicants to OSU. This is either a mistake or a case of Tufts Syndrome.
OP, you would have better off with a 22 ACT and a sob story.
@menefrega, my D is an instate applicant who was accepted. However, we have heard lots of stories this year of kids who we all thought would be easily accepted getting deferred. These are friends of my D so we generally know their stats. I don’t know exactly what is causing that, but we’ve seen it first-hand.
I don’t think it’s Tufts Syndrome per se, but I do think that a 34 ACT coupled with a GPA closer to 3.0 than 4.0 might give an Adcom pause. That’s all I was saying, and I’m only guessing.
@suzy100 do you think OSU values GPA over test scores?
@sams1623, first, please understand that I am just hypothesizing based on what you have posted. I have no inside knowledge of OSU admissions. I have just been an observer.
Second, I think that OSU, like every other college, looks at your GPA in conjunction with your ACT (or SAT) score, along with the other parts of your app. Clearly, I haven’t seen the app so I can only guess about what may have caused the deferral, and it may be the GPA. Why a GPA closer to a 3.0 for such a bright kid? Did you take rigorous courses? APs and all that?
I think with your 3.7 this last semester you will be in good shape. I would be surprised if you wouldn’t get in with that after the deferral, but again I have no inside knowledge whatsoever.
@suzy100 General lack of care until around Junior year. I would work hard and pay attention in classes I enjoyed (english, history) but do almost no work in classes that did not interest me (math, science). Other things contributed to the low GPA too…but I won’t get into that. I guess I just needed time to mature intellectually – and I’m still working out some of the kinks.
I only took rigorous courses Jr. and Sr. year. 7 APs total.
Thank you for your insight. I really appreciate it.
I am only guessing.
But I think they have a formula.
And the formula takes into account a number of factors, including ACT scores, GPA and ECs.
If the ratio of of ACT scores to GPA is not good, you get negative points.
Same with the ECs.
The valedictorian at my D’s high school had perfect scores on the ACT, high grades, but no ECs at all.
Essays not great.
He was shocked when only one school in the country offered a good scholarship.
Also some other friends, high ACT, lower grades, also had problems being accepted at their first choice schools.
Ohio State has a high freshman retention rate, and high graduation rate compared to other schools in Ohio.
I assume OSU Admissions has a formula which successfully predicts these rates.
There seem to be markers they look for when admitting students. And you can readily see what these
markers are by observing who is accepted and who is not.
Again, just my .02, but I completed a graduate program at OSU years ago, and in some of my classes
we discussed the statistical underpinnings of OSU freshman admission.
I think you probably got it right.
Assuming this is the case, OSU should change their common data set to indicate that test scores are important as opposed to very important (which is what it shows now). Clearly call out the fact that GPA is the important part of the application.
Test scores are obviously quite important to OSU since they have committed publicly to raising the average ACT score of incoming freshman every year.
They also are interested in retaining students and having them graduate.
They have stated that they spend a lot of money on students and want to select students with a high likelihood
of succeeding. Therefore it appears to me that they look at the relationship between test scores and GPA.
As someone who works in higher ed–a low GPA combined with a very high test score can be concerning. It can say that you didn’t work up to your potential. Universities very often would rather have a student with a more modest test score but a higher GPA because it tells you that this person is working hard. A school like OSU–very big without a lot of advising or oversight of undergrads–wants students who are self-motivated enough to stay on top of things. A really high test score with a low GPA says that you might be the sort of person who skates by on natural intelligence without applying yourself. And OSU has problems with attrition, so it really doesn’t want students who get distracted and drop out or take too long to graduate.
I think OSU is strict about ranking (which goes with GPA) too.
My D decided not to apply because she is not in the top 3% of her class (they only have 75 kids and she’s 3rd) and when she asked if that disqualified her from being considered for full tuition merit Admissions said it did.