<p>Hey, so I'm a rising senior who is thinking about a lot of Northeastern LACs. My freshman and sophomore year have really made my cumulative GPA suck, but my grades have improved a ton. My freshman and sophomore year my GPA was a 2.5 my junior year it was a 3.7. I go to a private prep school that is highly competitive, due to my grades the first two years I couldn't take the AP's i wanted to take this year. However next year I'm registered to take AP Psych, AP Bio, AP Art Hist., AP Lit, Pre-Calc(I'm not a math guy really) Ethics, and an Independent Study in Middle Egyptian Language; note that next year I will make mostly make straight A's, with maybe one B. I have roughly 150 service hours. My test scores are horrific so I'm doing a lot of test optional colleges. Also I'm going to Summer@Brown this summer to take intro to macroeconomics, and a kind of applied econ course. Hopefully all of this will show and upward trend and I'm hoping this will help me out with college admissions, so chance me at Dickinson and F&M? Please, and many thanks!
Also on a side note, I'm open to suggestions on where to apply. I know this is not the forum for it. I have a sort of apply everywhere you could possibly dream of philosophy.</p>
<p>By the way the grades freshman and sophomore year were due to my father leaving my life.</p>
<p>Dickinson: Aim for 28+/1850+
F&M: Aim for 28+/1850+</p>
<p>Try Arcadia U…</p>
<p>I was thinking about not submitting test scores, since they are optional and they are a weakness of mine. If it helps at all I’ve been in service club all three years so far, I’m on the debate team, and I am the captain of the cross country team.</p>
<p>Also be aware that F&M no longer offers merit aid.</p>
<p>That’s fine, please don’t perceive me as a snobby rich brat or anything. Do you think I have a chance though? also what about Muhlenberg? I would add that I was on crew for my schools theatre for two plays for about 8 weeks a piece at 3-5 hours a day.</p>
<p>Have you taken a solid stab at both tests? Did you prefer one over the other? Given your weaker GPA, your application could be bolstered by test scores, if you could achieve them. My son is not a great test-taker but he took lots of practice tests last summer and fall and scored so much higher than I could have hoped on the SAT.</p>
<p>I like the SAT more than the ACT, however my scores were nothing to brag about. I will likely retake them, after a lot of practice tests and tutoring sessions. By the way I will likely get stellar rec letters, one of which is coming from a ex Yale, Duke, and UMich professor; if this makes any difference. The other two should be excellent as well, I am very close with my teachers, we even go fishing and out to coffee sometimes.</p>
<p>My oldest is your age so I have only anecdotal info, but my gut tells me that an otherwise unhooked applicant should have test scores at the 75% level in order to prevent his app from being dismissed. Having said that, applying ED as a full-pay applicant will offer an advantage. I couldn’t begin to quantify that advantage. Unfortunately, an ED app will not include your first semester Sr year grades, which are important given your upward trend.</p>
<p>We did not visit Muhlenberg, so all I can tell you is that the admit stats from our Naviance are very similar for these three schools (1850-1900 SAT). Do you know how your GPA compares to your classmates (school profile)? Do you have access to Naviance?</p>
<p>I would spend as much time as you can bear taking practice SATs as getting your score in range will make it more difficult to deny you. Also, both F&M and Dickinson list interviews as very important so be certain to schedule those. Good luck! And please keep in mind that I don’t really know much more than you do.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank, mostly because it is so small. If I had to make a guess the average GPA is a 3.6-3.7, very few get a 4.0, I would say my school relative to the typical school is extremely rigorous (I typically have 4-5 hours of homework and studying a night), the school does send out a letter explaining this.
If there is something to brag on about myself it is that I am great with interviews, I study rhetoric a lot in my free time and don’t tend to get nervous or anything like that. I don’t know if it means anything but I’m from NC, not sure if that would play into geographic diversity at all.</p>
<p>Have you taken any SAT II’s? Some places like Trinity and Connecticut College will take two of those tests instead of the regular SAT or ACT. Also look at Clark University and Gettysburg.</p>
<p>Clark I’ve looked at, it doesn’t exactly thrill me, and how does Gettysburg compare with Dickinson or F&M? I am going to take subject tests soon probably for US History trying to figure out another to take though.</p>