Early Action Class of 2019

<p>Rank 15/596 (meant top 2%)</p>

<p>@ashlee96, it doesn’t mean anything but the mail is just talking a little time to get to you. It is my understanding that all early action decisions were mailed last Wednesday.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine you won’t get in first round, with a generous scholarship offer. The 33 puts you in top 10% or so of their accepted applicants, and your grades are fantastic. </p>

<p>Hannahbanana5–you just made my heart sink. My D’s stats are not as high as yours and we still haven’t heard back.</p>

<p>@CATDECAL‌ do you think non-perfect test scores are really ever the driving force on admissions decisions? People just overprep and retake SATs to death. I test well, but always thought that was the absolute least important part of an application since it basically tells the admissions committee you know how to take a standardized test (or not).<br>
My understanding is that schools consider demonstrated interest, the essays in the application, and the relative difficulty in classes taken, plus what they need/want to round out a class of students. I would think the essays are more important than test scores any day because it’s an opportunity to really show the committee who you are, your unique qualities and what you would bring to the school. If they just look at grades and scores, we really all look pretty similar IMO!
Good luck to your son!</p>

<p>@CATDECAL‌ I was wondering if you thought I’d get in. I was just accepted to TCU and SMU is another school I really liked. I have a 2120 SAT, a 3.98 unweighted gpa and a 4.47 weighted GPA. I’ve taken 10 AP classes (4 are this year). I am a varsity cheerleader for fall and winter and am in NHS. I go to summer leadership programs and have 200 community service hours. My essay was pretty good, and my recs were ok too. I am from MD and have visited the school before and attended info sessions in my area. Thank you so much! </p>

<p>@ThrowerMatt‌ BBA Scholar and BBA Direct decisions will be released at a slightly later date than admission decisions. </p>

<p>For those students posting about being disappointed by deferrals, don’t give up just yet! A deferral at SMU is not a ‘soft no’. They pull heavily from their defer pool. </p>

<p>What defer means at SMU is that there were many great aspects of your application, but one or two areas may have given them reason to pause. It could be anything from lack of clear interest, a negative grade trend, a questionable letter of recommendation or, yes, scores below profile. The Committee wants more information. The defer is your opportunity to fill in any gaps and to bolster your application (it’s also another great reason to apply early - regular applicants don’t get this opportunity). </p>

<p>So submit your updated grades as soon as you can get reports from your school - even unofficial mid-year grades can be helpful. Re-test if you need to re-test. Fill out the interest form and spend some time on it (if SMU is really a top choice school)! </p>

<p>A defer in early is often a great take in the regular cycle! So chin up! Keep pushing. And good luck!</p>

<p>Well, to kick off this morning’s decisions:</p>

<p>Accepted EA this morning (letter in the mail today)</p>

<p>Minnesota, </p>

<p>29 ACT</p>

<p>3.5 UW; 3.8 weighted; but 3.8 UW (4.7 W) junior year and first quarter senior; very competitive small private college prep school.</p>

<p>Lots of ECs
Lots of Honors and APs
Varsity Team captain (baseball, but not a scholarship-level player)
Showed lots of interest in SMU (campus visit from Minnesota; he thought the campus was the best he had toured)</p>

<p>This could definitely be the one!</p>

<p>Accepted EA with Founders in FL</p>

<p>SAT: 1970
GPA: 3.8UW, most rigorous courses
AP Scholar with Distinction
Solid ECs and recs</p>

<p>I received the letter saturday</p>

<p>Accepted today!!! </p>

<p>@chukkerhead, while I have zero inside info, yes I do think that test scores drive it to a huge degree.</p>

<p>Look at it this way, when many people gauge the relative exclusivity of a school, they look at the published data. One of the big things almost all schools publish is the ACT and SAT range of the middle 50% of their admitted students.</p>

<p>A student (or a group of students) who are above that range (in the top quartile) can help move those numbers.</p>

<p>SMU’s middle 50% range on the ACT is 27-31. If you look on the Cappex scattergram to see who is getting in and who isn’t getting in, you will note that is not one person with a 32+ who reports not being accepted. </p>

<p>Keep in mind all of Cappex’s info is self reported, so it isn’t going to be 100% accurate still, it is telling. What it tells me that admitting more kids with higher test scores is one of the few ways schools can boost their "measurables"so they do it. </p>

<p>@hcasey315, I like your odds.</p>

<p>Here is the common data set for 2014-2015: <a href=“http://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/ir/commondatasets/2014/CDS_2014-2015_Part_C_Freshman_Admission.ashx?la=en”>http://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/ir/commondatasets/2014/CDS_2014-2015_Part_C_Freshman_Admission.ashx?la=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It says the range for the composite ACT is 28 to 31.</p>

<p>Good luck everyone! :)</p>

<p>@newjersey17 and @chukkerhead, </p>

<p>To follow up on that here is info from US News as to how they factor rankings:</p>

<hr>

<p>Student selectivity (12.5 percent): A school’s academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the students. </p>

<p>This measure has three components. We factor in the admissions test scores for all enrollees who took the Critical Reading and Math portions of the SAT and the composite ACT score (65 percent of the selectivity score). We also consider the proportion of enrolled freshmen at National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes or the proportion of enrolled freshmen at Regional Universities and Regional Colleges who graduated in the top quarter of their classes (25 percent). The third component is the acceptance rate, or the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10 percent). </p>

<hr>

<p>So if we take as a given that schools want to move up the rankings, we can easily see that they are incentivized to pick kids with high test scores as they makes up 8.125% of the ranking. Class rank makes up 3.125% of the ranking, and acceptance rate makes up 1.25% of the ranking.</p>

<p>For what it is worth that is why many academically challenging high schools do not report class rank. Their middle of the road kid would likely be a top 10% student at a less rigorous school, so they decline to report class rank to protect their students from being counted off by the admissions committee. (My son’s school does this.) </p>

<p>Received acceptance package today.</p>

<p>Personally I don’t have a lot of faith in Cappex as its not necessarily based on real data, but reported data by people posting on the internet. If you are lucky, you will have a tool like “Family Connections” available through your college counseling office that has actual scattergrams based on actual admissions from your school. Its been pretty accurate for us. </p>

<p>I do agree about more challenging high schools and many prep schools not reporting class rank; its not unusual for the average standardized test score across an entire class to be at, around or over the 90% percentile. Class rank at that point doesn’t seem to be a valid measure of anything helpful to an admissions counselor.</p>

<p>Didn’t recieve an acceptance today, very confused as I do beat most of their middle 50s and visited the school. </p>

<p>Accepted with the Founder’s Scholarship</p>

<p>SAT 1600: 1370
SAT 2400: 2010
Weighted GPA: 4.125
Unweighted GPA: 3.71
Class Rank: 38/617</p>

<p>Now I’m eagerly awaiting to see if I got the BBA Scholars. I’m going to need around another 15k in FA to attend, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. </p>

<p>Son was deferred. Are all EA applicants either accepted or deferred? Are any rejected outright?</p>