D really likes Northeastern–it is one of her top two choices. She has good stats, a 4.0 weighted GPA, 1460 on SAT, strong ECs with leadership. Rigorous curriculum though not the hardest track in all subjects. Would she be a candidate for honors and merit aid? She is considering ED, but I don’t sense that it would help her chances that much, and suspect she might miss out on merit aid, if her stats are high enough for that. Any thoughts?
I don’t think her stats make her a high candidate for merit aid - her stats put here within the middle 50% for both, and while her curriculum is rigorous, it isn’t the toughest. Her strong EC’s would be the only thing that could make the merit difference, but usually Northeastern wants top 25% GPA or test scores (generally) for merit from my experience.
That said, it sounds like Northeastern is a strong match, as she is in the middle 50% with both, has course rigor, good EC’s, etc.
What state are you from? If you are from the northeast, I think ED may be the right move here. The scale of the ED bump is hard to tell as it is so new, but the bar for Northeast applicants tend to be higher, particularly in MA, NY, CT, and NJ. Plenty of applicants like your daughter have been rejected (even after applying EA and being deferred) because the states are overrepresented in the applicant pool. Applying ED would be a strong differentiator in interest.
Basically, if you’re from one of those states (and have no financial troubles being full pay), I think ED is absolutely the right call. If you’re coming from elsewhere, it’s harder to say, but I don’t think there’s a high chance you’re sacrificing merit money. The admit rate for ED is technically lower than the overall rate, but I think that is because of a much lower stats pool for ED, as all of the people applying to ivies and using Northeastern as a match/safety are not applying ED. I suspect that ED still has a bump for those on the border or above who want that certainty, as it is a strong helper to admit yield for the school.
Thanks for that. I suppose we have our hopes up based on the Naviance scattergram, where she is well above the admit pool from her school. But it sounds like other stats don’t support that idea. We’re in the mid-Atlantic, fwiw.
Depending on how far back the Naviance scattergram goes, it could be including quite dated information. Northeastern’s admit stats have been going consistently up pretty much every year for the past 15-20, so Naviance isn’t always the most helpful in this particular case.
Middle 50% for Fall 2017 Admits:
Weighted GPA: 4.0 - 4.4
New SAT: 1400 - 1500
Being from the mid-Atlantic should mean that it’s a very strong match school. She does have a chance for merit still, but I would say more in the range of 20% chance, to put a guesstimate on it.
To back up a bit, if she has two schools in the running as her top choice, doing ED at either may not be the best call if both are match schools. Best to keep decisions open. Since you aren’t in the northeast, I don’t think you need to do ED. If the other school is a match as well, I think it’s best to do EA (or RD if EA is not offered) for both of the top choices.
Thank you–much appreciated!