@bernie12 I think you’re right about the growth, schools can’t keep exponentially growing there has to be a leveling point. I think emory still has a lot of growing in its future as far as popularity and applicant size but I think for now the “ebola bump” might have leveled out. There’s probably still growth, just not the huge increase like last year’s.
I think Emory isn’t increasing in applicants tremendously because it is a hidden treasure. I’m from Chicago and a lot of people from my school have never heard of Emory.
@jbart25 Chicago! Heck Emory is a hidden treasure in Georgia! Everyone’s heard of it, but not many people have it as their first choice. While I don’t see how anyone could not see Emory as the perfect school, lots of people here in North Ga don’t consider emory when looking for colleges. Here, it’s all about UGA and Gatech. I’ve actually been asked (multiple times) whether I’m going to UGA or tech. Around here, lots of
Folks automatically assume one of those is your top choice. This may very well be only in my school but even when I’m out and about, coworkers, family, it’s all the same case.
In my graduating class of 500+, 45 minutes away from Emory, we have 3 or 4’people applying, including myself.
I know I’m ranting but I just don’t get it. UGA and tech are good schools, don’t get me wrong, but Emory just has so much more to offer its student body in my opinion.
@jbart25 : Well, Emory has a lot of trouble tapping into the midwest and in fact seems to have had more gains in the west, particularly california.
@ismitah I think part of the reason Georgia students shy away from Emory is probably because of HOPE as well. Emory can be really expensive, and a lot of kids would rather get a full ride (or near full ride) at a place like UGA or Tech (Although since like half of Tech is engineering, they probably wouldn’t be as interested in Emory). Also, as dumb of a reason as this is, college football is taken very seriously in Georgia and the rest of the Deep South. I know a lot of my friends who wouldn’t even consider going to a school that doesn’t have a football team. I applied to both schools as back ups. Haven’t heard back from Tech, although I wouldn’t mind going there. I love its central location. I did get into UGA but I reaallllyyy do not want to go there. Too many people there from high school, too.
Many students are repelled (no matter the region) away from Emory because of its lack of football. For Emory to get more interest, it requires more than its rather honest and touching tactics. You pretty much have to do extremely heavy marketing as do other top D-3 schools (namely WashU and Chicago). Chicago used to have a similar problem but with their very aggressive marketing strategy, have boosted applications a lot. This has been an issue of contention with many of their alumni because there is a rather distinct Chicago ethos. Emory, if it went this route doesn’t really have to concern itself with the reaction of the alumni because Emory traditionally has not had an identity can be that much affected by the students it admitted. If anything, Emory is trying to find a way to boost apps. while also beginning to sell the school to students who are a more solid fit for it than many who have come in the past as it is this that allows a school to actually have some sort of identity. It is really hard to have a definite identity if 1/4-1/3 of the student body would have preferred a school with D-1 sports but came to Emory anyway because it was their highest ranked admissions or their financially best choice among highly ranked admissions. I feel like things like the alumni interviews and much more challenging and interesting supplementary prompts are now there to indeed gauge how well a student can at least pretend to care and display a fit with Emory’s values (or what it wants its students to be like). Before it was more like: “Wanna come to a growing top 20 or 25 school, apply here!” and unfortunately Emory’s status as an R-1 institution is almost too new for students applying to associate it with any sort of feel or values like those clearly identifiable at institutions that have been in the spotlight for a bit longer. Now you can at least see development of some sort of ethos, even if it isn’t ultra clear. I think the new admissions dean and many of the investments in certain academic programs and initiatives has to do with a change, which I think is for the better.
@Oliea98 I agree with you completely, football is a big deal here. And many people don’t realize that emory does accept HOPE, although its not 3/4 of tuition, and is 100% financially covered if there is demonstrated need for their domestic students. Although the net price calculators aren’t 100% accurate, they predict that emory would be more affordable for me than UGA and GSU, whose COA’s are much lower on the original “price tag”
8 days 11 hours and 45 minutes
( I jumped on that wagon and got a countdown app too, it was about time :P)
Stop, I can’t even believe it. One of my best friends applied ED to Columbia University and he finds out in three days. I can’t believe he is finding out so early. December 15th can’t come soon enough…!
I can’t believe December 15ths coming up so soon! I feel like when the day comes I won’t be able to open the page
@ismitah : Actually, you could probably make money off of GSU haha. Last semester, in my tutorial sessions that I teach, a student told me about how he was in the honors college and that free tuition from GSU plus Hope is allowing him to make money now that he has moved off campus (he used to stay on it where of course he had to pay for expensive housing).
Yeah, and I think a lot of families, even if they can “afford” it, don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for a school if they don’t have to somewhere else. And it also probably depends on income. Someone who has more need would probably get a lot of more federal for an expensive Emory than somewhere like uga where hope would cover most of it. A lot of middle class families, though, don’t have as much need but parents still don’t want to pay what they can “afford” or take out loans to afford it. And yeah, I think I get like 4K a year for zell Miller if I get into Emory.
@bernie12 I know that the full ride scholarship gives livingn expense stipends but I thought that keeping extra money besides that wasn’t allowed? You’ll have to tell me because I really don’t know how that works. If I went to GSU I would have to live on campus because their apartment dorms are safer than the ones in that area (and actually cheaper per sq ft). I’m close to Atlanta but not that close that I would commute 1 hr+ to get to and from school everyday.
@Oliea98 I know what you mean about the middle class situation. I’m technically middle class and I would have to pay a fair amount of money but here’s how I look at it: it’s an investment. People pay thousands of dollars to live in a certain location, for a certain lifestyle, and that’s what I see this as. I would rather pay a little more and be in a fostering intellectual community than to be somewhere where I feel like I have no one to have a deep conversation with and somewhere I’m not comfortable being myself. I want a college experience where I’m not a minority, not in race and definitely not in attitude about learning. While other schools are great, I feel that Emory has the best balance of good clean fun and hard work, at least for me. And on top of this, I beleive that if someone makes the wholehearted effort to make their education affordable, it will be, doesn’t matter if the school is UChicago or Yale or Emory or GSU.
Do you guys know what time they release the decisions???
@kc2004 6 pm ET
Yeah, he somehow basically was just getting refunds…and he did commute. Fortunately, even though he was in Gwinnett, he was not particularly far from the MARTA system and the train line.
Also, I agree with what you said about the affordability. It’s almost as if people who are non-minorities act as if there are no external scholarships for them. There are external scholarships for all types of things and many are very accessible. It seems everyone is only banking on internal merit or financial need-based aid…without even considering other sources. And then some end up disappointed when they go to a school that is their financial safety (whether it was a non-elite vs. an elite or one elite vs. another elite with a completely different ethos).
@ismitah I totally agree with you on that. There are so many kids at my school who take a ton of AP, are really involved, and have great ACTs, but are content going to somewhere like Georgia State. Not that it’s a bad school, but it seems like with that kind of dedication you’d want to go to some place like Emory.
I was actually really surprised because there are three other people from my school who applied to Emory, regular decision though. Its crazy because nobody applied last year and in previous years the max was 2 applicants. All of sudden it is bigger this year for some reason.
@NeuroDude : Chicago is your area right? I think they’re working on getting more out of that market as indicated by the fact that alumni interviews are offered there for example. So maybe it is working in addition to the fact that most other top privates are so insanely hard to get into.
@bernie12 no, my area is Upstate New York.