Hey everyone, I’m new to this forum and need some input, albeit from strangers, on my situation. I’m active duty Army and applied to Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida for fall 2016 a couple of months ago. I applied early. I found out that I got denied a couple of days ago. Not deferred or offered a future term of enrollment, but denied.
If any of you know anything about Florida State, it’s about how pro-military/veterans they are. They are ranked among the top 10 schools nationally for veterans and aspire to be the most “veteran friendly and empowering school” in the nation. They are also very geared towards minorities, being among the top 10 schools for hispanic students in the medical/law disciplines. As a half black, half hispanic soon to be veteran female, I thought I had a good chance of getting in. But first, let me give you my high school stats. I graduated in 2012 from a Florida high school.
Class rank: 7/319 students (top 10%)
GPA: 3.84 (unweighted); 4.53 (weighted); maintained a 4.0 my senior year of high school, all AP classes throughout high school, never earned a “C” or below grade
ACT score: 23
150+ hours of community service (in a hospital)
Graduated with the 100% Bright Futures scholarship among others
Okay, I’ve thought about this situation a lot. So some drawbacks: I did not take math my senior year of high school and I was not involved in any student government or extracurricular activities besides volunteer work. My ACT score was in the 25th percentile of those admitted this month (the middle 50% scored a 26-30 ACT). When I graduated high school, I went to college for a semester for a vocational program and earned an 80%. Unfortunately, this came out to be a 2.0 “C” grade because of the grading scale (78-82%) was a “C.” I explained this in my essay, that working full time while enrolled in full time academics caused my grades to suffer but was not indicative of my ability to handle college level coursework.
When I applied to Florida State I had just come back from a deployment from Iraq working military intelligence against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). It was a very rough deployment mentally and physically, working every day while receiving indirect fire (or the threat of it) multiple times a month. My intended major was Criminology. With my experience, this would have set me up well.
My question is, why was I denied? What do You think? Not competitive enough? I’m not a traditional applicant. I didn’t write about my role in student government positions or my position on a varsity sports team. I wrote as someone with real world experience who was deployed to a war zone. I didn’t expect an admission to be handed to me because I am a service member or a minority. However, I do not understand this decision. I already mailed out an appeal and even personally emailed the admissions office. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
