Hamilton ED chances 2025?!?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Hamilton College
1

Hey all,
I am planning on applying ED to Hamilton this fall and I wanted to get your all’s take on my chances. I am looking to go into Political Science and/or International Relations.

GPA 3.41 /4.0 (no AP or honours classes offered at school)

ACT 31 (reading-34 english-33 math-27 science-28) ideally will be taking again and can superscore

I go to a fairly well known boarding school (the putney school)
Extracurriculars (definitely a strength)

Model UN- cofounded my school’s club and won awards at several high school conferences including Harvard and MIT. participated all 4 years

Journalism- cofounded my school’s student newspaper and served as editor for 2 years

Basketball- Played varsity all 4 years. Not good enough to be a recruited athlete though :frowning:

Politcal groups- Member of the policy research team of Virginia High schoolers for Biden (I’m from Virginia). Cofounded Putney (my school) for biden.

US Youth ambassadors program- prestigious fully funded Summer program through the US state department, amigos de las Americas, world learning, and Georgetown university. Selected to travel to ecuador over the summer, program was conducted virtually due to covid and trip was postponed to summer 2021.

Student leadership- Tour guide (pretty self explanatory), Dorm head (also pretty self explanatory), International ambassador (helped welcome new international students to my school), Student Trustee (served on my high school’s board of trustees as a full voting member) and Educational programs committee (reviewed new course proposals, independent study proposals, and other academic matters).

Summer camp counselor- also pretty self explanatory
Took an online summer class through American University titled Fundamentals of Law, received an A and 1 college credit.

Spent a trimester learning Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico

I think my recommendations will be really solid. I asked a history teacher who was also my model UN faculty advisor and a math teacher whose class I grew a lot in. My counselor is also known for writing really good letters.

The GPA has been going up. I am also going to disclose that I have dysgraphia, which affected my academic performance especially early on.

Let me know what you think my chances are, and if there are others schools I should check out!

2

I also had a good interview, forgot to mention that!

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As a parent who has sent 2 children to Hamilton, one just graduated and one is currently a freshman, my 2 cents is that it’s really hard to look at these kind of posts and tell someone what their chances are. Small liberal arts schools like Hamilton take all kinds of students and it’s difficult to know what they are looking for at any point in time. I’d say generally they take students that are heavily involved with leadership positions in things they like to do and obviously are smart with high achievement in a rigorous course schedule. I’m sure all that isn’t exactly breaking news to you.

Your extra curriculars sound great. Shows a pattern of leadership in something you like and want to pursue in your major. Also indicates you have a good idea what you want to do.

Your GPA seems a little low but as you said it’s been trending up, which they do look at, and you have a learning disability that can explain those early lower grades. I do think schools, especially small liberal arts schools like Hamilton, will appreciate how you’ve overcome a learning disability. You might want to mention somewhere in your application that you like Hamilton because of their emphasis on written and verbal communication skills because you want to continue to work through your learning disability and improve. Although your reading and English scores on your ACT don’t show any weakness there.

I wouldn’t worry too much about your ACT score. You probably should try to increase the science and math score although I really don’t think those scores as as important as people think. Especially this year when most schools have gone to test optional because of COVID and the lack of test sittings. Hamilton is now test optional for the 2021 seniors.

Applying ED is a good decision if you know Hamilton is your first choice. It’s definitely easier to be admitted ED than the regular admissions pool, despite the schools telling you that isn’t the case.

Good luck.

4

Hey, did you get in?

5

I did!

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