<p>Got deferred Early Action. I'm not really sure where to go from here. Georgetown is the only school I've ever felt any passion about whatsoever. I've also applied to George Washington, but their tuition is outrageous so I won't be attending unless I get something in the vicinity of a full ride. I've been accepted to some "safe" state schools, but they don't really offer any majors I'm looking for and I know I wouldn't be happy there. I was contemplating taking a gap year to go volunteer in the Netherlands, though I'm not sure how much that would help/hurt my chances. Regardless, I'm just not quite ready to give up on admission at Georgetown. </p>
<p>Is there anything I can do to show my continued interest in the university? As an American studying abroad in Spain, I'm at a major disadvantage. My American high school has already come to an agreement about my credit transfers, so my Spanish high school doesn't bother giving me grades. This means I have no senior grades to submit whatsoever. More standardized testing, while not impossible, is very laborious as it would require me to travel quite a bit and get travel approval from my study abroad organization. (I traveled to Madrid for my Georgetown interview which cost me around $300 in total; there's no way I can afford that continuously for SAT/ACT retakes). I did send a thank-you email to my admissions officers from both the U.S. and Spain for coordinating my interview last minute and changing my application between alumni associations. Do I have any options left?</p>
<p>Statistics, extracurriculars, etc. are in the following link. </p>
<p>Your ACT score is well within Georgetown’s 25-75th percentile, so don’t worry about that. Your biggest issue is GPA. Admissions officers will genuinely be concerned over your ability to handle the workload which Georgetown will present. You also do not hold many positions of leadership.</p>
<p>I would also advise you to apply to Boston College, which has many of Georgetown’s characteristics (but without a school like SFS). Remember that Georgetown will always be an option for graduate school.</p>
<p>A lot of people have recommended Boston College. It’s certainly not a bad school, but I have very little knowledge or experience outside international affairs. My extracurriculars absolutely scream for a school like SFS, but at a school which appears to be focused domestically like Boston College, I don’t feel like I’d fit the kind of student they’re looking for. The only other school I could think of in the area would be Tufts, which I’m obviously not getting in to if I can’t get in to Georgetown. The problem is, SFS is what interests me about Georgetown. There’s no school of the same qualities and characteristics within my reach(SFS isn’t either really!). I’m mostly looking in the D.C. area for foreign service-based schools. Campus, student activities, etc. are of little importance to me; academics are paramount (ironic given my GPA). The college “experience” lasts just 4 years, while a degree lasts well over 40. Having an internationally-focused</p>
<p>As for the GPA, there’s a bit of an explanation behind that, which was also given to my interviewer. My American high school is in the process of changing our grading system entirely. My year in particular had some awful luck with the new system. For our class, “Honors” courses were given the same GPA weight as AP courses, despite the obvious disparity in difficulty. I took three AP courses Junior year, and studied independently for a fourth test. For example, although I was taking AP Calculus and AP Statistics, I received the same GPA weight for those courses as some freshman in Honors Algebra. Bad luck that we ended up the guinea pigs for the new system, but there’s nothing I can do. </p>
<p>Would it be worth it to ask my Spanish high school to record my grades here? I’m not entirely sure how well I’d do, but I need SOMETHING to submit within the next four months to even hope at a chance at admission. Although I speak Spanish fluently, all but two of my classes are in Catalan. I’m currently learning a third language, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to acquire it fast enough to start producing grades viable for submission. </p>
<p>Thank you for the feedback, I really do appreciate it. </p>
<p>Just to add Tufts is lower ranked then Georgetown and has a higher acceptance rate. So while ranking are always a bit screwed. Just by the higher acceptance rate it should be easier to get into tufts than georgetown in general, and SFS is the hardest school to get into at georgetown also.</p>