I have recently decided that I will be applying Early Decisions 1 to The George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs. I have a 31 on the ACT and a ~3.7 UW average.
I was wondering if you think it is worth it for me to retake the ACT? The middle 50% for The George Washington University is 27-31. Also, the early decision admit rate for 2015 was approximately 70%
With that ED acceptance rate, I’d say you are fine. Good luck!
@pineapple86 Thank you! I am just unsure if I should try for higher for scholarships, or if I should feel secure.
I would retake just to try to have a better shot at merit aid. As far as acceptance goes… If you’re doing ED, I think you’ve got a great shot even with current stats.
If you think that you do not want to go to any other school and feel confident with your score, then there is no point. But I advise you to apply to other schools just in case things don’t go your way (saying this from experience.)
If you want scholarships, applying ED is not a good idea. ED commits you to attending if you’re accepted, so the school knows they don’t have to offer you a scholarship package that will compete with other schools. It would be different if they figured you might attend a school like American University-in that case, they might offer you some money to forgo AU and choose GWU instead. But if getting in is what’s most important to you, apply ED regardless.
I don’t think you need to retake it, but if you want to retake it for scholarships, then go ahead. I think your score is high enough for GWU, especially if you’re applying ED. The high acceptance rate for ED makes me think that your score is really safe now. However, depending on the other schools you’re applying to, taking the ACT again wouldn’t hurt. So, I’d only retake the ACT is if you’re unhappy with the score or think you can do better.
@NotVerySmart I see where you are coming from, but my thinking is no matter what scholarship I got I would attend. So that is why I was wondering if I should take the ACT again just in case it would boost my chances at a scholarship. But yeah my fear is that they might not give anything to me just because I applied for early decision and they knew I was prepared for the price.
I don’t think schools will shaft you on financial aid because you applied ED. They know that you can turn down the ED offer if the aid isn’t sufficient, and if they let you in, they obviously would like you to attend. I think it would be a rare occurrence for an ED financial aid offer to be significantly under what the NPC predicts.
However, if your financial circumstances are very difficult, there is a big advantage to being able to bargain yourself a better deal when you have more than one offer on the table, as discussed above. This doesn’t sound like your circumstance, so…
@NickFlynn Sorry, maybe I did not make clear that I was only talking about merit aid. Not aid for any financial hardships.
Yeah, the second part of my post probably doesn’t apply to you.
The first part holds true for merit though, I think.
Did you change your mind about NEU?
@NickFlynn I did change my mind about NEU, unfortunately. My issue was I was having tunnel vision on NEU, since NEU was my dream school since I was a freshman. I was not keeping my options open to somewhere else, and this was very ignorant. After much research, I realized if I want to study international relations and political science, DC is the place I should be and I should be at GW. I loved GW when I visited and I got coffee with a current student who made me realize I should really look more towards GW. So I will be applying ED there this coming fall!
Ok, that makes sense.
I’m going to toss out University of Richmond as another school to you to consider - just an idea.
@neuprospect98 -If you’ll be able to attend no matter what your financial aid looks like, definitely apply ED.
Retake the ACT if you think there’s at least a 50% chance of your score going up.