So, I was with my D today at MSU doing a tour. As with all tours, it starts with a session with the admissions area talking about the school. The assistant director said in the presentation that there are basically three status that you get. Two are pretty simple, acceptance or denial. The third status was interesting.
He basically said that if you don’t have one of the two, that your application is requiring further review and they could be asking for additional information. From what he said, if your application is under a second review then those people may not hear for a while but that they would know by April. I’m assuming that people will still be hearing on a rolling basis but if you get a request for additional information you are probably in that later notification bucket.
He said they anticipate an incoming class of around 7,800 students for the Fall of 2017. From what I took out of his talk, if you are in the big bunch of people with very similar stats, there may be a longer wait. The do take a holistic view of the applicants and seemed to suggest the personal statement could be viewed as a bit more important because they want to see what the applicant has to say about themselves.
One other thing I didn’t know is that MSU recalculates the GPA. The only score the core classes like, Math, English, Sciences, History, etc. They don’t score things like phys ed, music, or elective type of classes. So if you have say an overall HS GPA of 3.5, you could have a recalculated GPA by MSU lower if your higher grades are not in your core classes. They do weight AP or IB classes higher so that can help you and they do look to see if you took honor classes but they don’t necessarily weight those differently.
Sounded to me like all things being equal with GPA and ACT/SAT that the tie breakers are personal statement, rigor of coursework, and the your activities.
The other thing he shared is that for the new SAT they are seeing on average a score 50 to 100 points higher than the old SAT. He put up a chart that showed some samples of old versus new, so one example was a person scoring 1210 CR + M on the old is averaging a 1280 on the new.
My D was admitted to MSU for Fall but not sure if she will attend. It’s between IU and MSU. Both schools have a lot to offer for her but IU is a bit closer and looks like she may get more Scholarship $ from IU to make it a bit more affordable. Really enjoyed our tour at MSU and our guide was great. Awesome campus and area. She has a hard choice to make as both schools are great for her intended major.
Best of luck to all of you still waiting on your decision. I know it can be stressful.