hi! i applied early action and i’m kinda stressing about whether i’ll get in or not. northeastern is my top college and i should’ve applied ED but i’m unsure about financial aid
-<$15,000 income
-arkansas resident
-undecided 
-33 ACT (36 reading, 36 english, 28 math, 31 science)
-3.86 unweighted gpa and 4.16 weighted
-attend a top, application mandatory high school (asmsa!)
-two paid jobs
-volunteer with hot springs national park
-two year-long research projects, one in humanities/public opinion and one in geology
-all honors and concurrent credit classes since 11th grade, honors and AP track from 9th-10th
-only one AP class (asmsa doesn’t offer them)
-peer mentor at asmsa
-bassoonist for 7 years, solid all-region rankings along with honor bands
-strong letters of recommendation from two ppl with doctorates (if that matters lol)
i’m stressin’! thanks for the review 
Everything looks pretty solid to me, but remind yourself not to be disappointed if you don’t get in EA. It’s important to remember that ED increases a college’s yield, so pretty much any school would rather take more applicants from that pool rather than EA. However, I believe due to your family’s income (please do not take any offense), that you will make a fine exception in the EA pool
By the way, you should definitely consider applying to scholarships because NEU is a little bit infamous for handing out generous financial aid only to the top applicants (those perfect GPA/SAT, National Merit, etc.)
also-- i updated northeastern with an honor i recently received and introduced myself to the counselor over email (not sure if it was the right move but i can’t travel to show interest). hopefully the new award helps me, because it’s on a national level and only 105 other people in the nation got it. (horatio alger national scholar)