<p>Accepted! I completely thought I was an immediate reject; it still feels like I’m dreaming</p>
<p>**Decision: Accepted **</p>
<p>College and Program: Applied Mathematics</p>
<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (by section): 670CR 8800M 700W
[</em>] SAT IIs: 700 Math II, 690 Physics, 620 US History
[<em>] ACT: n/a
[</em>] APs: World(5) Physics B(4) EngComp(3) US(3)
[<em>] IBs: b/a
[</em>] GPA (UW, W): 4.0, 4.833
[<em>] Rank: 1
[</em>] Other stats: huh?
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] ECs listed on app: Varsity Wrestling, Varsity Tennis, Library Assistant, Food Drive Volunteer, Tutor
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: b/a
[<em>] Essays (subject and responses):Questbridge
[</em>] Teacher Recs: Honors Director(excellent), most respected teacher on campus(excellent)
[<em>] Counselor Rec: Decent, she barely knwos me
[</em>] Applied on (EA?): RD
[<em>] Hook (if any): First generation, Questbridge Finalist, Member of the school’s summer program
[/ul]Location/Person:[ul]
[</em>] State or Country: Southern California
[<em>] School Type: Large Public
[</em>] Ethnicity: Asian
[li] Gender: Male[/li][/ul]General Comments/Congratulations/Venting/Commiserations,etc:
Congratulations to everyone to got accepted! I’m surprised I was admitted actually. My test scores were below average, but I guess my grades and rank made up for it. Pomona is probably my most realistic choice for now, unless by some miracle Stanford accepts me. :)</p>
<p>Questbridge seems to have an excellent record with Pomona apps! Congratulations, Elementi!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t take it too hard you probabl got rejected because I heard that they don’t really like Harry Potter at Pomona :/</p>
<p>There’s always next year, though :D</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Plenty of people at Pomona like Harry Potter. The winter formal dance is called the Yule Ball!</p>
<p>Only 12.8% admitted to Pomona this round – with ED and RD averaged. A very competitive year in which to apply.</p>
<p>I just read that Pitzer had an acceptance rate this year of 15.7% – and I’m sure the other Claremonts will confirm that they’ve had a very hard time making decisions given the applicant pool. </p>
<p>Congratulations to all accepted – and to all applicants, best of luck with making your upcoming choices! Keep faith in yourselves. You have great gifts to offer the wider world and your colleges will be lucky to welcome you!</p>
<p>Decision: Accepted!</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2400 (first and only sitting)
[</em>] SAT II: 800 Chemistry, 800 Math II, 780 Physics, 780 US History, 740 French
[<em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
[</em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/600ish
[<em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): 5’s on 13 exams
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: 6 AP classes
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): None
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Mock Trial, Music, Orchestra
[<em>] Job/Work Experience: Private Violin Teacher, Tutor
[</em>] Volunteer/Community service: Tutor at school, Church choir musician
[<em>] Summer Activities: None, really
[</em>] Essays: I wrote an essay about puzzles. I guess it fit the “what you do for fun” prompt well enough.
[<em>] Teacher Recommendation: Should have been good
[</em>] Counselor Rec: Should have been good as well
[<em>] Additional Rec: Was definitely good
[</em>] Interview: Lots of fun!</p>
<p>[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): California
[</em>] School Type: Large public, almost 3000 kids
[<em>] Ethnicity: Asian-American
[</em>] Gender: Male
[<em>] Income Bracket: ~$100K
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): None.</p>
<p>[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: Academics, Objective Numbers, Recommendations
[</em>] Weaknesses: Dearth of major awards or activities
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: The essays went over well. Thank goodness!
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected:</p>
<p>Accepted: Princeton, UCLA, Pomona College, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, USC (Southern California), Harvey Mudd, Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech.</p>
<p>Waiting: Stanford</p>
<p>Waitlist: Claremont McKenna, Harvard</p>
<p>Rejected: Caltech
[/ul]</p>
<p>By the way, waitlisters-- don’t lose hope! I didn’t get enough finaid, so I will probably not attend Pomona in the fall 
(Not sure if I posted that already, I’m really tired)</p>
<p>Decision: Rejected</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2090 (680CR 680M 730M) First try, didn’t retake
[</em>] ACT: 30 composite both times, grr! (Best breakdown 29R, 35E, 31S, 29M)
[<em>] SAT II (if submitted): 700 USH, 640 Spanish w/o listening
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.86 (self-calculated - school doesn’t actually put UW GPAs on transcripts. My weighted cumulative one at time of submission was 4.03, 1st semester senior year GPA was 4.48)
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank
[</em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): USH (4), Spanish Language (4)
[<em>] IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Latin:Vergil, AP Calc AB, Environmental Science, Greek 2
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Latin Exam Gold Medal (9th, 10th, 11th), National Spanish Exam Silver Medal (11th), National Merit Commendation
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): School LitMag (Exec. Editor 10th-12th); Student Govt. (Disciplinary Committee 10th/11th, Class President 12th); Key Club (Co-President 12th); Shield (student ambassador society, helped at school events a lot); member of school varsity XC, varsity soccer, and varsity track teams
[<em>] Job/Work Experience: N/A
[</em>] Volunteer/Community service: Volunteer at public library 10th-12th, Native plant restoration/Beach dune preservation project 6th-12th, Lots of random projects - total 150+ hrs.
[<em>] Summer Activities: Summer after 9th earned A in French 1A course at local community college, Summer after 11th earned A in graduate level Intensive Japanese course at Monterey Institute of International Studies. Had surgery on cleft lip summer after 10th, but didnt mention that on apps (want to get into college on my own merit, not make excuses [shrug])
[</em>] Essays: Common App was about learning how to knit - sounds awk but strangely fantastic and totally me! 9/10, I think. I put my heart and soul into my supplement piece - was really proud of it… it talked about how I love to simply sit down at a cafe, people watch, and on occasion read Frank O’Hara poems as well.
[<em>] Teacher Recommendation: Waived right to read both, as per school policy. Classics teacher has taught me every year since 9th grade and knows me well, so I’m sure his was glowing. Precalc was probably pretty generic.
[</em>] Counselor Rec: Also waived right to read. She joined our school just this year so she only had about two months to get to know our entire grade, but she probably had a good impression of me because of the old counselor’s notes and her interactions with me as class president. I’m assuming her rec was good, although not raving.
[<em>] Additional Rec: N/A
[</em>] Interview: Went so poorly. Completely awkward the entire time. Interviewer and I just didn’t really click, I guess. Which is a shame, because she’s an instructor at the grad school Pomona has a strong relationship with and where I took a course during the summer, so I went in pretty confident!
[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>] Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes… but totally not getting any!
[</em>] Intended Major: International Relations (want to double major in IR and Linguistic Anthropology but for the sake of the application just put IR).
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): CA
[</em>] School Type: Small/selective private Episcopal. ~50 students per grade. I see you judging.
[<em>] Ethnicity: Asian
[</em>] Gender: Female
[<em>] Income Bracket: $250,000+ (awk because w/ 6 members in our household, and none currently in college, on paper we seem pretty affluent but in reality we’re not so much)
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, research, etc.): N/A
[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: Essays
[</em>] Weaknesses: Standardized test scores were really awful compared to the rest of the applicant pool. I’m a really well rounded applicant, but maybe a little too well rounded… they probably prefer someone a little more “angular.”
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: ^
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Accepted GWU, NYU, Scripps College; Waitlisted UCLA; Rejected Brown University (deferred ED alas, my dream school no more!), Pomona College, UC Berkeley
[/ul]General Comments:
Pomona was my second choice school, and after I got deferred ED from Brown I kept hope because I thought I had a strong chance at Pomona (a current Pomona student who graduated from my school in '11 has similar stats to mine)… but so much for that. It looks like GW for me!</p>
<p>@ermsy, be sure to speak to someone in Financial Aid about your situation. I have heard of cases in which more support is offered if that makes the difference in allowing an admit to attend!</p>
<p>Two of my friends appealed their financial aid in previous years and received more. Make sure you are able to demonstrate that you cannot pay the Expected Family Contribution, and that Pomona is your first choice.</p>
<p>The problem is mostly that I don’t know how I feel about Pomona-- I really love it, but I’ve never been there, and my parents (understandably) don’t want me to fly out to visit if I can’t afford to go there.
So I’d run the risk of visiting (which would be expensive to do, since I’m from GA) and not getting any more aid…
I really do want to give it a fair shot.
It’s not like it’s a little difference, either; most of my other schools have given me like 10,000 more. I’m so confused.
Some of you have been really nice and told me to haggle, but how do I go about doing that? Do I email them? Is it obnoxious? And how can I know if Pomona’s my first choice if I can’t go there because right now I can’t afford to go there?! Agh, such drama…</p>
<p>Call them! The financial aid office is really helpful, they’ll know exactly what to do.</p>
<p>I would definitely spend the money to visit if you even consider Pomona to be one of your top choices. You won’t want any “what-ifs” down the road. If you truly do want to go, tell the financial aid and there’s a good chance they’ll match the other offers (or give a bit more than the original offer, at the very least).</p>
<p>Have other internationals received their offer? I still haven’t got mine =</p>
<p>If you got financial aid offers from other schools that are higher than what Pomona gave you, be sure to let Pomona know. I think that might be you’re strongest argument for getting more aid.</p>
<p>Decision: accepted</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2320 (780R, 740M, 800W)
[</em>] ACT:
[<em>] SAT II: 800World, 760 BIO M, 760 Math 2
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.89
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): ~top 1%
[</em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): Chem (4), World (5), Bio (5), USH (5), Eng Comp (5), Calc BC (5)
[<em>] IB (place score in parenthesis):
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: AP phys, AP Lit, AP french, AP COMPSCI, AP USGov
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): all-state piano, intel, ap scholar w distinction
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): piano (All-state, won county competition, play for jazz band, chorus, orchestra, recitals, pit band, accompanist, piano teacher), running (varsity xc captain, varsity winter and spring track, coaches award 2011), school newspaper (editor-in-chief, layout editor, staff writer), student gov (vice president), summer internship (physics), violin (all-county one year), Tri-M
[<em>] Job/Work Experience: piano teacher (2hrs/week)
[</em>] Volunteer/Community service: ~200 hours
[<em>] Summer Activities: summer science program & research internship (intel semi)
[</em>] Essays: about piano- was good, alittle long though
[<em>] Teacher Recommendation: Math teacher was prob good (never read), Chem teacher was a little weird but good
[</em>] Counselor Rec: prob a little above average
[<em>] Additional Rec: from my coach- heard it was really good
[</em>] Interview: yes</p>
<p>[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): NY
[</em>] Country (if international applicant):
[<em>] School Type: public
[</em>] Ethnicity: asian (-1)
[<em>] Gender: male (-1)
[</em>] Income Bracket: ~120,000
[li] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):</p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]Reflection[list]
[<em>] Strengths: essays/ academics/ ecs
[</em>] Weaknesses: maybe recs/ perhaps essays if the committee wasn’t so liberal, long CA essay
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: because of who I am
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: accepted to dartmouth, pomona, swarthmore, wesleyan, urochester, rejected at princeton, yale, stanford, brown, columbia</p>
<p>Wait, davidwoou, were you accepted? I can’t read your font 
ha, just kidding, congratulations!</p>
<p>OH MY GOSH guys, thanks so much for your help!!! They boosted my financial aid package, and I’m going to visit tomorrow!! :D</p>
<p>Thrilled to hear it, ermsy! Have a fabulous visit, then come back here and tell us all about it! :)</p>
<p>Thanks! I will! (And your article was very helpful, by the way! I appreciate the advice :)) My cousin goes to Scripps College, so I’m hoping to get a good look at the Claremonts’ environment in general as well as Pomona itself.</p>