Hi all, I applied EA for Carlson and am anxiously awaiting a response. I was wondering what others think my chances are.
GPA (weighted): 3.516, with an upward trend
ACT: 31
School does not provide class rank
Have taken 4 AP classes, enrolled in 5 right now. 4s on my psych and lang exam, 3 on US History
EC: -National Honor Society
- Speech Team (Moved from VP to President, all 4 years of HS)
- Business Professionals of America (Sophomore, junior, senior year. 5th place at Nationals and state champion)
- Lacrosse (Freshman and sophomore year, captain of frosh team)
- Theater
- President’s Forum
- Students Against Gun Violence
What is your unweighted GPA? (if your school doesn’t calculate, an estimate is fine). How has your GPA improved, and what science and math have you taken/are taking?
My unweighted is slightly below a 3.0 I believe. I had an extremely rough sophomore year slump. I got two D+ and several C’s. My junior year, I worked as hard as possible to get it up. I got As and Bs in all of my classes, but exceled in my APs which were psych, lang, and us history. I’ve taken honors bio, chem, physics, advanced algebra 2, trig/pre-calc, and survey of calc. I am currently enrolled in AP environmental science and AP statistics.
I don’t know if this helps, but I applied to Marketing and HR.
Sounds like you had a wonderful come-back! Keep up the good work. Unfortunately those C’s and D’s are going to detract from an otherwise excellent application. Admission to Carlson is competitive, 28-29% overall (lower for OOS). You should consider some back-ups just in case you aren’t admitted. Did you specify a backup college? I know that CEHD and CFANS both have business/marketing major options, although the focus might be slightly different.
The majors you specified on your app. were really there to help direct you to the proper college of entry. Admission is by school or college, not by major. Once admitted you can major in whatever the college offers, provided you meet any necessary pre-reqs. Last I checked Carlson had no limits on any of its majors but you should check to make sure that’s still the case this year. They do try to keep the admit numbers low in order to allow their students maximum choice.
^ Just thought of something else. You should enlist the assistance of a teacher or guidance counselor who can attest to your academic turnaround. UMN does’t require a rec. letter but in this case I think you’ll need one. It’s ok to send it in after the upcoming deadline since they’ll just add it to your application before review.
Finally, not sure if this applies to you but if you believe you might have something that is hindering your academic progress (ADHD, anxiety, etc.) be sure to get a diagnosis and, if appropriate, medication. The high school years are tough, especially with a challenging course load, and college is tougher. There are resources in place for the latter but they typically need a psych. eval. or similar in order to provide appropriate accommodations. Again, have no idea whether any of that applies in this case but thought I’d mention it just in case.
Thank you so much for your tips! I definitely plan to send in a rec letter because I think it’s an extra edge that I need. I did make CFANS my backup because of the marketing option. Again, thank you so much! I really appreciate the help.
My son had a 3.65 with several AP classes and a 30 ACT. He had the same thing happen where he struggled a bit as as a freshman and sophomore and then kicked it in high gear for junior and senior. Bummer thing is that it’s kind of unrecoverable if you are thinking Carlson but worth a shot. It’s a good lesson going into college that freshman year will be important to do your best.
My son applied to Carlson and was denied but approved for his 2nd choice which was CEHD Business and Marketing. He is in his 2nd year there now and is actually thankful he is not doing Carlson as CEHD Business is a much better fit for him. Good luck!
We had one kid who had an academic meltdown during soph. year. Told me she couldn’t even hear the words of the teacher because her head was too full of noise. She went in to get a psych. evaluation and was diagnosed with major ADHD/ASD. Poor kid had been coping as best she could but the wall was too high by sophomore year to scale using the normal bag of tricks. Went on ADHD meds and was straight A’s/academic award winner/AP-Honors kid/33 ACT the following year. The turnaround was amazing. She also did a summer of tutoring in Pre-Calc. and study skills to get her ready to move in the right direction (paid for a portion of it, too!). She wrote about all this in the UMN optional essay. Her uw GPA was a 3.4 at the time. She was admitted to CLA (her first choice) in October. This was four years ago and after watching the results over the past few years I’m not as confident that it would go as well. In her case, the 33 ACT probably helped, since it was well above the 75th percentile for CLA. But we’ve also known kids with high test scores and sub-3.0 GPA who couldn’t get in to their college of choice. It can go either way. Just speculation here but perhaps, given no issues with course rigor or test score, Admissions flags the app. and takes a very close look at it.
I’m glad to hear he’s enjoying it! I am hoping that if I don’t get into Carlson, I’ll be accepted into CFANS, but we’ll just have to wait and see I suppose! Thank you for sharing your experience with it!