<p>I understand where you are coming from however, Howard gives out a limited amount of full ride merit money and are not at a loss of african american who want to attend a hbcu with a lot of history and tradition. The situation is almost reversed. </p>
<p>Many AA students are not going to comit to ED unless they know that they know the school is a first choice and are either picked up by Questbridge, Posse, or are just willing to work with whatever the FA is going to be.</p>
<p>Most of the “top of the heap” AA students are going to apply RD, because they are still going to be URMs in the admission cycle, unless they mess up drastically first semester senior year are going to be picked up at some choice schools (especially AA males).</p>
<p>An AA applying EA at Howard means they have a name brand school in the pocket, $$, non-binding giving them the opportunity to still weigh their options basically making it a win-win situation. Everyone who is looking to do diversity recruitment comes there, school has a good lock in the DC market and students at the top of the class will get in to a number of good grad, med and law school programs.</p>
<p>These are also the students that Howard is banking on to partake of their rich history and prominence in the african american community. The school will throw the $ at them to woo them from competitive mainstream schools. Student now has the opportunity to let the admissions and the $ marinate and get used to the idea of attending Howard on a free ride (for some this is the black equivalent of going to HYP along with Morehouse and Spelman). In the AA community you go to church, you talk to the neighbors, say you’ve been admitted to Howard, everyone knows the school. </p>
<p>I remember the experience in our own house; D’s best friend got accepted to Spelman, with no $$ (parents borrowed, got $$ from other family members to pay full freight). It was the big news, she had “done good.” D was accepted to every school she applied to and was debating between Dartmouth, Williams and Amherst. She received so many quizzical stares and “you poor thing looks.” She was even asked “what happened? I thought you would have gotten into Howard (where she would have been eligible for their presidential scholarship) or Spelman.”</p>
<p>^^sybbie719 LOL! How long ago was that? When I went to Howard, I had never heard of any of those schools. In fact, I’d never heard of most of them until I came to CC.</p>
<p>D just graduated from Dartmouth 08 (and took some heat for not applying to Howard for law school ). When asked where she went to school and she simply says Dartmouth College and still gets quizzical looks.</p>
<p>I think you should research EA more throughly – both as a general topic and specifically at Howard (for instance, you should be able to turn up the statistics on how many kids applied EA last year and how many were accepted versus RD season). </p>
<p>You should also specifically read Howard’s financial aid site and email their fin aid officers to understand how an EA is treated. They field questions like this all the time. They will not make you any promises though. Each year and each applicant is different. </p>
<p>Only then will you be really ready to make the EA/RD decision. </p>
<p>As much as you don’t want to hear this, it may make you a better human being if you do go to a local CC for a year or two. You see yourself as an elite being (top 20 Law goal is that) – and you may very well be so. But it would not hurt you to really see that there are bright people at CC’s and even, gasp, in places like South Dakota. </p>
<p>If you haven’t seen “My cousin Vinny” I encourage you to do so (warning, it has a fair amount of profanity) but it is hilarious – and a good reminder that a sharp lawyer can come from a Brooklyn night school. </p>
<p>By all means, shoot for Howard. When and if you get there, know, every day, that there are smart, decent kids who are not there with you – and who are, in no way, a lesser quality of human being.</p>
<p>^ Thank you But I’m not sure where I can find that kind of information (checked the website) regarding what % of applicants were accepted EA vs. RD. (if anyone can find this info i would greatly appreciate that).</p>
<p>I will apply to colleges just so I can have a variety of options to choose from and CC is definitely one of my choices to consider when that time comes…</p>
<p>FWIW, my son is pretty much where you are. No D’s or F’s, but not quite an 1800 SAT either. Doesn’t have REALLY lofty ambitions, nor regrets. We are biding our time, hoping the upward trend continues, and visiting our state schools.</p>
<p>maybe you need to put the socializing on the back burner and be singularly focused on grinding out the rest of the term and doing what ever you can to raise your gpa. You will have to grind it out this term and probably first term senior year to get to the 3.0 hump as simply doing well this term may not be enough to put you over the top.</p>
<p>How does your 1860 break out in terms of CR+math?</p>
<p>Keep in mind that not every eligible student is going to receive a scholarship. Also remember still in this bracket, will you have the room & board covered or will it be hard for your mom to pay?</p>
<p>I remember having that book lying around the house a couple of years back. I will look into that! :)</p>
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<p>Actually it was 1820 CR-550 & math- 700 ( and i wanted to be an engineer before but nvm my sister is already one hahaha)</p>
<p>By the looks of the website it looks like i might be eligible for 15k in aid (that is if i can get in) i will try to raise my scores in the meantime. I don’t think the rest of the coverage should be too much of a problem…but I will talk to parents about it.</p>
<p>Your math score looks solid, and you can get that CR up a few points by memorizing some vocabulary. Direct Hits will be helpful to you in that aspect.</p>
<p>sybbie, Thank you for explaining. It’s very interesting how all of this works and I am always glad to add a bit more to my own store of knowledge.</p>
<p>We found that the College Board’s Free SAT Question of the Day was a pretty painless way of improving scores. Good for you on pulling up your classwork grades! That will be the most help of all.</p>