Princeton SCEA Class of 2020 Applicant Thread

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@collegebound1915 I’m not sure how represented VA is. I don’t think it’s up there with NY and Cali, but it’s no North Dakota. I’m from Alabama. Will I have an advantage? Stealing this off another thread as I have no idea where the map of all students from each state is atm.

EDIT: This below is Stanford. I assume they’re similar.

For the Class of 2013:

State – Number of Enrolled
Alabama 2
Alaska 8
Arizona 32
Arkansas 6
California 676
Colorado 45
Connecticut 25
Delaware 5
Florida 26
Georgia 20
Hawaii 21
Idaho 6
Illinois 45
Indiana 17
Iowa 9
Kansas 3
Kentucky 3
Louisiana 5
Maine 2
Maryland 37
Massachusetts 31
Michigan 16
Minnesota 18
Mississippi 1
Missouri 17
Montana 3
Nebraska 3
Nevada 13
New Hampshire 1
New Jersey 30
New Mexico 9
New York 49
North Carolina 13
North Dakota 3
Ohio 17
Oklahoma 6
Oregon 34
Pennsylvania 21
Rhode Island 3
South Carolina 6
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 10
Texas 87
Utah 8
Vermont 5
Virginia 31
Washington 55
West Virginia 3
Wisconsin 15
Wyoming 2

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In response to the question about whether they have notified SCEA applicants of a decision release date, this evening I received this: “We have not. Applicants will be notified soon about when SCEA decisions will be made available”

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@meaa7130 I think we’re scrutinized more. We (our kids & the parents) have more hoops to jump through too. The SAT IIs are required, not optional. You need 3 non-parent LoR. Some dual enrollment classes are highly preferred/required.

Parents fill out the school report side of things. Transcripts - my son’s first marking period ones are 22 1/2 pages long. (He takes more classes than the regular schooler.) I had to give grades, GPA, credits, course titles, course descriptions, curriculum lists, etc. It took months to get the formatting & wording to where I thought they would be easily understood by a person more familiar with public & private schools. (My son says I deserve a PhD in “Educationese.” lol) Next week, I’ll be making up his mid-year transcripts & getting those sent out to colleges.

I had to explain why & how we homeschool, how grades were determined, how the student took advantage of all the opportunities available to him, list every outside course he took & every non-parent teacher. Then there was the guidance counselor letter. (We were honest about how math is his weakness, but with the right teacher & curriculum, he eventually gets it.) (He’s not going into a STEM field.)

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To answer your question, I think it’s a combination of things. The student has to be extraordinary & the parent has to do their part. There’s not a lot of info out there about filling out our part of the Common App because it changes every year. Some parents don’t want to bother with it & urge their kids to apply elsewhere.

Some colleges won’t take homeschoolers at all, & some require more hoops than families can do.

Our kids also have to overcome the stigma & stereotype the public & media love to perpetuate. The majority are not conservative bible thumpers shielding their kids from evil worldly things. The majority are like our family - secular & having to homeschool because the school system failed our kids. We wanted a better education for our kids & made huge sacrifices to make it happen. For some of us, it’s more than that. School wasn’t a safe place. My son is lucky to be alive.

Sorry for the long post. I made a bullet point one maybe 10 pages ago. I’m also typing on my phone. (Son has my laptop, working on scholarship essays.)

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I was on the Harvard thread right before their results came out, and it was blowing up like crazy! So cool to see kids get in from there, ahh. Hopefully that’ll be us in an week!

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Hi Guys!
Do any of you know if having a sibling that currently goes there increases chances of admissions?

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@meaa7130 I heard (maybe in this thread? they blur together) about a Harvard internal memo regarding Affirmative Action saying that it is more helpful to be applying from Arkansas than to be black, just because they are relatively underrepresented there. I’m hoping that as an Iowa student maybe I’m at a slight advantage but I don’t think it’s that significant in the end. I think it’s a very minor advantage perhaps, as it’s good for them to be able to say every state is represented. Not a huge bump though, especially not in SCEA.

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@FarscapeFan Wow I’m sorry that you and your son has such a bad school system. Although my school isn’t one of those intensely smart magnet schools and is fairly laid-back on colleges and stuff (practically everyone goes to our state’s flagship or community college), my school is quite safe and is a good school system overall. I can’t imagine not having a good school system. But it really does stink that homeschoolers are required to go through so much to prove that their education was legit. That just seems like such a pain, and I can definitely see why it would discourage many people from applying… I hope your son does get in! It would be such a great payoff.

I’m crossing my fingers intensely for everyone on this thread. All of you are such a great, helpful, and friendly bunch, and accepted or not, I’m glad that I can be a part of this amazing community. :slight_smile:

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Hey I found it!! It’s just a breakdown of all the stats for the Class of 2019, including geographic representation and all that good stuff: https://admission.princeton.edu/sites/admission/files/books/Final_Profile_2015_16.pdf

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I know I’ve seen that before but couldn’t seem to find it anywhere. Nice find! Only three people from my state… Hoping to be one of the few next year.

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Darn it New York!! We have so many kids at every college!!

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@emtfxc That’s what happens when you’ve got the biggest city in the nation. Plenty of well-funded and effective schools, plus a surplus of bright kids. I’d be almost positive that most of the people getting in anywhere are from the NYC area. Then with Illinois, Chicago, etc.

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Turn up for living in a tiny, nowhere(ish) town!

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Anyone else have zero experience with the Ivy system & only learned through CC things like how vists are counted & there are huge open houses & some tours provide food? We’re our own guidance department so unless we come across it in our research or hear about it first hand, then we don’t even know that there is something to know. At our son’s old ps, they never mentioned Ivies & the few GC had over 350 students each. (Everyone applies to the big state school, the community college, etc. Not a single Ivy or top tier school was at the college fair.)

The only in-person tour we did was Princeton & just the once. My son loved it, knew it was the right fit, Admissions was welcoming & they & the tour guides answered our questions & eased our concerns. There wasn’t a need to go back. (I have no clue if they’re a school that counts visits as interest. We signed in, but we figured that was just to get on their mailing list.)

We couldn’t afford to visit the other two Ivies our son applied to. If he gets in, then we’ll tour. We did virtual tours for those & figured it was okay because the websites say they understand not all applicants can visit in person. The two state schools he’s applying to - every time hub had off of work, they didn’t have a tour. And now the fall tour season is over.

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I’ve always thought it was interesting how on the Class Profile that princeton gives each year, they never report ACT scores based on acceptance rate, and only SAT scores. This, combined with the comments of the Stanford admission lady in those youtube videos, has always made me skeptical of whether admissions counselers really weigh the SATand the ACT equally. You’d think they’d post both if that were the case: it would take them no more than an hour to calculate that data. Plus, those people in the admissions room most likely grew up taking the SAT, and not the latter. Anyway, its why I never took the ACT, but I’m probbaly reading too muych into it. Just a thought

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Also im from NJ, where literally nobody takes the ACT unless they fu–ed up their SATs, so im incredibly biased

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Am I the only one who wasn’t contacted by the financial aid office regarding any missing material? I find it rather unnerving that everyone else on this thread has

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@ptonpwr I really wouldn’t read into it. There’s no need to be any more nervous than you already are.

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@arcane25 In the South ACT is king. Hardly anyone takes the SAT at my school. I had a 35 ACT, but for Ivies I thought it better to take the SAT. I know they say the two tests are treated equally, but I just wanted to take the SAT for my sake. It worked out pretty well for me, since I got a 2360 superscore. However, I have seen a lot of people just submit ACT scores and get in, so IDK really.

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Is there anybody that did not receive an interview for REA? I am asking this for my cousin, she is from Canada BC but all the other applicants in Canada that I know of have already gotten their interview.

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@Desiree2 Nobody in my county got an interview, and we’re from NJ. It’s really odd, but it happens I guess.