Hi! My son is currently attending Sciences Po as a 1st year student (HS Class of 2019). These were his stats. I hope this helps give an idea of what they are looking for!
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1480 (780 E, 700 M)
ACT (breakdown): did not take
SAT II: US History 780, World History 750
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Weighted GPA: school did not weight
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 10%(?) School did not publish rankings.
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 English Lang, 5 Enviro Science, 5 US History, 4 French, 3 US Gov (he was not happy about this one)
IB (place score in parenthesis): n/a
12th Year Course Load: AP French, AP Calc B/C, Advanced Theater, AP Enviro Science, AP US Gov, College and Sci Fi Writing.
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National medalist in Scholastic Writing Awards 2016, Regional Scholastic Writing Awards Gold key award 2016-19
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): nationally-ranked competitive ice dancer. Top 10 finish at US National Figure Skating Championships in his division in 2015 and 2016. Qualifier at 2017 National Solo Ice Dance Championships. Best Delegate gavel at Yale Model Congress 2017.
Job/Work Experience: Learn to Skate Coach 2+ years.
Volunteer/Community service: math tutoring at town library, elementary school reading coach/buddies. Volunteer hours with skating club.
Summer Activities: Language Studies at U of North Georgia in Arabic summer 2017; 1 month abroad in Morocco for Arabic studies summer 2018 (received college credit from Tulane).
Essays (rating 1-10, details): I’m his mom so I am very biased, but I thought his common app essay was fantastic. It was about how he initially hated skating until he saw Meryl Davis and Charlie White in 2009, which led him to have a different outlook on the sport and ultimately love it.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): I didn’t see any of these. His skating coach gave an additional recommendation based on him training for 9+ years with him.
Teacher Rec #1 (rating 1-10, details): did not see. Was the APUSH teacher. Think she liked him?
Teacher Rec #2 (rating 1-10, details): did not see. Was his AP Lang teacher. She liked him and he got a great grade in her class so I imagine it was pretty good.
Counselor Rec (rating 1-10, details); did not see. We all had a great relationship with his counselor so I also imagine this was pretty good too.
Additional Rec (if any) (rating 1-10, details): 10. See above.
Interview (rating 1-10, details): I wasn’t there but the interview process for Sciences Po is VERY thorough. It entailed him getting an article to review a few minutes beforehand (30? 45?), and then he had to discuss it in depth right afterwards with the interviewers. He strategized what he was going to say and took notes while reading the article, and from what I could tell, it went very well.
Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: no
Country : USA
School Type: public school
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): competitive figure skater, non-native French speaker with no family connections to France.
Reflections:
Strengths: scores were in attractive range, with interesting extracurriculars. Interest in Arabic and demonstrating that interest through his summer activities helped.
Weaknesses: He got accepted so I’m not sure what to write here?
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: I think his interview went extremely well and the fact that he had no connection to France other than his 6+ years of taking the language was an interesting conversation starter. He also had strong stats and his skating background was probably a plus.
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: He was rejected from Princeton RD, Georgetown EA and RD. He was accepted to 11 schools total but his final 4 that he decided between were Sciences Po, Trinity College Dublin, William and Mary’s Dual BA with St Andrews, and Seton Hall’s School of International Relations and Diplomacy.
General Comments (if any): My advice to any US students applying would be to point out to Sciences Po what is truly unique about you and in what ways you are one-of-a-kind kind of student. I think all those things really added to my son’s overall application chances. If there is an activity or hobby you have done for multiple years and achieved success in (like my son did in skating), I would recommend highlighting this as well.