Seriously rethinking my decision to apply to Georgetown...?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Georgetown University
1

I’m a high school senior applying to colleges right now. I have four schools that I’m applying to early (MIT, UChicago, Georgetown, and UMD- College Park) and I have my applications pretty much done for all of them except Georgetown. I toured each of the schools except College Park, which I’ll be touring next weekend, and of the three I toured I loved each of them. However, as I’ve done more research on Georgetown while writing my essay about why I want to go there, I’ve seriously started rethinking my decision to apply early.

I plan on majoring in a math or science, and I’m not completely sure yet exactly what I want to do, but the majors that have spoken to me the most are MIT’s Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences major, and Johns Hopkins’ Earth & Planetary Sciences major (I’m applying there regular decision). Basically, I’m really thinking I might want to do earth or planetary science, and I don’t know too much about atmospheric science yet but it sounds really interesting. However, Georgetown doesn’t offer anything really even close to those, and overall they seem mostly focused on humanities and international studies. They have a great pre-med program, so I’m sure their biology and chemistry programs are great too, but I’m not at all interested in pre-med or biology, and I don’t think I want to do just straight chemistry. And I don’t think I want to do physics, which is really the only other science they have (other than some more variations on biology).

I think my chances of getting into Georgetown are fair (1580 superscored SAT, 4.0 unweighted GPA, 800 on Math II subject test, 750 on both US History and Biology E subject tests, National AP Scholar and National Merit Semifinalist, and a lot of extracurriculars), but since the second essay is about why you want to go to Georgetown, I’m worried I won’t be able to write a great essay on that. I loved the campus and the whole atmosphere there, but the academics really aren’t speaking to me as much as other schools I’m applying to. I’ve already interviewed and I’ve already paid the application fee, so I think I should apply, but I’m starting to think I should maybe just apply regular to give myself more time to think about why I want to go there. I don’t really think I’ll end up choosing to go there even if I get in, but I’ve already come so far with the application process that I think I should just finish it, whether that’s now or for the January deadline. I am mostly done with the application, so should I just finish it and submit it, or should I wait to apply regular? Or is it just not worth it to apply at all?

2

I think that you should wait and apply regular decision that way to will actually understand if you truly want to go there. But if you think about it and really don’t want to go there or wouldn’t even considering attending even if you were accepted, I recommend just not applying at all if you really don’t plan on attending Georgetown.

3

@ced050, agree that Georgetown isn’t known as a STEM school - the others are all excellent STEM choices as would Hopkins.

4

In that essay, do you really need to get specific about academic programs? You could present yourself as undecided about your major (as many entering students are), then speak to the overall quality of academics, the undergraduate focus, what you like about the campus and atmosphere, etc.

I agree that for STEM in general (and for rocks & stars in particular) there may be better choices than Georgetown.But if you’ve already paid the fee and prepared the rest of the application, what the heck. Spend a little time on that essay, without fretting over it.

5

You sound like a student who, irrespective of your major, would really appreciate, at a minimum, a range of electives in fields such as geosciences, astronomy and meteorology. Since these fields do not seem to be present in Georgetown’s curriculum, you may want to look elsewhere for your primary college options.

6

I sounds to me that the only reason that you are applying to these EA schools is that you can. You can’t even convince yourself that this is a good fit for you. There is a reason why they have these prompts. Someone who reads a lot of these essays will see right through it and you will end out on the decline pile. If you change your mind, you can always RD. If you don’t believe them that you don’t get an EA advantage, then you shouldn’t go there anyway.

7

Your chances under regular decision may actually be better than EA to GTown.

8

Academically speaking, Georgetown is not a good fit. You may want to look at schools like Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Northwestern or Penn instead.

9

Georgetown is one of the few schools for which the Early Action acceptance rate is LOWER than that of Regular Decision. My daughter was admitted EA last year and I think the EA acceptance rate was just shy of 12%. There is no advantage to applying there early, unless you are someone who knows you want to go there and you want to know if you are accepted as soon as possible. If you are unsure, your chances are greater in the regular pool