Hi everyone. The majority of the senior class in my school is applying ED, which makes it feel as if applying ED is something everyone should do. I am interested in Brown (I know it’s an extremely competitive school to get in, but I honestly really like it), but my senior year grade quarter slacked a lot (currently having a few B’s), and my SAT score is also sort of low (over 1400 but below 1450). But I think my EC’s are OK, and I am confident that I can write good essays, especially if given more time than until November 1st. I’m gonna work extremely hard to improve my standardized testing score as well as my GPA, so hopefully my semester grade and SAT score would look better for the RD round.
Given the case, should I just wait until December to apply RD, even though Brown is my dream school? I’m just not sure how much an advantage it is to apply ED vs. RD (I’ve heard that the ED statistics looks really promising because of the ED applicant pool contains many athletes and legacy-bound students, although I’m pretty sure that even given that, the ED acceptance rate is still generally higher for unhooked students.)
If you have any suggestions, please let me know! Thank you guys so much! And to all fellow applicants stressing out about essays and grades—hang in there, we are all in this together!
Can you afford Brown? Have you run your family circumstances on their Net Price Calculator? What is your 9-11 GPA? A big drop off in 12-1st semester is going to hurt you – how many Bs?
There have been many discussions on this forum about the advantages of ED vs. RD, with differing opinions. You might want to look for those.
The ED advantage does not mean that students with weak(ish) GPA/SATs get accepted who wouldn’t get in during the RD round. It’s to your advantage to present the strongest case to admissions. The only exception to this would be a student with a strong hook – an athletic recruit, for example.
Perhaps you should find some early action schools to apply to, and then apply RD to Brown.
Since the majority of your class is applying ED – are there others who are applying ED to Brown?
Thank you! My counselor at school also stressed on the importance of having an upward trend in grades and especially in senior year first quarter, so I am well aware of how bad a consequence my grade slack can have on my application…which is why I am seriously considering only applying RD (Better to have a strong application than applying early just for the sake of the statistics, right?). I have had conversations with my parents, and fortunately we can afford Brown. Our school doesn’t actually calculate GPA, so colleges only see letter grades. For the past 3 years,I had 2 B+'s for semester grades–which eventually evened out to be A-'s in terms of year grades. Right now I have 2 B’s for senior year quarter grade (which I know is really bad…) So for now I have made my mind to apply RD, because it just doesn’t make sense for me to apply ED, being obviously under prepared in terms of grades. Thank you so much!
Thank you! @fireandrain ! I have flipped through quite some pages of the Brown forum, but haven’t actually encountered any yet (might just be that I’m too negligent haha), I will keep looking for them! But if you can put a link to one or two of those threads that would be even more awesome! (But I understand if you don’t want to go all the way back to find a thread posted like 2 years ago, haha) I have actually decided to just wait and apply RD to all schools—so no EA as well. Because I think taking the time to write the applications to EA schools that would accept me given my current grade is probably a less effective use of time compared to actually take advantage of not applying early and improve my grades and applications to schools that I actually really want to go, which are more competitive. I know there is at least two students applying ED to Brown from my school. They are both pretty academically strong, but the three of us have very different personalities and strengths.
@sashafonn When does your school release 1st quarter grades. Are you sure that Brown will even see these grades before they send out decisions in December?
One of these days I need to ask admissions about SAT subject tests; I always forget. My impression is that, unless you score really low (like, below 600), I doubt a subject test score will be the sole reason for a denial. IOW – if the application is strong, I don’t think admissions will look at a 600-700 subject test and say, based on that one test, reject.