What does it take to get admitted ED1 or ED2? Current jr in rigorous HS will end senior year with around 13APs, numerous honors and a few dual enrollment classes. Will have around 4.4GPA (around 3.9 unweighted). Currently he has a 32 ACT and plans to retake. He plays HS baseball and club baseball all year. He’s in NHS, history honor society, international competitor for DECA, and puts on a charity basketball tourney each year. He has not cured cancer or done anything extraordinary, but is an intellectually curious athletic kid.
I have a sophomore and a senior attending Vanderbilt right now and they absolutely love it, so it was a great fit for them, yet I honestly do not know why Vanderbilt accepted them, X college did not, yet Y college did.
I have a friend who placed 1 at Duke, 1 at Stanford, and 1 at Harvard. I thought she may have the secret sauce. She told me to do my best to not let my kid fall in love with only one college. She said, if your kid meets the level to get a seat at the admissions table, then all your kid can do is write the best application, submit and sit back and wait. Her Harvard kid was denied by Duke and Stanford. The kid accepted to Stanford was denied by Duke and Harvard. Identical situation for the Duke kid.
Definitely, ED1 if Vanderbilt is first choice, but find a great safety that your son can live with first, then only apply to schools he likes better than the safety.
Increase, the ACT score and your junior increases the probability, but even with a 36 it is still a Reach for everyone.
Admissions try to do the best they can to build a great, diverse class every year with a holistic approach, but there are too many qualified students who will be successful elsewhere and admissions would love to accept, but there are only a very limited number of slots. Make sure your son puts a lot of effort into tying his application together to tell his story.
Sounds like a top candidate for any top tier school. However, having 13 AP’s and several DE courses completed by the end of his senior year will certainly put his weighted GPA far above 4.4. I don’t know how your school weights AP and DE classes, but with a 3.9 UW GPA, your child’s weighted GPA should be 4.8+ with that many AP’s and DE’s.
Win an statewide award. Colleges love that stuff. Start essays now. Organize his college list (have at least 10 schools, it will leave options for him) and organize the essays for each school. They tend to not vary much from yr to yr (start w/ Common App and an essay about an extracurricular). I would work on getting his counselor and teachers that will do his rec letters to LOVE him. Find some research opportunities too and focus on those SAT Subject Tests. Soon as colleges released next yrs info, immediately begin work on structuring his application (research the Common App format). Good luck! Def ED1 if that’s his first choice, but have several other top tier schools that he likes (If he likes the south: UNC Chapel Hill, UVA, Tulane, Duke, UMiami, Wake Forest) and some quality safeties (for his stats, you can call top tier public schools like Penn State/UMD as well as some competitive private schools like Fordham and GW all safeties)
From the information you have given, it appears that gpa/stats are within range to be considered. After that the rest of the app matters: essays, LORs, how/if the kid “fits” the school.
@Anisqoyo : FWIW, gpa weighting is done differently at every school. At our school, AP/honors/DE all get the same 0.5 bump, and not many are available the first two years. 4.4 in our school is usually a 4.0 unweighted with close to the max honors/DE/AP allowed, and usually less than 5 kids have 4.4+ range in each graduating class (out of 150).
At this point, I think time is best spent on raising the ACT scores and writing the best essays he can. If he has opportunities for leadership within his current activities, that would likely help also. Applying ED would certainly give him a boost, but I agree with @bloomfield88 that there are so many qualified candidates and not enough spots. Admission to these kinds of schools is so unpredictable so best of luck!. My S19 is a very happy freshman at Vanderbilt.
@elena13 is right. Get as high an ACT score as humanly possible. Cram, super-score, take the test in pieces – whatever it takes. Vandy really digs high test scores.
And apply ED.