My daughter is applying to Northwestern, Early Decision. She has a 4.4 GPA and 1400 SAT. She is VP of Speech & Debate at her HS, and won 1st Place in the California State Tournament in her speech event last spring. She does Musical Theater and Improv year round and takes a challenging course load. What are her chances of getting accepted, applying Early Decision? It is her top choice school and it’s the only school she actually visited last February and loved it. She currently attends a private school in California.
That’s a good GPA. Test score is a little low for NW but it is much better to go ED because they accept over half of the class out of that pool.
Does your school use Naviance? You can get a lot of info on the scattergram if enough of your students have applied recently. Is she applying anywhere EA?
That is always a good idea to compensate for a possible ED denial or deferral.
That’s a very decent GPA (i really can’t say for sure because many schools have different scaling), but that sat score is a bit low for Northwestern, although EDing will definitely help her chances. What subject tests has she taken, and what are her AP scores?
Another factor…what is her intended major?
Great feedback, thank you! Yes, she’s applying to some schools EA.
She has 3 AP’s she’s taken - APUSH, 3; WHAP, 5; AP English Lit, 4
She’s got 3 more AP classes in senior year (AP English Language, AP Environmental Science, AP Psychology)
Intended majors - Biology and Theater
As a side note, she wanted to address her SAT score in a short paragraph in the open comments section and say how it’s not reflective of her academic capabilities. When speaking with her counselor, her counselor said she had also mentioned that in her letter of recommendation. Should my daughter also address it in her words in that open comments section?
Not sure about commenting on test scores. No point, really.
Every excellent student who is disappointed with their standardized scores has the same sentiment…
“I am better than my test scores.”
It doesn’t need to be said.Your daughter obviously is a hard worker and has good time management to participate in such demanding extracurriculars.
She is around the 25 percentile, but that means that one quarter of accepted students had a lower score.
Northwestern is pretty holistic so I would say she has a decent chance ED.
If she wants to major in Bio is there a reason she did not take other science AP’s–Bio or Chem?
Most students at a place like NU will have taken one or both of those if they are intending to major in Bio.
Is she pre-med?
The reason she didn’t take AP Bio or AP Chem was that it simply didn’t fit into her schedule. She is taking 9 classes and has no off-periods. Her only option was AP Envir Science, since she had to take Speech & Debate and another elective. She has taken Spanish all 4 years in HS. Should she mention all of this? As in, she couldn’t take AP Bio or Chem because it wouldn’t fit in her schedule?
Did she take honors level courses in the basic three sciences? That would probably be enough to demonstrate scientific rigor.
Also, it seems strange that her interest in speech and debate and another elective superceded her interest in the sciences.
In any case, that is moot at this point and she should definitely indicate her passion for bio in her essays since it is not evident in her transcript or extracurriculars.
Is her high school considered rigorous?
That is also a factor.
wGPA 4.4 does not tell anything without the details in weighting and scale. There are schools giving GPA in 6.0 scale for dual enrollment, for instance. What is her uwGPA in 4.0 max scale? What is her class rank? In addition, SAT 1400 is below admission average. The higher admission rate for ED is mainly due to stronger applicants, legacy, and recruited athletes. The expression of interest does take a minor role there too. As the have plenty of high quality applicants, they have no reason to admit below average applicants in ED without a good reason.
My son is also applying ED but he has mostly language and science extracurriculars as well as a 33 ACT.
I think he has about a 50/50 chance of acceptance and he agrees.
Your daughter seems like a very motivated student, but may I ask, why NW and why bio?
If she has a strong passion for NW and all it offers she will no doubt communicate that in her essays.
Admissions are very brutal these days and many posters here just want to prepare us for the worst 8-|