Hey guys im gonna be a senior in Hs this upcoming year. Im a white, male second generation college student.
GPA: 3.927 Weighted. School doesnt give us our
unweighted or class rank. Guessing my unweighted is around 3.6-3.7 (weakest part of my application i feel like).
ACT: 32 not superscored
EC:
Three Year Member of DECA (Went to states Junior year)
Volunteered at Camp Sunshine these past Summers (Camp for people with disabilities)
Have experience working - Pizzeria for two falls. Over 200 hours.
Created my own landscaping business. Would acquire vacant houses from realtors and take care of their lawns or subsidize the work to friends (i feel like this could be an interesting hook, young entrepreneur)
Played Baseball very competitvely for the past 8 years but decided Id rather attend a school I really wanted to go to over a smaller division three school (was talking to Amherst, Tufts, and Clark)
I am starting to fill out the Common App and I need to start looking at the specific Wake Forest questions. I met with a college admissions coach and she said that applying to wake forest ED1 would be a great fit for me. I love everything about the school and from my understanding the admission percentage for ED was 55% this past year.
Lastly, I am visiting and interviewing in September. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
I would say wake is a a good ed choice to help put you over the top. However it is a reach. A lot of the ed admissions numbers are spiked by all the d 1 athletes in that pile. I am sure you will get a full review with your excellent profile but my realistic expectation if I were your advisor is to expect a deferral ed round and second look rd.
Your ACT is at the 75th percentile for Wake and they fill half or more of the class ED. In recent years have taken 800 at ED, so not all are athletes by a long shot. Write a good supplement and you have a very good chance at ED.
According to their most recent CDS, Wake Forest’s ED admit rate was 44.25%. Some of those are athletes, but not nearly enough to obliterate the advantage suggested by the much higher rate ED vs. RD. (and doubtless, there are hooked applicants in the RD round too. It’s not like they all apply ED.)
Your test score is excellent for Wake. GPA is about average.
Maybe your starting point (for chancing) isn’t the full 44.25% as an unhooked applicant; maybe it’s more like 35%. Even if we start at 35%, you are an above-average applicant statistically, so I would call Wake a match if you apply ED.
If you applied RD, I would call it a high match.
Now, if you like Wake, you might also like these schools – similar in academic quality (well, mostly…) and social/sports vibe, if not necessarily size:
Washington & Lee (verrry Greek and preppy)
SMU
Tulane
Bucknell
Lehigh
Lafayette
U of Richmond
Elon
Obviously these schools are at least a little bit different from one another in one or more areas, and from Wake, but there are similarities.
@NJ2000 I agree with @prezbucky that the most recent numbers released by Wake for their ED acceptance rate shows 44%. That stat is from the Common Data Set numbers released for the 2017-2018 year. (You were told 55% - I’ve never heard it nearly that high. But it is high enough to make a significant difference over their overall 29% acceptance rate.) Interestingly, Wake states on the CDS that they do not consider work experience as an admissions factor. However, I think they mean ‘simply having a job, per se.’ I do think you could find a way to share your entrepreneurial side in one of the supplemental essays, esp your working with realtors to maintain vacant homes. Very creative. For your sports, you may want to emphasize the dedication and discipline it took to juggle that with work, a demanding courseload, or whatever else came into play. Or the time you thought about giving it up - but didn’t .They want to see that you can dig your heels in and tough it out. Wake is a demanding school… aka Work Forest.
One thing you didn’t mention that they look at very, very highly is the rigor of both your school and your course load, as well as class rank. Wake weighs those three pretty heavily. Are you in all Honors / AP? Class rank? is this a high school where students routinely matriculate to top colleges? Just trying to understand what that GPA represents.
FYI, I am a parent with a kid that is a freshman there now, so we just went through this last fall. They LOVE it at Wake and I wish you the best, if that is where your heart is!
Thank you for responding! Including senior year I will have taken 7 honors classes and 9 AP classes. My unweighted gpa is low, as I am getting mainly Bs-B+s in the APs and A-s-As in the honors. I am hoping my rigorous courseload, relatively high test score (32 act nonsuperscored), demonstrated interest (flew from NJ to NC for campus visit and interview), and strong writing supplements will offset my gpa. Will me being able to apply with no need based financial aid be a benefit?
The most important part of the admission profile at Wake is academic achievement measured by GPA / rigor. Not all 4.0s are the same. They definitely look at everything else including essays. All of it’s important but nothing is more important than your HS performance. They want to make sure you can do the work as they’re program, regardless of major (due to the core requirements) ,is quite rigorous.
Looks like you have a solid chance. If you know it’s the one and can afford it regardless of aid, I’d go ahead and ED for the extra Boost!