Virginiafan13

Right now Davidson is high on my list and I'm considering heavily weather to apply ED next fall. I feel like I will be competitive in admissions with hopefully SAT scores around or a little past their 75th percentile. (right now around the middle). I also will have more than 500 service hours with combinations of church and other organizations that should stand out as well. No point talking about my Essay's and recommendations because saying they will be good doesn't really mean anything. The problem I have right now is my GPA.

I go to a pretty competitive private school where I am taking one of the most rigorous course loads, however that still probably doesn't have enough merit to balance out a 3.2 UW (hopefully closer to a 3.4 when I apply). Do you think this could kill me or do you think that Davidson looks close enough at the individual that it will just be a negative part of the application as a whole. Any advice will help as well as weather applying ED II would be better because I will have first semester senior grades if I am correct, and that should help my GPA some more. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh one more thing. I do have an upward trend from about a 2.7-2.8 GPA freshmen year if that helps.

amplifiar842

I would definitely work on your grades. Finish as strong as you can.

Haha...that said, I can't really talk. I had around a 3.3 at graduation and was not in the top quarter of my class. The pre-first-senior year transcript they received had a GPA under 3.0. So, I'm in the bottom two percent of Davidson students (in terms of high school GPA).

But tada! Here I am! I was otherwise a strong student. Graduated having taken 9 AP classes, plus another 5 or 6 Honors-level classes. Had a beautiful admissions essay (I entered it in a Newsweek contest the summer before this year and it won 4th in the country out of 10,000 entries...it was good haha). Undoubtedly had good recs. 1350 SAT + 700 writing, so I hit a little above the midranges, I think. Took several subject tests and did well. Extra curriculars were extremely strong...held leadership roles in a lot of activities and organizations.

Not saying any of this to brag - just to show that GPA and rank are not always determining factors.

Virginiafan13

I'm hoping that a good amount of focus on service will stand out. Plan to get around a 1400-1450 on the SAT with hopefully a 650+ writing (praying on that last part). I also have a small connection with the school that might help a little bit. I think my Essay will probably make or break me in the end so I plan to get a good head start on those this summer.

Virginiafan13

Oh also I am a URM (African American) if that helps at all. I have heard that Davidson isn't the most "diverse" school so that might help even though I'm sure they are trying to fix that.