Hi all, GT is my rising senior son’s top choice school.
He’s been in gifted courses and accelerated since elementary but had a lot of difficulty focusing in MS and early HS. The summer before his junior year he was diagnosed with ADD and began treatment. He took 5 AP courses this past year and did incredibly well (wGPA 4.4) but his cumulative wGPA as he starts his senior year is only 3.46 due to his MS and early HS struggles. He’s awaiting his AP scores but expects 4s/5s.
He’s taken the SAT twice and done exceptionally well despite not really preparing. He’s been studying and plans to retake it in August; I expect that he’ll score around 1500.
He is a varsity lacrosse player (has played since 2nd grade) and has lots of community service. He does not want to pursue playing lax in college.
I have two questions:
Since GT doesn’t have an ‘other significant information’ section like the Common App, should he disclose his diagnosis and how he has gained the skills necessary to overcome that challenge. He has no special accommodations at school; he’s simply receiving treatment.
He also has another special circumstance that I’m wondering if he should mention. His father (my former husband) died suddenly due to a heart condition when our son was only 5. At the time, his father worked in counterintelligence at a local federal agency (we used to live in greater DC).
Due to this special connection with the agency, my son has always felt very called to serve the country like his father. When he learned of the programs offered at the Walsh School and we visited recently, it quickly became his top choice school. We come from a large Catholic family; so, the Jesuit principals that GT embodies were also quite impressive. That said, he recognizes that his GPA makes GT a long shot at this point.
They say to use the essays to tell your story, but we’re on the fence about whether he should address these special circumstances and the things that he’s overcome (being raised by an only parent) because we wonder if it’s too much information to disclose and might be stigmatizing.
Perhaps it just makes more sense to talk about his massive LEGO collection or the sports card business that he started as a freshman?
Thoughts/advice would be appreciated. He plans to apply EA.
I would think the school counselor would be able to address the MS/HS issues…and change in school performance.
I’m sorry for the passing of your husband and the father of this student…but I’m not sure how that could be addressed since it happened so long ago. Perhaps someone else can comment.
@compmom might this career choice be something addressed in an essay…
His GC has indicated that she plans to address it in her letter. So, that’s a good point, perhaps he doesn’t need to address it in the body of the application at all.
I agree the school counselor should address the issue about grades. I wouldn’t recommend anyone divulging the ADHD diagnosis…Georgetown is not a kind, gentle, understanding, forgiving place.
Your S could address the passing of his father (condolences) and interest in following his footsteps into service, but that should not be the jist of the entire essay.
Why apply EA to Georgetown when your S’s app could likely benefit from good first semester grades? There is no statistical benefit to Gtown EA vs. RD.
Obviously georgetown is a big reach, but he can take his shot…just make sure he has a balanced college list of more reasonable reaches, a handful of targets and at least one affordable safety. Remember all his test scores must be reported to Gtown.
He definitely has a balanced list and has other options. I’m a university professor (med/grad school) at a large institution myself and so I’m very realistic about this. That said, I appreciate the advice.
The point about EA is a good one, as I know his application will definitely benefit from his first semester grades. Is there a down side to applying EA when it’s clearly his top choice? Meaning that he could get rejected outright in EA and not have the opportunity for them to consider his application in regular decision?
Not really…Gtown EA only prohibits an ED app which he wouldn’t be giving up since Gtown is his top choice. Gtown EA does allow other EA apps to public and private schools, plus rolling apps.
Georgetown does not deny in the EA round. So, the downside of getting deferred would be he still has optimism about getting accepted in March and I would be concerned that would prevent him from falling in love with his other options. Please make sure he applies rolling and/or EA to some schools where he is likely to have some good news before the holidays…if you would like some suggestions, let us know.
From Gtown website:
Candidates not admitted under the Early Action program are deferred to the spring review. There is no statistical advantage in applying Early Action, as both our Early Action and Regular Decision pools will have roughly the same acceptance rate. Typically, about 15 percent of the candidates deferred from Early Action are successful during the spring review.
There are many other Jesuit colleges. They all value giving back to the community. It’s integral to their values. Has your son considered any of the other Jesuit colleges? You said he has a varied list, but another school similar in values to Georgetown might be well worth considering.
My own kid graduated from Santa Clara University. Our family has a long tradition of doing some service…and many have done the Peace Corps so that was her choice. Worth considering!
Sorry about the death in the family. It’s so traumatic at that age (my sister was 7, I was just born so didn’t experience losing someone I knew). That your son is so involved and successful is really reflective of how you raised him so that he could overcome losing his best friend. Honestly - after that -Gtown or otherwise - sounds like he has success written all over him. It’s very difficult as I saw with my sister to overcome such loss. Kudos to you - and him.
The concern I have with the connection to dad is while it’s noble he feels the need to serve (which can happen from any school), he needs to show why he what he wants - not just because my dad did.
You note a special connection to the agency. Is it just that dad worked there or is there an actual, regular activity that bonds him? That dad worked there and that’s the bond - I’d agree would not be basis for the essay. If there’s a story to tell based on experiences he’s had with the agency post dad, it could be different.
Sounds like your son will add to any and many campuses. Best of luck to him at Gtown and others.
One other thing - a weighted 3.46 is not a 3.46. There are so many weighting systems that schools will weight themselves but an UW is really what you need to know to benchmark. Sounds like it will be high 2s/low 3s - so you should know that or calculate it.
87% of Gtowns class is in the top 10% of its hs class and 97% in the top quarter.
While you didn’t ask for other schools or an alternative plan - I can’t stress enough - please don’t fall in love and ensure he finds a balanced list of schools - especially safeties - and they’ll likely need to be multiple rungs down.
But you never know and it always makes sense to try if you really want something. If they say no, it’s their loss. Congrats again to him on his accomplishments and you on raising a fine young man.
I’m a Fordham graduate who went straight into the Peace Corps after undergrad and then straight into grad school at the end of my service at… Georgetown
When a college does this (defers all or most non-admitted EA applicants), that gives the deferred applicants limited information – basically, they are not in the “obvious admit” (from the college’s point of view) group, meaning that they are either in the “borderline” or “obvious reject” groups. That suggests that the chance of admission after deferral is less than what may have been assumed before, and leaves many with a false hope.
On the other hand, colleges that reject “obvious reject” applicants in EA (or ED) give more useful information – the rejected applicants know to move on, while the deferred ones know that they are on the “borderline”.
This isn’t quite true at Georgetown, where the admit rate for EA deferrals can actually be higher than the RD cohort as a whole. So it’s not the case that every EA deferral is either “borderline” or “obvious reject” - rather, it’s just that the EA threshold is intentionally set very high, significantly higher than it could be (and that it would be at places that use their Early program as a way to lock in deposits because they have concerns about meeting their enrollment targets).