D24 Results:
Caucasian / Female / no hooks
Small public charter school in AZ, school is in the top 50 national rankings of HSs on US News & World Report
3.22 UW / 4.02 W (some C’s scattered around between grades 9-11. Note: this HS lowers your grade for that subject for the entire year if you don’t pass the AP exam). Senior year classes were ‘capstone’, which are equivalent to upper division college seminar courses.
9 APs: got 2 in 2 subjects (didn’t submit those), scored a 3 on 6 exams, and a 4 on 1.
Interviews: 2 of the 3 LACs had interviews. D24’s school counselors were listening in the background for 1 of them (interview was during the school day & D24 did the online interview from the counselors’ office); counselor said that the school asked some really hard questions & she thought that D24 hit it out of the park with her answers.
1210 SAT / 24 ACT. Only submitted test scores to UNM & NMSU. Test optional everywhere else.
ECs - choir (not school-based) all 4 yr, 2 yr VEX Robotics, ~1 yr hospital volunteering (4 hr/wk), part time job starting summer after 11th grade, NHS, won a spot at a 1-week competitive to-get-into medical field summer camp
Rank: HS doesn’t rank, but the graduating class this year has <30 students total
Essays: am biased, but I thought her Common App personal statement was great. She used some of the “College Essay Guy” tips on some of his Youtube videos as ways to help her figure out what to talk about in her personal statement. The “Why us?” essays were really specific for the LACs she applied to, thought she did pretty well with those.
Applied: Biology major. Kid wants to be a physician assistant. Rolling admission to 4 schools, EA to 3
Accepted
- Univ of Arizona (in state) - $5k merit scholarship. This was D24’s #1 pick up until about a month ago
- ASU (in state) - $5k merit scholarship
- Univ of New Mexico - ~$24k/yr in merit & AZ OOS reciprocal scholarships
- NMSU - $21,326/yr total in merit & AZ OOS reciprocal scholarships. Cheapest school of all (~$15-16k/yr)
- Centre College - $26k merit scholarship + $3k/yr music scholarship (for non-music majors). COA = ~$7k/yr more than U of A
- Southwestern University - $26k merit scholarship + $1k/yr music scholarship (for non-music majors). COA = ~$12k/yr more than U of A
- Austin College - $23k merit scholarship. COA=~$8k/yr more than U of A
Waitlisted
None
Denied
None
D24 will be attending Austin College in the fall! Prior to our most recent visits to the 3 CTCL schools (Austin College, Southwestern, Centre), D24’s #1 pick was U of A, but she changed her mind. Our family is grateful to our school counselors who mentioned CTCL colleges early on in this process.
Austin College ended up winning out because of its physician assistant grad school, campus vibe, cost, ease of getting home on breaks, small class sizes, and how all of the classes are in person. D24 said that Centre would have been a sure thing if it was closer to home and not as hard to get to the airport.