Can’t delete!
CC was very helpful in our admission process so here are the stats ( sorry-meant to do this earlier but may help those while they are waiting….)
S23
White
Full pay (did not complete FASFA) and checked box saying no financial aid needed(Side bar:we had been fortunate to aggressively save in Utah 529)
Dual citizenship with a small pacific island nation but has not lived there. Hard to know whether that was significant or not.
Northern New England public high school
SAT 1510 (took it twice): 790 math 720 verbal
(Side bar: advised to take it close together which he did and his score increased over 100 points). Did some private tutoring before the first test but self study for second time.Scores were submitted.
National merit commended scholar
Class rank: 6/280 ish
APs in junior and senior year only: APUSH (4), AP Physics (4), APComSci, APLit, APCalc (BC) and AP Bio
Academic record: Tremendous uplift in junior and senior year. All As or pluses. Sophomore year (during Covid), 4-5 Bs including Biology. Important point as many kids on this forum don’t appear to get a grade below an A in HS.
ECs:
4 years in marching band and ensemble playing French horn and mellophone. No leadership positions held in band.
Varsity tennis team. No leadership position.
A few clubs here and there but none other of significance.
Non certified ski instructor in seasonal program. Had participated in program for many years as a student.
Worked at local supermarket during sophomore and part of junior year.
Some volunteer work helping with homework at MS and in a seasonal baseball league with children with disabilities. Not big time commitment for either programs.
5 week summer program for public high kids at an elite private school between junior and senior year. Has been very helpful for college transition.
No idea about strength of recommendations or how to assess how good his essay was.
Interested in Biology (maybe pre med-see comments above on academic section). Perhaps economics ?
Results:
ED1
Middlebury-REJECTED. Ouch.
EA
UNH Honors college and Trustee scholar ($9k per year)-ACCEPTED
UVM -Presidential scholar ($17k per year). No Honors College -ACCEPTED
Macalester -DeWitt scholar ($22k per year)-ACCEPTED
ED2
Bowdoin-DEFERRED and then wrote a very strong letter of continued interest
REGULAR DECISION
Bates-ACCEPTED
Bowdoin-ACCEPTED and attending
Carleton-ACCEPTED
Colby-ACCEPTED
Hamilton-ACCEPTED
Swarthmore-REJECTED
Wesleyan-ACCEPTED
Did not interview at Carleton, Middlebury or Swarthmore (didn’t make deadline to interview). Interviewed at others (not sure about Colby).
Did tours of Bates, Colby, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Hamilton, Swarthmore and Wesleyan before applied. Toured Carleton once was admitted and visited Macalester.
Did the optional video at Bowdoin and Hamilton. 2 hour interview with Bowdoin alum. Intense interview with Wesleyan alum. Didn’t otherwise do much to demonstrate interest on social media or asking questions of schools.
Met with Bowdoin admissions when visited his HS.
Did not meet with Bates and Colby because didn’t want to miss class time.
Good luck all!!! Gearing up for our next one!
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Thanks – this is super inspiring.
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Kicking off Fall 24 with our experience for S24, after last year with S23. CC has again been very helpful in our college journey. With 2 back-to back years of college admissions experience, we hope our journey can be beneficial to others
S24 Results
Asian / Male / no hooks
Top public school in NJ
3.32 UW / 3.5W (all As in Senior Yr, which has helped)
1270 SAT Superscore
4 AP (at time of applying with scores of 4 in all); 2 APs in Senior Yr
ECs - summer job, summer research, 3-yr Research program in HS
Rank: school doesn’t rank
Essays: 9/10
Applied: Chemical Engg through College of Engg or Biological Engg through College of Agriculture
All applications were EA
Accepted
Purdue - deferred and then accepted for Biological Engg through C of Ag (#1 choice)
U of Minnesota (TC) - $8k scholarship for Biosystems Engg through C of Ag (#2 choice)
Stony Brook - $6k scholarship
Binghamton - $5k scholarship
U South Florida
U Central Florida
Michigan State - $10k scholarship
Iowa State - $7k scholarship
Auburn - deferred and then accepted
Penn State - 2+2 (Harrisburg followed by UP)
U Delaware
Waitlisted
Rutgers
Virginia Tech
Pitt
Denied
U Wisconsin
Ohio State
Florida State
Texas A&M
Clemson - deferred and then denied
NC State - deferred and then denied
We are very happy with the results. Like S23, his essays and ECs compensated for the GPA and allowed him to be accepted at universities which we originally had considered as reaches. Purdue is ranked #1 in Biological Engg and has been his top choice ever since we visited the campus for S23 a couple of years back. We are visiting in April for S24. Minnesota, which we visited last week, is also a terrific program with small class sizes and ample undergraduate research opportunities.
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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.
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Congrats!!! 
this! Our D23 is at a CTCL and so happy too!
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Hi Everyone, just wanted to come on and share my final college results now that I have heard back from everywhere.
Stats:
3.94/4.0 UW GPA
4.4 self-calculated weighted GPA (not sent to colleges)
4/19 UW Class Rank (would be 1/19 if weighted calculated)
33 ACT (school average is 16)
First Generation
From Washington State
Business major
Extracurriculars:
-Scouting: Eagle Scout, earned all 139 merit badges, lots of leadership
-Violin: Have played violin since age 3, performed as soloist in several concerts
-Intern: Intern for a local business education non-profit for 2 summers.
-Golf: 3 year member of my school golf team, varsity letter, most improved award, captain
-Service at my school: Led a $10,000 project to redesign the courtyard of my school. 40+ volunteers collective 600 service hours
-High School Leadership Team: Helped lead several events and stuff at my school.
-Volunteer at local foodbank+homeless shelter for about 2 hours each week since Freshmen year
-NHS: Member and several important leadership roles
-SAT/ACT improvement comitttee: Helped leaders at my school, over 8 months, to develop a plan to raise test scores to meet the bechmarks. Went for 20% meeting bechmarks to 85% this year.
-Scuba Diving: Member of the local scuba diving club in my area and dive 7-10 times each summer.
7/10 Essays
Results:
-Reach:
Georgia Tech (Waitlist)
Vanderbilt (Deny)
UT Austin (Deny)
UNC Chapel Hill (Accept, but not to business)
UVA (Deny)
-Target
Florida State University (Accept)
U Central Florida (Accept)
UGA (Accept)
U Miami (Accept)
U Florida (Accept + Enrolled)
-Safety (* indicates was accepted through Niche autoapply)
Arizona State University (Accept)
Kansas State (Accept)
University of Arizona (Accept)
Coe College* (Accept)
U North Florida (Accept)
U Kansas (Accept)
Bloomsburg University* (Accept)
Jacksonville University (Accept)
West Texas A&M* (Accept)
Northwest Nazarene University* (Accept)
U South Dakota* (Accept)
Portland State University* (Accept)
Western Washington University (Accept)
U Tennessee (Accept)
Orgeon Tech* (Accept)
U New Hampshire (Accept)
Gonzaga University (Accept)
Willamette University (Accept)
U Oregon (Accept)
Belmont University* (tennessee) (Accept)
Palm Beach Atlantic* (Accept)
Cleveland State University* (Accept)
U Nevada, Reno (Accept)
New Mexico Tech* (Accept)
Norwich University* (Accept)
Whittier College* (Accept)
U of the Pacific* (Accept)
U Puget Sound (Accept)
Northern Arizona University (Accept)
Florida Tech (Accept)
Purude (Accept)
Texas A&M (Accept)
Auburn (Accept)
U Tampa (Accept)
U South Carolina (Accept)
Baylor (Accept)
Texas Christian (Accept)
U Washington (Accept)
U South Florida (Accept)
Ohio State (Accept)
Southern Methodist University (Accept)
Virgnia Tech (Accept)
NC State (Accept)
Clemson (Accept)
Grand Canyon* (Accept)
I will be attending the University of Florida this Fall, and I could not be more excited! Please let me know if you have any questions or anything about my applications or anything like that, and I will be sure to answer them.
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Congrats.
What is Niche Autoapply? Why 46 safety applications? Other than the Niche ones, how did you apply to them
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Adding onto that, how did you pay for all of those applications? Were some free?
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Basically Niche is a website where colleges apply to you. Just make a profile and the offers come in pretty fast. I applied to others mostly on common and coalition app. I applied to so many because I was chasing merit and wanted high merit scolarships. It did work, but did not get enough to make me not want to go to my top choices.
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I qualify for a coalition fee waiver because they give it to all first gen (did all I could through there). I think I ended up paying for 12 or so for common app schools.
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Looking through old results in this thread, it’s crazy to me just how many people sweeped many of the T20s a decade ago. Of course, this thread is a biased sample, but it’s still something crazy.
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Hi! After a crazy application season I finally know where I’m going
Stats:
4.0 UW GPA
36 ACT (all sections, one sitting)
My school doesn’t rank
National Merit Finalist
Extracurriculars:
Mock trial 4 years and president of the club–made it to state jr year and won state and qualified for nationals this year, but too late to update colleges lol
Piano for 13 years, some local awards in performance in songwriting
NHS Co-prez
Student Council Senior Rep
(my weakness was DEFINITELY in the extracurriculars.)
Essays: Probably 8.5/10 on common app essay and between a 6 and 9/10 on supplemental
LOR: I think 10/10 from one teacher, 9/10 for the other, idk for the other
Reaches:
Duke: rejected
Emory: rejected
Oxford College: accepted (no scholarship)
Haverford: Accepted!
Swarthmore: waitlisted
Amherst: waitlisted
Vanderbilt: rejected 
UNC: rejected
Dartmouth: waitlisted
Targets:
Tulane: Accepted + $30,000 merit
Richmond: accepted
Stony Brook: Accepted + $11,000 merit and honors college
Safety:
Alabama: Accepted + NMF package + honors college
After looking at costs, Alabama is the only one that really makes sense. Also, the dorm is AMAZING and my best friend and boyfriend who are also NMF had a similar application season, so we’re all going together. My high school was artsy and very academic. It was a good fit, but I’m excited for a football school! It’ll be a lot of fun. Roll Tide!
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I’m posting these results for D24 because I think they could be really useful to doughnut-hole families with kids who have great extracurriculars but relatively normal grades/tests.
Stats:
4.0 UW GPA
1360 SAT (see below for which schools she went TO)
Her school doesn’t rank (but she was top 5 in a small school)
APs: World Hist 5, Psych 5, APUSH 5, APLang 5 (these scores submitted officially to all schools); 5 more APs currently enrolled
Extracurriculars:
Dance: Ballet, scholarship-level at some universities and one recruiting apprentice company (she did not pursue), many major roles in studio company (non-professional), several respected summer intensives
Student Council President
2 club presidencies
State creative writing award
Show choir
Volunteer food pantry
Essays: her strength
LOR: I suspect 10/10 from all three teachers. (Unusual, but that’s how she would have gotten the results she did)
Reaches:
Emory (main campus): accepted (TO)
Macalester: accepted (TO) (Affordable merit + need)
NYU: waitlisted (TO)
BU: waitlisted (TO)
Northeastern: deferred/rejected (TO)
Targets:
Fordham: Accepted (TO) (affordable merit + need)
UGA: Accepted (in-state regular scholarship plus extra scholarship)
UMass: waitlisted
Safety:
U Minnesota: Accepted (good merit)
UVM: Accepted (good merit)
Clark U: Accepted (good merit)
Loyola Chicago: Accepted (good merit)
DePaul: Accepted (good merit)
U Colorado: Accepted (no merit)
She is not going to her reaches–she likes one of her targets. 
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Congrats! I’m assuming that target is also pretty good at football and located in a great college town. 
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Posting results for my D24 in part to help me reflect on what has been a probably unnecessarily stressful experience that in the end will be fine. Have appreciated this community as a resource and source of support!
D24 Results
Caucasian/White/no hooks
Large affluent suburban school in Midwest
3.98 UW
36 ACT (single sitting not that it matters for admissions)
National Merit Finalist
10 APs (all but one that were available), scored 5s on all 7 prior to senior year
Rank: 15/680
ECs
Captain of speech time, qualified for and competed at nationals. Led a summer camp for middle school kids to increase interest
Captain of mock trial team, 3 time all state (attorney x 2 and witness x 1). Highest scores in school history.
1 of 5 to qualify for top choir as junior
Part time job as barista
Smattering of clubs and leadership activities
Self published a novel that she wrote as a junior
Accepted
University of Wisconsin - Madison (no merit) - Attending
St. Olaf College (30K merit)
Waitlisted
Rice
Wash U
Rejected
USC
Emory/Oxford
Vanderbilt
Brown
I think we fell in to the trap of thinking high stats equaled competitive applicant to selective schools. We hired a college counselor to help with her applications, review her essays (which I thought were amazing), etc. She got a lot of attention at her school with her ACT score and NMF status (in spite of the size of her school these are both very rare) and I think there was a lot of expectation that she would attend a “name brand” school. The run of rejections this past week have been hard on all of us.
In the end, I really wish we had just applied to UW-Madison and her safety and been done with it. She is very happy to attend UW-Madison and I don’t think needed all of the stress that I/we added to the process with the applications to these other schools. We knew that they are a long shot for everyone but in reality, I don’t think she had a strong enough of an application outside of the stats to be competitive.
I think moral of the story for us is that strong stats like hers are kind of a dime a dozen for this process and you really need something special in your application to make you stand out. But we are thankful she will be attending a school that she really likes.
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You shouldn’t beat yourself up. I’d say this was a very reasonable list for your daughter, given her academic qualifications and ECs.
The only change I would have suggested is maybe adding a couple of Midwestern state flagships which are strong in her areas of interest. As the parent of two kids interested in engineering/CS, I thought most of the Midwestern state flagships had wonderful programs. Many also give academic scholarships for high stats students.
The results are puzzling, but nothing in the college admissions process surprises me anymore. Wisconsin has tons of opportunities and will be a great experience.
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We considered some of the others but at the end of the day she really liked Madison and with in-state tuition unlikely that she would have chosen another similar school. Also she is very much undecided (which probably didn’t help with her application).
We thought about Michigan but felt she had enough reaches and it would have been much more expensive. I’m glad she didn’t apply there, she’s had enough rejections!
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Posting for D24
Asian/Caucasian
New England suburban public HS
GPA: 4.0 UW. 4.9 W
Class Rank: 2 - Salutatorian
SAT: 1560 (790 english / 770 math)
EC’s:
President of several clubs
Community Fund: Raised $50k for local charities
Internship - KPMG
Iowa Young Writer’s Studio
Varsity Field Hockey
Major:
Business/History
Applied:
Rice - ED accepted/attending
UT Austin (withdrew)
UNC (withdrew)
Safeties:
UConn (admit - full scholarship)
Univ Indiana (admit)
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Deleted -answered