Are those annual merit awards or total? Big congratulations!
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May I assume those are total merit awards, assuming 4 years, and not annual? Congratulations to you!
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Annual.
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Edit: I misunderstood which poster was responding to @heavyweightcollege’s question.
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My D26 results:
Public High School small town Arizona 1,800 kids
GPA: 4.0 UW/ 4.22 weighted
Class Rank: 4/ 355
7 APs, 5 dual enrollment courses, 6 honors classes
Hook: recruited athlete
Applied Test Optional, but submitted 3 AP scores (APush 4, AP Lang 3, AP World 3)
ECs: Soccer- 4 years varsity, Flag Football- 2 years varsity, Track & Field- 1 year, President Student Council Fresh year, Vice Pres Stuco Soph year, Rep Stuco Junior year, Badger Buddies (elementary school mentor program), National Honor Society, Summer job Ace Hardware, 60 hours community service a year (junior & senior years), 30 hours community service a year (freshman & sophomore years), 4 years Club soccer travel team.
Awards: AP Scholar Award, Region Defensive player of the year (soccer), All Conf 1st team Placekicker Flag Football, All Conf 1st Team Wide Receiver Flag Football, All State Soccer Team honorable mention, along with several regional 1st team awards for Soccer & Flag Football, Scholar Athlete
Results:
Univ of Minnesota-EA admit $20k a year merit + Honors college invite
Clark University -EA admit $45k a year merit
Michigan State Univ-EA admit $17,500 a year merit
Univ of Vermont- EA admit $25k a year merit + Honors college invite
Grinnell College-ED accepted & attending! $30k a year merit
Withdrew applications at Northeastern, Gettysburg, Oberlin, Cal Poly SLO, UVA, Ohio State, Skidmore, Whitman, Tulane, Union College, Univ of Pittsburgh along with the ones she was admitted early.
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S26 Results:
Private competitive HS in greater Bay Area.
GPA: 3.85 UW (first semester freshman year was his weakest); SAT: 1530 (one sitting); ACT 34 (one sitting)
Hook: none
8 or 9 APs, good rigor.
ECs: Sports (4yrs Football, 2 baseball), President/leader of multiple clubs (affinity club, CS Club), YMSL President for his region, summer research, summer jobs at STEM camp and volunteer tutor. Lots of volunteer hours since Freshman year.
Results:
Accepted:
SMU Cox (with $100K in scholarship)
IU Kelley Direct Admit (with $32K in scholarship)
Villanova BS
Cal Poly SLO
WashU (ED2) - Attending!
Northeastern
Waitlist/Deferral:
University of Michigan
USC
Rejections:
UVA
Northwestern (ED1)
University of Washington Foster
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14 posts were split to a new thread: Withdrawing Applications
The conversation about withdrawing applications has been spun off into its own thread: Withdrawing Applications
Please use this thread only for posting results! TIA!
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Thank you! That is the total merit, with need based aid, I will be receiving around $50k a year.
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Results – this will be a long post - my apologies
Trying to provide useful information for future applicants.
Happy to answer questions - we are really happy with these results. My daughter has a pretty unusual high school path -so we really were not sure how colleges would view this. Because of this and financial need, she applied to a lot of places.
Student Profile:
Female (white)
Kansas Resident
No hooks
3.79 unweighted, 4.59 weighted
No AP classes, but did take community college courses during junior/senior year (counted as dual listed so not a transfer student)
Test optional
Major: Biology – Ecological/Organismal Biology when available
Details on Extracurriculars below
School district:
Medium sized public school in good but not exceptional school district – majority (95+%) of college bound students go in-state public colleges or adjacent state public colleges with exchange agreements
Access to district-wide program that permits students to conduct research with college faculty
Financial Need:
Budget at 30K or less (Middle class income, with close to zero actual financial assets – this becomes important at schools that use CSS)
Extracurricular:
800+ hours conducting research at R1 institution, very interesting research topic – mentored other students
Won multiple poster awards, presentations at national, state, and local level, won at national-level conference in her research field (Biology focused topic)
350+ hours volunteering, at least 225 of volunteering hours at one location with increasing responsibility over 4 years. Competitive admission to volunteer program, in 4th year served on Student Advisory Council for the program (STEM related)
Results -amounts listed are COA
Bolded schools are Top 4; visits planned
High Reach (20% or less admit rate)
Wellesley – WL – wrote LOCI
Colorado College -accepted! 18K
Emory – rejected
Bates – WL -wrote LOCI
Middlebury – rejected
Tulane -rejected
Colby – WL – wrote LOCI, accepted off of wait list
Northeastern – Defer (EA) then WL, wrote LOCI
Reach (21 -34% admit rates)
Trinity -accepted, 23K
Oberlin -rejected
Skidmore – WL, declined waitlist spot
Scripps – WL – wrote LOCI
Kenyon – WL, declined waitlist spot
Macalester – Defer then Accepted, 22K - ATTENDING!
Denison - accepted 19K
Reed – waitlisted – declined waitlist spot
Target (35% - 69% admit rate)
Hobart and William Smith – accepted, 36K above budget
WPI -accepted, 36K, above budget
Bard – accepted
Syracuse – Waitlist, declined waitlist spot
Furman – accepted 25K
Union – accepted (after deferral)
St Olaf – accepted 21K
Brandeis – deferred then waitlisted -declined waitlist spot
Occidental College – accepted, 23K
SDSU – accepted, 55K above budget
Likely (70-90% admit rate)
Miami University (Oxford) – accepted 28K
University of Rhode Island -accepted 38K (not affordable),
Roger Williams -accepted, not affordable, 38K
Willamette – accepted, not affordable 38K
Wheaton – accepted, 30K
Safety (>90% admit rate)
University of Kansas (in-state safety), accepted
Central Michigan – accepted, 29K
(Edited by Moderator at the request of the OP to included final results.)
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Congrats on such wonderful options.
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Can add my S26 now that all the decisions are in
NYC resident, top specialized school, while male, full-pay/high income, no hooks
95+ GPA, 1570 SAT, 10 APs plus a couple of post-AP classes in bio and chem
School does not rank, my best guess is top 25%
Major ECs were extensive research (submitted to STS but did not advance); varsity sport/captain, peer tutoring.
No major awards besides the college board ones
He only applied to 10 schools:
UChicago (ED0) - rejected
UPitt - Rolling - accepted to honors + merit
CWRU - EA - accepted, 40K merit
Brown - ED1 - rejected
JHU - ED2 - waitlisted (accepted waitlist spot)
WashU - waitlisted (declined)
Emory - waitlisted (delined)
Tufts - accepted
BU - accepted
Wesleyan - accepted (this was a last-minute addition because they had no essays, so the acceptance was quite a surprise).
As a side note, I’m really glad he applied to Pitt early. Getting in in October took the pressure off, and he no longer needed any other safeties. I do wish we had thought through the ED1 choices better, but we did not have much time to regroup after the Chicago rejection. He still wonders if Hopkins would’ve been a yes in ED1, but we’ll never know. At this point, he’s leaning towards Tufts, but we’ll be visiting BU and Wesleyan as well in the next few weeks.
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S26:
FL resident attending NE boarding school, while male, full-pay/high income, no hooks
4.3 GPA (no idea how school calculates), 34 ACT, no AP offered at his school
School does not rank, my best guess is top 25%
Major ECs: 2 year dorm prefect, varsity sport/captain, 3 club president, school rock band instrumentalist
Awards- commendations for grades, language national medalist x2
Essay was about a transatlantic sail
He only applied to schools in DC and the southeast:
Georgetown- deferred EA, denied RD (legacy)
University of Miami- accepted EA with presidential scholarship ($22k/yr)
University of Florida- accepted EA
FSU- accepted EA
Richmond- accepted EA
UVA- rejected EA
Stetson- accepted rolling w $40k/yr merit
College of Charleston- accepted EA to the Honors College w $8k/yr merit
Then came the RD round, all reaches:
Emory- denied
Wake Forest- waitlisted
UNC- denied
Duke- denied
The RD round ended up being a bit of an ego hit. In retrospect, he probably could have cut at least one safety and one reach. He wasn’t totally engaged at the beginning, so narrowing down the list early on just wasn’t happening. For example, he submitted an application to UNC on a whim the night before it was due based on a friend’s suggestion—I didn’t even know about that one until much later.
He is now choosing between UM and UF. He is truly torn and can see himself at both, even though they are such different environments: a large public school in a college town versus a smaller private school in a city. We recently did a revisit at UF, which included a tour of the undergraduate business school. It was really helpful and made the ‘massive’ school feel much more manageable. We revisit UM in a week.
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Congrats to him. I get the ego hit but given you can only go to one, he’s got two FANTASTIC schools to choose from. Best of luck.
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3.6 UW/3.95 W
5 AP+8 honors classes
34 ACT
No rank but probably about 40th%
Reasonably good ECs and awards, mostly in art and theater
full pay
Applied for BFA studio art (or similar), portfolio required
Likely
Belmont/Watkins School of Art - $17K merit
MassArt (non-resident) - $10K merit
SAIC - $22K merit
SVA - $28K merit
VCU Arts (non-resident) - $14K merit
Target
UT Austin CFA (resident) - accepted
Reach
UMich Stamps (non-resident) - deferred EA, waitlist (declined waitlist)
Northeastern CAMD - accepted NU.in
RISD - accepted
WashU Sam Fox - rejected
Still deciding…
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Update: C26 committed to UIUC after visiting last weekend.
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Good luck to your son with the waitlists and the final decision. We had a fantastic tour guide at CWRU and she was from NYC… seemed to be absolutely thriving with a very busy schedule as a double major.
The only way I would see ED2 vs ED1 making a difference is if JHU accepted a (slightly) weaker applicant in ED1 before they saw your son’s application in ED2.
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S26 results
3.9 UW (4 Bs in 10th grade - English and Precalc both semesters. No explanation offered in his application. He was busy with his own projects and didn’t really care too much about school).
5 APs (APWH 4, APCSA 5, AP Cal BC 5, AP statistics TBD, AP Govt TBD)
Mostly honors classes. Taking Multivariable and Diff equation in 12th grade.
1460 SAT (submitted everywhere)
Rank: 40/850
ECs: Never really got involved in school clubs and leadership. He worked for a game company for 4 years - programming and tech support. He self published 6 games which helped him earn decent money, did peer calculus tutoring at school. He also worked for our family business in the evenings and weekends. This was the wildcard as we had no idea how his ECs would be perceived by AOs.
LOR: Difficult to get teachers to write LORs at our large CA public school. Although his English and Physics teacher agreed to write letters for him, both dropped the ball. Something similar happened to S24 two years ago, so this time it was less of a surprise. At the last minute he managed to get one letter from his Computer Science teacher who absolutely loves him.
Major: Computer Science
Essay: It was a dense nerdy essay about how he uses calculus in his projects and animations, and about some algorithm he is working on. It was funny and genuine and anyone reading it got a sense of who he was as a person.
Accepted: Santa Clara, UCSB, UCSC, UCI, UCD, SDSU, Boston University, Northeastern (Boston campus), UIUC, Wisconsin Madison, Northeastern, WPI, RIT, Pittsburgh, UMass, CU Boulder, Oregon State, University of Oregon.
Wait-list: UCSD, University of Washington,
Rejected: UCLA, UCB, Cal Poly SLO
Attending: Boston University (50k/year financial aid)
He went from Santa Clara being his top choice last September to declaring that he wanted to get out of California for college the first week of April! After a mad dash to the east coast to see 4 schools, he fell in love with BU.
A big thank you to everyone here at CC. Both S24 and S26 had excellent admission cycles in part due to building a good college list based on advice here.
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Results for D26:
Private school in Kentucky, 3.9 UW, rigorous course load and strong student. 9 APs (students aren’t allowed to take APs before soph year, and usually only allowed to take 1 in 10th grade) Test optional. Unique state & national-level ECs. Lots of involvement with volunteering, student orgs, etc. School doesn’t rank, but lots of academic awards and strong LORs. She’s a well-rounded kid who does music, sports, a foreign exchange program & youth advisory boards.
What she wanted: small classes, access to professors, strong Bio/Env Science programs. Club equestrian team was a must-have. Diverse, collaborative students. Very liberal/progressive campus culture with minimal Greek life.
Biology Major, French Minor
I listed school, Aid/Scholarships, and COA
Likely/Safeties:
Wheaton (MA) $50,000 (TE/Merit)$35,600 COA
Kalamazoo $50,000 $30,000 COA
Targets:
Brandeis $53,620 (Pres.Sch)$43,500 COA
Conn College $47,639 $47,400 COA
Centre College $46,300 (TE/Merit) $27,700 COA
Oberlin $69,554 $24,700 COA
Kenyon $76,808 $20,000 COA
Dickinson $86,090 (TE/Merit) $8,000 COA
Reaches:
Mount Holyoke $41,546 $51,500 COA (waitlisted for TE)
Vassar $79,150 $27,000 COA
Hamilton $73,117 $25,000 COA
Smith $74,069 $21,000 COA
Wesleyan $53,753 $48,000 COA
Waitlisted:
Carleton, Middlebury, Davidson
Attending: Vassar
Takeaways from this admissions cycle: Financial aid packages vary wildly! What a huge difference in COA among great schools- $8k to $51,500. We were pleased to receive 3 Tuition Exchange awards, those are competitive and unpredictable. D26 was very happy with her results- her essays were strong, as were her LORs. I think those make a difference once you clear the stats threshold. Her Vassar AO sent an email and said he loved her MySpace submission. Fit is HUGE in this process.
We were also very impressed with Kalamazoo- despite being a likely school, it stayed on her list until almost the very end. Schools she visited and decided weren’t a good fit included Colgate & Dickinson. Mount Holyoke probably would’ve been in the mix with a lower price tag, due to their equestrian program. Kenyon & Brandeis both were great, but little things kept them from being at the top of the list. Ultimately she decided between Vassar and Oberlin, both of which were great fits for her.
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Congratulations to your D on all of her great acceptances and offers!
It would be great if you’d list out the merit scholarship and then the COA, as different families need-based aid will vary based on their circumstances. But getting an idea of how much merit aid the different schools are offering for a student of your caliber would be super helpful.
I didn’t see Colgate on your list. If you received a financial aid package from them, it would be great if you could add Colgate’s info to your list so folks can see how its need-based aid determination differed from the other need-only schools on your list.
Hope your D has a fantastic time at Vassar!
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