Chance me for villanova ed 2

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

  • Domestic
  • Long Island NY
  • public hs, 270 kids/grade (no class rank)
    Applying ED 2

Cost Constraints / Budget

Needs some aid not full price tho
Intended Major(s)

Political Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 89. first semester senior year grades are almost all a’s there is a few b’s. i had a mix of a’s and b’s (including b+’s) in 10th+11th grade. had one c in 10th grade and one c in 11th grade. i have upwards trend in both of those subjects.
  • Weighted HS GPA: 95
  • Class Rank: hs does not do class rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: SAT 1410 (710 math,700 english)

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: freshman honors, sophomore honors, junior honors, senior AP literature
  • Math: 8th grade research honors, freshman research honors, sophomore research honors, junior precalc honors, senior calculus regular
  • Science: 8th grade earth sci honors, freshman living environment honors, soph year chemistry honors, junior year AP bio, senior year AP env. science
  • History and social studies: honors social studies grades 9-11, AP gov senior year, AP macro senior year
  • Language other than English: spanish in grades 8-10
  • Other academic courses: AP statistics (10), AP psychology (11), HS research program (9)
  • so, 7/22 ap’s offered by end of HS (most kids do 9-11). every other class is honors except for like one is regular.

Awards

  • 2x Scholar athlete (9,11) (didn’t do sports in 10 and 12 bc of med issues)
  • Gold metal at a math fair
  • Honors at a research fair

Extracurriculars (not in any order)
-volunteering at local library 2 hours/month

-1 month NYU program in nov-dec 2024

-varsity fall sport

-travel sport, same sport as varsity sport 4 hours/week for 5 months and tournaments

-math center job (4-8 hours/week)

-customer service/deli job (12 hours/week)

-Volunteering at children’s center at family court for mostly over the summer but i sometimes go after school too

-part of an online NYC youth advisory counsel for teens in nyc struggling w mental health (we have 1 meeting a month and then we attend various activities in NYC, 1-2 a month)

-was a part of my schools research program all year in ninth grade and completed 2 projects with peers

Essays/LORs/Other

Common app essay- everyone who read it said it was good, its very niche and it really feels like me!

I barley started my supplemental yet but i have a great idea for it!

LOR is def strong- from my soph year chem teacher we had a good bond

2

Can you put your 89 into a 4 point scale?

1410 is right at the 25th percentile. I think you are ok to submit because only 28% did, so in theory they are lower. But some will say that’s too low to submit. That’s from the CDS. By the way, the admittees were 1450-1520 - so that would say to apply TO with a 1410.

I just opened their stat page and it shows 46% of admittees submitted - so while the CDS is enrollees and the stat page is admittees, it seems a bit off from one another.

That you aren’t full pay could hurt. In theory, it shouldn’t - they are need blind. But if that were true, then more than 42% would get aid - so it could hurt. They are identifying wealthy kids somehow.

Best of luck.

PS - in the common data set, they list these GPAs and note they are unweighted. That 4.0% seems high to me but it’s what they say.

UNWEIGHTED GPA

C1101 Percent who had GPA of 4.0 47

Percent who had GPA between 3.75 and 3.99 41%

Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 8%

Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49 3%

On their stat page, they show a 3.87-4.10 unweighted - so they might be using a 4.33 scale (.33 for a +).

It makes it hard to tell.

Make sure you have back ups because based on evidence, I’d say no to admission but their data and your grading scale always make it impossible to know.

Good luck.

First-Year Admission Profile | Villanova University

3

i rly don’t know how to put the 89 onto a 4.0 scale. my guess would be that it’s right around very very close to a 3.7. and don’t worry i def have backups. i just am hearing very diff things about if i wld be admitted or not so its scary

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also, i thought applying ed2 would give a boost

5

Nothing to be scared of. You get in or you don’t - and if you don’t, you said you have back ups.

As long as they’re affordable, nothing to worry about.

You can get a great college experience at many places.

You could get in, but not afford it still as they don’t meet 100% of need. That’d be worse than a rejection.

I wish you luck.

6

Take all of your core courses (Engl, science, math, SS, and foreign lang). Assign 4 points to any A grade (use unweighted 90-100 unless your school has a different scale, ignore + and -), 3 to any B grade, 2 to C grades. Add those up and divide by the number of core courses. My sense is Villanova is a reach, what does your HS counselor say?

Did you apply ED anywhere? Have you received any admission decisions from any schools yet?

Will Villanova be affordable per their net price calculator? Does your school use Naviance, or Scoir, etc? If so where does your test score/gpa fall on the Villanova scattergrams? I don’t have enough context to make a judgment on submitting the test score, what does your counselor recommend?

7

ED2 will boost your chances compared to EA, though the ED2 acceptance rate is lower than ED1, as told to me directly by the admissions office. (They didn’t say how much lower). I would submit your 1410 because it’s closer to their range than your GPA, so relative to your GPA your test score probably helps. 89 is pretty low for a GPA. My sophomore was admitted ED1 with a 92/3.7 unweighted and hers was the second lowest GPA admitted from our school relative to the prior 5 years. They do admit A LOT of jersey kids so can you see (e.g. in Naviance) what a typical admit looks like from your school?

If you are admitted it may not be affordable. Have your run the NPC? Villanova doesn’t meet full need (yet)…so the cost can be really high. FWIW their strategic plan has them on target to meet full need in 2030, but that won’t help you now.

8

i meant that i could pay the full price, i just need a little bit of aid. i’m upper middle class. also, nobody from my school really applies to villanova as i go to a pretty jewish school.

9

how do i know what is actually an a/b tho? my school literally doesn’t use letter grades at all. i just said b’s and such in the post so i didn’t have to type out all the letter grades.

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10

Just a word about this…I agree with MWfan1921 that this is generally a good way to estimate your unweighted GPA. However, I know Villanova doesn’t use this scale exactly because they publish info on unweighted GPAs of admitted students that exceed 4.0.

In any case it doesn’t really matter. However you calculate it your GPA for sure will be on the lower side of admitted students. It helps that you are applying to CLAS (as did my kid) because those GPAs and test scores are probably a little lower than VBS and Nursing. Also more of a reason to submit 1410 because that may be close to mid range for CLAS applicants. You have applied - you’ll know soon! Good luck!

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11

You realize that you said two different things.

Many of us are full pay families but set a budget.

Perhaps that is what you mean - your parents could pay.

Right now, tuition, room and board is about $88k.

You need to do the NPC. If it shows an amount above what your family is willing to pay, then you should not ED which is binding.

They determine if you’ll get aid. You don’t get to. But they tell you up front.

Please make sure you are willing to meet the full cost or discounted per the NPC b4 applying ED.

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thanks! i haven’t applied yet but i’m planning on ed 2!

13

yes u explained what i meant, ty!

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14

this is op

i’m adding some extenuating circumstances for context:

  1. i had arthritis for the second half of junior year, which caused me to be in a lot of pain. i could barley move so that definitely impacted my grades
  2. my freshman year grades were pretty good but they were a little low bc my dog got hit by a car and died which obv caused me lots of stress/depression
15

Losing a dog traumatic as are having health issues. Sorry about those.

They are not relevant for your admission.

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so they literally don’t care that theres a reason my grades dropped a little for my junior year?

17

You don’t know either of those is why you got the grades you did. You’re making an unprovable assumption.

If they would give you grace on outside issues, everyone would be saying things.

I’m not them but they have lots of kids with strong profiles. They can’t choose all.

Apply and see but I would not note these. That could be seen as excuse making.

18

Did your counselor mention this in their LoR? They should, although at many schools it won’t lessen the impact of the B’s and C’s (assuming some of those happened junior year.) You can mention it in C&C or addt’l info common app sections, but just keep it short and fact based.

I get it. Colleges that recalculate are going to do what they are going to do. I know you said your school doesn’t rank, but where do you think you fall? Top 10%? Top 25%? etc. If you don’t know ask your counselor. And use naviance/scoir if you have one of those/ something like those. I will say the vast majority of Villanova unhooked admits will have all A’s. Some will have a couple of B’s. I doubt many have C’s.

19

I don’t think it’s accurate to say the “don’t care” but it seems unlikely these factors would affect your admission decision…especially the dog. I love dogs but…just sayin’.

Now on the health issue, if you’re planning write about it then maybe try to make it an impactful statement, rather than an explanation for a small drop in grades. The fact that the drop in grades was small kind of implies that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m not saying it wasn’t…just explaining my perspective. So to make it impactful, you need to write about what you learned about yourself, what you gained from going through the experience and help them understand how whatever you experienced will shape how you contribute to the campus community. It doesn’t have to be long and flowery pontification…I’m just saying they are trying to get a picture of who you are. So if you decide to mention it, I would do more than just say you had a health issue that caused you to get a C in a class. Again, good luck!

20

yes, i know the dog situation wouldn’t help much. i genuinely was really suffering with arthritis tho. thank you for the tips about writing about the health issue, i appreciate it!

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