Chance me RD for WashU, Emory, Notre Dame/Georgetown, Vandy etc. [OH resident, 3.67 GPA, 34 ACT; economics, political science, finance]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics:
-White Male from Greater Cleveland Area
-Competitive public high school (1600 kids)

Academics:
-3.67 UW/4.02W (all As first semester)
-34 ACT
-6 honors, 7 AP’s (2 senior year) five 5’s and one 4

Intended Major:
Economics/Political Science/possibly Finance

Extracurriculars:
-Varsity Track/XC
-Officer in 300 person Marching Band
-Established 12 client landscaping business
-Work at Ice Cream Store
-Confirmed from Temple
-Theater for three years
-Volunteer Tutoring
-Founder of Hiking Club
-Wrote common app essay about what starting a business taught me, and reflecting on my love for the outdoors
-Great Recommenders - one from APUSH teacher and one from AP BIO teacher - both know me well and I participated significantly in both classes.

Highlights:
Georgetown (I applied for the newer public policy major here)
Thought my interview went very well- It lasted 80 minutes which was way longer than expected!
-Essays (I thought) were really good- spent a ton of time on these- 9/10

WashU
-Essays were decent but nothing extrordinary - 7-8/10 - but I did the interview which went well, and the video portfolio!

Emory
-Essays were the same as WashU

Notre Dame
-Decent enough essays, attended info sessions

Concerns:
I’m fairly worried because my gpa is not where I’d like it to be- however, I’m hoping all A’s first semester senior year (with two AP’s) will help a bit- will it? I have a slight improvement trend throughout Highs school as well. (Had 3 B’s freshman year since it was COVID year)

Other reachy schools I’m applying to RD
-UVA
-Northeastern
-Tulane
-Boston University

Eager to here your opinions!

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My son had the same ACT score, a higher GPA and SAT subject scores of 800 (when Georgetown still required them) and was rejected from Georgetown and accepted to Northeastern and Boston U (London start at BU, which he did not request). He did not apply to the other schools in your list. We are from NJ, which is full of high stats students. Good luck.

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My D24 has similar stats and applied to a few of the same reach schools. We felt her best chance to get in to a reach was ED, and it worked for her! Are there any of your schools you would consider ED2? They would mostly still be reaches but students from my D’s school who have y stats similar to yours do well in ED and ED2 rounds at a few of the schools on your list: Tulane, Northeastern and Boston University. Good luck to you!

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That shouldn’t result in a 3.67 GPA. Are you certain that’s your GPA? Based on this and on the rest of your profile, I would have assumed that your GPA would be higher.

TBH, all of those will be a challenge with that GPA, including the other reachy schools, even if you apply ED. Apply by all means, but you should have at least one college which is a sure thing and where you would be happy to attend. Of course, the person you should ask is your GC, and, if your school uses Naviance, see what percent of students from your high school with similar GPAs were accepted to each of those schools.

Also, unless you apply to Tulane ED, it’s unlikely that you will be accepted. They accept some 2/3 of their incoming class ED, and there is a huge difference in acceptance rate between ED and RD, and it’s not due to legacies and athletes. So if you have applied RD I would say that it’s probably the least likely of the lot

Good luck!

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I don’t see any of these happening and not all have finance. The beautiful thing though is we are not AOs - and hopefully they see differently.

Not all will have finance - and given the majors (econ, poli sci) - I don’t think it matters if you go to Ohio State, Miami or any of these…just my opinion.

Hopefully you have other schools - I’ll just say that - and with those stats, there will be great merit out there for you.

Any cost concerns?

I never like when I read essays are ok - and the same. I reviewed an essay for a student the other day - and that’s what it was like - full of cliches and generic terms that - as I told them - it was the why this school essay and it could have been plug and play with any school vs. having content directly from the school to sell the argument. I hope that’s not what you’re saying you did here.

I do think the GPA at a public school will be limiting and why you have 7 APs, we don’t know in what - so how the overall rigor is.

But I do know you’ll have wonderful admits if you apply to the right schools…but if I had to guess, I don’t think it will be any of these.

You missed EA on some - so like a Tulane, NEU, etc. (unless you were deferred) - so those are the types of things that put you in a difficult spot.

Congrats on a fine record and best of luck.

PS - you can’t major in finance at Vandy

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If I were you, I would be aiming one level less selective - Lehigh, Bucknell, Denison, Macalester, Skidmore.

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Do you have any less selective colleges on your application list?

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If you really got 3 B’s and not B+'s freshman year and never anything below an A- again… with a 34 - I think your academics may be ok. I tend to agree with @Bruno99. You will improve odds with an ED from Tulane, Northeastern, and BU. Of course you will need schools a level down in admissions difficulty, too.

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So like others, I am wondering what other colleges you are applying to. As I see it, your list as reported so far is a set of very hard reaches for someone with your profile, and then another set of colleges which are all very popular for various reasons (including UVA OOS), and are going to be hard admits as well.

Just to give you an example, Boston University in the 2022-23 CDS reported 80,796 applications, for what was ultimately 3634 admissions slots (a 22.2 ratio, ouch). That is a lot, and it happens in part because BU is in Boston, arguably the most popular college market in the entire world.

As a result, they only admitted 11,607 (14.4%). The CDS does not report admitted statistics, but in terms of enrolled statistics, a 34 ACT would put you at their 75th–not bad, but also not as compelling as it would be if 34 was actually above. Which is important because 75% of enrolled students had at least a 3.75, only 25% a 3.74 or lower, and likely even less with a 3.67, and many of those students would have been hooked in some way. They report an overall average GPA of 3.88.

So, while it is not impossible, an unhooked applicant with your profile is a long shot at a college like BU.

Nonetheless, applying to a few of those to see what happens is fine, but I think the real meat of your application strategy should be carefully-chosen colleges where your GPA is at least closer to their median (and it wouldn’t hurt if your ACT is above their 75th), and/or their overall admit percentage (OOS where relevant) is significantly higher.

I note to help identify such colleges, it can be helpful to avoid colleges in the most popular markets.

Like, to kids trying to crack the incredibly oversubscribed Boston market, I always like to point out that the University of Rochester is at least an academic peer to many of those colleges, and yet because it is in Rochester and not Boston it is not as ludicrously overapplied. In the same CDS, instead of over 80000 applicants, it got 19,933 for 1,625 slots (only a 12.3 ratio), of which it admitted 7,750 (a much more reasonable 38.9%).

In terms of enrolled numbers it is actually the exact same 25/50/75 for the ACT, but the GPA distribution is a little more generous: 37.9% have a 3.74 or less, and in fact they report an average of 3.76.

So to me, a Rochester would be a better idea for you than a BU. It doesn’t actually end up with a way less qualified student body overall, but it gets so many fewer applications, and you probably have a better shot of convincing them to overlook your somewhat low GPA even as an unhooked student.

Anyway, that is just an example, but I personally think you would benefit from thinking that way, trying to identify more Rochester-type opportunities as opposed to focusing on the hardest sorts of admits.

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You might take a look at Section C7 of the Common Data Sets for each school of interest, and see how you stack up in the academic and non-academic admissions criteria for each school: different schools emphasize different things as indicated in Section C7; and what might be an advantage for one school might not be an advantage for another.

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As general information, these fields compose much of the foundation of a public policy major. If you might want suggestions along these lines, this site may be of interest:

Note that while the included schools nearly uniformly represent reaches, one or two of the recommendations may nonetheless be realistic for you.

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