chances? your opinion, input, advice??

Lafalum84
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:42:04 +0000

Elon is not necessarily a school for the “smartest person ever.” It’s a school for smart people who also do a lot of other stuff - which sounds like you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with “only” taking 4 APs - only at a place like College Confidential would that be considered a weak schedule. From what I’ve seen (my daughter is a sophomore at Elon) Elon is heavily populated by kids who took a lot of honors classes and a few APs, and got mostly A-s or B+s. These same kids were also playing varsity sports or dancing or involved in theater, along with running a couple of clubs and involved in some sort of community service.

Elon’s Early Decision acceptance rate is much higher than their Early Action or Regular Decision rate (in the past few years, Early Decision applicants have an 80%+ acceptance rate, while EA and regular decision acceptance rates hover around 50%).

However, I would be very hesitant to apply ED to a school I hadn’t visited. I understand that you are from CA and it’s hard to get to NC, but ED is a binding decision.

In the same vein, ED at Elon does not really have a lot of “wiggle room” with Financial Aid. Elon isn’t known for giving a lot of FA, mainly because their price is significantly lower than many other private colleges to begin with. If you are accepted at a $50K school and get a $17k scholarship, or you are accepted at a $38 k school and get a $5k scholarship, your net cost is the same. Elon is the $38k school.

It’s really hard to guess someone’s chances of admittance to any college, and Elon even moreso. I’ve seen a lot of cases on CC and even at my daughter’s high school where people with similar stats get different acceptance results at Elon, and sometimes kids with higher stats don’t get in but kids with lower stats do. That said, based on your post I think you seem like a good fit for Elon.

Good luck to you!