ED at Skidmore

fsu1981
Mon, 28 Sep 2015 18:36:19 +0000

I can offer the tale of two admission cycles in our family. We also toured all the LAC’s within 8 hours driving time of Massachusetts. D1 applied to Skidmore RD with a 2020 SAT, 7AP’s and with 3.7 unweighted GPA/high class rank from our high performing suburban high school. She was waitlisted with a letter stating that there was no guarantee of financial aid if she were to be admitted off the waitlist and would not be eligible to receive aid until her junior year. She needed to be funded approximately 60% so that was a non-starter. She was admitted to other higher ranked LAC’s with her full need met. D2 applied and was accepted ED at Skidmore and her aid award was within $100 of the net price calculator. Her stats were slightly lower than D1- 1960 SAT, 3 AP’s, 3.4 unweighted GPA and much lower class rank. Another classmate of D2’s with similar courseload (they in fact were in several of the same classes together), slightly higher grades, lower SAT’s, and identical EC’s applied RD during D2’s admission cycle and was waitlisted. Skidmore is not easy to predict. I believe that their admissions are not quite as stats driven and is a bit more holistic, creating a class that is unbelievably creative and diverse. I also believe that they are much more need aware during RD. If you search on their website for “faculty meetings” and read the minutes from the meeting there are status reports from the Head of Admissions several times a year which details what they are trying to accomplish during each admission cycle. They state that for the class of 2018 they were overbudget in Financial Aid during that admission cycle and their goal for the class of 2019 was to come in underbudget. They in fact did yield an incoming class this year that was underbudget. To the OP, to me, it sounds as if your daughter is the right kind of student for ED and if I were you, I would try to meet with someone from financial aid and/or admissions to determine if ED will work for you while you re-visit.