Is anyone seeing an overly concerned group of students (mostly girls) clamoring to get applications in early August? Students in my area are beside themselves to submit all their applications by August 10. I have never seen anything like it.
Also, how challenging is Clemson on admissions? A student has asked if their stats: 4.1, test optional, one AP (but didn’t take the test) last year, one AP next year, oos, is likely to get in the business school.
Well, it’d make the Fall easier - but if you’re doing many apps, it’d be hard.
Define - challenging? For some, Clemson is a reach. For others, a safety.
Last year, they admitted 38% of applicants.
They note that the most important items are rigor, GPA, state of residence, and class rank (where available). While they are test optional, they rate the test as important (the 2nd highest category).
Last year, 60% of enrollees submitted a test. It may be slightly less as they show 39% submitted the SAT and 21% ACT - and some may have submitted both. The midpoint was 1320 on the SAT and 30 on the ACT.
When rank is available, 57% were in the top 10% of their class and 92% in the top 25%.
So it’s not easy.
Is the 4.1 weighted or unweighted? What is the unweighted GPA.
I’d surmise with only one AP and TO, assuming the school offered more and the student didn’t take more, would not get in - but need a lot more info to make that assessment.
Hope that helps.
The number of applications has increased significantly and acceptance rate has had a corresponding decline. In 2018 when my daughter applied there were about 28K applications and the acceptance rate was 47%. Last year they had 60K applications and as @tsbna44 mention at 38% acceptance rate. Acceptance rate slightly lower for OOS at 36%.
At clemson the business school is not a closed admission like nursing and Engineering. Also they use the date of application to determine room selection of those admitted and enrolled students. So there is some benefit to applying as early as possible.
Clemson is very big on Class rank (if available) rigor and GPA. EC’s mean almost nothing for Clemson and I think the essays are optional. Last year 92% of the enrolled students had a GPA (I assume weighted) of 3.75 or higher. In fact 92% of enrolled students had a GPA of 4.0 or higher.
I feel like my advice is getting old since my daughter was the HS class of '18 but even at that time, the GCs advised applying as early as possible so that once senior year classes and ECs kicked in, the bulk of the application work was already done.
I know that’s still the advice because her school now hosts mandatory common app sessions when it first opens where students come in and start their applications with the GCs and a host of teachers present. Common app essays are written/reviewed/edited in English classes junior year and LORs are ready to go as well.
The school started this originally for Fall athletes so they could get it out of the way before their season started, but then decided it was good for everyone to just get it done.
Also highly recommended was having at least one rolling admission school on the list because that early acceptance is psychological gold.
IMO, the only time this can backfire is if a student is needing to show an upward trend in grades where having 1st quarter senior year to submit would greatly enhance the application.
But, for schools like Clemson that use date of submission for housing or have rolling admission, it’s essential to get in the app as quickly as possible.
My S25 is applying to Clemson and he’s ready to submit… except he doesn’t know what classes he’ll have yet for his senior year. He’s requested a few that typically only meet once a day, and we’re moderately concerned that he won’t get them all. And since you need to list your senior year classes on the Common App, he’s holding off on submission for another 10-12 days until class schedules come out. I’d like him to do it now, then he can mark something off as done, and it will improve his housing priority (if he gets in). But if the courses change from what he requested, he’d then have to contact Clemson to let them know. He really doesn’t want to have to do that. So we’ll wait…
I have no good insights about test optional. He’s got good scores and is planning to submit them, so we haven’t dug into that at all.
If the date of application is important for housing (like Clemson) and/or certain schools/majors fill up quickly, this will drive the early app behavior, and for good reason.
For importance of test scores at Clemson, look at the CDS and data reports from Clemson, and have your student ask at an online or in person admissions session.
I think applying in any time in august is way early enough vs the masses.
What is the uwgpa? I think SC has high wgpa’s, at our school my daughter had 9 AP’s, rest honors, 4.2 wgpa out of 4.4 tops. One B. She’s a senior at Cleveland.
Yeah, that’s what we’ve pretty much decided. I’m not so worried about housing, really I just wanted him to have the psychological boost of getting one application (and for the school that he’s most interested in) submitted. But we can wait a few weeks for that dopamine hit. 
Clemson has offered EA for only 2 years, it appears they accept many high stats applicants and defer a lot.
Last year, I applied to Clemson on October 14th to meet the EA deadline. I was deferred early action, but accepted regular. I had about a 4.4 GPA, 33 ACT, and 10 or so APs. Also OOS and going into business. It seemed that they did a non-holistic review for EA (only looked at GPA and test scores). There seemed to be a pretty clear line of which GPA and test score you needed to get in. But for RD they did more holistic review so the “optional” personal statement and activities were taken into account.
WE parents advised our kids to get applications done ASAP once their senior year started. Our kids had all of their applications completed by October 15…except one. Each added one more college in November.
Getting the applications done made their senior years so much more enjoyable. Both commented that they had many classmates working on applications during the holiday seasons between Thanksgiving and New Years. By that time, our kids each had at least a couple of early acceptances and knew they were going to college someplace.
So…while my kids are way out of high school, I still would give the same advice to students today.
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