Scholarship chances for spring freshman?

esquivalience
Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:14:49 +0000

I’m a high school senior, and when I applied to colleges I assumed I’d probably take out a pretty large student loan… however, it turned out that I couldn’t get a loan because I have no credit, and my parents didn’t want to co-sign a large student loan. So I had to go with the only “cheap” school I applied to, SUNY Binghamton (I’m in NY), and reject some places I’d much rather have gone to (particularly UNC or BC Honors). But I had heard a lot students say that they didn’t really like Binghamton, and that morale is low because a lot of the students only go there because they couldn’t afford anywhere better… when I visited campus I thought it was decent, but really not that great. Although I’m sure it wouldn’t be awful, I started to think that I might prefer to just go somewhere else. So I decided to try to apply to other schools, despite it being very late by then. I applied to Delaware a few weeks ago, because they said they were still taking apps, but it turned out that they weren’t accepting anything by the time I applied.

So now I’ve been considering taking a semester off and applying to some schools that offer spring admission, like Pepperdine. I was wondering what chances you thought I’d have at getting in, and at possibly getting a merit-based scholarship (and if it’s possible to estimate, about how large it would be).

GPA: ~95.5 weighted
SAT: 780W/720R/710M (=2210, or 1490/1600)
SAT II: 760 Lit / 700 Math II / 650 Spanish
APs: English Lang: 5; US History: 4; Physics B: 3
(And I took the Calc AB, Psychology, Macroeconomics, English Lit and Chemistry APs this year, but obviously don’t have my scores yet)
Awards: 10 awards, including Perfect Paper on the National Latin Exam

Main extracurriculars: Student government, school newspaper, school’s satirical magazine, school’s local cable TV show, personal blog where I write long articles about political issues

My Common App essay is good, and I assume my rec letters are too.

Thanks