I applied to Wesleyan ED1, 92.4 unweighted GPA, 34 ACT, good extra curriculars (if you want to know my stats in detail I did a chance me on Wesleyan ED vs Amherst ED).
I was deferred to ED2, I’ve been speaking with my counselor and parents and I’ve decided to send a piece of my writing, and possibly another letter of recommendation from a local politician on whose campaign I worked, and obviously I’m gonna work my butt off studying. I’m taking 3 AP classes and one honors class and last quarter I had a 94.8 GPA. if I had a 94 or 95 GPA this quarter would that be enough to get me in?
I figure they wouldn’t have deferred me to ED2 if they didn’t like my extracurriculars, and it seems to me that the only weak link in my application was my grades.
^ it’s amazing what doesn’t qualify as a strong app now. I would have thought that 34 would catch someone’s eyes.
You mention three AP courses currently. What was your course rigor prior? I ask because, in our extensive discussions with the AD during the course of my daughter’s recruitment, course rigor was a big, big piece of the puzzle at Wesleyan.
Though Wes was my daughter’s first choice, we ultimately decided it was too risky a choice on which to use her ED shot because she had some lackluster (and a few bad) performances grade-wise (mostly freshman and soph years. Like you, she has a high ACT score (35) and is an IB diploma candidate, so rigor was there. Even as a top soccer recruit who would get every bit of juice out of the athletic support network that could be mustered, Wes admissions told us it wasn’t a clear read and that those earlier poor grades could be an issue for the committee.
This is why I hold that group - Wes athletics and AD - in such high regard. We had other schools whose coaches, particularly in NESCAC and Liberty League, who were really after her - she is a Division 1 recruit who turned down several offers, including two in the Pac 12 - at schools that I know for a fact are as hard to get into as Wes, who pushed us to apply ED, knowing full well the risk she would be taking in using her one recruiting shot into high-level DIII admissions. Wes women’s soccer has struggled, and they could really use my kid - she’s good enough to make a difference right away - and, still, they were straight with us.
Anyway, in the course of those discussions, rigor came up much more often as a positive in her application profile than did her ACT score.
So, back to you … what’s the rigor of your overall transcript, not just this year?
My daughter was deferred in ED1 and ultimately accepted in ED2. She submitted her first semester grades with a letter stating her strong interest in attending and it worked.
connections to the school, honestly. I had a connection to someone in the development office who upon touring introduced me to the head of the field i wanted to go into. without me saying anything, they offered to write me a letter of recommendation. i think that helped A LOT