how will extracurriculars and early decision affect my admission chances?Answered
My gpa is a 4.16 weighted (my school doesn't give grade above an A) and a 3.95 unweighted. I got a 34 composite on the ACT. I will have taken 8 AP classes and 8 honors courses by the time I graduate ( I go to a small school that doesn't offer lots of advanced courses). Based on those factors, I am above the standards of most of the schools I'm applying to. However, I went through a rough patch mentally during my sophomore year and didn't participate in any sports or clubs other that one weekly club. While I have participated more in the last year in out of school extracurriculars and have a job and a summer program related to my intended major planned for this coming summer, I was wondering if a lack of sports would impact my admissions chances. My absolute dream school is Wellesley College, and I plan to apply Early Decision. Collegevine estimates that I have a 46% chance of acceptance, however, it does not factor in Early Decision. Does anyone have any advice on how ED will impact my chances of acceptance, as well as how I can improve them before I apply in the fall?I've visited tons of schools, and I really cannot see myself liking any college as much as I love Wellesley, so I want to make sure I do everything I can to get accepted.
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2 answers
You have a really good chance of being accepted at Wellesley ED. My best guess is that applying ED will improve your outcome. I'm not sure what the ED rate was this cycle but I think it must have been around 25% or lower than than the Class of 2025 which was about 30%. The overall admit rate was 13% down from 16%. So having a 46% College Vine percentage is really good. But I do not believe your ED rate is double at 92% or anything close to that. It might like a coin toss so just keep that in mind.
One of the best things you can do is to sign up for all of Wellesley's newsletters, follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and visit the campus. Demonstrated interest is a considered at Wellesley so if you attend their information session and tour the campus with a parent or guardian that will serve you well.
After I visited Wellesley, I felt there were a couple things for me that prevented me from considering it on my college list. First I felt that it was not a conveniently located as other Boston colleges and that getting into Boston isn't trivial even though they have consortium status with MIT.
Most of all, I didn't like the rigged grading set up where there is systematic grade deflation and only a certain amount of students in each class can get A grades forcing a lot of competition between peers to be the top 10% or whatever the threshold is. I think there is also a written policy that 15% of the class has to be at 3.33 GPA or below. Personally, I think this is unhealthy and leads to mental stress, anxiety and other disorders. So at least 15% of the class, regardless of their HS GPAs of 3.90+ are going get a gut punch with the school wide imposed curve.
https://thewellesleynews.com/2017/11/29/wellesleys-grade-deflation-policy-must-be-rethought/
Although, I ended up not applying to any womens colleges and will be attending Columbia this fall, I think that if were compelled to pick a womens college, I would have picked from Mount Holyoke, Barnard and Brynn Mawr. I didn't feel Smith, or Scripps were my vibe.
Good luck.
Colleges are most concerned about the activities you take on during your junior and senior years, since many opportunities are not open to younger students. A lack of extracurriculars in sophomore year will not hurt your admissions chances so long as your ECs from other years make up for it. If your list overall is short on activities, you can explain your rough patch in sophomore year in the Additional Information section. Your current summer plans will certainly improve your profile along with an ED application. Make sure you communicate how much you love Wellesley in your application - conveying the same idea as your post's last sentence in an essay will boost your odds too. Hope this helps!
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thank you so much! I wasn't aware of the grade deflation, I'm definitely going to look into that!