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[quote=Anonymous]My child applied to many of the SLACs listed on the first page of the thread.  He got into all of those he applied to and is going to one of the SLACs mentioned there next month.

A couple things stand out to me.  He did not have a 3.3 GPA when he applied.  Now after graduation he does, but he didn't have a 3.3 when he applied.  We had very serious family problems his freshman year in high (several serious family illnesses the entire year and two deaths in the family in a two week period).  His grades reflected that we were flying all over the country and he had just started at a new school.

He had interviews with all the admissions reps he could.  He met with them at his school, met them when the reps were in town to meet at other schools and we went to some campuses specifically for interviews (we had visited all the schools previously) and he skyped with the rest.  What he did was to establish a personal connection with someone in the admissions office.  He kept calling and emailing them and reminding them how he thought he could contribute to the community and how the college community could be a help to him as well.  He was able to explain his grades his freshman year.  He had demonstrated interest and without being a pest, he kept his name in play there.  He got to know people.  He's a gregarious kid, but I think this really helped.

The second thing he did was write a killer essay.  It was his topic and I hated it.  But he wrote passionately on his topic and did it well.  Several admissions reps on acceptance letters wrote about how moved they were by his essay.

So much of college admissions is formulaic and his grades and scores were not what some colleges seemed to require.  And he got merit aid at the schools as well.

He made himself stand out and I think it made a huge difference for him.  It isn't easy for high schoolers to pick up the phone and call admission reps on their own.  Making himself stand out as an interesting, intellectually curious kid made a huge difference for him.

Good luck to your daughter![/quote]

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