Getting into GU

[fsohoya]

For anyone who is interested in gaining a little insight into the GU admissions process, ABC News has an "insider" story up on their Web site about how GU selects students.

abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128422

On the whole, the story shows how tough it is to become a Hoya these days. It leaves you with a huge question at the end, though: Why would this girl still apply to UMCP?

[SoCalHoya]

I remember watching these two years ago. Good story overall. Maybe we can get ABC to do an update?

[fsohoya]

Oops. I hadn't even looked at the publication date. ABC must have put some older stories up to go with the story I was reading when I saw the link headline about GU.

[Nevada Hoya]

We only had 7 out of 47 applicants from Nevada get into GU this year (15%). We historically have about the nation's average (22%) or a bit above accepted. So this was a bad year for Nevada. Out of those seven two are going back for a yield of 29%. We had our sendoff on Saturday, and the student from Las Vegas (one is from Reno - far from Las Vegas) is very impressive. My interviewee with 1520 SAT scores did not get accepted.

[thebin]

Nev- any idea where the 5 non-matriculators ended up?

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

The part about High Schools and college counselors was interesting to me, because I attended a fairly high-powered private southern college prep school - to my knowledge we make up the vast majority of recent Georgetown admissions along with our Catholic counterpart in Tulsa - but both have many more resources available to their students in the college application process than local public schools which can have graduating classes of 800+ in some cases.

[thebin]

My experience was the flip side of that. I was fortunate to attend a very elite boarding school in New England for one postgraduate year. In my experience, there were some 75 students who applied to GU in 1995 if memory serve. I think 25 got in, and 12 or 13 matriculated. To get into GU from such a hyper-competitive school is quite difficult because I assure you MANY of those rejected were more well qualified than many kids who ended up at Gtown, probably myself included who got some help from the football program to be sure. Your school can be so rich- and have the pleasure of having so many gifted students- that it actually makes it more difficult to get in because no school like Gtown is taking 50 of 75 applicants from any school- no matter how well qualified. THere were certainly kids at my boarding school who would have got into much better schools if they stayed local and excelled at their public schools.

[Jack]

In no way is attending Exeter a disadvantage for getting into Georgetown.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Agreed, let me be clear the HS that I went to is sometimes called the Exeter of the South - we had a good percentage of our graduating class apply to GU (but not 75 students as my graduating class was only 68) - even though it was competitive a disproporionate number (greater than 22%) of students got in.

[Nevada Hoya]

thebin said:

Nev- any idea where the 5 non-matriculators ended up?

Thebin, no, I don't know where they went. Usually, it is Harvard and Yale (at least in cases I have known for students turning down GU).

[CTHoya08]

I went to a Jesuit HS, and often heard people complain that it's too difficult to get into GU and BC from our school because everyone applies. But from the kids I knew, many of the kids who were rejected would have never applied if they were not at our school. The fact was that many more students from my HS were accepted to these schools than from the local public schools (many of them very good Fairfield County schools) but because so many kids applied thinking "I go to Fairfield Prep and have a B average, of course BC will take me" many were rejected, and our acceptance rate at these schools was probably only slightly higher than at local public schools.

[thebin]

jack said:

In no way is attending Exeter a disadvantage for getting into Georgetown.

You must have gone to a crappy public high school if you think that's an argument Jack. And you got into GU. See? Q.E.D.

[JimmyHoya]

thebin said:

My experience was the flip side of that. I was fortunate to attend a very elite boarding school in New England for one postgraduate year. In my experience, there were some 75 students who applied to GU in 1995 if memory serve. I think 25 got in, and 12 or 13 matriculated. To get into GU from such a hyper-competitive school is quite difficult because I assure you MANY of those rejected were more well qualified than many kids who ended up at Gtown, probably myself included who got some help from the football program to be sure. Your school can be so rich- and have the pleasure of having so many gifted students- that it actually makes it more difficult to get in because no school like Gtown is taking 50 of 75 applicants from any school- no matter how well qualified. THere were certainly kids at my boarding school who would have got into much better schools if they stayed local and excelled at their public schools.

That would be my situation, but it would be 14 students of a class of 36 applying to G'town which historically never has taken more than 3. Granted, it's usually 3 of 4-6 but even though a dozen were qualified, they acceptd only 4 initially and picked the class president off the waiting list.

It's rough.

[thebin]

My school was fairly big for a boarding school- we had 330 graduating I think. I remember feeling bad for some bright kids who had busted their butts for 3 or 4 years and just were not going to an elite school (top 25)because their class rank was necessarily low and the good schools were never going to take a majority of applicants from any one school. And these were kids who would have been in or near the very top of their classes at a mediocre public school- or really even some lesser private schools. To be sure there were some kids at my boarding school who didn't belong at a Gtown, but honestly of 330 graduates, we are talking about maybe 30 to 50, not the 300+ you would encounter at a decent public school of that size who didn't belong at an elite school. At the public high school I actually attended, many of those bottom 30 or so at Exeter would have been among the star students. I don't give a damn if that offends someone's delicate sensibilities, I happen to know it to be a fact from first hand experience in both types of school. Having done only a PG year at a boarding school and also having gone to pretty good public school before that- I can vouche that the difference in the average student's ability was tremendous. And like I said, the public high school I went to was in an affulent area and had a college matriculation record that was the envy of San Diego county. But wait, none of that can't be true even though I lived it, because Jack has declared it so.

[thebin]

Addendum: Let's be clear about something. Although I am saying that a very small number of students don't get into the Gtowns of the world from elite schools who might have had they stayed in average schools, I am NOT claiming an injustice that needs rectification. I am stating an observation that I know to be true. I also realize that very few people get the opportunity to attend such a fortunate school. And in no way I am suggesting that elite colleges just let the entire class in- as the Harvards and Yales pretty much did 50 years ago. There are very good reasons schools don't do that now. But this doesn't prevent me from identifyting a little known fact, that in fact its a lot trickier to "buy" your way into a Gtown than many think. Also, I am a huge advocate of massive public school reform- which have been destroyed more than anything by teacher's unions. (Myth #1: American schools are underfunded- our public schools are among the most well funded in the world.)

[Jack]

I am sure the expert judgment of a 19 year old looking at his peers at two different schools is better than anything I have to offer from reading some 6,000 applications to Georgetown and chairing several admissions committees, so I will concede this point to thebin.

[WilsonBlvdHoya]

LMAO! ;D But also awaiting bin's response! LOL!

On a separate but tangentially-related request, Jack: what are the %s on GU acceptances attending Duke and UPenn, respectively, since those are supposedly GU's fiercest undergrad admissions competitors?! I've heard something along the lines of 50/50 Duke/GU for non-Engineering Duke applicants and 60/40 UPenn/GU overall....

If you're able to post it, great. If not, I understand as well. You can always IM me too! But any input would be appreciated.....WBH

[Jack]

WBH- Duke and Penn both beat GU more often than not, but it is an area where real competition exists, as opposed to Harvard on one extreme and BC on another, where this is significant crossover in the applicant pool but very little in the way of competition for common admits. Duke is able to offer some merit scholarships and clearly enjoys the advantage of its Top 5 US News ranking, but in the end 30-40% of common admits still choose GU. Penn's biggest advantage is with Wharton, where they win 90% of the time. If you took out that group it would be much closer to 50/50.

The places where the competition is typically the closest have been Notre Dame, UVA, Berkeley, and Cornell. Some years GU wins more, some years the appeal of homogeneity, low in-state tuition, or easy access to the Finger Lakes wins out. In reality, students who are looking at Georgetown and those schools are probably looking for very different things, so there is not much that can be done to persuade them one way or the other.

[SFHoya99]

So, you're telling me I should've picked Wharton?

[Jack]

There is a lot of wisdom in that other 10%