Hi everybody! Before I get into those final thoughts on the Early Action decision-making process, I do want to say thank you to all of you who are reading this blog, posting your comments, asking questions, and even discussing its content on other college admission websites! We started this blog with the hope that it would alleviate at least some of the mystery behind the admission review process here at PC and from the comments that we've received, it's been at least partially successful! Obviously this blog is geared toward our prospective students and their families, but I also want to say that I appreciate all of the other people who are faithful readers and have given me some positive feedback. They include PC administrators, current PC students, parents of some of our admission staff (who are getting the inside scoop about what their sons and daughters are doing at work!), and of course, the many PC alums who are keeping in touch with their alma mater (and I have to mention here a favorite of ours in the Office of Admission, Brady M. from the Class of 2005 who is living in Cambridge, MA right now and who was one of the best student tour guides and ambassadors we could have ever asked for in the office-- Brady, I know you've been very faithfully reading and I definitely appreciate it!). Now that that's been said...

We're less than a day away from decision letters being released (tomorrow morning), and here's your recap of the Early Action admission process... Nearly 3,200 applicants, which as I've mentioned before, is about a 45% increase in applications from where we were last year at Early Action. Clearly, it was extremely competitive, due to the increase in applications, yes, but also due to the strength of the students who applied! We definitely did not see a drop-off in quality with the increase in quantity!

So how many of the 3,200 could we invite? Well, remember, our freshman class has 960 spaces... and we still have our entire Regular Decision applicant pool to consider on top of the 3,200 who applied EA... so, we accepted about 1,425 students Early Action-- what we feel is a good balance that rewards the deserving students who applied EA while not penalizing the students who choose to apply at Regular (there will still be spaces available to those qualified applicants!). By the way, we do know going into this process that not every student who we accept is going to choose us (they will have lots of great schools to choose from!) -- that's why we invite considerably more than the 960 freshmen we have room for. But...

...were there other students in the Early Action pool (beyond the 1,425 we accepted) who could be successful in our classrooms at PC? The answer to that is yes-- all of the students we deferred have the academic ability to be successful. That is why students who receive a defer letter should not interpret it as a "soft deny" -- when we defer a student, we do believe that they have a legitimate chance to be accepted during the Regular Decision review. There will be nearly 1,000 students who will be deferred, meaning that their application will be carried over to the Regular Decision pool and they will receive a final decision in March. These deferred students are a very talented group, but in the context of our applicant pool Early Action, we were unable to offer them admission. Unfortunately, over 700 students will be denied Early Action as the Committee on Admission did not see them as an academic fit to PC. Denying these students EA is difficult to do but we feel that passing along this information now instead of waiting until March is beneficial to these students and their families and allows them to pursue other options.

There is your objective, numerical recap of the Early Action decision-making process. But we always stress looking beyond the numbers here in the PC Office of Admission, so as promised, here are my own unabridged (subjective!) thoughts on my third year of attending Committee on Admission meetings:

Academically, two of the important things in the eyes of the committee (as we've been saying all along) are the student's overall curriculum AND senior schedule. For you juniors out there, I can't stress enough how important it is to continue to take a challenging courseload senior year. A student who "takes senior year off" is not going to win points with any of the counselors on the staff-- it really is a surefire way for an application to end up with a deny decision. More than once this year we looked at a student with a borderline GPA or a compelling story, and considered deferring the student in order to see senior year performance... only to see that their senior schedule consisted of English, Trig, and a history elective-- and two study halls, phys ed, and Basket Weaving 101. And when an EA applicant has a weak senior schedule, the committee usually comes to two conclusions: (1) We are not going to accept the student because they have not earned an invite in the context of the overall applicant pool based on their less than challenging senior year and (2) there is not all that much to be gained from deferring the student to see senior year performance because... we only have 3 classes to see grades in! Which means there's only one decision left to make... So one last time, to all of the underclassmen out there-- continuing to take on challenging courses senior year is vital to be successful in the college admission process!!

Also on the academic side, we look closely at GPA during the committee meetings, but not just the overall number. More important than that number is how a student got to their GPA. Did the student really struggle freshman year but has shown us an upward trend throughout high school? Or did the student have an "A-" GPA freshman year followed by a "B" average sophomore year followed by a "C+" GPA as a junior? The student in the second example will not be receiving support from the committee. The moral of the story is we love to see progression (an upward trend) in GPA; we definitely do not like to see digression (or a downward trend) in GPA.

This Early Action committee was also the first that we have done while being a test-optional institution, and I have to say that being test-optional did not change our committee process one bit from the two years I experienced when SAT/ACT scores were required. Just like in the past, we spent our time talking about... the person... a student's extra-curricular involvement, essays, and their match and fit to our campus community. We have never quibbled over SAT scores in committee-- not once in my three years have we said, "Let's take this student because she has a 1250 SAT and that one only has an 1150." Officially becoming test-optional gives our applicants the choice to submit their scores but doesn't change what we do-- it is simply backing up the way we have always reviewed applications in the committee setting. The combination of the high school academic preparation and performance plus the personal characteristics that make a student the right fit to Providence College!

So there you have it... We've just about reached the end of the Early Action process and I'll mention one more time-- decision letters will be leaving our office tomorrow (Saturday, December 23).

Finally, I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy your school break! We will be closing the office for Christmas so I will talk to you again in 2007! Best wishes to you and your family over the holidays!

*Scott