Thank you again to everyone who has posted comments and also e-mailed me off of the site. I appreciate your comments and questions and continue to encourage you to keep them coming (and also be patient - I will get back to you as soon as I can but there are a LOT of questions coming in each day... many of which require a personal response to the sender that is not posted on the blog).

As we move forward, I want to again congratulate all of the students who were accepted Early Action... This was our strongest EA applicant pool ever and we were amazed at the academic depth and personal contributions of so many of our applicants. Here's what we saw as we went through the review process:

VERY strong high school academic performance. Generally speaking, the students we invited EA had taken an extremely rigorous high school courseload, consisting of 4 years of those 5 core academic subjects we've been talking about all along. In addition, most students who were accepted had taken on a very high level of academic challenge throughout high school - predominantly honors/accelerated-level curriculums in the context of what their high schools offered. Many students finished out their junior and senior years by taking on AP level coursework as well.

Now, taking on the strong courses is one thing, but for a student to really be competitive in our EA review, they had to achieve in those classes as well. The average GPA for an invited EA student was an A-minus (on an unweighted scale -- so, in other words, the student took on those honors/AP level courses and achieved at least at the A-minus level throughout high school). The average English-course GPA was also an A-minus also in an Honors/AP level English curriculum. (Remember, as a liberal arts institution, a student's English performance is very important to us because even if you're a science major, you will be taking our core curriculum classes and writing essays and papers... To be successful in our curriculum here at PC, a student needs to be strong in English...)

Believe it or not, more students than we had spaces to invite had taken on a very strong curriculum and achieved at or near that A-minus average throughout high school, and so the "subjective" factors were also incredibly important for us to make these decisions. (Hey, it seems like I've written all of this before on this very blog... I wasn't kidding back when I told you what we looked at in an application!) ... Dedicated involvement, leadership, commitment to activities or part-time jobs... These were qualities that many of the students we invited (and frankly, many of the students we were unable to invite) possessed. Also, remember when I talked about the importance of the essay and PC supplemental statement? Yeah, I wasn't kidding then either... These pieces also played important roles in the decision-making process and really could help a student stand out from a lot of others who looked very similar academically.

We have been receiving a lot of questions from invited EA students about the Liberal Arts Honors Program and merit scholarships. (As I've mentioned before, all merit scholarships that we award are tied directly to the Honors Program - any student invited into the LAH Program will receive a merit scholarship, any student who is not selected for the Honors Program will not receive a scholarship). Liberal Arts Honors Program invitations will be mailed to students soon... I'll be able to give more information as to specifics as we get closer to January 1. Please do not call our office asking if you have received a merit scholarship ... again, these decisions are released through the mail and those students who have been selected for the Honors Program will hear by early January.

It's the Friday before one of my favorite holidays, so I will be headed off for my own little Christmas vacation, meaning you won't be hearing from me for a bit. I wish all of you and your families a very Merry Christmas and hope you'll be able to take some time off from school/homework/work and relax, recharge, and be ready for a productive 2008.

Thanks again for reading my blog and our students' blogs over the past few months! I will talk to you all soon!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

*Scott