Scott,
I was interested in your comments regarding students that challenge themselves through their senior year. A question popped into my head regarding my daughter, an applicant for 2009. She has always challenged herself in high school, including taking Physics electively this summer, Unfortunately, her final grade was well below the GPA she had carried. Will this hurt her in the application review?
Thank You,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for posting. We always like to see it when students take on additional challenge by taking a course over the summer. Will a lower grade in that summer class hurt her? That depends on a number of different factors. What level was the summer course- was it a college course she took? How low is the grade? What does the rest of her academic performance during high school look like? How strong is the overall high school curriculum? Does she want to be a Physics or other science major?

I know I gave you more questions than answers, but the point is that we are going to look at the summer course and the grade she received in the context of her overall application. If she wants to go into the sciences, the lower grade in Physics may be of some concern. If she is a Humanities or Liberal Arts major, it may not be of concern at all. This is why each student's application is considered individually, and performance is looked at in the context of curriculum, high school environment, and choice of major.

Hope this helps!

*Scott

What updates, if any, do you have about early action applicants? When will they hear?

Hello Mary Jo,

We are currently in our committee on admission meetings making final admission decisions, and will be at least through the end of this week. After committee meetings are finally completed, there are a number of other things that have to be done: printing and proofreading each decision letter; stuffing and sealing the envelopes; and completing a roster check to make sure that every student who has applied will receive a decision letter... among other things...

So, all I can tell you at this point is decision letters will definitely arrive by January 1. I'll provide more updates as soon as I know anything!

*Scott

Hey there Scott,

Thanks for the blog updates about when acceptance letters are going out. I applied early action and am soooooo nervously awaiting to hear. Fingers crossed!!

~Meghan

Scott

Great Blog! I was curious how the current economy is affecting your admission decisions - I have read that applications are way up at public colleges and was curious if Providence was expecting your admission yield to be lower than historic rates.

Hi Rich,

Thank you for posting! The economy is certainly on our minds in the Office of Admission as we look to enroll the Class of 2013. At this point, we are happy to report that our Early Action applicant pool has not been hurt - in fact, we are up about 300 applications from where we were last year at EA.

But where will these students decide to actually attend? It's a hard question to answer, and certainly the cost of attending a college/university will be an even more critical factor in students' decisions this year (which is not to say it's not a major factor even with a strong economy!). Financial aid and scholarship packages will definitely play a major role in where students choose to attend; I think this will help us at PC with very high achieving students, because we have very generous merit scholarship packages that will go to all students selected for our Liberal Arts Honors Program. With need-based financial aid, we'll continue to provide the strong packages as we have in the past - and we'll have to wait and see how families make their decisions based on the amount and the type (scholarship, grant, loan, work-study, etc) of aid they receive. It will certainly be an interesting spring in the world of higher education.