Thanks for letting us know. Good luck everyone.

I'm so excited and nervous. Thanks a lot for telling us! Good luck to all who applied!

Scott-

This has been a quite helpful blog for the admission process. I hope to be a Friar next fall!!

Do all letters come in the big envelopes? Or do the deference/rejection letters come in smaller ones?

This is so great. Thanks for the photo too!! :)
Will merit aid be included in those packages or will it come later?

I want to be a Friar so bad! I hope it's in my mailbox today. Thank you so much for all of this information.

To "flid" -
Students who are selected for our Liberal Arts Honors Program (and the merit scholarship that comes with that selection) will receive that information separately. Honors Program invitation letters will be released in about a week.

To Claire -
Acceptance letters come in a larger envelope than defer and deny letters, because they contain additional enrollment information for our invited students.

*Scott

Scott-

This is soooooooo exciting!!!!! I have wanted to go to Providence for so bad for a while now, so I can't wait to get my letter. Thanks so much for all the updates!!!

Yahoo! Our daughter just received the BIG envelope!! (It was worth walking out in the snow for.) We visited a lot of campuses in our college search--but, as alums, our heart was always with Providence College. Looking forward to carrying on the family tradition. Thanks, PC.

YES! I got my acceptance letter today! A sweet Christmas present.. thanks admissions!!

~~Court

YES! I got my letter today. I'm so relieved!

Congrats everybody - and thanks for posting and sharing your excitement with us!

*Scott

Hi Scott,
I applied as a Biology Major under EA for the class of 2013. Unfortunately, I was deferred. I was doing some research last night and discovered that roughly only 7% of the students at PC are Biology Majors, so I am competing with extremely intense competition for a few open spots. My question is do you have any idea what the percentage of deferred candidates accepted during the Regular Admissions process is?

E.L.,

The number of deferred students who are later accepted (during the Regular Decision review process) varies from year to year, and depends on the overall strength of the Regular Decision applicant pool (and how the students who were deferred perform academically during their first semester). Typically, it's about 25% to 40% of deferred students that ultimately will be offered admission.

For students who have been deferred, senior year performance is critical when their applications are reconsidered during the Regular Decision process. We will take a close look at your first semester performance as we continue to make decisions over the next couple of months.

*Scott

To my huge surprise I was deferred from PC. I don't understand how or why. I know that I am more than qualified. Is there anyone I can talk to about why this happened?

So excited to have gotten my letter! When do we hear about financial aid?

When do we find out about scholarships like from the theatre program??

Thanks.

Also, do you have a limit of people you admit from one school?

Regarding scholarships and financial aid:

Liberal Arts Honors Program/merit scholarship offers should be arriving by the last week of December.

Need-based financial aid packages (for all invited students who completed their CSS Profile and FAFSA forms on time) will be released on or around February 1st.

Theatre Department and other Fine Arts scholarships are only for students who have selected those majors. They are awarded after the Regular Decision process so those departments know the entire pool of students that they have to choose from.

To John - Check your e-mail... I will send you the contact information for the counselor who is the first reader for your area.

*Scott

Woohoo I just got in! Thanks Scott; I'm pretty sure you were the one who reviewed and accepted my application :)

I am so excited! I just received my acceptance letter today and I am pretty sure my neighbors were all laughing at me as I danced in front of my mailbox. Thanks so much for always keeping the blog updated. The information has been super helpful throughout the entire process. I am looking forward to an amazing four years. :)
- Giuli

One of those letters was mine! Thanks so much!! :)

I find this blog a bit too self-serving. Only happy campers here, who have been admitted to the school. Why not a representative mix of messages? Being a PC alum myself ('73), and my daughter being of more recent vintage('05), I want everyone to know that PC is a great staging ground for careers that you cannot even imagine as a student. I majored in history and ended up as the head of employee communications for a two Fortune 100 companies. My daughter's was able to pursue her dream of
medical school. In both instances, Providence prepared us well to meet the demands of our divergent careers.

Still, the school needs to distinguish itself from the pack. Yes, it prepares you for real-life jobs. And it has a vigorous athletics progam (but not enough to truly compete in the Big East.) So why not focus on its success in preparing its students for life rather than grab headlines as a a struggling Big East entry? Go the route of Holy Cross. If the school is to excel, make it academics, not as a has-been jock academy.

How many of the 3500 applicants were accepted?

Congratulations everyone!

As many people from my small public school have been admitted thus far, I am starting to wonder if there is a certain amount of students from one area you will allow in. I chose to apply regular, figuring my gpa would be higher, since I am taking all AP courses. However, four students from my school have already been accepted, and I am regretting waiting to apply. Will this affect my chances? Thank you so much.

Hi! I was just wondering about how many students were accepted for early action?

Hi again, everybody...

Out of the nearly 3,500 applications, we accepted just over 1,900 during the Early Action process this year.

To Alicia,
No, we do not have "quotas" from specific high schools or specific geographic areas. If we feel a student is an academic and personal match to PC, we will invite them, even if we have already taken 4 or 10 or 15 others from their high school. If every student who applied from a given high school was qualified, we would take them all - this doesn't happen too often, because we see a broad range of applicants (academically speaking) from many high schools. But, there is an individual reason for each student who is not admitted (most often it's academic, but sometimes personal fit) - we do not pass over a qualified student because we have already taken a number of other students from the same high school. In the Regular Decision pool, senior performance is very important, and it sounds like you are certainly taking on a strong curriculum, so I encourage you to continue to do well academically this year!

To Peter-
Thanks for reading and posting! You're right in the sense that we do see mostly "happy campers" here... The students who want to post about how excited they are to be coming to PC use this blog as an outlet and a way to share that with others. However, those students who are deferred and/or denied tend to want to find out why they received those decisions, and they often call our office to speak with an admission counselor directly.

Thanks again to all who have posted!

*Scott

Hi Scott- Congrats to all who got in early. Unfortunately I was deferred. Any tips on what I need for my midterm report. My guidance said she stapled first term report card. Was that taken into consideration? Thanks for your help.
Joan

Yay accepted :) I'm so happy!
I was wondering, though, if there is going to be any sort of accepted students day before the April Family Day?
Thanks so much for all the updates!

12/22 update-

To Joan,
Thanks for posting - anything that was included with your application was considered during the review. So, yes, the first term grades your counselor attached were certainly considered by the admission counselors who read your application file. When a student is deferred to the Regular Decision pool, we are able to further consider your application in the context of our entire group of applicants (rather than just the smaller EA pool). Most importantly, we want to see strong senior year academic performance from students who have been deferred. This first semester GPA is often a critical factor as we make decisions on deferred students. If you have any additional information (an updated activity sheet, etc.) that wasn't included in your original application, please feel free to send that along to our office as well.

To Megan,
Yes, there will be the opportunity for students accepted during the Early Action process to visit prior to Family Day in April. Each year, we hold our PC Up Close program for EA invited students to take a closer look at Providence- we will be mailing invitations to this event soon.

*Scott

Hello Scott,

Although I was confident that I would be receiving my acceptance letter over break, a deference came instead. I understand that first trimester senior grades are crucial in ensuring acceptance during regular decision. What do you look for? I have been a strong and consistent student throughout all of my highschool career - and my grades have remained relatively the same throughout the past four years. My gpa first trimester was a 3.27. Most likely the same as all my others. Is that gpa going to make the cut? And if not...what else can I do to help my chances?

To "Deferee" -

Yes, senior year performance is very important as we evaluate students who were deferred at Early Action. When we defer a student, we have the opportunity to consider his or her application in the context of our entire applicant pool (not just the Early pool). So, it is tough to say without seeing the Regular Decision pool exactly where our deferred applicants will fit in. Is the Regular pool considerably smaller than expected or considerably weaker overall than the EA pool? If so, students who were deferred EA may look very strong in comparison to our January applicants. On the other hand, is the Regular pool larger than expected? Is it equally as strong as or stronger than the EA pool? If so, many students who were deferred may end up being placed on the waiting list after looking at how they compare to these students who apply by January 15.

What else can you do besides continuing to do well academically? First, if you have additional information you'd like to share that wasn't included in your application (such as an updated activity sheet, information about awards/honors received since you applied, etc.), please send that along to us. Some students will send along an additional recommendation - certainly not required, but it doesn't hurt. Has PC become your first choice college since you applied? It doesn't hurt to let us know that as well. If you didn't go into great detail in your Supplemental statement, tell us WHY Providence is the right fit for you, and how you see yourself contributing to our campus community.

Best of luck. Thanks for posting.

*Scott

Need-based financial aid packages (for all invited students who completed their CSS Profile and FAFSA forms on time) will be released on or around February 1st.

I just have a question. If I failed to submit my CSS Profile on time (I had to send it in a day late because of computer error), does that mean I won't receive any aid at all?

Thanks.

To MC,

Early Action students who miss the Financial Aid deadline but get the Profile/FAFSA in by the Regular Decision Financial Aid deadline will receive their need-based aid packages with the Regular Decision applicants, and without penalty. In other words, you'll receive your financial aid package in April and and it will be the same package that you would have received if you had made the EA deadline.

*Scott

My son applied early action and was deferred to the regular pool. His school runs on trimesters so his 2nd trimester grades won't be ready until after March 1st. Will that be too late for the committee to review? Thanks!

Hi Ann,

That's a good question, and it depends on how long it takes for the high school to get those grades to us. Final committee meetings will begin during the first week of March, so if we have them in hand that week, they would likely be considered. Any later than that, they probably would not be.

With schools that are on trimesters, we will use the first trimester grades in the place of "midyear grades," so if the second tri grades don't make it here in time, we still will have grades from the senior year to consider in the context of the Regular Decision pool.

*Scott

Hi Scott,
I was just curious as to whether or not acceptances to the Honors Program and/or merit scholarships were included in the initial acceptance package, or if they were to arrive later on.

Thanks for the help!

Mark

Hi Mark,

Liberal Arts Honors Program invitations and merit scholarship awards are released about a week after decision letters are mailed.

*Scott