Citadel Preliminary Letter. Any thoughts?

[brady77]

Hello,

I received a letter from The Citadel today and I would appreciate any input. This is what it said.

Dear Mr. Dale

Thank you for submitting your application to The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina.

The Admissions Committee has made a preliminary evaluation of your application and requests that you retake the SAT/ACT and send an updated transcript at the end of the current semester. You may obtain the tests schedules at either of the URLs below:

http://www.sat.collegeboard.com/register/sat-dates (SAT)
http://www.actstudent.org/regist/dates.html (ACT)

This information will provide a clearer picture of your qualifications and will assist the Committee in making a decision regarding your admission. Please note that The Citadel typically receives a large number of applications each year, so admission decisions are sometimes made on a space availability basis. Therefore, providing the requested information does not guarantee admission.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely

John W. Powell, Jr.
Lieutenant Colonel, USMCR (Retired)
Director of Admissions

Has anyone ever received a letter like this? Does anyone have any thoughts? I went down to The Citadel for an interview and tour in November and it went very well. I am also having lunch with two Citadel alumni one is the admissions recruiter for the New York area.

Thank You,

Brady

 

[jimzwife]

Our experience was that the admissions process has many levels--academic admission, physical standards, medical clearance--and that Admissions is wonderfully helpful if you stay in touch and make sure that you follow each step in order and get the required forms in to them in a timely manner. It sounds as though the school considers you a promising candidate and wants to give you the chance to correct a weakness. With rolling admissions, you can still be accepted as late as next spring, so retake the SAT and see how you do.

Even if you get accepted they stress that you aren't in until you're in--they do have to cut off at a certain number--but last year's entering class was the largest ever and my knob tells me that there will be a new company ("Victor") next year, so your obvious interest and desire could be the tipping point in your favor. If your SAT's don't improve as much as you like, there is nothing stopping you from writing a letter or essay explaining or clarifying your performance on standardized testing--some people, no matter how bright, do poorly on those tests--and that you have compensating factors like good grades, involvement in junior ROTC, school government or athletic participation, strong civic or church involvement, or anything that sets you apart and makes it obvious that you have good leadership potential.

A recommendation letter from an alum who actually knows you and your character would also be a benefit, I would think.

At the risk of repeating myself, I would emphasize again that you personally stay in touch with Admissions on a regular basis. You should have been assigned an admissions officer with whom you can correspond, and he or she wants to hear from you, not your parents, at all times. That's a large consideration--once you're there in school, they will deal with you as though you have no parents, so this is your chance to get practice for that!

Good luck to you. If The Citadel is your true choice, you couldn't have picked a better place. If it's what you really want and you don't get it this year, attend a four-year school with ROTC, participate in that, keep your grades up and apply again.