'rentof2

I so sorry that happened for your son. Somehow the communication in the office should have been organized enough to tell him the waitlist was closed when he called about faxing his grades.

Wonderful for him about U of Chicago, though! I am sure he'll have a great experience there.

tako

I got a letter too; says I'm on the summer waitlist (yay?).

I'm so emotionally committed to my other school that I'm not sure if I'd accept, but I was so in love with Amherst...and still am...sigh.

Man, and I was totally just accepting the fact that I was done with waitlists!

diehardcubsfan

drdom,

I was also waitlisted at Amherst and will attend U of C this fall. Chicago's more of an intellectual environment and doesn't fill half of its class with subpar athletes.

unregistered

Wow, someone is bitter.

Have you met many Amherst athletes? It is a division 3 school; they don't really lower admissions standards for athletes. I have taken quite a few classes with athletes and many are quite brilliant.

drdom

tako - the letter from Dean Fretwell said the class was filled. Someone is not being honest here. Amherst actually violated its original schedule for the waitlist. The said they would start looking at the waitlist candidates on May 10th (a Saturday). The New York Times reported that they started taking people of the waitlist 4 days earlier on the 6th. We didn't have a chance to send in additional updates before they started taking people off the list. So I suspect that Fretwell's letter wasn't quite the truth. This is an "elite" LAC?

drdom

unregistered - I know that there are always exceptions, however, the only student accepted from my son's high school by Amherst was a baseball player. And yep - subpar credentials. I checked Naviance - there is only one acceptance in the scattergram. This student athlete has a 3.75 GPA and an SAT score of about 1980. My son is in a cluster of students with GPAs above 3.93 and SATs above 2200. So in this case it is true. Amherst and most other schools have different admission criteria based on athletics, race, geographic location, community college applicants, gender, etc, etc. Its NOT fair but it is the way it is. I accept it because I have to but I don't kid myself about the admissions process.

madville

While I understand your frustration, if you take the emotion out of your argument, how is it not fair? In the latter part of the paragraph you state that you "don't kid yourself about the admission process", yet you obviously are disappointed in the result of your child not being chosen off the waitlist. A 3.75, 1980 isn't chopped liver for anyone, much less a student athlete.

If you would allow yourself to be a little more objective, I think that you would see that most student athletes with those types of numbers do quite well while they are in their respective schools and afterwards. How many student athletes would have the academic credentials of your child and still be able to field a decent athletic team? You should know the drill. An incoming class is made up of all types of students. Amherst's exceedingly high grad rate illustrates that the overwhelming majority of these kids matriculate regardless of what the "numbers" say.

It's unfortunate that you weren't able to speak to someone, to get clarification and closure, but with a regular decision admission rate of about 12.5%, the competition was fierce. Best of luck to your child at UC and hopefully in due time, you"ll both be able to put this disappointment behind you with no resentment.

'rentof2

My child is an athlete going to Amherst. He has a 3.98 (with 10 "dual credit" college classes in that unweighted GPA mix, including upper division courses), and a 2200 on the SAT. Sure, there are lots of kids with higher SAT scores going to Amherst, and lots with higher SATs that didn't get in. On the other hand there are kids who are not athletes with lower scores that got in too.

How can you hope to say "this is why" and "this is why not" as far as admissions goes? Sure, the school has a long tradition of athletics, and smart, capable student-athletes. Why would they want to dismantle that tradition? It's part of what has defined Amherst for a long, long, long time. It's part of the school's identity. Some might say it shouldn't be, but why not? The school and its profile existed long before any of the applicants now interested, and long before any of the staff now working there.

Meritocracy can mean many things. I know my son, while he did very well academically, gave up much that other kids enjoy --like a social life, for starters-- so that he could be both a successful student and a successful athlete.

Being a successful athlete takes immense time and committment. Sometimes 24 hours in a day is not enough and there will be a little give on some test prep or another AP class or whatever. It doesn't mean the student isn't smart, capable, committed, or unappreciative of the opportunity they have at a great college. D3 athletes know they're not going to turn pro, they're not going to the Olympics. They do it because this is the time in your life when your body will let push limits like it will do at no other time. It's youth. And studying and learning and excelling physically are all an integrated part of this stage of life for many stupendous, hard-working kids.

There are plenty of non-athletes at all selective schools, as there should be. But college is also a time to bond, to feel an identity with your school, to root on your team, to feel alive in a multifaceted way that athletes, musicians, artists, scientists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, political activists... they all come together to share an experience of community. It's not just "the way it is" so you have to accept it. It's something brilliant and suitable to this time in their life in a way it never will be again.

There are schools where athletics is a small to non-existent part of the admissions process, but why take a school like Amherst, for example, that has ALWAYS held up that model of the student-athlete as a *part* of its profile and condemn them for it. Surely that was known going into the application process, and if it wasn't, someone didn't do their homework about the school.

Now... off the soapbox for me.

diehardcubsfan

I made my previous statement from what I, along with many of my peers have observed. I didn't mean to put down all of Amherst's athletes. I agree with you when you said that some of them are brilliant. But some are not.

I go to a very competitive public high school, and, naturally, Amherst is always one of the top choices. The class size is usually around 850. Last year, Amherst let in a student who was ranked in the 70s (and a recruited athlete) over several students in the 20s. This year (which I know more about), Amherst let in one athlete who was in the 130s (~3.4, 29 ACT) and one in the 80s (~3.6, 30) over two students in the top ten (3.99 and 3.98, 33 and 34).
In tabular form:
Accepted 3.4 29
Accepted 3.6 30
Waitlisted 3.98 34
Waitlisted 3.99 33

Hard to argue with numbers. To be sure, Amherst's student body is brilliant. I'm just questioning some of its admissions decisions.

diehardcubsfan

One more thing. Those who were waitlisted had impressive ECs; they just were not recruited athletes.

'rentof2

I wasn't arguing with the numbers. I'm just saying that if you apply to a school with a tradition of reasonably solid athletics, it shouldn't be a surprise they want to admit some reasonably solid athletes -- and there aren't enough 3.99/34 players to fill the roster.

I can see how it's frustrating, but it's a given going in. Pomona, Swarthmore, Reed (I'm sure there are lots of other schools) give much less, or no, consideration to athletics. If an athlete applied with less-than-tip-top academic stats, was rejected, and then complained that their athletic ability was ignored in the admissions process it would be the same thing. They would be wanting that school to be different than it is, than it's always been, and blame the school for it.

It's just misdirected energy to get too invested in that kind of thinking.

BellaD

I am asking on behalf of my friend whose transcript did not reached the school on time and was rejected initially. He did however, had his school send his transcripts in mid to late April and wrote a couple of emails to Amherst. Amherst wrote a single email telling him that they would keep his email in a file. He's an intel with need of FA so my question is would Amherst bother to send an email to let him no its a no or just ignore him completely? Calling did not seem to be such a good idea for one of the previous posters here and he doesn't want to irk them.

drdom

I was just providing some facts to counter unregistered's assertion that Amherst doesn't lower standards for athletes. It does. I am not resentful, bitter, nor is any of my energy misdirected. I know about Amherst's traditon of athletics - it should not be dismantled. Each school is entitled to formulate its class any way it wants to. It is never based only on the numbers alone. Interestingly, Amherst has dismantled its previous image of educating mostly boarding school grads from New England. This is an area that has never been made clear - schools that accept federal money have admissions policies that aren't strictly based on merit. This is true of all schools not just Amherst. Several weeks ago I drove my son up to Amherst so he could make personal contact with an admissions dean. While there, I overheard one of the associate deans tell two young women from India that they needed to have at least two SAT II scores and that since they were from India, "which has alot of people and a lot of smart people" that their scores had to be at least 750. She also told my son that they were taking more women off the waitlist because fewer had applied this year. None of this is fair - it is the way it has become, the way it is. Each school has a concept of what each entering class should be like. Athletics, race, gender, location within the US, international,etc, etc are each categories that have different thresholds for admission. Amherst also takes money from a foundation to help increase the number of community college students accepted at 4 year institutions and this is also another preferred group. My son is not an athlete. Why did he choose Amherst? He just fell in love with the place! It's not logical or calculating - it just happened. He has already come to closure and this post is my way of moving on as well.

ttyy

IMO, Amherst is more likely to admit a student with certain standout talent (sports, arts etc). Students with only super SAT/GPA but ordinary EC’s are likely to be waitlisted or rejected because they are not really special!

Amherst needs a diverse and talented student body!
Amherst is Amherst!

unregistered

I said they don't "really lower admissions standards" so perhaps my wording is what is unclear. Of course Amherst, like most schools, will accept a student with lower SATs if that student has a talent that Amherst wants represented at the school. Athletes bring a lot to the table, and I don't personally care about their SAT scores as long as they add to the classroom and overall school environment (apparently the football team's average SAT scores are above 1400, but who cares?!) When I said that, as a division 3 school, Amherst doesn't "really" lower admissions standards for athletes, I was comparing it to some elite division one schools, who do (and I have no problem with that, either).

Amherst isn't in the business of accepting students based solely on their SAT scores and class rank, thank God, so you won't win me over with these anecdotes. It blows, but if someone is going to complain and whine about our atmosphere not being intellectual enough for them, I'm glad they're heading to Chicago instead.

I don't know why people seem to think that admission to certain schools is a "right". I LIKE that Amherst doesn't put sole emphasis on SAT scores and class rank. I LIKE that it emphasizes these less than many other elite schools. I think I am obtaining a better education because of it. And yes, I really like that Amherst is reaching out to high achieving community college students and low-income people. Amherst is not in the business of accepting everyone with certain SAT scores; they are in the business of providing the best damn environment that they can. Why don't you trust the students that they are doing a good job at that, athletic tips and all?