What's going on with the College Admission this year?

[Dad II]

I am a parent of an Asian student whose stats are less than perfect. Based on my limited data, I would think, this year, the essay and shown interest seem to be bigger factors.

[je_ne_sais_quoi]

All true, all true. Lately I've been thinking about the process as a whole, and wondering about ways it can be improved.

[menloparkmom]

For individual colleges there is not much of a "moving target" from year to year. Yes, smaller percentages of students are being accepted now at the "top" colleges, in large part due to more students chasing "prestige", but the colleges are essentially looking for the same "types" of students as they have in the recent past. Acceptance percentages will fluctuate over time. A well thought out college list needs to start at the bottom, with safeties first, based in part on recent acceptance rates/ SAT scores, etc., and then build up from there.

[mythmom]

OP: I am really sorry for your S's result. There probably isn't a rational explanation except bad luck. A lot of colleges chose to pass. Just he way it happened.

Since it's such a weird year I would pursue the wait listed school with a vengeance. Do research on the school and tailor all communications to the school. Let them know you will definitely attend. Send supplementals geared just to this school and contact professors in the department you are interested in.

We found that was the biggest aid in acceptance. Helped my D turn her ED deferral into an acceptance.

Good luck. And I hope your S finds something to love in his safety.

Advice for next: Have MANY matches as well as safeties. All elite admissions should be viewed as reaches.

[mini]

The main thing going on is that 1,200 four-year colleges and universities - many of them with very fine faculty and facilities - are begging for warm bodies who can pay the rent. The age of the median undergraduate student will increase from its current 24.5 years. University of Phoenix and Miami-Dade College will remain by far the most popular colleges in the country, with huge student populations, and very high yield.

Never in our nation's history has it been easier to get into college, provided one can pay for it.

[menloparkmom]

I doubt anyone, even someone with a supercomputer capable of complex algorithms, can figure out a way to out think or improve the current system, because it is based on too many factors and the decisions of too many people. In many ways it is a crap shoot, especially for those aiming for the most selective colleges. It needs to be though of that way, if the only schools a student decides to apply to are those with the smallest acceptance rates. If students or parents do not want to base college choices on what amounts to a "roll of the dice", then they need to apply to safeties where they will, with a genuine show of interest, be accepted.

[EMM1]

Puzzledad:

First, I want to add my congratulations for doing such a job raising your son (want to help me with mine?) Although I know that the outcome of his college search must have been very disappointing, it in no way detracts from his accomplishments.

Second, speculating about the specific issue faced by Asian-Americans in the admissions process is wasted effort. They are what they are (or are not) and have no bearing on your original question, which I understand to be "How can I help my second son?"

Third, with respect to developing a list of safeties:

Scattered throughout the boards on specific schools is info on the stats for students who were admitted, waitlisted and denied. You might want to start with those on the "Top Universities" and "Top Colleges" list and work down. (The stats are SCARY this year at virtually all of those schools). Maybe find a few others where the stats for S2 are in the top third. Maybe identify a handful of those schools that look interesting, investigate further, and identify two or three that you and S2 particularly like.

I know that these ideas are kind of prosaic, but there is no real magic involved in the process of picking safeties.

[cgarrett101@aol.]

"A girl who is interested in and well qualified to major in engineering is going to do better in the admissions sweepstakes than a girl interested in majoring in creative writing. It's not really about discrimination; it's about wanting to have "diversity." "

Jonri is very right about this, for EXACTLY the reason many have stated: you need to be DIFFERENT than the majority of applicants, whether they be Asian-male-science-and-math-focused, or female-liberal-arts-focused.

D2, accepted to everywhere she applied except for WUSTL (waitlisted), stated her intended major was biomedical engineering and/or premed. She is not Asian (blond and blue-eyed in fact), but her high school transcript reflects BOTH a very focused and strong INTEREST, as well as TALENT in math and science, which backed up her intended majors.

Furthermore, her ECs evidenced a VARIETY of other talents such as leadership (president of her class, among other things), theater (lead role), and passion (one community service, teaching science to URMs).

What D2 did NOT do was stress about perfect stats: she took the SAT ONCE (fall of her junior year) and scored 2280. She took the most difficult classes available in the subjects in which she had an interest (including math, science, history, spanish, and literature), but earned a few Bs in the process......

We ALWAYS told her to DO WHAT YOU LOVE, NOT what would look good on her college apps, which she ALWAYS did. And, perhaps MOST important, we had not a clue whether she would be accepted to any top tier schools, but we felt it was MORE IMPORTANT for her to love what she was doing than to worry about what adcoms would think.

We obviously are very pleased with her acceptances, but the important thing to me is that she didn't do ANYTHING just because she wanted to get into a specific college....that was only the bonus result.

[je_ne_sais_quoi]

cgarrett101: Your girl sounds like she naturally fit what most colleges like to see, no modifications necessary. I hope you realize how LUCKY that is. As parents, you did everything else right, too, without even trying. I mean, you didn't try, and that was doing everything right.

I wish I had had the courage to follow my gut instead of listening to the supposed experts. Still, everything is turning out for the best, I think.

puzzledad: How is your son doing with all this?

[cgarrett101@aol.]

jnsq-

Not all my children are like D2!!!! And your are correct that we are lucky; she was mostly born with her personality/talents/etc. We realize that all too well....

With D1 we were just happy she found a college she liked, and even then, she transferred to another after her sophomore year. I know she will be successful even though she did not go to a top tier school because she wants to succeed and is willing to work for it.

S (the youngest) is brilliant, but may not be top tier material, either. He is a little quieter and hasn't shown a lot of drive toward leadership. He's only a freshman, so it's difficult to predict, but he may prefer a less intensely competitive environment. I believe every child is different, and it's not all about how smart they are; their personalities are just as important when choosing a college.

[TheGFG]

The strategy being proposed on here is smart, but it has its limitations. It all depends what the admissions goal is for your student. But it should be stated that one flaw is this: applying where you're likely to be wanted most might make it a little hard to love your college list. Chances are, if the college needs a student like you, there's a very good reason behind that scarcity. Maybe what you want to major in isn't an area of strength for the school. Or the school's team in the sport you excel at is less than stellar. Or maybe you're of an ethnic group they need a greater respresentation of, but that could mean if you attend you might feel less comfortable or perhaps have fewer dating opportunities, etc. Maybe the school is clear across the country, so the geographic element might help. But it also means being far from home and high transportation costs--hence why others from your part of the US don't tend to chose to go.

S was accepted at a top 15 LAC, with an almost full scholarship. The generosity we attributed to diversity considerations. The problem? There's a very good reason why that college has a tough time atrracting minority applicants. And that's the same reason my son would have been reluctant to attend.

So if the goal is to simply get into the highest-ranked school you can with the most merit money, then this could work well. But if you're a proponent of fit (esp. feeling comfortable) and convenience, then maybe not so much.

[epiphany]

"Maybe what you want to major in isn't an area of strength for the school."

I for one would certainly never recommend this. But in my research even a few years ago I discovered many LAC's with strong departments in areas of D's interests, but were not "top 15." Nevertheless, solid, quality curriculum with superb faculty. As mini says, plenty of spaces for warm bodies.

A safety or even an alternate (I prefer to think of it that way) should not be a significant academic compromise so much as a less-preferred location, size, core requirements, etc. It's just that the public seems to believe that there are a handful of quality colleges out there, & that is simply not true. After I finished doing research, I had "too many" colleges, actually. Had we not needed very strong financial aid, the list would not have needed to be reduced.

[TheGFG]

I wouldn't recommend this either, epiphany. We would have chosen the lower-ranked school with the stronger department. But in my status-driven area of the country, I've seen some odd choices. For example, one of S's friends was very intent on being admitted to an elite college. So she chose a school well-known for science and engineering and applied as a film major. She got in, but has to go to a neighboring college to take classes because the dept. at her school is negligible. But hey, she got into a top school!

[bethievt]

I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm saying, The GFG. My son found schools that were a great fit at all different levels of selectivity. I'm estimating acceptance rates because I don't know what they were this year, but an example would be: Goucher (60%), Macalester (45%), Grinnell (35-45%), Carleton (30%), Vassar (20%) and Pomona (15%). At any of these schools, my son felt he could get a great liberal arts education from full profs in small classes surrounded by interesting, quirky students.

[TheGFG]

Bethievt: I was mostly responding to jonri's post which suggested that students demonstrate themselves to be different and seek out the less obvious choices in colleges. Jonri says:

"It also means applying to a college where their academic interests are rarer. So many kids research to find out the highest ranked engineering programs, or best physics programs, or best history departments...and then those schools gets hundreds of applicants interested in those fields."

I can't find your post right now, but I think you also commented that the colleges on your S's list were ones that he was certain would be looking for someone just like him. By that I assumed that somehow your son would be slightly different from the majority of applicants in some way, such as higher stats, from a different geographic area, from a less represented ethnic group, or having a less popular major. Did I misunderstand you? Or did you just mean you didn't limit your list to the same elite schools targeted by everyone else?