A parent's cautionary tale – SWF- Northeast need not apply?

Parents Forum
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<p>Some more comments:</p>

<ol>
<li> On the notion of campus visits/demonstrating interest: That is very important for lesser known, moderately selective colleges, especially those off the the beaten track geographically: schools that can have difficulty filling their classes, and are left with open spots in May, and unfilled classes in September. Those school need to be careful about who they admit. It might also be important when it comes to competition for high end merit scholarships at the smaller (less well financed) schools – simply because it helps with enrollment management to know which students to offer the big bucks to. (“Important” but not necessarily helpful when it comes to merit aid – too much interest can give the message that the kids will come with or without money.)</li>
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<p>But the in-demand colleges with national reputations and >25% admission rates don’t have that problem – they have the opposite yield concern: they need to be careful to avoid a situation where they have more acceptances than slots. That is especially important for smaller schools that don’t have the physical facilities to handle students. I’ve seen the effects of unenrollment at both the LAC’s my kids attended-- it’s a tough problem. The school is left scrambling trying to find housing for everyone, converting single dorm rooms into doubles, and double rooms into triples. They may need to hire more faculty to handle popular classes or freshman seminars, especially if they are constrained by size of available meeting rooms or a commitment to limited number of students per class. </p>

<p>So they are pretty much going to operate on the assumption that everyone who has applied probably will come if admitted. No advantage to the visitors, and especially not to those who live within a few hour’s radius. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Geographic diversity is a plus, especially for financial aid – but it simply means that it helps for the locals to have some other distinguishing factor. It is not all that helpful for those coming from a distance from larger, more populous states – that is, we Californian’s are a long way from the East Coast, but we also account for about 10% of the incoming classes of many of the east coast schools… Oregon or Nevada might draw more attention from the ad coms.</p></li>
<li><p>On “match” – there is a difference between “good fit” and “likely admission.” The “good fit” part is helpful-- IF there is a way to convey that to the ad com. But it is not the same as a likely admission. (I think my daughter was a perfect “fit” for Barnard – everything they are looking for in a student – but we never made the mistake of taking admission. She got in, but we never took the admission for granted.) </p></li>
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<p>I’d say that match/likely means that the applicant is a very strong candidate for that school AND the school admits at least 35% of it applicants. It’s simple math: even assuming that 1/3 of the applicants are unqualified, that leaves only a 50% chance of acceptance (a coin toss) for the rest. By coin toss I don’t mean that’s the process the ad com uses – I mean that if call head and the coin comes up tails… I am not surprised. Even if that coin comes up tails 3 times in a row – I am not surprised, I do not suspect the coin toss of being rigged against me, I don’t need to look for reasons to explain the odd results.</p>

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<p>Consolation, I have no doubt that Chris’s daughter would have done great at Bowdoin, that she is like many of the students who are there. That is not up for debate. </p>

<p>You asked to define a match for this kid. My definition of a match is a school that accepts between 30-60% of applicants. That is non-negotiable to me (despite what Data10 argues – I am extremely conservative when it comes to college admissions.) The applicant’s stats have to fall in the top 50% of the applicant pool. The exception to this is if a student has a strong hook: Like a kid from North Dakota applying to the Ivies, or a woman applying to certain tech schools. </p>

<p>A student in this situation could still be denied admission. It’s not a guaranteed acceptance. (In Chris’ daughter’s case, I think Davidson was close to a match, since its admit rate is 25% and the student comes from a different geo area. If she had applied to 5 other schools like Davidson, there’s a good chance she would have gotten more good news.) </p>

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<p>If this is an applicant’s attitude, they are setting themselves up for disappointment. This attitude is what leads to what happened to Chris’ daughter, and to many of the students who are shocked that they didn’t get into anything but their safety schools. If this is your college strategy, then there is a really good chance that you will get a lot of rejections in March. </p>

<p>For some really high-stat kids, match schools may be very unattractive. They may be geographically unattractive, too small, too big, etc. If that’s the case, for a kid who is “top-25 school or nothing,” then I would counsel them to have at least 3 safeties, so they have some choice come April. Or apply EA (like this girl did, and get an acceptance to UChicago). </p>

<p>What these students have to realize is that there are some wonderful schools with higher acceptance rates that now have high caliber students. </p>

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<p>I agree with sally305. My son’s 1st essay was beautifully written/almost poetry in motion, but gave absolutely no insight into who he was as a person. I am so thankful that his sophomore English teacher said the same thing, because Mom saying that didn’t have the same effect. :smiley: So, he went back to the drawing board and wrote an essay that encapsulated his personality. It talked about the things he pursued that would never show up on a resume, but he pursued them because he was interested in them, i.e., Rubik’s cube and breakdancing. When I finished reading it, I knew it was a winner because it was completely him. No changes were necessary.</p>

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<p>More:</p>

<ul>
<li>Someone asked what would be a “match” for the high state, east coast candidate that also would be geographically near. I can think of many.</li>
</ul>

<p>First of all, she’s female. Bonanza! With her stats she could anticipate admission at Smith (42% acceptance rate), Mt. Holyoke (51%), or Bryn Mawr (39%) – all excellent schools and it helps tremendously if you can eliminate half of the college-going population from the applicant pool. </p>

<p>Other east coast options with match-worthy acceptance rates might include Bard, Skidmore, Sarah Lawrence, Union, Dickinson, Lafayette, Franklin & Marshall, or Gettysburg – all within the US News top 50 LAC list. (And there are plenty of LAC’s that don’t make the top 50 cutoff, as well as those on the national university list, that might be worth considering. My NYC-bound daughter was perfectly happy to add Fordham to her list as well (ranked #57 by US News), and I understand that they offer generous financial aid to NMF’s) </p>

<p>An advantage for the high stat financial aid seeker is that she probably could attract substantial merit money at many of these schools. </p>

<ul>
<li><p>On the notion of “meritocracy” (or “entitlement?”) – I’m not sure where the idea that meritocracy = attendance at elite college (vs. highly regarded non-elite) stems from. What’s wrong with a degree from a public University? How is it somehow a negation of that concept if many high stat, hard working students are getting degrees from University of Michigan instead of Harvard? </p></li>
<li><p>On “fit”: It makes sense for a student to want to choose a college that will be a good “fit” – but it’s still puzzling why the OP’s daughter’s college list didn’t include more schools with higher admit rates, unless she really is happy with that U of Chicago spot. (Not clear from Chris’ latest post). If U of Chicago is too far away… iw that NMF school a place she is happy to attend? </p></li>
</ul>

<p>This isn’t an issue of demographics: every single student who applies to college has some factors that can be viewed as an admission advantage and some that are a disadvantage, depending on where they apply. But each also has choices – and one very sound choice is to hedge one’s bets. </p>

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<p>“You asked to define a match for this kid. My definition of a match is a school that accepts between 30-60% of applicants. That is non-negotiable to me (despite what Data10 argues – I am extremely conservative when it comes to college admissions.)”</p>

<p>Completely agree. There is no one, absolutely no one, for which any of the top 20 schools are a match. Sorry. Unless there is another extenuating circumstance, such as your family building the new science center. </p>

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<p>

But are the safeties somehow more attractive than the match schools? For those of us who live in states with strong university systems, perhaps – it’s certainly fairly common to see California kids apply to a handful of Ivies and then happily go off to a UC campus after receiving their rejections. But that stems from a perception that the state U. is academically equivalent or better to the match schools – and certainly more affordable. I don’t get the sense that east coasters feel the same way about Rutgers or SUNY. </p>

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<p>All you can say, in the end, is whether he or she seems to be a “worthy candidate.” We can predict who should make it past first cut. That’s all. I said to my kids- and I say to others- after you do the best job with high school and the apps that you can, it’s in “their” hands. All you can control for is your part.</p>

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<p>@fireandrain:

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<p>Those examples are tip factors- or weak “hooks” – not “strong” hooks. The Ivies turn down plenty of kids from North Dakota, the tech schools turn down plenty of women. Now if that ND kid also happens to be a full blooded Native American… maybe he’s got a hook. Still not guaranteed admission… but definitely an application that will be considered carefully. </p>

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<p>I don’t know. Why do some students have a strong preference for U. of Michigan over Western Michigan or Michigan St? W. Michigan and Michigan St. have smart, hard-working students too.</p>

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<p>“There is no one, absolutely no one, for which any of the top 20 school are a match.”</p>

<p>Come on, Pizzagirl. This may be true for most people, but are you really telling me that if you have a student who won a major international math competition, he or she can’t look at Notre Dame, Rice and Emory (US news 18-20 on the National University side) as match schools? Frankly, that kid has a right to be ticked off at not getting into Harvard or MIT, too - if being the BEST among a group widely recognized as including among the most mathematically talented students in the world isn’t enough to get you into a school, then what is? But according to some of the posts on this thread, that kid would be an entitled, arrogant jerk if he expressed a pang at being passed over - or if he lord forbid, had the temerity to suggest that just maybe Emory was protecting its yield by not admitting him, rather than wisely deciding that his slightly pat essay on volunteering in a homeless shelter proved him too dull to accept.</p>

<p>I do think that people on CC drastically overestimate the value of SATs, class rank, etc. Getting a 2400, or being a valedictorian doesn’t mean that you’re all that brilliant or special. It also shouldn’t mean nothing, especially when you are talking about schools that, while obviously “elite” aren’t quite at the HYPMS, Williams, Amherst, Swat, Duke, Columbia, etc. level of selectivity. </p>

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<p>+1 to apprenticeprof for stating what should be painfully obvious.</p>

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<p>“with acceptances rates below 25%, no one can say that s/he will have (using 3togo’s definition) even 50% chance of admission”</p>

<p>Sure you can, if you have enough data. Having enough data to make that call means having access to both a large sample of comparable students and all or nearly all of the individual student’s application. I’m very conservative in my predictions, and exactly four times in the last ten years, I’ve told a student that s/he had a 50% chance at Harvard RD. Three of those four got in. I have never personally chanced a student any higher than that, but there are students at Roxbury Latin/Exeter/etc. you can safely put at 90% for Harvard RD.</p>

<p>There are always tons of surprises in this business, but if you know what you’re doing, you can still tell that a student’s chances are way higher or lower than the admit rate for the pool, even at ultraselective schools. Naviance is a huge help in this process because of the way it increases sample size. So is reading a student’s essay in the context of dozens or hundreds of others.</p>

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<p>Of course we now have a zillion high schools all over the country with a zillion different learning and grading standards, and the SAT/ACT as the only way to measure achievement.</p>

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<p>

In my earlier post, I used the example of USC. It’s a top 25 USNWR school that accepted 17.8% this year. Their CDS says stats are “very important” and no non-stat criteria are “important”. Consistent with this, scattergrams show an almost solid mass of acceptances with very few rejections for top stat applicants. And Parchment members with near perfect stats (defined as 3.9+ GPA, with 5+ APs, and near perfect SAT) had a ~97% admit rate. How would you classify this school for a kid with stats matching the group for which Parchment members had a 97% admit rate? Still a reach? If you focus on acceptance rate for a particular student rather than overall acceptance rate, you’ll often find a wide range of low/high match schools among lower admit rate colleges instead of all reaches</p>

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<p>@Data10 – in your example, USC might be a match – especially for an NMF. My son was NMF, and I counted any school that offered large scholarships to NMF’s (beyond the NMF-sponsored award) as a probable match or safety, because my son was “hooked” for those schools. (They obviously wanted NMF-titled kids to bolster their own stats). </p>

<p>But your point is based on someone looking at the school’s criteria for admission. USC says it values GPA and test scores above all else, so obviously that particular school does not have the “holistic” admission standard that leads to disappointment. They are also a large university in an urban center that does not have a binding ED system – so they don’t have the pressures in class selection that a small LAC has – and applicants can take advantage of EA to secure their spots. (Even a “reach” school is a “safety” once a letter of acceptance is in hand.). </p>

<p>But your point really is simply that a person who digs deep enough to ascertain that they have favored admission status doesn’t have to really on arbitrary percentages. I agree. But that is not what happened with the OP’s daughter – and those stats-based admission standards are not common among the most selective schools or smaller LAC’s. </p>

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<p>@apprenticeprof: the “match” discussion about admission rates should be read in the context, “absent a major, compelling hook”. Obviously if the hook is strong enough, it shifts the equation.</p>

<p>By “hook” I don’t mean that the kid is from South Dakota (see previous post).</p>

<p>But winner of international math competition probably is a hook. (I don’t know enough about math competitions to say… but if it is competition that is generally regarded as the one to win, I would think there would be top schools clamoring to enroll that student. )</p>

<p>The problem is that editor of high school literary magazine and Girl Scout gold award are not. They are significant accomplishments and certainly worthy of mention – and definitely deserving of parental pride - but there are other students with equivalent accomplishments who are also aspiring to attend the same schools. The problem with a narrow minded focus on the Ivies is that pretty much every smart kid in the country applies to those same 8 schools. The OP’s daughter probably would have increased her chances of elite admissions somewhere significantly if she had thrown off an application to Stanford. </p>

<p>And as many other posters have noted – high GPA, top test scores, and a slew of completed AP courses are not a “hook”. They are simply standard fare in the applicant pool.</p>

<p>In hindsight, I think it might have been an advantage for my daughter to be more lopsided— it made her stand out from the others and be easier to categorize. I’m not talking about elite admissions (Ivies) because my d. didn’t go that route – but my d was admitted to a highly selective LAC with a 25% admit rate, plus a bottom quartile ACT score, only a handful of AP’s, and rather abysmal academic record on the math/science end of things. But that kind of gave the admissions committee something to talk about. (I can easily imagine the conversation, starting with the key words that would have been used to jog memories when the file came up).</p>

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<p>chris46 I am sorry your DD and you were disappointed with how things didn’t go as you had hoped or predicted.</p>

<p>Glad you were able to share your experience and discuss, dissect, etc. And took the feedback too. Some CC posters can be harsh at times.</p>

<p>You stimulated a lot of communication. Obviously everyone is constantly trying to figure out how to ‘play the game’.</p>

<p>As you said, some schools are more transparent than others.</p>

<p>I believe you said you have a younger child, so you will be ‘hanging in’ to be able to play the game again.</p>

<p>My second DD will be in college in the fall. It is a very liberating experience, and I did not go through so many college visits and college applications with DD1 and DD2, but enough for them and for me (I have degrees from 3 states and worked for universities in two). </p>

<p>H and I are older parents and 8-10 years from hopeful retirement. I survived stage III cancer (DX and TX began in 2009); I am considered ‘cancer free’ but closely observed.</p>

<p>If DD1 and DD2 keep their scholarships and graduate on time, they both should have $$ left in the accounts. One already has graduate school plans with Air Force, and the other is accepted to a 5th year STEM MBA program.</p>

<p>There are so many non-control variables in the process. You can do everything right and have a great outcome, or a disappointing outcome. </p>

<p>If admitted to a particular school w/o enough FA, that is disappointing.</p>

<p>Hopefully everyone can get the disappointments out of their system. The parents (and students) on this thread are above and beyond fantastic. Kids will do great where they land.</p>

<p>Another reminder about apollo6. Very sorry for the family’s loss of DS. We probably all have been touched by suicide - so very tragic with one with so much life ahead.</p>

<p>Please do not let parents’ disappointments and frustrations negatively affect S/D. We just hurt when we want to see them win on a particular school/program/scholarship.</p>

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<p>I don’t think the rejections or WL on any of those schools is surprising given to their selectivity, despite the high stats of OP’s DD. Davidson with a 19% accept rate RD is a bit puzzling. Not way off, but a bit off. I would have expected that she would have been accepted. A curiousity. But here’s the thing: was there an error, mistake, problem in those RD apps that she was rejected not only by a school where she might have been accepted, but would have carried over to the highly selective schools too? I would wonder a bit. </p>

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<p>calmom: I agree with your points. My examples of “hooks” probably weren’t the best. However, what I meant was not that a reach school becomes a safety with a hook, but that if a student has a strong tip, along with all the other requirements (high stats, good recs, etc.), the chance of them getting into a school with a lower acceptance rate is greater. So for them, I might say a match school has an acceptance rate below 30 percent. Another way of putting it is: if a kid from North Dakota had the identical stats as Chris’ daughter, I might consider Bowdoin more of a match (although that acceptance rate is so low I’d still be nervous to do that.)</p>

<p>Data10: So, would you advise a student with a 3.9 GPA, 5 APs and near perfect SAT to apply to USC and only USC? Is their chance really so close to 100% that they can afford to submit only one college application?</p>

<p>All my comments about reaches, matches and safeties apply to your typical amazing student. I am not talking about celebrity kids, violin prodigies, Olympic athletes, etc. It also doesn’t apply to kids who go to the top prep schools, because that’s a whole different ballgame. </p>

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<p>

USC was an arbitrary example. There are many other colleges that have a high rate of acceptances for high stat students. For example, Wake Forest is another top 25 USNWR college. Parchment members with the previously listed stats had a 100% acceptance rate at Wake Forest. Being a smaller college, there isn’t a large sample size, so I wouldn’t say it’s a safety, but chance of admission is obviously very high. Obviously one can apply to colleges with lower than 97-100% chance of admission as well and roughly estimate chance of acceptance for those schools in a similar way. For example, the college that has had the most discussion in this thread is Davidson. Scattergrams for Davidson show top stat students are about equally likely to be accepted and rejected (very small sample size). Looking at Davidson’s CDS, I see that they mark all common non-stat criteria as more important than grades, including things like interview and essays. They seem to be focusing on personal character, rather than stats, and judging character based on things like LORs and service to the community via volunteer work (a LOR talking about being a good person will probably be more helpful than a LOR talking about being a good student). Many criteria are listed as more important than both grades and test scores, including LORs and volunteer work . The original poster didn’t mention any volunteer work (if I have missed any comments about volunteer work, I apologize), so if volunteer work is weaker than most top stat applicants, I’d expect she’d have lower odds than most top stat students, making the college a reach. There is nothing wrong with applying to reaches, but I wouldn’t assume that Davidson has good odds of admission just because they have a higher admit rate than the highly selective colleges that we usually focus on in this forum.</p>