<p>To an extent. However, applicants are also evaluated against other classmates within their HS as small/elite colleges can often only accept a certain portion of those who apply from each HS. Especially if they receive many applications from such HS. </p>
<p>This is a serious issue…especially in private/boarding schools and public magnets HS like the one I attended where the academic and other strengths of the student body is such that 1/3 to even half the student body may be viable contenders for admission to the most elite colleges. </p>
<p>^^ Yeah, I get that. However, that should be for the college to decide since they have a better perspective on what they are looking for and the mix. In our HS, we had 9 acceptances last year (to one of the Ivies) and 2 the year before. - so who knows? It would have been a disservice to the students if the school artificially restricted applications.</p>
<p>I’m coming in late to the discussion, but would like to ask the OP: So if she could do it all again, what would your daughter do differently? </p>
<p>I’d say more mid-to-low matches, but maybe with Chicago in the bag, she felt she could go high and higher.</p>
<p>Also, since we’re speculating, I’d guess that perhaps those college specific essays were off the mark. Maybe they were too much about the college and not enough about her. Colleges already know how wonderful they are; the essay is an opportunity to subtly shine a light on the applicant – what makes her tick.</p>
<p>I expect that one of the waitlists will open up. Will it be a better option than Chicago? Hard to say. From the way she’s described Chicago sounds like a good fit and maybe some time out of the Northeast wouldn’t be a bad thing.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. This is EA, not ED. A student is not obligated to withdraw other applications after getting an EA acceptance. The student may not have considered U Chicago her first choice, and she may need to compare financial aid packages from multiple schools.</p>
<p>Still, U Chicago is a wonderful school. If the student was accepted there, then she’s a winner in the college application sweepstakes, not a loser.</p>
<p>Did one application to several campuses in a state university system count as one application or the number of campuses?</p>
<p>In California, it seems reasonably common to “shotgun” apply the UCs and/or CSUs (neither of which are any burden to high school staff for recommendations or transcripts at application time), so such a limitation would only make sense (from the standpoint of limiting the burden imposed by any one student on the school staff for recommendations and transcripts) if they were excluded from the limit, or all campuses in the system counted as one. I would not be surprised if New York students commonly “shotgun” apply to SUNYs and/or CUNYs.</p>
<p>@blossom I understand your example of the bad rec. However, they are independent in the sense that, all things being equal (using the same rec for each school), applying to more doesn’t increase your chances just because you applied to more schools. Unless of course you start applying to schools that don’t care that much about the rec…but then all things aren’t equal anymore.</p>
<p>Admissions results are not fully independent events, because many of the characteristics that different colleges look for are the same ones (typically, some measure of high school academic achievement figures prominently, for example), although with different levels of importance.</p>
<p>"Shouldn’t the appropriate response to EA Chicago be – yay, we won, game over?</p>
<p>“Not necessarily. This is EA, not ED. A student is not obligated to withdraw other applications after getting an EA acceptance. The student may not have considered U Chicago her first choice, and she may need to compare financial aid packages from multiple schools.”</p>
<p>I understand the difference between EA and ED. I just mean – I can’t imagine not wanting the closure – you should be dancing on the table that you got into a top 20 school, not begrudgingly waiting for the “real” schools to come in. </p>
<p>Is this going to be a reprise of the infamous newmassdad thread where his daughter was “vindicated” by becoming (I think) a Rhodes scholar because she (the poor thing!) had “only” gotten into U Chicago, thus generating the undying pity of all the other students in her class?</p>
<p>Okay, I can live with denied at HYBM, although she should have been in at Brown. It’s a crapshoot. Sure, they accepted people whose stats and intangibles weren’t as good as hers, but it’s a crapshoot, and Brown admissions are among the quirkiest. Bowdoin, I would have said is a solid match, also Davidson. Williams, always highly quirky admissions from our region. Anything can happen there, especially for non-URM girls, simply because it is highly sought-after and small. </p>
<p>I would suspect some yield protection in these results. </p>
<p>The good news is the U of C, assuming that you can afford it. :)</p>
<p>Bowdoin’s acceptance rate last year was 15%. Davidson’s 25%. With rates like that, I don’t care if the kid walks on water, they are reaches for everyone. </p>
<p>As applicants like this prove, a conservative approach to applications is really necessary. Just because a kid has high stats and is in the top 10% of applicants does not make a school a match or a safety. You have to look at the acceptance rate. </p>
<p>And Consolation, Brown accepted less than 9% of its applicants. I don’t think you can say, for any kid, that she “should have been in at Brown.”</p>
<p>Sure, colleges look at similar factors, but that just determines whether or not the odds are similar at each school. It means there is a correlation with how they evaluate applicants. However, the events are independent in that the result of one does not have any specific effect on the outcome of another. Or said another way, if you apply to 5 colleges and don’t get in, your odds of getting into that 6th college is totally independent on how many times you failed or succeeded before. There is no “memory” in the system.</p>
<p>An example of an event that is not independent is the odds of drawing the A of spades from a deck (and never replacing the card). With every subsequent draw, the odds improve of getting drawing an A of spades. In this case there is “memory” - the system changed from 1/52 to 1/51 to 1/50.</p>
<p>“Bowdoin’s acceptance rate last year was 15%. Davidson’s 25%. With rates like that, I don’t care if the kid walks on water, they are reaches for everyone.”</p>
<p>Exactly. I don’t get the “should have been in at Brown” either. You just can’t count these chickens and all.</p>
<p>I can understand the OP feeling ticked. It is painful. It’s painful for this hardworking, impressive kid. But I really, really don’t believe that the Ivy League is the ticket to the good life— unless your version of the good life is working 13 hours days in a Manhattan bank or waiting in airports as a highly paid management consultant. The intelligence and drive this student will be what carries her forward, not the name of the college. It’s just annoying and confusing to have done all the supposedly right things and have the desired result withheld for never-to-be-known reasons. @ bookworm, I like your idea of “it only takes 1!” </p>
<p>When you are dealing with colleges with under 20% admit rates, I don’t think you can count on anything. My younger son didn’t get into a single one. I think anyone who gets into Chicago should be dancing, but it’s fine to try for other schools too. In the end my younger son chose Tufts over Chicago though it was a near thing.</p>
<p>There are many possible reasons why the OP’s daughter didn’t make the cut at the listed Ivy’s and highly selective LAC’s which turned her down - but SWF from the Northeast is not one of them ---- as anyone who counts heads from the matriculating students in the fall will surely be able to attest. </p>
<p>I understand the frustration, but I also am a little bit skeptical of the information conveyed by a parent who forgets to mention that his daughter was accepted EA to U. of Chicago. I don’t question the truth of the info presented… I just wondered what may have been left out. </p>
<p>I found it helpful back in the day to be aware of weaknesses in my kid’s application packages – to be able to know what the ad coms might have trouble with – so in some cases those areas could be addressed proactively. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do – for example, you can’t rewrite an rec letter that damns with faint praise once it’s already been submitted… but at least you can be aware of the weak spots, rather than to fall into the trap of blaming demographic factors. </p>
<p>When a school selects under 20% of its applicants – or under 10% ! – then even a flawless application can result in rejection. In fact, there may be a disadvantage in that context in being too perfect – that’s where a risk essay or an unusual, off-the-wall EC might be the element that draws attention to the application. </p>
<p>It does sound like your daughter has everything the ivies are looking for. My first guess is the waitlist at Bowdown and Davidson are yield control, aka Tufts syndrome. They didn’t think she would come. I don’t know what to think about Williams–maybe the same thing. I don’t know. </p>
<p>I don’t know whether it makes you feel better or worse, but my intuition of your description of her “personalized essays” that mentioned professors by name is that she came off like someone who really does their homework on the school and is an overachiever, but this is not the effect you are going for in the essay. In fact, the “why your college is great” essay is an unusual topic for a college essay, perhaps ironically.</p>
<p>With regard to MIT, your daughter doesn’t really fit the profile except for her test scores and classroom performance, unless you have left off major STEM involvement. You mentioned “leadership” in STEM activities across the state. But it wasn’t clear whether this was more organizational (e.g., organizing seminars for luminaries) or represented some kind of academic contest or intellectual growth. </p>
<p>Brown is really a different school; that result surprises me maybe the least.</p>
<p>I have to agree that it is somewhat of advantage being from the northeast. This is particularly true in the states which the ivies are in; the ivies think it improves town-gown relations and their standing in the state. Also, the schools are more well-known by the ivies due to their proximity, and in some cases, long-standing relationships over decades.</p>
<p>And being female is no disadvantage either; at MIT, it is an advantage.</p>
<p>Yield considerations are important to all colleges, especially LAC’s (they run into serious problems if they over-estimate or underestimate) – but it is not as if they are going around rejecting candidates with high end stats. So while it might be comforting to parents of waitlisted candidates to think “Ah, Tufts syndrome, my child was just too wonderful for them”… it really comes down more toward the college’s need to accept a diverse class (diverse interests, diverse talents, diverse personalities) and the ad com’s sense of fit. It is not as if there is some presumption in favor of admission and the ad coms need to comb through the apps looking for reasons to reject … it is the other way around, the numbers mean that the vast majority of applicants won’t make the cut. </p>
<p>^^ The above admit rates are also misleading from a stats point-of-view. Those schools get a very specific, self-selected, top-end student where virtually everyone is eligible. There are literally no “I will apply just to see in those pools.” We should add Amherst in there with a 11 - 12% as well.</p>
<p>Therefore, the competition can be, and often is, as tough as Harvard and Princeton who can ignore 50%+ of applications just because they fail minimum standards. </p>
<p>It is not an accident that Princeton each year tells how many students who applied had SATs over 2100+; this year it was 13,477. Who do you think they are really looking at, the other 13,000? Of course not. Sure some who get in are lower than 2100, but you can count those on your hands almost. </p>
<p>The range of students is selectively tighter at the upper end at the super-elite LACs, and thus it is just as hard to break through and get the acceptance letter, even if the admit rate is deceptively higher than the Ivys. </p>