<p>fluffy, Tufts Syndrome posits that the student won’t go to school B because s/he will get into school A, a “better” school. As in, Tufts did not accept a student because s/he will go to Harvard, having only applied to Tufts as a backup. </p>
<p>I remember back when my high stats D was waitlisted at a particular LAC - she was accepted to similar schools, so was surprised. A couple weeks later, we saw an article about a soccer player from an affluent city near us signing with that school. D told me that they got the student they needed from our state, and she was probably full-pay. Maybe, maybe not. I had always told her it was the luck (or un-luck) of the draw … it is what it is. You want “for sure?” Plenty of schools to apply for in that case. Otherwise, you need to hang on for the ride.</p>
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<p>cobrat, this limit is no longer in effect. From the publicly available college handbook for the Class of 2015:
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<p>Since the college admissions process is handled mostly via the Internet these days, it’s not such a burden for high schools to process many applications per student.</p>
<p>I think it is too easy - and not entirely fair to disappointed, angry parents and kids - to say “well, you should never have expected to get into a school with that low an admissions rate - it is a reach for everyone.” Sure, Davidson has a 25 % admissions rate. But the 2012 statistics I found (on about.com, as I’m not a US News subscriber) have their SAT (M + CR) range at 1260 - 1440. If I’ve got a 1550 (and no other glaring weaknesses), I have excellent reason to think I should be looking pretty good to them. </p>
<p>I also don’t entirely buy the notion that more than a very few LACs have substantially more self-selecting pools than the Ivies, or at least not in the way that some posters here seem to be suggesting. It is probably true that a student with very little savvy and no snowball’s chance in heck at getting in is more inclined to apply to Yale on a wing and a prayer than to Wesleyan. But (and this is no knock against Wes, which is obviously a fantastic school), I strongly suspect that there is a pretty sizable number of applicants who would consider themselves in the range for Wesleyan and not for Yale - and rightfully so. Based on those same 2012 numbers, Yale’s SAT range was 1400-1590. Wesleyan’s was 1300-1480. If I have a 1250, I’m not going to waste my time applying to Yale, absent some extraordinary circumstances. I might put Wesleyan on my list as a reach. </p>
<p>In fact, depending on what kind of a school I go to, I might not bother applying to Yale as an unhooked applicant with a 1450, even though that is well within their range. If I’m in a school that tends to get a handful of students a year into HYP and I’m ranked 20th in the class and know of at least a dozen students who got 1500 + SAT scores, again unless there’s something else in the picture (i.e, a lopsided student with special talent in one subject), I’m not liking my chances at most of the Ivies, even though taken in isolation my grades and test scores put me well in their range. But again, that student is pretty darn likely to apply to schools in the range of Wesleyan, whether or not they wind up getting in. '</p>
<p>We raised our sons and daughters to be members of the meritocracy. Not often acknowledged, but true. The problem is the times changed and the old rules along with them. You can look up how many apps the tippy tops had 10-15 year ago, versus today-- and the number of slots available hasn’t changed… </p>
<p>“Merit” just isn’t what it was for many of us, when we applied and started our careers. It’s a problem with the vast numbers of kids applying, the sheer overload of potentially qualified kids. I say all the time, many people have no concept of how fierce the competition is- they think (was it also said here?) that if 1 in 10 get in, THEY are likely to be one of those 10%. </p>
<p>This thread is interesting for one simple reason: with schools, which have 6000 - 9000 applications for 450 - 600 spots, why does it surprise anyone that many get rejected and a student you know could be the rejection? </p>
<p>There are only so many people who can fit in a volkswagon, and the several hundred outside wondering why they did not get in the car boggles my mind. Secret time - there is no room left.</p>
<p>Expecting to be accepted borders on thinking the other applicants are not worthy too. Surprise, they are. I think it would shock many the minute details, which go into final decisions and that luck has little to do with it. Any applicant who gets to committee cannot rely on luck anymore; something concrete is required to make the final jump.</p>
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<p>At my daughter’s NYC public magnet (not the same as Cobrat’s and I don’t think the same as Jonri’s kid’s), there were no limits to how many applications students could file this year. Her school handled the Common Ap via Naviance so there was no extra paperwork burden for the college office or teacher recommenders–it was all done via the same software on everyone’s computers.</p>
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<p>Two reasoning errors there.</p>
<p>One: the stats are based on enrolled students, not admitted students. Davidson admits twice as many students as it enrolls. It is logical to assume that among the admitted cohort, students for whom Davidson is a reach are more likely to enroll than higher stat applicants who might see Davidson as a backup or be hoping for significant merit aid. So it is likely that the tests scores of enrolled students skew lower than the the test scores of admitted students.</p>
<p>Two: You are misconstruing the way that colleges view test scores. They do not do a linear weighing of scores — they look at the scores as but one factor, considered “in context” of the applicant – the context might be demographic, geographical, or related to the type of school the student is coming from. They might very well figure that a kid with a 1380 from a public school in Oklahoma is more impressive than the kid with a 1550 from an east coast private prep. Davidson is happy to accept students with SAT subscores in the 500 range and ACT scores as low as 24 – we know that from the bottom range of their reported stats. That does not mean that when they see a higher score their eyes bug out and they leap to snag the student – rather, it means that they don’t place all that much importance on the score. </p>
<p>Davidson lists 4 factors as being “very important” on their CDS: rigor of high school record, recommendations, character/personality qualities, and volunteer work. Test scores are “important” – but not “very”. See: <a href=“http://www.davidson.edu/Documents/Administrative%20Department/Institutional%20Research/CommonDataSet_2012-13.pdf”>http://www.davidson.edu/Documents/Administrative%20Department/Institutional%20Research/CommonDataSet_2012-13.pdf</a> Their web site talks about “lives of leadership and service” and “compassion, creativity, resilience, and moral courage.” <a href=“About”>http://www.davidson.edu/about</a> </p>
<p>Aside from what they say they want in a student, like other small LAC’s, Davidson needs to keep its athletic teams filled and strike the right financial aid balance to keep the necessary amount of tuition dollars flowing in. (That’s part of the value of the waitlist: they can preferentially offer spots to full-pay students on the waitlist if they’ve already maxed out their financial aid budget for the year.) </p>
<p>The applicant who thinks that their 1550 test scores makes the school a safety is an applicant who hasn’t done their research. I don’t know enough about Davidson to know how much is hype and what is reality – but from what the school says about itself, I’d think that community-service focused EC’s count for a lot more than test scores at that particular college. </p>
<p>Their application process is very involved as well. At least it was a couple years ago. It would take a lot of effort to fake.</p>
<p>edit: I am not implying that this young woman was less than earnest. Only that the Davidson application is not of the variety that the non-serious candidate could just dash it off on a lark to add one more school to the mix. That might translate into a higher percentage of really qualified applicants in the pool.</p>
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<p>Those are the ones the GCs gave their blessing towards or those from students within the viable top third whose stubbornness overrode discouraging remarks/comments from their GCs. </p>
<p>If a given student’s stats were too far below/above the perceived minimums for contention, the GC feels from his/her knowledge of the elite colleges/LACs that the student is a poor fit, and/or the GC feels the student/parents are applying for bad reasons* they would strongly discourage or sometimes even block the application. </p>
<p>One common complaint among many alums from my HS about our college office is not that they encourage students to reach too high, but the exact opposite. </p>
<p>Most alums I’ve known from my period and before have complained the college office has a tendency to underestimate a student’s chances at reach/super-reach schools if one wasn’t within the estimated top 10% of our graduating class.** Among those who made that complaint included many alums who ended up in elite colleges including the Ivies. </p>
<p>*I.e. Big sports/party campus culture without much/any consideration of academics. My GC recounted to us during the first appointment about how he discouraged someone from an older class from applying to BC because his sole apparent motivation was big sports/party(Major BC sports fan), no apparent consideration of their academic strengths whatsoever, and his stats were such he was a serious contender for Ivy/Ivy peer elite colleges. He ended up being admitted to many elite colleges…including some Ivies. </p>
<p>** My HS didn’t rank beyond Val and Sal. </p>
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<p>Knighted?!! </p>
<p>That’s really over-the-top even for folks who place what I’d consider an excessive emphasis on one’s college acceptances. </p>
<p>The analogy with being “knighted” would be much more apt if we’re talking about the Ivy admit when he/she’s made it to graduation, made the graduation walk, and stepped off with degree in hand or the likelihood of such. </p>
<p>I’ll admit to being influenced by an extended family who placed much more value on making it to graduation with degree in hand or 100% prospects of such in the mail after the graduation ceremony. </p>
<p>And even if we’re talking graduating from elite/respectable college with degree in hand…analogizing it with being knighted is over-the-top. </p>
<p>I might be willing to concede the validity of that analogy if we’re talking about someone who is graduating with a PhD AND whose thesis was so groundbreaking and helpful in solving our nation’s/humanity’s problems it would be a viable contender for the Nobel Prize or awards along those lines. </p>
<p>Op @chris46,
Your D sounds like a wonderful, accomplished lady. Did you have college consultant? The essays and recs will make or break you at this level; many of the kids’ essays are similar. As someone who reads medical related apps, I would have said to emphasize the technical director at the theater and the website that makes money and really downplay the editor of lit mag and GS gold award. When you are competing against tens of thousands of people with the same ECs, it’s better to focus on the rarer ones. You have to remember that tens of thousands of the applicants have the same level of GPA, SATs, ECs as your kid. It’s so hard to remember everyone and keep all of the kids straight and the unusual things stick in people’s minds more. Sad but true. </p>
<p>And then the other part of the lottery is that the person reading your D’s file also really connects with the technical director and the website idea and the essay (which is not similar to the other tens of thousands of essays).</p>
<p>Thanks for your post to remind us all that even with excellent GPA, SATs, ECs, that it really does seem like a lottery. Thus it’s important that kid’s do ECs that makes kid feel happy. (and the EC might not even be listed in the common application).</p>
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<p>Right, because people really care about that LOL. When is the last time you heard about someone graduating with a really impressive PhD thesis?
Never mind, when someone actually WINS the Nobel Prize, does it make the news?</p>
<p>@saintfan – I don’t know how the app process would impact the overall qualifications of applicants, but it certainly would help the ad com identify those who placed the highest value on attending Davidson.</p>
<p>“My hunch? This young woman prefers U of C to Bowdoin and Davidson. It is possible that her GC let those 2 colleges know that. Maybe things have changed, but back when my offspring were applying, GCs did that. They were especially prone to do that when there was someone else in the same class who genuinely wants to go there.”</p>
<p>I agree with Jonri. This happens with GCs at my kids’ private HS as well.
When a kid has U of C EA acceptance in hand and applies to Davidson in RD round. And if HS GC knows that kid prefers U of C over Davidson and there is a HS classmate that really wants Davidson, GC will let Davidson know to chose kid B over kid A. This increases Davidson’s yield. This increases GC’s stats of placing kids within their top 3 choice of college. Davidson and GC are happy. Kid A wonders what went wrong. This presumes that kid goes to a private school or some small magnet school. </p>
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<p>Most knights get up, go to work, and all that stuff too.</p>
<p>@celticbar,</p>
<p>I have asked this Q on another thread about double legacies. Did your DD apply ED? I believe UPENN has a rule that legacies MUST apply ED. The love must be reciprocal. Or the student isn’t going to get in. </p>
<p>I’m wondering if other HSCs have that rule, but it’s unspoken?</p>
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Focusing on test scores can lead to unexpected results since at some selective colleges, test scores are only a minor factor in the decisions, and the high 25th/75th percentile score range more relates to test scores being correlated with other criteria they value than the college focusing on having high scores. For example, suppose Yale gave test scores a negligible weight in admissions decisions one year. The 25th and 75th percentile scores probably would not drop a great amount since most applicants who have a stellar academic record, stellar ECs/awards, and an otherwise great application do not bomb the SAT. Instead they tend to have scores in Yale’s existing 25th and 75th percentile. The published 25th and 75th percentile would be high even though having scores out of the range had negligible impact on admissions decisions.</p>
<p>One can find hints about how much impact scores have by looking at what colleges say about the importance of scores in the CDS and historical acceptances when holding other criteria that are correlated with test scores constant (looking at acceptance rate vs test scores alone will not account for the other admissions criteria that tend to improve with higher test scores). For example, Brown’s CDS marks test scores as less important than several other criteria such as course rigor, talent/ability, character/personal qualities, and level of applicant’s interest. Consistent with this Parchment users who had a 3.9+ GPA while taking 5+ APs reported little change in admit rate for applicants with combined SAT throughout the range of 1900-2300, which covers below 25th percentile to 75th percentile. It’s also not clear that acceptance rates among high GPA with high course rigor applicants decreased at scores below 1900. There were only 2 Parchment applicants with 3.9+ GPA while taking 5+ APs who scored below a 1900. One was accepted and one was rejected. This is too small a sample size to draw conclusions. Maybe the high GPA with low test score applicants had hooks or were lying. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t recommend that a student who has an otherwise stellar application to not apply to Brown because his test scores aren’t at a particular percentile. I was in a similar situation as a student several years ago, with a verbal SAT of 500 (math/math2 was 800), putting my combined SAT in the bottom 25% at highly selective colleges and my verbal score often in the bottom 1%. I applied in spite of the test scores and was accepted unhooked to Stanford, MIT, and ivies.</p>
<p>Calmom: I don’t actually think using enrolled vs. admitted student numbers matters all that much in this case, because the school knows from previous years roughly what the class is likely to look like. Davidson isn’t going to say “This 1550 isn’t that special, because x % of our applicants have scores around that level or higher,” they’re going to say “our freshman class has an average SAT score of 1350 this year, so this student is getting in, assuming everything else is commensurate and there aren’t any red flags,” unless in they are protecting yield. It doesn’t matter if 90 % of the applicant pool has a perfect score is only 1 % of those students wind up matriculating; you can’t build a class based on the people who aren’t going to show up.</p>
<p>I’m aware that SATs aren’t the be all and end all. I’m using them as an easy shorthand because they’re the only standardized measure there is, but anything I say involving them should be read with the applied addition I’ve added above: “assuming everything else is commensurate and there aren’t any red flags.” Of course if you’ve got a high SAT but a GPA that doesn’t match, or zero extracurricular involvement, or lousy recommendations, it isn’t going to do you much good. Similar, if you don’t have the greatest SAT scores, but make up for them with something else, the score alone won’t necessarily hold you back. Data10, you were a special case because you were an unusually lopsided applicant - schools wanted you for your math ability, so they were willing to forgive the overall score. 800/500 is not the same as 650/650. </p>
<p>Looking around CC, however, I’m not seeing a heck of a lot of students with high scores and nothing else to support admission. Certainly, the OP’s daughter wasn’t in that position. I think it is fairly illogical to see a substantially lower SAT range for a school and assume “oh, I guess they have an equally good student body, only they didn’t count test scores to the same extent.” Rather, the school with the lower SAT range probably also has fewer valedictorians from top high schools, and fewer kids with national-level recognition in various areas, and so on. Consequently, it isn’t just that they should have been fawning over the OP’s D’s SAT score, but that you would think that her profile in other areas would also have been on the high end, even among people in her regional/socioeconomic cohort. </p>
<p>As for fit, are there numbers or anything more than anecdotes (and the self-serving statements of adcoms) to back up the idea that colleges routinely reject students who would be on the high end of their applicant pool by a wide margin because they don’t think the kid “fits?” If so, wouldn’t that be a recipe for all kinds of abuses from schools deciding, in a high-handed way, that a certain “kind” of student" needs to be rejected for their own good? It is one thing if the kid does a really slapdash job on the application, but I suspect that many of the type-A, high achievers in this position are putting together a reasonable package. </p>
<p>I don’t really think Wesleyan, for instance, NEEDS to reject applicants to protect their unique flavor. Most really straight-laced conservative types aren’t going to apply to Wesleyan in the first place, or will place Wesleyan fairly low on their preference lists assuming they are admitted to multiple schools. And if a few kids whose main ECs are Young Republicans and a church group do decide to show up in Middletown, I think the school can probably absorb them without losing their essential character - in fact, that might be an interesting person to add to the campus culture. </p>
<p>There’s a difference between saying “the kid won’t fit” and “the kid just doesn’t grab my attention as much as other applicants.” This is life, though. I’ve rejected job applicants for the exact sane reason. Everyone has. This is so not-different from the hiring process, which is why it rings hollow when upper middle class educated parents appear not to get it. </p>
<p>@apprenticeprof
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<p>Not with a 20% RD admission rate and only ~220 spots to fill, after accounting for the students they’ve already admitted ED. (Referring to numbers from the Davidson CDS – but Wesleyan has roughly the same RD admit rate). </p>
<p>That kind of rational might apply to a state university which bases admission primarily on test scores – or to a less selective LAC (say, admission rate 70% +) – but not to a school with restrictive admissions that favors other factors. </p>
<p>It’s not a process of elimination: Everyone who meets specific criteria gets in, absent a problem.</p>
<p>It’s a process of selection: No one gets in without good reason. The question they are asking is, “what does this applicant bring to the school that other applicants won’t.”</p>
<p>They have enough info from their ED round to know where there gaps to be filled. </p>
<p>They aren’t making their decision based on “stats”. They may eliminate some students that way, but the majority of applicants will have qualifying grades. </p>
<p>From there they are selecting students based on the attributes they value. (Apparently community service and athletics). </p>
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<p>Yes, the math. If the college is turning away 4 out of 5 applicants then obviously they are turning away many high stat kids. Even if we assume that 2 out of 5 applying to a small, highly selective LAC are patently unqualified, that leaves them turning down 2 out of every 3 well-qualified applicants. </p>
<p>No one has a default spot based on GPA + test scores alone. </p>