Can more graduating/graduated seniors do "actual results" threads?

Chance Me / Match Me
2754

90UW/92W average. Large, suburban public upstate NY high school, does not rank. No test scores. Captain of two varsity sports, recruited athlete for one, had mid-major DI offers but is going DIII. HOBY ambassador and JIF, NHS, handful of honors classes, 15 college credits-1 SUNY OCC, 2 SUNY Oswego, 1 SUPA (Syracuse University),1 AP. Solid essay and LOR. No need based aid anywhere.
Accepted EA:
-SUNY Fredonia, $2500 merit total COA $22k
-SUNY Oswego, $2500 merit total COA $23k
-SUNY Cortland, total COA $25k
-SUNY Buffalo (UB not Buff State) total COA $28k
-SUNY Stony Brook total COA $30k

Deferred EA to RD then accepted guaranteed for Fall 2026, (then also accepted study abroad Fall 2025 then start main campus Fall 2026)
-SUNY Binghamton total COA $31k (study abroad option more)

ENROLLED SUNY CORTLAND! Go Red Dragons! :heart:

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2755

More of a reader than a poster, but I’ve learned a lot from these boards. Here’s my son’s results.

  • Major: Astronomy or Physics, depending on school

  • Large public urban high school (no in-depth college counseling)

  • GPA: 3.94 unweighted (school doesn’t weight)

  • ACT: 31 (took once, significantly higher than school’s average so didn’t do again; submitted everywhere)

  • Rank: school doesn’t rank

  • APs: 9 – Seminar: 3, Lang: 4, Human Geo: 5, US History: 5, Calc AB: 5, World History: 5. Projected to have two more 5s (Calc BC, US Gov) and one 4 (Lit) with this year’s tests. Known scores submitted.

  • DE: 4 (mostly science focused)

  • Honors: 2 (school doesn’t really offer)

  • Language: 3 years

  • Awards: several congressional certificates, one regional math competition win, AP scholar with distinction, AP African American Recognition, among other honors

  • ECs: Not a lot for reasons detailed in app/essays; significant, multi-year leadership in one club; quirky/unusual job, same for volunteerism.

  • Essays: quirky and interesting, no professional help

  • Recommendations: Saw one after the fact, disappointingly mundane from a teacher he has a good relationship with and has had for two years. With that, the other two may have been on par.

  • Financial aid: yes

  • First generation: no

Safety
Oregon State: Accepted into Honors College, $20k in scholarships and grants

Target
University of Washington (in-state): Accepted, waitlisted for Honors College, $26k in grants and scholarships (would cover full tuition and housing)

Whitman College (in-state): Accepted, scholarships: $30k merit/$31k need (would almost cover full tuition)

St. Olaf: Accepted, Presidential Scholar with $31k scholarship, housing scholarship with $3k

Reach

Bates (RD): Waitlist

Grinnell (RD): Waitlist

Kenyon (RD): Waitlist → Accepted, President’s Scholar with $25k, $34k need

Middlebury (RD): Accepted, $58k institutional grants

Vassar (RD): Accepted, $76k need scholarship (covers full tuition) COMMITTED

Rejected: Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams

Interviews: Swarthmore, Stanford, Bowdoin (all voluntary)

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2756

Whoops, can’t seem to edit my original post anymore, but D25 applied RD everywhere, not ED (duh). :laughing:

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2757

This thread has been so helpful to me & I’m excited to finally add to it:

S25, public urban exam school in the northeast
3.9 UW, 1510 SAT, NMF, 9 APs in all core subjects, likely social science major
Solid but not extraordinary ECs (debate, theater, music, community service)
Summer camp counselor job, youth coach job during the school year
Good writer with thoughtful essays

He wanted a small liberal arts school close to home, but we needed to keep the cost below $45k & hopefully lower (parents are both teachers–he received financial aid at about half of these schools, & amounts varied wildly).

Accepted & Affordable:
UMass Amherst (no merit, accepted off waitlist for honors college)
UMaine ($30k merit, honors college)
UVM ($25k merit, accepted off waitlist for honors college)
Wheaton College (MA) ($46k merit, honors program)
Clark University ($36k merit after appeal, honors program)
St. Olaf ($35k merit)
Dickinson ($45k merit)
Skidmore (affordable after financial aid appeal)
Colby (initially waitlisted, accepted on May 2)
Bowdoin ($1000 for NMF, affordable after financial aid appeal)–ATTENDING

Accepted but Unaffordable:
Fordham ($12k merit)
Bates
Conn College ($38k merit)
Oberlin
Vassar

Waitlisted:
Haverford
Wesleyan
Williams

Rejected:
Amherst

Takeaways:
Since cost was a driving factor, applying to so many schools turned out to be the right call for him. The merit aid landscape changes VERY quickly & it was good to have a range of options in the end. If we’d done more pre-acceptance visiting, we could have shortened this list, though.

NPCs & merit estimators were mostly accurate, but not entirely! He applied to several schools where we knew the NPC was $5-7k too high for us–this was good, since some of the prices turned out to be soft. He got $5k more than UVM’s calculator predicted. Oberlin offered less aid than their NPC. Bates offered a little more than NPC & Colby offered a lot more. Skidmore & Bowdoin both gave him game-changing $ on appeal; Vassar denied his aid appeal completely. In the end, the difference between his best need-based package (Colby) and his worst (Vassar) was $25k.

He applied to a lot of reaches, which also feels worth it in hindsight. When all the results were in, he had schools that felt like social fits, schools that were academic fits, schools that were financial fits, but they weren’t the same school. Of his reach schools, the ones that felt like the best social fits for him (Vassar, Wesleyan, Haverford) weren’t viable choices in the end. If we were full pay we could have cut his list way down, but applying to more reaches was worth the extra essay-writing for him.

He’s very excited about Bowdoin, as are we. Thanks so much to this community for all your help!

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2758

TX Resident
Large public HS outside of the big 4 metros
1510/4.0/top 8%/political science
10APs
Course rigor concerns (did not take extra STEM classes like many of the top students at my school, 3 years of history, 2 of FL, Calc AB and then AP Stats)
National-level (ish) clarinetist, debate, other community ECs, internships for local politicians
Interesting and unique essays, Strong LORs

Accepted
Various schools as safeties that I never seriously considered over TAMU (UMinn, Alabama, Drake, etc.)
TAMU (honors)
SMU (honors, 30k merit)
UGA (honors)
Trinity (33k merit)
Macalester (20k merit)
Richmond (20k merit)
Northeastern (Oakland)
Gettysburg (52k and Eisenhower Scholar)
Colby
Wesleyan
W&L
Denison (30k)
Oberlin (26k)
Kenyon (30k)
UT-Austin (LBJ School, committed!)

WL
WashU
Grinnell

Rejected
Brown
Georgetown (Defer->reject)

The decision came down to Wesleyan or UT, and we decided on UT–it was cheaper, much closer to home, and there were some other personal reasons that influenced it. The LBJ school is well-resourced and right in the middle of one of the top public policy hubs in the country.

I wanted the small environment of an LAC; that appealed to me a lot. I think my choice combines the best of a small school (the LBJ School enrolls 90 students/class) with all the opportunities of a large university. When we weighed that against Colby/Wes, we found UT came slightly on top.

I wish I had shot a bit higher. Applying to as many safeties as I did, especially with my admission to TAMU coming in September, was unwise. I think I would have liked to give myself a shot at a few of Northwestern, Rice, maybe Columbia?

We’re really thankful, though. These results were very lucky and I’m super excited for UT in the fall. Hook 'em!

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2759

S25
Los Angeles private school
3.75 UW GPA
1440 SAT (730 M, 710 EBRW) - selectively submitted
9 APs (5 in progress) - submitted APUSH (5), AP Euro (4) AP English Lang (4)
ECs - Focused on exercise science; created original training app; 2nd place junior nationals in niche event; 3 sport varsity co-captain
Strong essays
Applied for Financial Aid

Majors: Computer Science / Kinesiology / Business

Accepted
UC Berkeley
Davidson (Mauze Family Scholar)
Middlebury (TO) legacy
Texas-Austin (OOS)
Colgate (TO)
U Richmond (TO)
Bucknell
Wisconsin-Madison
George Washington
Santa Clara
SMU (Cox + Hilltop Scholars Program)
IU (Kelly)
UC Santa Cruz

Waitlisted
Washington & Lee, Wake Forest - ED1 deferred to RD (TO), Villanova (VSB) (TO), UCSD, UC Irvine, UGA, U Miami

Denied
Vanderbilt - ED2 (TO), Williams (TO), WashU (TO), USC, UCLA, UCSB, UC Davis

Attending: UC Berkeley

This was my second go-round utilizing CC to help guide my sons’ application processes. The challenge of S25 compared to S22 was a significantly weaker academic record (5 B’s vs 0 and -100 in SAT) which meant more uncertainty going in. Also, S25 indicated a preference for larger universities with big-time sports and Greek life, whereas mom, dad and brother attended/attend NESCAC LAC’s which made us more familiar with that experience. We also had a firm budget and applied for financial aid.

When all the results were in, S25’s acceptances exceeded our expectations with so many wonderful options for which we are extremely grateful. His final three were UC Berkeley, Middlebury and Davidson and he chose Berkeley. As the last decision to arrive, we’re happy it gave him the option of attending a school that fit his lifestyle preferences while also being academically rigorous and within our budget, which were our top criteria.

Lessons learned along the way that I want to pass forward:

  1. Don’t fall in love with one or two schools - love your entire slate;
  2. Review your high school’s historical acceptance data to find colleges where students from your school consistently over perform or underperform. This can have a significant impact on your own chances at these schools;
  3. Look for matches outside your preferred region or where kids from your school don’t typically apply. You may get a geographic boost or garner interest from AO’s looking to build relationships with your school, especially ones that come to visit;
  4. If you have high stats, add better predictability to your outcomes by including colleges that weigh academics comparatively higher than holistic factors (for S22, St. Andrews and UGA fit that bill);
  5. Research what each college believes distinguishes them / makes them feel special / gives them pride and incorporate this into your supplementals. Your AO’s will respond positively if you can connect this to your story in an authentic way;
  6. Analogous to my first point above, love every school you apply to - show interest, work hard on demonstrating fit, and don’t take any school for granted. At the end of the day, the process is unpredictable and your goal should NOT be to get into your first choice or even a reach, but instead earn yourself a couple of great options that you’d be happy attending;
  7. Finally, if you have a budget, take care completing each school’s Net Price Calculator religiously and revisit it from time to time as estimates can change, sometimes dramatically! Most importantly, do this before you start down the path of any college that will possibly cause you or your parents disappointment or tension over an unaffordable acceptance.

Thank you, College Confidential.

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2760

D24 enjoys Berkeley. Your son has done well!

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2761

I’m still pretty upset about my results. Was my profile really not strong enough for the Ivies??? Or was it my essay??? Idfk. My school had rlly bad results this year compared to prior years, the valedictorian has a very very similar profile to me and was rejected by all his reaches and is committed to NYU so there’s that too.

GENERAL
Math and CS major from a very competitive area of Massachusetts, 1600 SAT, 3.96 GPA (UW), 4.39 GPA (W). 8 DE math classes, ranked 4th in my class.

EC’s:

  • Self-studying math. Completed the entirety of an undergrad math degree by self-studying on Opencourseware and textbooks.

  • Working part-time in a movie theater for 3 years

  • Math team captain, increased team headcount by 70%, organized logistics of meetings and traveling to meets

  • Student Council Rep and head of the events subcommittee, helped plan various school events (dances, sports games, etc.)

  • Varsity track and field, not good enough to get recruited

  • Accepted a somewhat selective free research program, published a paper as second-author that was accepted to a good journal. This paper wasn’t a metaanalysis or BS research or whatever, this was legit stuff

  • JV soccer for 2 years

  • Board game design, funded and self-published a board game through Kickstarter, got $5300 in profit.

  • President of board games club, tbh this was just an excuse for my friends and I to hang out and play Dominion but I put it on my apps

AWARDS
USACO Gold, 3x AIME qualifier, $10k scholarship from an outside organization, school physics award, a huge number of regional and state-level math awards

RESULTS

I was accepted to UMass Amherst (honors college), BU, Bates, URI, and UConn. I was waitlisted at Cornell and NYU, and rejected from all my reaches, (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Williams, and the like). I didn’t ED but applied ED2 to Uhicago and was rejected.

I didn’t get nearly enough aid from Bates, idk what they were thinking telling me that I’m gonna pay $60k. I committed to UMass bc it was both affordable and good.

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2762

Oh I also got a silver medal on the national spanish exam. That’s what I was forgetting.

I saw my one rec from my dual enrollment Complex Analysis professor and it was really really really good. He said that I’m one of the most naturally talented students he’s ever seen and that I have a very bright future if I choose to go into academia. He also said that I’m good at explaining things to other students who don’t get the material during office hours. I didn’t get to read my other rec but it’s from my AP Lit teacher and she loved me, like, we knew each other for 3 years and she’s a friend of my Aunt so there’s no way that letter is bad

2763

I’m rlly happy to be going to a solid school. But maybe my brain has been poisoned by the college admissions rat race bc I feel like my results don’t match up with my GPA and SAT score, and that I could have done a lot better.

I wish I could go to a T5 school, bc I struggle to find people around me that are also interested in high-level math. I met a Harvard grad student last year and we literally spent 4 hours talking about math. I’ve wanted to be around other people like that ever since, but I can’t find them in my current environment and idk if I’ll find them at UMass

2764

All we really know is that they accepted some other people your cycle. Most of those people did not necessarily have a stronger profile in any generic sense, but they did have a different profile, and these colleges saw them as being good bets to satisfy whatever competing institutional priorities they were balancing. Then maybe a few of those other people they took were a little more similar to you, but you’ll never know why they were chosen and not you.

But UMass Amherst is great for your areas of interest, and if you do well there, anything is possible after that. And I do suspect you will find you are not at alone in terms of being passionate about math.

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2765

Yeah that’s high-key valid, but I feel like “institutional priorities” can lead to me getting rejected by one school, but not rejected by 13. I also don’t think it’s good to put the blame on something else

2766

You will find plenty of very smart students at UMass! Good luck.

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2767

So Bates has something like a 13% admissions rate, and BU something like 12%. Obviously you were also waitlisted not rejected by Cornell and NYU. As I see it, this means you were in fact very competitive for admissions, there was not some glaring red flag that stood out in your applications.

That said, obviously MIT, Harvard, and Stanford are in an even higher selectivity category, and really Williams too in the LAC world. Apparently you have nine more colleges you considered Reaches, and without knowing more I don’t know how those would compare to Bates, BU, Cornell, and NYU. But it is possible there was in fact something about your application that was a common factor leading all the Reachiest of the Reaches to conclude that while you were competitive, there were other applicants like you they all liked just a bit more.

But you’ll never know for sure what that common factor might be, again even assuming it exists. You can get your admissions file where you enrolled, so if you like you will be able to find out why UMass admitted you, and in fact why they admitted you into Honors. But you’ll never be able to see why MIT et al rejected you, nor in fact see what Bates, BU, Cornell, or NYU was thinking.

But UMass again is a great college for your interests, and in fact may be pretty challenging in the majors you are considering, so I suspect pretty soon you will just be moving on to dealing with those challenges and pursuing the opportunities available to you there. So very likely all this will just become a not particularly relevant memory as your life moves forward. And for now–well, speculation won’t get you very far, and that is all any of us would have.

Edit: Sorry, one more quick thought. I don’t think the word “blame” really has much application here. The default assumption for the most rejective colleges is they are going to reject you. This is true even if you have extremely good qualifications. Then they get some applicants that they particularly like, for lots of different reasons in different individual cases, and so they accept those applicants. But compared to the total pool of highly qualified applicants, even collectively they can only enroll a fraction, so most of that pool remains rejected by all of them.

I know it doesn’t feel great to not be one of those applicants that they particularly liked, but I really don’t feel like the word “blame” makes sense, because it connotes the idea the expected outcome was acceptance, and so something must have instead caused rejection. It again is more the opposite, the expected outcome was rejection, and at most there is just a lack of any of those many things that would instead cause acceptance. And even lack may be wrong–you may have had it, but just not quite enough of it as compared to the otherwise similar people accepted.

None of which is really relevant to your chances of thriving in college.

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2768

Actually, there are many students who get rejected by way more than 13 schools. Top stats kids getting total shut outs and rejections have made news headlines.

2769

congrats !

could you please elaborate why it was unwise ?

2770

congrats.

did you report SAT scores to berkeley ? fantasitc result for berkeley CS, I assume

2771

UCB (and the other UCs and CSUs) do not accept SAT scores.

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2772

Can’t update my original post, but wanted to add that my daughter got an outside scholarship and one of her departmental scholarships increased slightly. Her first year at Baylor all in is slightly under $26,000. Really thrilled by this result and think that isn’t bad at all.

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2773

It has been some time! Not sure if anyone will see this, but here we go…

  • CT Resident
  • Small public competitive HS
  • 1520 (800 eng)/3.8 uw/top ~20%/finance (or econ if finance isn’t offered)
  • 10 APs + honors/accelerated (APs limited first 2 years). All 5s for those available during application season.
  • Poor grades in math 2x including junior year while overwhelmingly strong in humanities. Explained by counselor, however. Full potential not achieved freshman year but overall very strong upward trend.
  • Lots and lots of leadership – community volunteering, run cultural and educational clubs. Create biz club. Originally was interested in healthcare so EMS-related volunteering and anatomy club. Internship with econ research.
  • Basic “national” awards so AP Scholar w/ Distinction + National Merit Comm. Scholar. Seal of bilit. in Spanish (which is not my mother tongue)
  • Not unique but decently written essays; never saw LORs

Accepted

UCLA [matriculated]
University of Maryland (8k/yr + Scholars)
UMass Amherst (18k/yr + Business Scholars)
UConn (5k/yr)
Fordham (33k/yr)
Babson
Binghamton (10k/yr)
Rutgers (10k/yr + honors college)
NYU (Shanghai)

WL
Boston University (–> Accepted)
Boston College (–> Accepted)
UT Austin (–> Rejected)
Wellesley (–> Rejected)
UMich (—> Rejected)

Rejected
UPenn(ED)
Emory (ED2 but switched back to RD)
UC Berkeley
UCSD?

Wish I didn’t underestimate myself, but I’m happy with my results!

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