Thanks, seems like a great essay topic. No way of knowing. Asking because my D25 is about to waste $85 and send a RD application to Duke, lol. 34ACT, basically same UW GPA, heavily sport-weighted ECs, not nearly as many as yours.
I am assuming that this was the math: if you accept that the admission is (1) random and (2) independent to each college, NEITHER OF WHICH IS TRUE, then the chance of getting into at least one means the opposite of being rejected by all. Rejected by all is prob(rej) raised to how many schools you apply to.
I didnāt look at the numbers the poster used above, but say itās 90% rejection, 10% acceptance, and you apply to six schools. Then take .9 ^ 6, which is 0.53, so thereās 53% chance you are rejected by all, so 47% chance you get in at least one of them.
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Reminder that CC is supposed to be a friendly and welcoming place. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions without their intelligence or background being called out.
And please move on from debating.
TIA for cooperating!
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@RedWaterbottle95, you are clearly a strong student and I would not be surprised if you receive additional acceptances from the highly rejective schools on your list. As others have mentioned, however, these schools receive for more applications from very strong candidates than they will accept. Thus, the vast majority of strong candidates will not be accepted at these schools. Frankly, I would recommend doing your best on the applications and then assume that you will receive a rejection, as odds are, that is what will happen. Then, if you happen to get an acceptance, it is all joy and happiness, but you will have already mentally prepared yourself for a rejection.
Since it sounds as though youāre looking for feedback on your application and how you might be able to improve your chances on your remaining applications, I went through your first post with a very critical eye, quite possibly more critical than an admissions officer might do.
This last item was one of my favorites. It was really clear what your activities looked like here. I had a definite visual in my mind.
In looking at some of your other descriptions, there were some descriptions that raised questions for me. Iāve bolded a few of the areas:
What exactly did you do? For the Holiday Card Fundraiser, did you brainstorm the initial item, work with artists on developing the design, figure out the logistics of getting the $ (i.e. what system to use, tracking donations and what was tax deductible above the cost for the cards, etc), figure out the which company to use for the printing and then how to get them to the recipients, etc? Those would be tasks that I would assume might fall under that description, but arenāt necessarily things that a high schooler might do all of.
In terms of expanding the Meals on Wheels routes, how did you do this? Were you looking at where people needed to be served and calculating out what routes would increase efficiency or how much food the vans could carry or where people were residing that needed to be served, checked on the funding to pay for additional gas/labor for the expanded routes, etc?
The same thing is true for a lot of the other items in bold. The more items that seem vague or perhaps unlikely to have been done by a high schooler (interpreted lease and tax documents?), the more specific you need to be about what exactly you did. Getting corroboration from your LORs is also very important for anything you do that is unusual for a high schooler to accomplish (i.e. a supervisor who detailed what you do or how you did work as a high schooler that they would have expected from someone with a college degree, etc).
Again, this is me with a super critical lens on, but calling out that you worked with a diverse community when you were at Georgetown made me think, what, you donāt work with a diverse community at your school/ECs/community service, etc? Making a note of this for Georgetown made me think that it did not exist in any of your other activities.
It sounds as though youāre a pretty amazing kid. You have done a lot while in high school. When completing your applications, I would make sure people know all the wonderful things you did (serving 400+ people per shift is pretty awesome). I would not try and find high falutinā words to describe what you do. Be specific (i.e. I helped move 3000 pounds of boxes and ten rooms of furniture when we relocated to a new HQ) and that will be impressive.
Iāve written a novella, so I will end this post here and add my other thoughts to another post.
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A couple of things. Would you be happy to attend UGA or your state school? And is your family willing and able to pay for those? If so, thatās great. You need at least one (and preferably more than one) school that is extremely likely to accept you (and those two have!), that you would be happy to enroll in and attend for four years, and that is affordable for your family. If UGA/UTK? arenāt, then the most critical thing to do right now is to find a school that you are likely to be accepted to that you would be happy to attend. If those two schools meet those criteria, however, then your list can be as reach-heavy as you want.
That said, think about your reaction to the ED rejection. How would you feel if you get 12 more? For some people, rejection is like a fuel that makes them want to prove how awesome they are at the place they land and to show those that rejected them what a big mistake they made. If youāre that kind of person, a reach-heavy list is a reasonable decision to make.
Most people, however, tend to find rejection demoralizing. It can cause a serious hit to their self-esteem. It can make people start to doubt themselves and anything good thatās happened, like other acceptances. I find that most people tend to do better with more acceptances than rejections.
Youāre the only one who has a good idea as to what your mental state might be like if you get 12 rejections or 11 rejections and 1 acceptance from a highly-rejective school. But I would give serious thought as to how you would react if that happened, and then craft your RD list accordingly with some schools that have higher acceptance rates.
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Here is some inspiration from the athlete who got snubbed on the Heisman. Take it positively.
āI really felt like I shouldāve walked away with the award, but kudos to Travis for winning,ā Jeanty told reporters. āBut yeah, itās simple as that. Work harder, go harder.ā
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We definitely know from the observed patterns of acceptances/rejections that highly selective college admissions decisions are not fully independent, even if you restrict the pool to applicants who appear highly qualified in a way that at least a substantial fraction of such applicants will get admitted to one or more highly selective colleges (aka are in the observable competitive range).
In fact, they really canāt be fully independent because there are only so many enrollment slots available at such colleges, and there are many more applicants who are in the observable competitive range than slots to go around. If they were fully independent then all of those applicants could get an offer from one or more such colleges simply by applying to enough of them. But that canāt possibly work since there are not enough such enrollment slots, so they canāt be fully independent.
Beyond that basic observation, the exact mechanisms or factors involved and what that implies for any given application is likely extremely complicated and to my knowledge we do not have the data to sort it out.
At a basic level, though, it explains why something like 4-6 really well-chosen āReachesā, at least if you are not subject to need aware policies, is probably enough. There is enough observable dependence that if you were going to get into any less-well-chosen Reaches, youād very likely get into one of those 4-6. And if you donāt get into one of your best 4-6 ideasāwell, you probably didnāt miss anything, because there is something about your application that isnāt quite getting you there for those colleges. But you may never know what.
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Thank you so much for this advice, itās extremely helpful as Iām nearing RD. For the most part, I tend to run out of space on my activity descriptions. Thatās why some of them are kind of vague. Iāll try to clarify some of the items in bold.
For the fundraiser, I analyzed the recent top donors from the nonprofitās records and compiled a list. The nonprofit already secured a deal with an outside artist, so the cardās art was already set. I then wrote a short message, wishing happy holidays and what we had been up to this season, ending with a call for donations. I added each donorās address to the list as well. That was all that my boss wanted me to do. Took probably 2 weeks just compiling all the names+addresses for the list.
I looked at maps of my city and mapped out new routes volunteers could take that the nonprofit hadnāt realized were possible + would allow more people to be served. These routes were then introduced into the daily rotation for volunteers.
I emailed back and forth with a hospital, coordinating times we could come and serve food from local restaurants to patients for dinner.
Pretty much just packed and moved boxes and did some landscaping. The nonprofit moved from a commercial office to more of a residential location (very old house), so I had to renovate the new place a little. I was the only guy on the staff, so they designated a lot of the hands-on work to me.
My boss would just hand me lease and tax documents and ask me to tell her what they wanted.
Yeah, that one seemed a little strange to me as well. I wanted to put international community, but I ran out of characters and my counselor offered ādiverseā as a word. Iāll make a note to change that, but I donāt know which synonym to use yet.
I guess the bottom line is to try to be as transparent as possible with my bios? Iād definitely need to trim some of the fluff then to add more space. If you have any additional advice or specifcs, Iād love to hear it.
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I was the other person who liked the detail in cleaning toilets in your last list item. It makes you seem ārealā instead of like typical guy #459
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Iād be happy to attend UGA, and based on my schoolās data Iām well in range for admission into SMU. Both of those would be fine with me and are affordable for my family.
I think Iām that type of the person. I wasnāt necessarily sad after the decision, moreso confused as I had similar stats to my brother who was admitted in 2021 (though I realize its a completely different game nowadays). I thought I would be at least deferred due to the family connection. This morning while driving to school, I realized I wanted to prove to Duke what they would be missing out on. So I think I see it as a fuel of some sort.
Once again, thanks for all the advice. It is extremely helpful.
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Iāll go out on a limb and say that you would most likely be happier at UGA than Duke. Good luck man.
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Perhaps āglobalā might work?
Something like, āSpent 50 hours compiling contact info and writing letters to top 547 donorsā works better for me than your original language. Rather than listing all the tasks you did for an organization/position, I would share the most meaningful/biggest impact/biggest time ones in the allotted space. You donāt need to describe everything, just some things. Repeating this process with some of the other activities might strengthen your application.
Realize, however, that I am NOT a college admissions professional. These are just the opinions of an interested parent.
Good luck on your applications and I hope you continue to update us as you apply and winnow down to your choice of college!
P.S. I also think that SMU is a likely admit for you.
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2021 was probably the most difficult year for college admissions.
Remember, college admission decisions for 2020 werenāt affected by Covid. Everyone had already applied when the lockdowns started. Then, because of remote classes, many top colleges & universities offered students a gap year, and to begin as freshman in 2021 instead of 2020. There were less spots available at many top schools in 2021.
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For 2021 Duke had a 24.49% acceptance rate ED, while for 2025 it was a 12.8%. Iām not doubting it was more difficult at other schools, but Duke was more accessible compared to nowadays.
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Itās also wrong.
One should make no such assumption in correlation
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Whatās wrong about the math, curious.
It has nothing to do with bias or cultural orientation. A bad essay is a bad essay; kids often tweak their bad essay and use it for every school. And then add insult to injury with a really terrible set of short essay questions. This isnāt bias- itās just reality.
A ādamning with faint praiseā recommendation from a teacher isnāt bias or cultural orientation-- āJoey is ambitious and relentless in class and has shown a willingness to do anything for extra creditā doesnāt read āJoey is a pleasure to teach and is a true intellectualā. It says āIf you need another grade grubber, hereās your guyā.
Etc. Why do you assume that the correlation is about bias or cultural orientation? Most of the time the correlation is about the fact that a kid who is below the bar for Duke is also below the bar for Columbia and Cornellā¦ because thatās where the bar is.
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Not assuming anythingā¦those are just two possible reasons for correlation between admission decisions at similar schools. Why are you hinting his essays may be bad though, we have no idea.
And the obvious reason- weak application. Which is weak regardless of the set of top 20 schools the kid chooses.
I am seeing SO many āHail Maryā applications this year. Part of it is the lingering confusion over āwhat does test optional meanā (so a kid with a 4.0 GPA, no AP classes or evidence of pushing themselves intellectually but with solid Aās in modestly rigorous classes) sees the stats and says āHey, why not me?ā Part of it is continuing pressure (parental, community, society at large) that a kid who canāt āmake itā into a āname brandā college is an embarrassment . And part of it I believe is our āparticipation trophyā culture where kids have been taught that they are laudable for just showing up and that achievement or knowledge is just secondary.
regardless- I think some adcomās have an easier job this cycle than previously. More obvious who the lottery ticket applicants are.
Iām not āhintingā the OPās essays are bad; Iām pointing out that holistic admissions colleges are going to look at EVERYTHING. Grades and scores get you past the first hurdle. But thereās plenty more after that.
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