Welcome to Holistic Admissions.
I actually don’t see any kind of convergence on CC opinions. In fact, a number of people go out of their way to help the OPs think about financial factors and other college alternatives that may be a good fit for them.
In some ways, I’m taken aback by the question. Regardless of the confrontation that some seem to want to bring (criticizing others), I do think anyone who would be on this site would be giving what they believe is their best.
Are they right or right the majority of the times or never - I don’t know. We don’t keep a scorecard.
But I assume no one is on here not delivrging, what they think is best.
I think the bigger issue here is when posters start attacking other posters.
Maybe we need a disclaimer at the top that says - the advice you are getting is from various people who all think differently - so the end results may not necessarily be consistent.
But when I first read that question you posted, I have to admit - I was a bit taken aback.
I don’t think this is wrong, necessarily. Though I can see arguments either way.
I also like to think most people don’t take internet strangers’ advice all that seriously.
I would more likely phrase it as -” if you will regret not applying in 10 years, even knowing the chance of getting in is very slim, then by all means buy a lottery ticket” or such
Also, if talking about applying ED to a total dream school, if they don’t have another school they are passionate about, is there really any harm as long as they are told clearly it is unlikely? I can see arguments either way.. (Obviously, it takes some time to apply … and there is the fee, but for some applicants, that isn’t a huge burden). I am assuming finances in this situation are sorted for tuition…
I am certainly part of “WE” here. Regardless, similar to with the essay group, our answers have power - and drive college decisions. If “WE” are taken aback by questioning anything that “WE” do, “WE” probably should comment only when “WE” have a particular expertise.
If that’s where you are driving, then maybe you should have said that.
Very few people here have an expertise - it’s a very subjective topic and very slippery slope.
But many can form an educated opinion based on experience, data, or past history - but that’s what it is, even amongst the supposed experts - because no one is an AO but many can use available sources to try and provide an answer to what OPs are seeing.
If you are awaiting a particular expertise, OPs would get none to few responses.
This has come up b4 - if the CC is meant to be only for “experts” however you want to define that, then it should change itself from an open forum.
No again. I was responding.
if someone had their feelings hurt by me posing a question to the group (that I am also in), I find that less about the question being asked and more about other stuff going on.
I think “WE” do a fine job btw (not that “WE” need my approval), so getting bent out of shape is weird to me.. Just trying to share an observation I have regarding chance me’s. Just because I think it can get better does not mean I am right. More people seem to disagree, and that is fine with me. I am not sad.
I’d like to add a little comment here about expertise and shared experiences on CC, by way of anecdote. Without getting too specific, a few years ago, one of my kids had a particular situation that could affect admission chances. The situation was not unheard of, but not common enough for data to exist, so anecdote was the only way. Along comes the school counselor meeting on said topic, and of course there was not much experience to rely upon; too many variables affect chances for a couple of anecdotes in counselor’s prior experience to have much applicability to my kid’s situation. Counselor, with laptop open, googles and reads aloud from posts at CC.
I found this hilarious and also telling. All this just to let you all know that posts here, even without vetting, are read and shared even by “experts” when grasping at straws due to lack of data (and the black box that is admissions from the outside). What you say does have an impact.
I like this a lot and am planning to start incorporating it in my responses.
For a university with a 4% acceptance rate, the statement “your chances are most likely lower than the overall acceptance rate” should be enough preparation for the likelihood that the student will end up with a rejection.
I like it too. Most/many chance threads on CC actually may be higher than the 4%, but 15% still isn’t something to bank on, of course.
That is exactly what I feel we are capable of! Very smart way of looking at things.
I agree there is no definitive answer to this sort of question, but I do tend to think of this as a problem that is still waiting for a better overall solution.
At a high level, my “goal” for every kid who wants to go to college is to end up at a college that is comfortably affordable, has the academic programs they want/need, and that they are excited to be attending. Of course some kids have serious practical constraints, including cost issues, that may limit their options. But I still hope at least most of them, and virtually all of the others, can achieve this combination of virtues.
In this context, I am generally concerned about kids who seem to only be excited about colleges that are very unlikely to admit them. And I think sometimes they do sort of lean on ED as their main solution, but many of the colleges in question still routinely reject the vast majority of ED applicants, particularly the ones who are unhooked, and likely even more particularly the ones who are unhooked and not a strong academic applicant by their normal standards.
So what I would want for such a kid is to explore other college options with an open mind, and ultimately find some that are much more likely to admit them that are still well worth being excited about. Of course this is a problem when a kid, or their peers, or their parents, or so on tend to see only certain very selective colleges as worth being excited about. But I think we can at least try to help kids and parents learn about the many other ways in which a college could be exciting, and specifically the ones they could be excited about in light of their expressed interests, ambitions, preferences, financial circumstances, and so on.
Then if at the end of that process they still want to apply ED to an Unlikely–OK! But at least in my ideal world, kids would not see that as their one best chance to be excited about their college offers, they would instead have a realistic plan to get multiple exciting offers to choose between that didn’t depend on ED working out.
But that’s really no different than, if the acceptance rate is 4%, yours is less. But if you don’t apply, your chance is 0%.
That’s how I try to put stuff.
I’d hate for someone not to apply because of me. What if they get in?
If they’re out of line financially, then I’d be glad for them not to apply.
That is your choice then. I am not at all afraid to advise someone with a close to 0% chance at a school to shoot for something that is a better fit.
This just caught my eye because it would have meant my D19 not applying to the school she ended up at. (Can I also grumble at their phrasing because none of the things they cite are “unique”… special, hook etc yes but not “unique”)
I think the most useful outcome of chance Mr threads is to ensure students have the proper range of options, but that is generally not what they come here to hear, and some are more open to listening to advice that they may not have realized they needed than others.
what if the admit rate was 10%?
Yes, I don’t love the word “unique” in this context either. I think a more directly relevant word would be something like “exceptional”.
I also think you have to be careful when evaluating academic performance, as obviously all that is contextual. For what it is worth, beyond the initial phase, our S24’s HS started looking seriously at prior applicant data from our HS (collected in SCOIR) to assess whether their combination of grades and test scores (or test optional as relevant) would seem to be in a competitive range or not.
Putting this together, what you really are trying to assess is if your academic qualifications evaluated in context would normally be considered competitive. If so, you can feel free to apply if you think you are what this school is looking for, and vice-versa (what we might call a two-way fit).
If your academic qualifications would not normally be considered competitive, that’s not the end, but now you have to seriously evaluate why they might make an exception in your case. And they do, very selective colleges demonstrably accept some applicants without normally competitive academic qualifications. But that isn’t random, and there is usually something fairly obvious about such successful applicants that addresses one or more of their known institutional priorities.
So in substance I don’t mind that site’s examples, because those are reasonable examples of circumstances in which a very selective college might think it is in their institutional interests to accept someone without what would count as normally competitive academic qualifications.
But I agree “unique” isn’t a great word, and indeed I think in some sense is leading away from a pragmatic understanding of holistic review college admissions.
I know a student from an East Coast high school whose guidance counselor thought Wisconsin was a target, maybe even safety school. They were rejected there, but accepted to Michigan, which many believe to be more selective. They ended up at Indiana, and love it, which is great, but just saying that Wisconsin may be more difficult to get into than some people believe.
I agree that this is a deeply problematic situation.
So consistent with the above framework, I think terms like Reach, Target, or Likely are always relative to the applicant, not generic terms.
And I think it is true these days that even for some very competitive applicants, Wisconsin may be more of a Target than a Likely.
However, that is not inconsistent with such applicants not getting admitted by Wisconsin while being admitted to colleges which are categorized as Reaches for them.
That’s sort of the nature of Targets–some kids might sweep their Targets, but others might get into none of them, and still others will only get into some. And then some kids will not get into one or more Targets but will get into one or more Reaches.
Hence the number of Chance Me for X and Y or Should I ED X or Y threads that have a lot of responses of the form, “Well, your chances for both X and Y would seem a little low . . . have you considered other colleges, like say Z?”
The thing I truly struggle with is how to encourage such kids about Z without making it sound like I am discouraging them overall. Like you can see some kids, or parents, reacting poorly to what must seem to them like a barrage of, “You aren’t good enough, you need to settle for less,” responses. From my perspective, acknowledging these colleges might be looking for something else really isn’t a judgment of overall merit, but I know that is not always their perspective.
Again, I don’t actually have some brilliant solution to this repeat issue. I guess we can only try to do our best to be both realistic and encouraging at the same time, as tricky as that often can be.