I’m using it in reverse - saying, perhaps the odds of Americans getting in to some places is far greater than we think. Hence, sometimes, what on paper at least appear to be head scratchers, are getting in - whether it’s because they are flush with funds (need aware) or the 15% acceptance rate is really 25% if you take out the international attendance. Some have a large portion of international applicants that really distort the rate for domestic students when looking at overall.
So the other day I was discussing one the reported results from the recent Ivy-Plus admissions studies is that private non-religious high schools have the highest CONTROLLED admissions rate (so this is accounting for test scores and demographics and such), and actually advantaged public high schools have the lowest (disadvantaged publics and religions privates are in between, but again this is on a controlled basis–in raw numbers they would be way lower). But the applicants from different types of schools don’t get materially different academic ratings (again after controls). The advantage is coming from the private school applicants skewing to relatively higher non-academic ratings, and applicants from advantaged publics skewing to lower non-academic ratings, which becomes a huge difference maker at the margins.
And then multiple things go into that, but one of them is the schools with the best controlled Ivy-Plus admissions rates are skewing to more helpful counselor and teacher recommendations.
So yes, counselor recommendations involving non-academic factors are making a potentially important difference at the margins at the most selective colleges (note all this is far less apparent, if at all, with things like flagship publics). But so are teacher recommendations. And probably other stuff too, like a relative abundance of school-sponsored student activities with associated leadership positions, and so on.
Yes. I was asking about the counselors in particular because at least students can pick the teachers where they cant pick their counselor. And the teachers can write about anything but the counselors are asked a very direct question.
I was just curious because so many students at highly selective schools are bunched together and an absolute glowing report from the high school counselor could tilt the balance, especially if you have multiple kids from the same high school (with similar academic stats) applying to the same colleges.
Yes, that is absolutely happening some places . I guess I was just pointing out the divide is often really a materially higher-than-average admissions rate for domestics AND full-pay Internationals, and a much lower-than-average admissions rate for higher need Internationals, with not necessarily any such group actually averaging at the average of all the groups.
Umm. That’s what I said
I think kids should do what they want so that they (hopefully) end the process with no regrets about not having tried to “shoot their shot.” That said, my kids who have all attended Northeast prep schools were all told to aim for a well-curated list of 6-12 applications. Among D22 and D24s friends, I only know of a couple who applied to more than 12 universities (most were probably at about 8). Among their friends, I don’t know anyone who went over 15ish*. It seems as if S27’s friendship circle is turning out to be similar and given where D30 will likely end up next year, I think it will be more of the same.
Their schools have definitely pushed early decision applications so the average number of applications at their prep schools is probably much smaller than that. While I don’t know of their college advisors ever outright vetoing a list, my older kids were definitely pushed very hard not to apply further after their early acceptances though they both did put in a few more applications because at that point, they were agonizing about whether they’d prefer to attend a small liberal arts college over a larger university. But obviously with an early affordable acceptance in their pockets, it changed where and how many colleges they applied to during the RD round. At least in our experience, their high schools wanted to avoid the reputation of being a place from which kids applied frivolously and then turned down their offers. The college advising offices seemed to feel like maintaining a strong relationship with colleges was key to the overall student body’s success.
* I can think of one of their friends who was pressured by their parents to basically apply to a every potentially prestigious college, but they resisted, and the beauty of boarding school is that in the end, the parents really don’t have much control. I didn’t even know for sure where D22 applied until after the deadlines.
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I am quite sure that is happening more at the margins in these schools than many people seem to realize.
Here is a capture of the relevant figure from the paper. “High School Fixed Effect” reflects the implementation of these other controls first:
18d is basically confirming what you were thinking. 18c is showing this is also true for teacher recommendations. 18b is showing how non-academic ratings in general are the difference maker. And then 18a reflects what a lot of people have focused on, the apparent advantage of the highest-income families. But what they are arguing is that advantage to the highest-income families is in fact coming from basically buying their kids opportunities for higher non-academic ratings, not least through teacher and counselor recommendations.
In none of those cases is the odds 100%, though. What is happening is exactly what you are talking about, really. Once you have already zeroed in on the kids with other competitive advantages, including high test scores and top grades with rigorous schedules and the like, the final difference is shifting to these non-academic factors.
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A couple of comments:
- Many counselors don’t fill out much of the secondary school report, it’s not the norm to have that 100% complete. Some counselors just check ‘enthusiastically’ for everyone. If a counselor rates a student’s character as top few vs top 5% vs top 10%, should a reader discern between those? Personally, I don’t/can’t. Students/parents can ask counselors what they fill out, some might answer, some won’t.
- Recommendations are subjective and based on the opinion of one person. As a reader, I can tell you that for a given student, although most LoRs are positive, they can vary in degree of positivity for that student. Is this because a teacher thinks the student really isn’t as great as another teacher wrote, or is it just a writing style issue? Or a general predisposition to not write something too positive? Readers can’t know that. I personally notice consistently glowing LoRs and/or consistently less-than LoRs. The LoRs in most apps are in between those extremes.
- LoRs are a big access issue, and schools know this. There are many counselors who don’t fill out the secondary school report, nor write anything for the LoR beyond a statement, something like ‘due to a high case load I won’t be sending an evaluation for this student.’ So while I understand a school showing on the CDS that recs are important, what does that really mean? Are they disadvantaging students whose counselor doesn’t write anything? Are they disadvantaging students who don’t send any teacher recs at all (assuming they aren’t required)? IMO it is natural for readers to react positively to positive recs, but I don’t know how much that is really a part of the decision because most are generically positive, and not a differentiator.
- Negative or less-than recs is where the real discussion is at IMO. Besides the distaste I have for an adult who would agree to write a letter for a student and then write something negative, how much weight should this really get? Many AOs don’t have the time to call the counselor to talk about a potential reason for the negative review. So the path of least resistance is to deny the student, even though the counselor/teacher might have written something that is wrong/one-sided and/or not nuanced. Sometimes they don’t have all the context for what’s going on with a given student.
- Probably a longer answer than you were thinking
FYI, here’s the form CFP is talking about: Salesforce
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I disagree. I think we are open to all and that’s why people like it, and others learn.
I was actually referring to this. What is this form compared to the one you linked?
I’ve never seen that NACAC form…I work at a common app school. I linked to the common app SR form which is the form counselors use if the student is applying via common app. I would say everything I said would apply to that NACAC form too, just not sure where that is being used.
In real life, I rarely see a lot of real head scratchers, honestly. Even here, not THAT many… I think genuine curiosity, empathy, and intellectual drive can come off in applications, and matter more than .15 GPA in good holistic admissions IMO. Does it always work perfectly? Nope, does it sometimes, yes.
Also, I am very invested in whether my guesses from months ago are right now.
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I generally am considering the opportunity cost of doing this senior year and suggest people really consider so many..…but if that is what they WANT to do and really want to do it, by all means. I am more “judgy” if it is just about wanting to maximize the number of “top 20s” they get in for the sake of it, because that is the “cool” thing or whatever which I feel like is sometimes motivation… not because they really are unsure what they want. I don’t think it harms others at all. Just a weird use of time….
The schools with better counselors (including dedicated college counselors with a relatively low student / college counselor ratio) also likely use the better counseling to nudge students away from unrealistic reaches and toward more realistic applications, based on likely better knowledge of how past students did (including what each college looks for beyond academic credentials).
For example, students X and Y might, without dedicated college counseling at a public school, both apply to HYP as their reaches. If they were at an elite private with dedicated college counseling, the college counselors might realize that X is what Brown tends to look for, while Y is what Cornell tends to look for, and neither tends to be what HYP look for. The college counselors may then nudge the students to apply accordingly.
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Absolutely. I also believe this remains critical even outside the Ivy-Plus-bound students. You can see from the matriculation lists at many selective private high schools that lots of kids end up at various excellent LACs, military academies, highly desirable OOS public programs, various private research universities that may or may not count as “Ivy Plus” but can still be great fits (I would say sometimes better fits) for specific kids, non-US universities . . . .
Lots of work is going into helping kids identify the best possible bets for them out of this collectively large list of options that are not the most famous/selective few private research universities, nor generic “safeties”, but somewhere in the very diverse field in between those extremes.
And again that sort of help is also on offer here, but not every kid/parent wants that sort of help. Indeed, I think sometimes they hear such suggestions as implying they aren’t good enough for the most famous/selective colleges. And of course part of the point is in fact risk management, but also kids sometimes end up preferring some of these less famous colleges to at least some of the most famous, once they really get into the spirit of thinking what college experience would best for them. And not seeing college admissions as a badge of merit.
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I might be willing to guess ranges, but I rarely will go with an outright accept/deny/waitlist, particularly for schools that have very low admit rates. I am not familiar enough with the nuances of different schools, their known priorities, much less their internal institutional priorities for that year. And although the likelihood of getting into a low-admit school is not at an equally low percentage for all, the likelihood is still a no overall.
That said, I appreciate your efforts on the board and will thus play along and make my own guesses as to your son’s results.
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I love it and thanks!
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@heavyweightcollege - have you updated yet?
Thanks for asking. I can’t yet say where he is going yet, but I can give the results soon.
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ADMITTED
1. Dartmouth College
2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kenan-Flagler Business School
Honors Carolina
MOREHEAD-CAIN SCHOLAR
3. University of Virginia
College of Arts & Sciences
Echols Scholars Program
4. The University of Texas at Austin
McCombs School of Business
Canfield Business Honors Program
FORTY ACRES FINALIST
5. Georgia Institute of Technology
Scheller College of Business
6. McGill University
Desautels Faculty of Management
7. Northeastern University
D’Amore-McKim School of Business
8. University of Florida
Warrington College of Business
9. Babson College
10. University of Wisconsin–Madison
Wisconsin School of Business
11. University of Miami
Herbert Business School
12. University of Richmond
Robins School of Business
Richmond Scholars Program
RICHMOND SCHOLAR FINALIST
13. Indiana University Bloomington
Kelley School of Business
14. Fordham University
Gabelli School of Business
Gabelli Honors Program
15. University of Pittsburgh
College of Business Administration
University Honors College
WAITLIST
Cornell University (ADMITTED OFF WAITLIST AS TRANSFER)
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
New York University
Leonard N. Stern School of Business
University of Michigan
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Georgetown University
McDonough School of Business
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School
Vanderbilt University
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