@Penn95, oh right, you just created a tier with Columbia, Caltech, Chicago, and Penn (and tried to convince people that such a tier should exist) but didn’t call it CCCP.
I think that some people at Duke might get a little twitchy about the idea of first and second tiers that exclude their school completely, despite its consistently high rankings.
If the hope is to gently educate students about postentially insensitive comments,perhaps this thread might be better placed in one of the student forums rather than the parent cafe.
The threads that are irksome are the ones with thread titles like “I got denied everywhere” and when one reads the content they find the student “only” got into schools they don’t want to attend, or a “loser ivy” (I also dislike that term).
If a student or parent goes off the rails in berating, ridiculingor shaming another poster to the extreme that it is against the TOS, reporting it and letting the mods address it may carry more clout.
Good point, jym626, though I tend not to venture into the student sections of the forum very much.
If a student puts up an “only” post, and then gets slammed by a vigilante parent (or another student), most of the damage to and by the poster has already been done, if the poster has read the response before it is reported to a moderator. The “only” post is not against the TOS as far as I know. There is a prohibition against using certain terms on CC, but those are easily searched for. Maybe there is a general way to alert students ahead of next year’s decision frame?
“Loser Ivy” has to go way up there in the All-Time Best Oxymoron Category. 
(Unless one is talking about sports.)
You are overestimating the students ability/desire to search past threads before asking a question, as evidenced by the plethora of “How do I get off the waitlist” and “Will I be rescinded” threads that have popped up in the last week.
It is not a ToS violation, although, IMO, it is annoying, and I have personally been known to tell students that saying they “only” have a 3.95 GPA and/or a 33 ACT or they “only” got into Chicago that they are being disingenuous. Plenty of students would love those problems.
ooh, I love my typos-- 2 posts up should have said potentially, not postentially. And loser ivy-- oops! Malapropism!
Too bad there isn’t a requirement to read some rules and procedures before a new member can start posting, @skieurope
The thing to report is if some response to a blockhead student post comment seems to be unduly rude or inflammatory. Let the mods do their job. The sanctimonious self appointed hall monitoring that sometimes occurs seems unnecessary.
I feel is more of a numbers and caparison game. As a student who has posted such threads, it comes as a comparison between you, your peers, and the colleges. I applied to 34 colleges, mostly reach, and only got one. We just want to know why.
I am just wondering who all these students are who only got accepted into Xavier.
Did you seriously apply to 34 schools?? You got into UCB…so I wouldn’t worry about why JH said no! We don’t usually get to know why we get rejected, whether by schools, jobs, friends, etc. Accepting that is a part of growing up.
This incredulity over results is really a lot of seriously inflated expectations driving this disappointment! I wish someone would go into HSs and prick that bubble!
I know my kid was disappointed last year not to get any of his top 3 choices. But I would have hit him with a broom had he said he “only” got into Michigan!
@HRSMom yes, I applied to that many. Its not that we think we are better, its that it seems so improbable that the expectation of the college admission process was this off. To us, it would like trying to sail to Hawaii but you somehow end up in south Africa: completely off and just baffled. And its not like we are blaming anyone either, in fact my flaw could have been I had to write basic essays due to the numbers, and so I could have looked boring and so was not accepted from 1-19. Simply put, many of us are above the stat lines, and so we are only wondering what went wrong. We know we wont get an answer, but to us out life has been altered forever.
You life is altered for a few weeks. Trust me on that! Thanks for the student POV tho!!! I totally get it. I just wish we could head it off earlier so kids were not so shocked.
The stats only open the door. There are way too many kids with too 10% stats to even fit in the top 20 schools’ freshman class. So most can’t be accepted!
If we knew the “why” we’d all get kids into JH right? Whatever it was, try to see it this way: UCB picked you. Why, bc they saw what they were looking for. Whatever that was, you had it. Not the thousands that were denied. You had it. That means they think you were a good fit for them. It’s like a job interview. I see people who look good on paper, but when you look at other items, not a good fit. Maybe I lower my “experience” requirement even to get a good fit with the rest of my team.
And that is all it is. Fit. You fit at UCB. They claimed you as their tribe.
I’m not even going to ask if had a safety!!!
You’ve got your answer right here: " in fact my flaw could have been I had to write basic essays due to the numbers, and so I could have looked boring"
One can’t possibly write authentic applications to 34 schools.
Also, the other part of your answer is that there are more qualified, high stat kids than slots and the process is holistic and driven by much more than test scores and GPAs. Other students had more of what those schools wanted.
That’s all there is to it.
p.s. Your life isn’t altered forever. It’s just college and there are plenty of places to get a great education. Seriously.
@Marian, give my regards to Davy…
Everybody else, watch what you say about Cornell…we are everywhere!
Go Big Red! Seriously, this was my dream school and I did attend. My best friend from high school did not get in, but followed another dream. My children will not get in, but that’s ok I don’t think it’s a fit for them. And, to top it off, I met my spouse there. While it was my #1 dream school…it was his safety school and the only place he applied and was accepted. It’s still hard for me to believe he thought of our school in this way-- a last resort.
Enough about a particular college…I think that kids need to learn tact. They should get excited about their “only” or else not talk about it, IMO. Unfortunately they can’t learn tact from their parents. So many adults are really very insulting and childish about the whole college application thing. And the killer is when you find out the alma mater of some of these parents. You went to “directional state” and took six years to graduate but are now showing pity for the high schooler that “only” got into Penn State? Really, parents?? It’s rampant in our high school unfortunately.
Oh…now you are asking them not to live vicariously through their kids!!! Lol! @thingamajig
Uh, yes they can. It’s called manners.
I hope others won’t mind if I derail this thread a bit and say why I think you were rejected. I preface my analysis by saying that I really don’t know, of course. I don’t have access to your file and I’m not an AO. Still, based solely on the info about yourself you posted, this is my educated guess. Of course, I may be utterly and completely wrong. Still…this is my “take.”
You may have applied very early to the public Us which accepted you and gotten in before first semester grades were released. If I’ve understood your posts, you have received a total of 9 Bs in your high school career, but 3 of those 9 were received during the first semester of your senior year. Of course, I can’t be sure, but 6 Bs over the course of your first six semesters and 3 during the first semester senior year sure “sounds” like a downward trend. A downward trend in grades is the kiss of death at many colleges that utilize holistic admissions.For students who don’t apply early, at most of the top private colleges, the most important grades are the ones you got junior year and the first semester of senior year.
BTW, the rules may have changed…I don’t care enough to look it up, but back when my kid was going through the college admissions process, the U of Michigan didn’t count 9th grade grades in calculating GPA. So, I suspect that at that school at least, the 3 Bs lowered your GPA well below the number you’ve calculated as your GPA.
You also don’t tell us how your high school calculates GPA. Some top colleges give far less weight to subjects outside the “core,” with the possible exception of students who intend to major in something non-core and document their interest. So, if you’ve included music and business courses when calculating your GPA, you should recalculate it without those grades and see if that changes your GPA significantly. What is your GPA for your English, math, social studies, science, and foreign language classes?
Based on purely anecdotal evidence, it is my impression that colleges that don’t offer undergrad business majors tend not to give as much weight to business-related ECs as they do to other academic ECs. Your whole profile screams business. That’s fine. It’s why you got into direct admit business programs. But if you were applying for arts and sciences at some schools, your high school focus on business may have hurt you. The colleges may have felt that they were just not a good “fit” for someone so focused on business. Of course, the exceptions to this are Wharton and to Cornell in certain schools…but Wharton is a very tough admit. You seem to have looked at the overall admit rate for Penn. My understanding is that Wharton’s is much lower. Moreover, it’s also my understanding that a 31 in math would hurt you at Wharton. At Wharton, you get a BS in finance and my understanding…again, just anecdotal…is that a 31 from a middle class kid from a private high school with an IB program would be weaker than the math scores of others applying from similar backgrounds. Were you at least doing high level maths?
What schools did you apply to at Cornell? I think you would have had better odds if you applied to ILR or the Hotel School or the quasi-econ program in one of the other “public” parts of Cornell than you would have if you applied to arts and sciences.
My alma mater is one of the more “lenient” Ivies you mentioned. For the class of 2019, the most recent for which I could find exact numbers, 50% of the enrolled class who submitted ACT scores had scores between 33 and 35. So, that makes it look as if you’d be right there in the middle…at least two years ago. However, I also looked at the percentage of applications accepted. Of those who submitted ACTs between 33 and 35, 11% were accepted. That compares to 28% of those with scores of 36. Obviously, scores aren’t everything, but still…yours didn’t help you.
BTW, 10% of those who were in the top 10% of their classes but neither the val nor the sal were accepted.
Remember, that 11/10% INCLUDES students who are legacies, recruited athletes, developmental admits, first gens and URMs. I’d hazard a guess that the admit rate for white and Asian kids attending private IB high schools with college-educated parents who submit those scores/class rank is quite a bit lower.
You’re from California. The top 2 states for applicants to my East Coast alma mater are California and NY. You don’t benefit from the desire for geographic diversity. I’d hazard another guess that the admit rate for those with 33-35 scores from California and NY is also lower than 11%.
Out of curiosity I checked out double bass at my alma mater. My college employs someone to give private lessons so I assume you had at least some competitors. About 30 seconds on the website was all I needed to figure out who teaches the double bass classes. I suspect that some of the people playing that instrument reached out to her to make a connection well prior to the application season. Did you? Did you submit an arts supplement? Did you go to any of the competitive summer programs like Interlochen or Tanglewood?
I really think that you have some excellent choices. As someone who seems to be interested primarily in business, I don’t think you would have been happy at my alma mater anyway.
If I’ve misunderstood any of your posts, my apologies. And, again, I’m NOT claiming I actually KNOW why you were rejected.My musings are pure, unadulterated speculation and I admit that.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I will assume that there will be no further unsolicited opinions about why a specific student did not get into a particular college simply because s/he happened to wander into this thread and say “We just want to know why.” That was a general statement, not IMO, to be interpreted as "Please tell me. If a student wants an opinion, s/he can start a thread on the topic.
@jonri Thanks that helps. Some corrections though:
- I actually had 6 B’s in high school and 2 in my senior year, and 3 of those B’s in high school were explained by me having a bad teacher who was fired. It was explained in my counselors letter of rec
- I did send an arts supplement, and while I didn’t do Interlochen I took that time to have a college transcript and take classes, and was still an all-state orchestra member. All colleges knew I was not a music major, but it was a major EC
- I was taking math sl, which is equivalent to ap calc ab
- I applied to Dyson at Cornell, which is pure business. Granted, I understand Cornell cherishes its engineers and so my math weakness could have harmed me, but it still was business.
- For comparison, I was rejected at Michigan Ross and waitlisted at NYU stern.
- I was actually top 9% of my class, and even in the top 5 people GPA wise.
Thanks for your input! please respond over pm as I do not wish to derail the thread
Still find this a bit surreal considering how Duke was such a hot elite school back in the mid-'90s that it wasn’t unheard of for students to be accepted to HYPSMCC and flatly rejected by Duke and only students with HYPSMCC or SWA level stats had a prayer of getting accepted.
Interesting report by Cornell (1998) looking ad applications, admit rates, ED rates, yield, etc. Interesting, Cornell and Duke’s # of applications dropped and admit rates rose from 1992 to the next compared year, 1997. There was an increase in class size that could account for some of the admit rate. The other schools dropped. https://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000023.pdf