Dived into admissions after results didn't meet expectations for oldest kid? (repost with clarifications)

Parents Forum
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Our oldest ‘23 (valedictorian, NMF, solid ECs) went through the admissions process and the admissions results were strong yet didn’t meet expectations. 2xT20 & 2xT15LAC acceptances, but rejected from top three choices (all in HYPSM) and took the rejections hard. After some reflection, realized we hadn’t engaged in any specific “optimizations” for admissions and didn’t understand the state-of-admissions as well as we could (should?) have.

At that point we dived into admissions for our youngest ‘26. Split time about equally between Discovery (review T10 admit profiles, podcasts, webinars, etc) and Theme-based Guidance (uniqueness, leadership, outside-the-school-activities, award opportunities, navigate school bureaucracy, try new things).

Anyone else in a similar position this year or recently, of perhaps being caught off guard by admissions now vs. 20+ years ago and having “regrouped” for a younger kid? Any specific tales to tell?

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I would caution you to manage your expectations for your younger child. No matter how you “package” the application, admission to a HYPS level school is still a very long shot. You will be better served to focus on finding safety and match schools where your student will be excited to attend.

And FWIW, it sounds like your older child had great results if they got 4 T20 admissions.

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This was my response on your other thread:

I don’t see why list building should be any different.

There are rankings, not top schools but based on selectivity. Mine got into a harder to get into school and rejected at less selective.

One never knows why one gets in or doesn’t.

The trick is to ensure you have schools on your list that you’ll get into and can afford. And don’t forget, some lower ranked schools are higher in certain majors - so going to an Ivy, depending on interests, may not even be the best place to be.

You also need to find schools your student will like. Just because a school is ranked highly by U.S. News doesn’t mean it’s the right place for them to spend four years.

Most every major flagship and many regionals will have Ivy level students on campus.

You have no idea why your kid did as they did, which was unbelievable by the way, - it could be LORs, essays, rigor, where you live, something else , not first gen, or simply bad luck.

Just like where a student gets in, no one has any idea why.

So I think you apply where they desire and fit with a safety valve.

No reason to change strategy. I find admissions aren’t that difficult to predict using supplied data. You had an incredible result. Funny, I predicted my daughter accurately, except she got into, by a rank that looks at selectivity, one she had no business getting into - so you can guess well but not perfectly.

I’m sure your first landed fine - two top 20s and two top 15 LACs are nothing to sneeze at. Successes in life come due to the student, moreso than school name.

My daughter’s Val had a 4.0, 36 ACT, rigor and was 0 for 16 into 20 got into NYU full pay and went to UTK. Her life and future success are far from over. They’ll be what she makes of it. Yours are no different as the school name is secondary to the person.

Good luck.

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I can actually relate to your surprise OP with how much admissions have changed in 20 years. It wasn’t an older child, but a friend’s older child that really educated us on how much is different. They were the 4.0/36 valedictorian, full IB diploma with amazing extra-curriculars with their heart set on MIT. They were not admitted there, nor to Stanford, or Harvard which were their other top choices. They were admitted to CalTech and CMU where they attended and they are currently at MIT pursuing their PhD.

Many, most of us who went through the process 20-30 years ago haven’t a clue of just how competitive things are now. I was not an ideal applicant and had far more success than even top candidates would expect now.

I will say that we had a bit of a different approach with our kids than the deep dive on what will appeal to HYPSM that you’re talking about in the OP. We spent a lot of energy on really looking beyond where everyone is applying and delving into what is actually a good fit for our kids. Of explaining the reality that you can do everything “right” and not be accepted to these low admissions schools. It’s not a reflection on doing something wrong, but on the sheer volume of applicants. Interestingly only Princeton made my daughter’s final list and it wasn’t her top choice and she ended up EDing elsewhere.

I would caution to you spend as much time finding a variety of schools your student is genuinely excited to attend than how to create an application that will appeal to HYPSM - or frankly more. It worked well for us.

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I will add I’m not sure you misunderstood anything.

Hopefully your son took the best classes for him and partook in the activities he enjoyed.

That’s how you optimize.

Again, you don’t know that his essay was the best or that his LORs were either.

I don’t know your demos but your demographics could play a part too.
The results he got were far superior than 99.9% of kids dream of. That he’s hard on himself has to do with expectations he developed or was raised with. He is the same great student whether he enrolled at Harvard or Haverford or Hartford. He needs to remember that.

While things such as essays and LORs are subjective, optimizing by participating and gaining responsibility outside the classroom are not and your student, not the school, gets to be the judge. It’s his life and he needs to enjoy it. If the schools think otherwise, it’s their loss.

There are so many factors from ED to demonstrating interest to financial need to state from and more and frankly it worked out for kid #1 really well I’d say.

Both your kids need to know you love them no matter where they land and they needn’t compare themselves to one another.

Their identity and worth were self created, not Stanford created.

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For a lot more than 20 years, it has been EXTREMELY difficult to be admitted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. The college admissions process is always more competitive when it is happening to you.

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I’m not saying it’s easy, but it is inarguably much, much more difficult. As I said, I was far from a perfect applicant and was accepted MIT, Cornell, Columbia and Stanford - also UCB and UCLA instate. Hell CalPoly was my safety school. I literally had zero rejections - the application cycle is different now and it is a huge disservice to pretend that it’s not.

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My younger kid clicked with four of the more selective colleges: Stanford, Yale, Johns Hopkins/Peabody and Case Western. All had inspiring tours, the right academics, plus music programs with the right fit. Santa Clara & Swarthmore and potentially Vanderbilt are overall superb though missing on a niche music aspect. Harvey Mudd also in the mix - love the small size, CGU could potentially meet the music needs, hesitant because HMC offers a Chemistry & Climate major as opposed to an Environmental Engineering/Studies major.

Edit: Already admitted to state flagship as a safety with merit scholarship

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But correct me if I’m wrong - now there’s another aspect - performance. So an audition. Would that be correct? From what folks write on the music postings, it seems that is as critical, if not more so, than the transcript.

Environmental Engineering and Studies are vastly different - one is science, and one is often policy related. Environmental Science would be the sub for engineering. There’s only 119 accredited environmental engineering schools in the country.

At what one would consider top schools, you have Brown, CMU, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, Michigan and Wash U along with other big names like Purdue and UT Austin.

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We felt like we were reasonably well informed when D23 went through the process, but we still had a lot to learn, which we applied to S26’s process. D23 did not get into her ED school, but she ended up someplace where she’s been very happy, and as a junior, she can’t imagine herself anywhere else. It worked out beautifully. Here’s what we learned from her experience:

  1. The ED advantage is not what what it appears to be, and the RD disadvantage is also not what it appears to be.
  2. Apply to as many schools as possible EA, so if ED doesn’t work out, you’ll still have some acceptances to be happy about. And if the ED school doesn’t work out, it makes for a much more relaxed winter break, because a handful of apps will already be done.
  3. Tour schools across the reach-safety spectrum. For D23, we mostly toured to find an ED school, so there were more reaches than any other category. When we toured with S26, we saw more likely/match schools that he would have been genuinely excited to attend.

What we did not do: try to package either kid for specific admissions. I have no idea what “discovery” and “theme-based guidance” are, but this whole process is about finding schools that fit your kid, not molding your kid to fit the schools. Forgive me if I misunderstood these terms. Of course you want to tailor your applications for specific schools, particularly if there’s a “why us” essay or other supplemental questions that are basically asking the same thing. But that’s not what OP is talking about, I think.

The fact is that admissions are a crapshoot at the most selective levels, and definitely tougher than when we (the parents) were applying. But at the same time, an equally important fact is that your kid will be absolutely OK. D23’s experience taught us to prepare for unpredictable outcomes, but also to relax and trust that as long as a kid puts their best effort into it, all would turn out fine.

S26 just got into his ED school. We weren’t expecting that (because we know from experience to temper expectations, not because we don’t think our kid is awesome), so there was a lot of celebration this weekend. But if he hadn’t? We would have taken a few days to be sad, and then he would have waited for news from his EA schools, sent out a round of RD applications (and probably an ED2), and we know that he would ended up someplace that would have made him happy.

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Have you looked at University of Rochester if you’re interested in music? With Eastman, it has very robust music programs.

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URochester seems to fit the pattern - has he considered it?

Mudd students can also participate in Pomona music classes/ensembles, which are a cut above the CMC/Mudd/Scripps Joint Music Program offerings. If he really wants the kind of enviro engineering that is a variant of civil, it may not be the best fit, but if he would be happy with enviro-skewed general engineering (as your inclusion of Swarthmore implies), the Emphasis in Enviro Analysis (which takes advantage of the excellent EA offerings across the consortium) might cover what he wants.

Has he considered USC?

Best of luck to him.

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In 2022/23 we didn’t look closely at profiles of kids from the high school who had previously been admitted to T10/T20 colleges. That was the #1 problem, as the bar is extremely high for a strong high school. Example: Older kid tried to carry the application with multi-instrument approach, and that is tough for a non-music major. Example 2: Our older kid worked two summers as a camp counselor. Fun. Paid. Very summery. Seemed fine. But then “discovery” was looking at profiles, every previous T10 admit had a stronger summer doing research or major-related internships. Should have given a bigger push in that direction. Definitely did that with the younger kid - local internship before 11th grade, one research program and a different local internship before 12th grade.

Rochester/Eastman, music would be excellent and we have family friends in the area. But that winter is daunting.

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But this is exactly what I’m saying – why mold the kid to fit the app? I guarantee you there are plenty of kids admitted to Harvard who worked at Starbucks or as camp counselors in the summer. I guarantee you that a multi-instrument commitment was an impressive piece of your older kid’s app, even as a non-music major (my S26, a multi-instrument band kid and non-music major, just got into a selective LAC with music as one of his significant ECs). There’s some indication that elite colleges are skeptical of pay-to-play research experiences (I’m not suggesting that your kid’s experience is suspect, but this has been one of the trendy ECs that have replaced starting a non-profit as an element of applications to highly selective schools), and major-related work is less important to schools that adopt a wide-ranging liberal arts approach and discourage students from choosing a major early. I’m certainly not saying your kid shouldn’t be doing any of these things. I am saying authenticity is important. You’ll never know why your kids got into some schools and not others. Lots of highly qualified applicants get rejected from highly selective schools. Sounds like your older kid got into some fantastic and very selective schools. But when rejection does happen, it won’t be because a kid failed to adhere to a specific but mysterious profile.

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hmmmm - - no. Summer counselor is OUTSTANDING - you develop responsbility, planning and more and pay to play research or even research in HS is…..hmmmmm - yeah, no.

You are making assumptions. I’m guessing most Ivy did not have formal research and very few HS students have a meaningful internship, if they did at all.

Your kid likely had a wonderful summer and memories.

You shouldn’t have pushed anything - the kids need to do what is right for them - and I have a hard time thinking this is why they didn’t get into an Ivy.

I also don’t know why you are hung up on Ivy…..there’s many great colleges.

You’re way overthinking. You’d have felt bad if they did some pay to play research and ended up at the same place.

Camp counselor has so many positive attributes - wow - they are responsible for kids, for planning, for teamwork, etc.

Life isn’t Ivy or bust and I hope you’re not putting that pressure on your kids.

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For students who have not personally won a Nobel Prize, and for whom neither parent is president of the USA nor the head of state of a friendly nation, two acceptances to top 20 universities by itself is already exceeding any reasonable expectations. If I am reading this correctly your older child had four top 20 acceptances, which is amazing.

A while back I looked up how many high schools are in the USA, and how many applicants MIT has in a year. The two numbers are quite close. If your are the number 1 top student in your high school, or the number one student in math and science, then you are likely to be an average applicant to MIT. If you have 800 on the math SAT, then again you are pretty average at MIT (at least among incoming students). Just being the top student in your high school and having 800 on the math SAT does not make you much different from an average applicant to a school with an acceptance rate in the single digit percent range. No one can expect to get accepted MIT, nor to any of HYPSM.

As someone who does have degrees from a couple of highly ranked schools (MIT and Stanford) I can tell you what I did specifically for the purpose of applying to either of these schools: Nothing. Instead I did what was right for me. Admittedly this long ago back when admissions to top schools was not as difficult at it is now. Regardless I would suggest a similar approach for other students. Be genuine. Do what is right for you. Take the classes that are right for you. Participate in the ECs that are right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. Treat people well. Do not try to guess what Harvard or MIT or Stanford wants you to do. Instead, do what is right for you.

One plus is that this is likely to help a student’s chances for admissions to top schools. However, probably way more important is that this will help a student’s chances of getting accepted to a university that is a good fit for them. Whatever happens in university admissions, at least the student will have done what was right for them.

Which brings up the most important point. Each student should be looking for schools that are a good fit for them. Any one highly ranked university really is not a good fit for every strong student.

I have had the good fortune to have met some very intelligent and in some cases very successful people in my life. A while back I checked to see where they got their bachelor’s degrees. The answer is “all over the place”. No two had gotten a bachelor’s at the same university. The strongest students attend a very wide range of colleges and universities for a wide range of reasons.

There are a huge number of very good universities in the US, and just as many elsewhere. Graduates from MIT and Stanford and Harvard regularly work alongside students from a very wide range of schools, and in the vast majority of cases no one cares where any of them got their degrees. If you look at graduate students at the highest ranked graduate programs, they will have come from a very wide range of undergraduate schools. There are exceptionally strong students at any one of at least several hundred colleges and universities.

University rankings are useful to help sell magazines, or to get clicks on web sites. Students and their parents should mostly ignore rankings and instead look for schools that are a good fit.

And yes admissions to highly ranked schools is difficult to predict, is much more difficult than admissions was 20 years ago (or 50+ years ago), and admissions to top universities is not strictly merit based. However, this does not matter all that much just because there are so many colleges and universities where a student can get an excellent education.

And you should be careful about setting expectations. No one should be disappointed if they are rejected from HYPSM but accepted to even one affordable university that is a very good fit for them.

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I will be interested to see how the results work out for OP’s second child.

Things do seem to be getting more competitive every year. My oldest (now ten years ago) got into HPYM (did not apply to S) plus a bunch of great publics. My second (five years ago) got into PM (did not apply to HY and was rejected at S) along with the publics. I thought we knew what we were doing :slight_smile: but really, every kid and every process is different. I admit to having been surprised when my youngest (last year) was deferred from Cornell ED despite being a [grandparent] legacy. He ultimately was admitted to Cornell, but took a great UMD scholarship instead and loves it.

Meanwhile, to support what @DadTwoGirls said above, DS1 went from Princeton to MIT grad school and said the person at the next bench over had come from U Mass Lowell (!)

Now all that said, I do think that students at excellent high schools probably do need to go in eyes-wide-open and make sure the kids are really competitive and more importantly, have a lot of great back-up plans. Watching this process for friends, family, and my own students for three decades has shown me that while trends may be predictable, individual results really are not.

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If there’s not a steady trickle to a T20 from your high school, its very hard to determine if pressing a specific part of the profile will meaningfully increase your chances of getting in.

I know that there were specific things that would have made my son more competitive for T20. But it probably would have only moved the needle 5-10%. And the kids I worry about most are those who invest a lot of effort ONLY because they want to improve their chances (and then fail). (There’s a corollary of kids who dedicated everything to T20, then realize they’re really unhappy there, not good for psyche).

As opposed to putting a lot of effort into something because its FUN and its your PASSION and it might help you with HYPSM, but that’s just a side effect.

My kids have asked why we devote so many resources to sports when its highly likely they won’t play in college. 1) You never know – my son, uncompetitive for teams at T20 academics or T20 sport, has translated it into an amazing T50 opportunity where he’ll get real playing time on a rising program vs. the T20s and may be able to reach his true potential. 2) Because its a key part of your personal development (just like arts) and being starter level on a varsity team is an amazing life experience.

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Once we started looking, there was plenty of info for previous T20 admits from our high school. LinkedIn profiles. MIT athlete bios. School news posts. Scoir. Our college guidance largely steered clear of this and focused on the admissions process.

As a bonus, found a lesser known scholarship a previous grad had earned a number of years ago and it was still around - oldest kid applied and earned it

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My S24 had similar results–not admitted to any of the most selective few universities or LACs to which he applied, admitted to several good options in the same range you are talking about.

We’re not planning to do anything notably different with our D30. My basic perspective on this is that what happened since I attended a HYPSM (which deferred my S24 REA and then rejected him RD) is basically that the pool of highly competitive applicants massively expanded, whereas those few schools did not.

So, these days, necessarily many highly competitive applicants are ending up concentrating at more schools. Of course there were always top applicants going to things like state flagships and such, but among those interested in more of a private college sort of experience, they are big parts of the classes at more such colleges than before, because that is what the numbers dictate.

So to the extent you are worried about your kid being around suitable peers, to me that isn’t actually a problem. These colleges were able to get a lot more selective themselves, so now the kids at these sorts of college are if anything more impressive than most of the kids who went to colleges like mine back in my era (also often more anxious, but that is a whole other conversation).

And in fact in the meantime, lots of these colleges have gotten “better” in almost every OTHER meaningful way. What I mean is basically that they got a lot richer–endowment returns have been great, giving increased, grants increased, net tuition increased, and so on. And they used a lot of those resources to buy things like nicer dorms, nicer libraries, nicer labs, a bigger variety of well-funded student activities, even more “top” professors by their criteria, and so on.

So again, I am pretty confident in almost any way that really matters, a kid going to a “T20” today is getting more opportunities to have a better overall experience than I did at my T5 back in the day. And I actually would not at all limit that to T20s.

So what’s the problem? Well, I think a certain ranking mindset implicitly assumes that T5 means the same thing over time, as does T20, T50, or so on. So given that mindset, a kid going to a T20 today must be getting something less than a kid who went to a T5 in my era.

But once you realize that isn’t remotely a good way of looking at all this, personally, I found it easy to relax as a parent. I truly think it is actually easier than ever for a highly competitive kid to get multiple great offers that really make sense for them–schools with all the qualities that really matter to that kid, and affordable as well. And how those schools “rank” just isn’t important, not in the way some people seem to think at least.

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