<p>Say your student applies to College A, B & C but his favorite is A- but its a reach. Could B & C call the counselor who says- I dont think this student will go, but Student Y will. And then the original student, though qualified, is passed over? Is this something that does happen? If so, is there anything that can be done?</p>
<p>I don’t know, but back when I was in architecture school I was on the admissions committee there was a professor who wrote several recommendations for his various students. He’d rank them and sometimes rank them compared to current students at the grad school. I found it all pretty icky and tried to judge the students more on what they’d presented (portfolio, grades, GRE scores and essay) than on what this particular professor said. It was a real turn-off. It’s possible though that the other people on the committee liked his approach.</p>
<p>As for the above scenario - if you are worried that your GC might do something of the sort - I’d make it clear to them that you have no clear choice that you will be evaluating both programs and monetary offers before any final decisions are made.</p>
<p>First of all, I sincerely doubt this happens with any real frequency, and if it does it is much more subtle and indirect than your hypothetical. Most counselors would be extremely leery of this kind of situation, and would be very guarded in response, and it’s hard to imagine a college admissions staff putting a counselor in this dilemma. The more realistic situation might be a counselor emphasizing how much Student Y really wants to attend that college, and not saying as much about any other student.</p>
<p>Second, if your counselor has that kind of relationship with college admissions people, your child should be able to benefit from it in myriad ways. I have occasionally suspected that something slightly resembling this (see above) happens between some elite private schools and some colleges. When you choose a school like that for your child, you choose the whole package, which may involve some “slotting” of kids into the colleges where the counselors think they belong. (And sometimes that may be affected by things like the parents’ relationship with the school.) That’s life. The other side of that coin is that the sorts of schools I am talking about do an incredible job of responding to any perceived mistake or injustice on the part of colleges, and seem to have the real capacity to make certain things come out pretty much OK (if not always perfect) for a student who has gotten bad breaks. (And the counseling mostly eliminates the risk of bad breaks going in.) </p>
<p>Third, what can you do about it? Since no one will ever admit to you that it happened, the answer will almost certainly be “nothing”. Advise your child to maintain a good relationship with his or her counsellors.</p>
<p>You’d need a LOT of confidence in a GC to give him/her a prioritized list of schools – unless of course you need his/her support applying ED. Still …</p>
<p>As for GC’s messing with a student’s prospects, I just don’t see that happening. I do know (first hand) that a GC will “go to bat” for a wait-listed student when an accepted student from the same HS has decided to decline admission. Worked out well for all parties. But this is really OPPOSITE of what the OP is asking about.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. What about when College A offered admission to students last year who did not attend. Would they want assurances from the GC?</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s cricket, exactly. However, the counselor might want to OFFER assurances, if he or she is confident about them, if the counselor anticipates that there might be an issue at the college because a reasonable number of accepted students from that school haven’t enrolled.</p>
<p>If I were a counselor, I would be very, very careful about this sort of thing. I would want to have complete, utter confidence – plus maybe a contract signed in blood – before I staked any of my own credibility on what an 18-year-old might decide to do. Credibility with admission staff is like gold, and nothing would turn it to lead faster than a few “assurances” that didn’t pan out. Since the counselor can’t MAKE a student change a fundamental life decision that the student doesn’t want to change, the counselor ought to be pretty cautious in saying, “Student A will enroll if accepted.”</p>
<p>(But I bet they are careful, and that they do that sometimes.)</p>
<p>There was an article in the New York Times several years ago (sorry I can’t be more specific) about how counselors at some of the most elite private schools in the Northeast did talk with admissions folks at the elite private LACs, Ivies, etc. telling them which kids likely would and would not attend X university so that X university could reject the kids who likely wouldn’t come anyway. It was a way to keep the university’s reject rates and yield rates looking good. </p>
<p>I don’t know if this practice still exists.</p>
<p>It does ^^^^^</p>
<p>Some schools let it influence their decision making, others, like mine, do not. And please don’t think for a minute that suburban public school counselors don’t do this, because they do. Perhaps not with the same frequency as private school counselors (from all over, not just NYC), but it happens.</p>
<p>Comparing notes with friends, it definitely is a common practice at elite privates. Some of the schools are pretty open about this practice with their students and some schools really “manage” the college lists of seniors. In other words, they strongly discourage students from applying to schools that they either won’t get into or are not likely to attend. When the GCs speak to admissions at the colleges, they probably would never say, “don’t accept student X, he will never attend,” but by not mentioning the student at all, the message is pretty clear. </p>
<p>Someone posted a link to an article a few months ago about a girl who was accepted EA to Georgetown and then later to Yale. When she decided to go to Yale, her GCs and some of the teachers were mad at her, because apparently they had gone to bat for her and she had promised to go to Georgetown if accepted. I think this probably was a situation where her GC communicated with Georgetown admissions on this student and assured them it was her first choice.</p>
<p>^^^^^^</p>
<p>Many elite private schools are now treating early action as early decision - if a student elects to apply EA somewhere, they do not allow them to submit other applications if admitted as they take the EA application as a signal that the school is the student’s first choice. This prevents the aforementioned from happening. Still, other schools don’t do this and allow students to trophy hunt, which is obnoxious!</p>
<p>“trophy hunt”</p>
<p>Uh . . . in the case of my child who was admitted EA to a top school, she is keeping her applications active at a number of other schools because of financial concerns. Also, she is 17 and not quite steadfast yet in her sense of precisely what she wants in a college. I don’t think this is obnoxious. She has worked very hard, is a much sought after commodity (just like HYP etc) and is taking her time to make a decision. </p>
<p>Sound familiar, Adcom?</p>
<p>I think it is “trophy hunting” that AdOfficer finds obnoxious, trophy hunting being the practice of getting accepted at a high-level school while having NO intention of actually attending that school — and compounding the misdeed by using an EA to provide himself/herself the greatest possible edge in getting accepted. What Mammall’s D did doesn’t fit this scenario at all.</p>
<p>I think it’s really shameful for high schools to treat EA like ED. Lots can change between December and April. Not everyone has time to thoroughly look at all the colleges before December. My son applied to two schools EA - one was his first choice - the other he was much less sure about - no idea whether it was his second choice.</p>
<p>I’ll describe my daughter’s strategy, which I believed to be perfectly moral, and was not driven by financial issues:</p>
<p>She had, essentially, two first choices (A & B), both of which were reaches, but for both of which she was a perfectly good (though not unflawed) candidate. Based on numbers and the experience of friends, B was meaningfully more likely to accept her than A. B was an ED school; A an SCEA school. After that, there was a set of three (two universities and a women’s college), each of which she liked a lot, but for somewhat different reasons. She had a clear academic first choice among those schools, C, but she liked the location and some other qualities of the others, D and E, better. Each of them was probably considered a match for her, D & E each leaning towards safetydom, and C pretty much a pure match. C was an EA school, D& E ED schools.</p>
<p>She applied ED to B and EA to C simultaneously. She applied EA to C as much because she could, and she thought it might help her chances some, as because she knew C was a clear second or even third choice. </p>
<p>She was deferred at B, and accepted at C. She applied RD to A, D, and E, and also to F, a LAC that she knew she would like (and that had accepted one of her best friends ED), and that was a match, in case she panicked in the Spring and really wanted a traditional LAC instead of an urban university.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding her EA acceptance at C, and the fact that objectively it was probably the place she was more likely to end up than any other specific place, there was a clear rationale for each of the other applications. She would have chosen A or B over C-F, and there was at least a 25% or better chance that she would choose one of D, E, or F over C if given the choice (and many rational people would choose one of them over C, too, perhaps most of them).</p>
<p>In the end, she did wind up at C. It was a relatively easy decision versus her available choices (which did not include A or B), based not in small part on (1) the excellent job C did of marketing to her AFTER her EA acceptance, and (2) the psychological benefits of feeling happy about being able to attend C if she wanted. On November 1, she really didn’t necessarily have a strong preference for C over D or E. By April 1, she did. So the EA, while not exclusive at all, was a good deal both for my daughter and for C. She got to cut 4-5 schools out of her application pile, and to feel good about herself in December; the college got a real leg up in recruiting a student it wanted.</p>
<p>I don’t think that was trophy hunting.</p>
<p>Wow. “Trophy hunt”…
Both my kids did as many applications as they could in the summer, and finished up by September. They had so many activities, that it seemed silly to try to put it off when they had the time on their hands in August/September. They applied EA wherever applicable (why not?), rolling admission where applicable (where I assume they also had an advantage in applying earlier :eek:), and the rest RD. It had nothing to do with trophy hunting.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Post #10 is incorrect in characterizing any applications beyond an EA (early action) acceptance as a trophy hunt. Trust the advice proffered by JHS in the above posts.</p>
<p>What happens when you apply for a combined program with a very low chance; you really aren’t looking for trophies- just being safe, so that you don’t end up with nothing. Otherwise all safeties are trophies.</p>
<p>Yup. Heard TONS of stories at it happening at my old school. Snobby, elite, private school (can you tell I transfered? lol). I KNOW it happened with Middlebury and heard vague reports of other ones. The GC called all the top colleges and bugged them about her students especially for their first choices. She mixed one of my sister’s choices up though (AH!), so it’s obviously not infallible, but I am certainly jealous of it as I’m applying to colleges this year with no boosts.</p>
<p>And responding to the “trophy hunt” reply, I would have to agree with the numerous posters who said there are a lot of reasons for keeping applications active. I live in PA and yet I applied to a lot of schools in the midwest that I haven’t gotten to visit yet. I did call my safety and withdraw, but only because they give out a ton of merit money and I didn’t want to take away money from someone who might actually go there.</p>
<p>If only this were the ‘old days’ (if there ever were such a thing), then a student could go visit a one to three ‘match’ schools, talk to the counselors, apply, get in, and decide (if there was a decision to make). Today, however, is a different story. My kids did not get into colleges that they were in the top quartile. There is no telling. If you are a student with a rigorous hs schedule, a top GPA, and board scores in the 1400+ range, you CANNOT assume that you are going to get into schools with comparable profiles. You are forced into applying to multiple schools, because there is just too much risk. This is the market that has evolved. Good for the colleges, bad for the students. When the students respond by applying to multiple schools, they are maligned. Hmmm. Makes a lot of sense, not?</p>
<p>re: “trophy hunt”</p>
<p>Kids do this all the time. That doesn’t mean I was referring to anyone’s children in particular (as some of you seem to be reacting as if i did), but it happens - a lot. I can honestly see the practicality of early action programs. Truth be told, I myself applied to my first choice school early action and got in, but because of financial aid reasons I needed to submit additional applications in case I didn’t get enough financial support from my top choice (which was the case…but it’s amazing what a little begging and pleading will do!). It was not, however, a single choice early action school. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, trophy hunting is a concern to me. My concern is twofold. Firstly, I see a lot of kids applying to schools that are their clear first choice early action. Maybe the school is a fit. Maybe it is a reach. But for whatever reason the school is their first choice. The intention of SCEA is to get an early decision to only those students for whom the school is a clear first choice. See Stanford’s website regarding their EA program. See Yale’s website regarding their EA program. My issue arrises when these students get into their first choice, yet still submit applications elsewhere, without intending to attend anywhere else. It happens a lot - more often than many think it does. They do it “just to see” and yeah, I have a problem with that! </p>
<p>Harvard’s SCEA program was very popular. So were UVA’s and Brown’s. But many schools have changed their language regarding EA because they have realized students are now using it just to get a jump on the competition or to get an acceptance somewhere early, even when the school is not their first choice. This is why Brown made the jump to Early Decision after many years of EA - they were sick of being a barometer for students’ admissibility to most selective schools. So herein lies my second concern - schools are allowing students to apply SCEA or EA without a committment from them when they know that these programs favor privileged applicants (another thread altogether). Others, like Harvard, simply got rid of their early programs because they realized this (and for other reasons, again another thread altogether). </p>
<p>I had a counselor tell me about a kid I waitlisted (he was not a fit at my school) - they got in EA to their first choice school, which was a SCEA school - but then decided to apply to all the Ivies and several of the most selective schools in the country (15 schools in total I was told!) “just to see,” despite knowing they had no intention of going anywhere but the school they were admitted to SCEA. The student wound up getting in everywhere (except my school), only to turn them all down. I seriously have a problem with this - it is disingenuous, it screws up peers’ chances of getting in, it creates more work for everyone involved, and, frankly, it is egotistical. Every year I have this conversation (usually with counselors at elite private schools). It is ugly. </p>
<p>If there are serious financial aid concerns involved, clearly that is a different matter. However, most of the kids I see trophy hunting don’t have this concern. Also, I do realize that a lot can change in the senior year and students might change their ideas of “fit.” But if a student is considering EA (or ED) at a school who advertises SCEA as a program for the student who has identified the school as their first choice, applying to other schools afterwards is a bit shady. If you change your mind later in your search, perhaps you haven’t done your search well enough to make a first choice decision by November 1st or 15th. </p>
<p>Sadly, early programs have become a strategy for students and have also pushed students into making decisions too early in their search processes. Having options is a good thing, but if a school is advertising SCEA for those who have a clear first choice, admitted students should stick with it. It is those students who do not do this that are the trophy hunters.</p>