I only have access to the data for my own child’s high school. But I keep seeing odd examples of kids with high ACT/SAT test scores getting rejected/WL.
I know that many people will jump in and say “well it’s holistic admissions and you can’t see everything! There is a story behind each acceptance/rejection.”
That is true and I absolutely get it. But I just keep seeing this phenomenon over and over again at our high school. And yes, I also get that it is only one high school.
But I sometimes wonder if school look at high test score kids and think “this one isn’t going to yield well” or “ugh—we may have to pay merit aid to this kid.”
So it makes me want to ask the question…
Do others see this story playing out in their high schools?
It is very pronounced at our HS. Our college counselors acknowledge the issue but don’t attempt to explain it.
I should also point out that D26’s high school and the universities in question shall remain nameless. I am trying to keep D26 anonymous and don’t want to single any schools out.
Without knowing which college, it is hard to say. If it’s a highly selective/rejective college, this is less likely. If it’s a mid-tier college with yield protection - and the student only applied to it as a backup plan without any real demonstrated interest - then it certainly could be have been the case.
Thank you. I am not sure if you have kids in the middle of the college search or had kids recently go through the search. I am more curious as to how widespread the phenomena is.
My daughter went through it two years ago and we did spend some time looking over her school’s outcomes for previous years. We definitely saw some outliers that left us scratching our heads at times, but since then, have seen it happen more frequently, even just reading admissions results here on CC where students post their stats. Sometimes, there is an explanation when you dig into it: maybe they had a high GPA but never took a foreign language past level 2, maybe their essays were somehow off, maybe they had high stats but weak ECs, maybe it did look a lot like yield protection (when a mid tier school). There really is so much that goes into it all. But I agree in some cases, yield protection is part of the equation, although less so with T20 (and many T20s don’t offer merit, so that wouldn’t be a factor).
Highly selective schools – or highly rejective schools, we call them on CC, for good reason – typically reject enough highly qualified applicants to fill multiple classes. They could swap entire groups of rejected and accepted students and maintain the same quality across the board. So maybe that’s one issue here. Another is that Naviance only uses GPA and scores. And it only uses one X and Y category at the time. So maybe this chart looks a little different if you use unweighted versus weighted. Maybe it looks a little different if you use ACT versus SAT. With my D23, her position on these charts differed significantly depending on which X and Y variables we used (her ACT score was much stronger, for instance).
Holistic admissions also matter. Perhaps the highest-stats students on these charts were trying to fill especially competitive niches. Perhaps there’s yield protection. Perhaps the school is need-aware. It’s impossible to know without knowing the school. But this is why Naviance is a useful tool, but it’s not without limitations.
Pretty sure some of it is yield protection. I remember when D19 was applying looking at the school’s results for colleges like American which are known to yield protect. There was a definite barbell in admittances - below a certain GPA/test score were mostly rejections, and on the higher end rejections/WL were seen above a certain GPA/test score (I don’t remember the exact numbers now - that was before TO became a thing), with most people in the middle of those being accepted. I’ve seen this with some other colleges too.
We’ve had 3 children go through college admission since 2020. To put my knowledge into perspective, this information is in regard to a highly rate, large midwestern public high school. 96%+ students go off to 4 year colleges.
Every year we saw high GPA/SAT applicants get rejected and waitlisted by schools in the Top 50. National Merit Scholars got rejected and/or waitlisted to Top 20 schools.
It isn’t unusual, in our experience/observation. Those same students were also accepted to some Top 50 schools as well. I don’t think there is one explanation for this beyond too many highly qualified students competing for too few spots in the Top 20-50 schools.
Nothing to add other than to say we didn’t have Navience and Scoir.
I think kids would be better off without it
There are so many possibilities - including finances (or lack of for aware schools), that these systems can’t measure. Rigor, who plays an instrument they need in the band, and more.
They also don’t sure what a decreasing amount of internationals will mean.
I think people’s lives and searches would be better without …at least less stressful.
If I’m your student, I’d build my list on traditional measures and not overanalyze.
Really? You’re always told kids are evaluated in the context of their high school, so this is about the most transparent way for them to do that. I personally find it useful. My kid doesn’t look at it
We were very happy to have the data. It clued us into some schools that we should add vs some schools that we should avoid. It is absolutely the case that some colleges love our HS and other colleges seem to dislike our HS. Great to know that!
Unrelated but I was looking at some of your other threads - I don’t know what the Scoir says about Holy Cross - but that seems the winner and they love ED
And I agree with your comment about they are selling sometimes a $400k product and yet sometimes fall on their face.
Admissions is a fine career and attracts very respectable people. But I think most are not told they are what they don’t want to be - salespeople.
The product is different than say a car or home or dishwasher. But that’s what they are.
As for your daughter’s interest in aesthetics/facilities, this turned out to be my son. Once he visited his unranked school, it was game over vs the high ranked school he got into. Aesthetics definitely matter for many.
Looks like she likes the NE but my favorite LAC aesthetically was W&L. It and I thought Swat blew Bowdoin away aesthetically .
Yes, that’s why colleges get the school profiles…so they can assess students in context of their high school. The converse is that you can use your school’s data to see how your school does. I know there are certain colleges where the average accepted GPA from our school is maybe not as competitive as you might think looking at general data for those colleges (Maia allows you to plot the middle 50 from your school), but our school is known for rigorous teaching. Backed up by some of the most recent admits too. It helps to know this to help build realistic safety/target/reach lists.
In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, Akil Bello coined the term “highly rejective” as it relates to colleges with low acceptance rates. Bello has a long history of working in education and advocating for disadvantaged groups. He’s currently working for the SUNY system in advising and FAFSA completion.
I meant to say - they say that. Not they say that?
I know they say that and I’m not buying all colleges use it - unless you have something they want.
For example, Swarthmore is 1/3 white (well the first year class last year). Does Scoir add in race - and yes, colleges can still use race - just not from the check box.
Another school might not be as “in demand” or as wealthy as Swat - Bates is 60% white, Holy Cross more than 70% white.
Yale is 31% white. Butler is 77%
Yes, they say they do - but I think certain schools look for certain things - and if they’re looking for a “diverse” crowd, that school profile might mean differently to them vs. if they’re looking at a more caucasian crowd.
It’s a nice thing to say - and perhaps it’s true but my guess is, if they’re a top school and they’re taking someone who might not be as accomplished, due to no fault of their own, that person probably doesn’t go from a good zip code, etc. whereas if they did, even if the profile wasn’t great, they wouldn’t necessarily want that kid.
