Do you see this at your child's high school? [regarding GPA / SAT scatterplots of college admission / rejection]

Parents Forum
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I recall seeing lots of anomalies-- both acceptances and rejections-- in Naviance when DS was going through this process.

There are SO many factors that are NOT part of these plots – athlete, legacy, FP or FA, intended major, essays, LORs, rigor – that matter in this process.

While its possible that schools are rejecting students before the students can reject them, it’s less common than you would think. It’s more likely that a student achieved a high GPA without taking the classes expected for their area of study or that they had applied to a highly competitive major/program, that the essays and LORs were flat, or that they needed more FA than those accepted.

I recall that some of the outliers with lower stats were kids with some extraordinary combination of achievements that wasn’t apparent in grades or scores. (We were able to identify a few of the kids.)

We found that the CCs often had the insight we lacked and that these scsttergrams were great fodder for further conversation with them about it.

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22

There is a lot of potential noise and therefore serious small data set problems.

But yes, if there is enough data like that over enough years to show this is consistent pattern for that college, that is plausible evidence of some sort of “yield protection” effect (I don’t love that term, but meaning any effect where a college waitlists or rejects an applicant it would like to enroll, but thinks is too unlikely to yield).

I note it appears some colleges might have a pattern like that at some high schools but not others. This would make sense to me if it turned out they were using high school attended in their yield model (or something that correlated strongly with high school attended).

And I did see some of that in my S24’s SCOIR data. He mostly wasn’t interested in such colleges to begin with, but he did apply to one with such a pattern for his HS.

I’ve told this story before–this was a late addition on the recommendation of a friend who was a recruited athlete going to that college, and who noted this college didn’t have any sort of supplemental essay requirement. He was then waitlisted, and I have no way of knowing why. But I do think it is possible it was a yield issue. And possible it was not.

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23

We saw the same at our HS “way back” in ‘18. This is nothing new. Colleges do care about both their yield and balancing their class. Regional college counselors know the historical track record of who matriculates from each high school.

For example, in the last decade, my D’s hs only had one student matriculate to UMichigan. They wait list nearly all applicants (including the Val my D’s year with a 1600 and perfect GPA). They know most kids from that HS chase merit or remain instate. It’s even on the school profile where student attend college.

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24

One of the ways AOs handle the high-achieving kid who they think they won’t yield is to WL them. If the kid then wants to remain on the WL, the school now has a sign that the kid in interested in attending. If, otoh, that applicants has preferred options, they’ll pass.

Remember too that applicants, including high stats ones, may have something in their application – a reference to an area of interest, for example – that a school can’t fulfill. They know from this that the school is unlikely to be the right choice and may not “waste” an acceptance on this student. Again, this is worth discussing with your CC, as in “what makes for z successful application at this college?”

I know our CCs always talked with the reps when they came to visit, and that the reps would also talk about the kinds of kids they were looking for. It wasn’t just about “getting kids in”, it was also about getting kids who fit their priorities to apply. (I.e., just built a new arts center, so we want kids who will do music and theater in college as we build these programs). This is to say, your CC might be surprised at a result sometimes, but if it’s a consistent trend, they probably know what’s going on.

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25

The highly competitive district I work in has many, many 1500+/1550+ SAT kids. Kids come in with sweatshirts from Ivies and the most selective LACS starting in kindergarten. T20’s are household names and anything less is “generic”. It wasn’t until recently that the parents got it through their heads how competitive our state school is for certain majors.

It’s interesting to see where they land. I do see a pattern of the high score kids who get rejected at “highly rejective” schools. I can almost predict it. High grades in their interest area, but a few lower grades in other classes, almost no EC’s, and a competitive major. Usually not very connected in school (teachers will write a LOR, but it’s very generic), and although they may be good, or even outstanding, at a particular interest, they have a hard time quantifying that interest on their applications. Unfortunately, many of these kids also did not engage in the process of finding “fit” and safety schools, and instead are T20 focused, throwing in some T50s to be “safe”. Many of them were left scrambling to add schools after EA decisions came out. In Naviance, this kid isn’t going to show up on just one school’s data, they will show up on all of the T20s due to their “go by the rankings” process. Usually, the only person more shocked than the kid, is the parent.

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26

At the risk of sounding mean, I am glad that the kids with no ECs get rejected.

My daughter spends 16 hours a week playing volleyball. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she has games and often has almost no time to do homework because she has to play in a game, watch the JV game, and then help referee the Frosh game. Volleyball starts after school and she sometimes gets home as late as 11 PM. D26 is still a great student, but it would be SO much easier for her without ECs. She has “zero EC” friends who crush things academically, but at a much lower degree of difficulty.

This is an aspect of holistic admissions that I really like. Being able to manage your time and excel in multiple areas is a real life skill.

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27

It’s not mean - it goes to show you that you need to be more a person than just a student. My daughter’s Val applied to 16 of the top 20 and was 0 for 16 with a 4.0, 10 or 11 APs and a 36 ACT. Got into NYU (full pay) and enrolled at UT Knoxville.

NYU doesn’t bother to list financial aid data in their CDS but I’m sure it’s a heavy full pay school (need aware) - hence they accepted this student.

Your daughter is learning or at least experiencing time management - and that will take her a long way in life - including whatever college she enrolls.

Only the schools know why they accept or don’t students. No parent knows - yield management, wealth, race, rigor, error in the essays or just falling flat, LORs not as great as one thinks, major applied for, lack of LACs - there’s so so so so so many factors - no one has a clue so when I hear - I am a stud but I was wait listed for yield management purposes - I think - their kid didn’t get in and now they are justifying it.

Mine was WL at WUSTL (it was need aware in 2019, we are full pay, they wanted demonstrated interest and he had it). Now, they pushed ED ad nauseum - at the info session, through emails, etc. Would he have gotten in ED? Perhaps - but he was WL. Was it yield management? I’m guessing not but if I want to think - he was a stud with all he did and started a club (aviation club) and had a unique hobby (plane spotting) - no way they could turn him down, so they WL him (and he stayed on btw)…never got in.

One can think - oh, it was yield management - how can it not be? I simply think - they found enough kids they liked better - so he didn’t have what they want. He was rejected - there’s no reason for me to try and justify it.

Other schools accepted him - they saw something in him that they liked - what that was, I don’t know.

My daughter was WL at Emory and W&M - we visited and showed interest at both including a W&M interview (which she had a typo in the thank you note). Was it because they thought she wouldn’t attend or for other reasons - that she just didn’t quite cut it.

Sure, I could think - she was great - worked, head of the humane society, other activities including helping a refugee family with my wife and walking dogs at the shelter.

But while she didn’t stay on the W&M waitlist but did Emory but didn’t come off, I like to think it’s because - she just wasn’t up to snuff for what they wanted.

When she applied to 21 colleges, I thought she would get into 16. She got into 17 (in addition to the two WL, turned down at UNC and Rice).

The one I missed - Washington & Lee. Did she get in academically and holistically, or did she get in because she applied for the scholarship for Jewish kids and they are seeking a Jewish population - and if she didn’t apply for that scholarship, wouldln’t have gotten in?

I will never know.

It seems to me the yield management thing is a way for people to justify their kid not getting in.

Perhaps it’s true and I see the logic - but I think it’s a bit far stretched.

Some top schools or semi top (near as hard to get into as top schools) have horrible yields - schools like Miami, Case Western, and even Emory to an extent.

Take ED out of top schools (and yes some pressure you to change your status to ED2 from RD), and the yields in most cases don’t look great.

So perhaps it’s a - they don’t love us enough to apply ED factor - yep, even at schools that claim not to track Demonstrated Interest…which ED is the ultimate.

But I personally think this is a fool’s perspective and rather a justification by many families to explain - why my kid didn’t get in - vs. the school simply decided that kid isn’t for them.

Not - well I’m in Iowa and the tuition is much cheaper than Michigan so I’m not going to go to Michigan.

Just how I think.

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28

Yep. Kind of a crap shoot after ED with the common ap. They can get to “We’ve got enough kids we really like, but good luck, you’ll be fine” pretty quickly.

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29

I definitely understand why highly selective holistic review colleges tend not to favor the kids who are, well, not very holistic about their approach to life so far. As an aside, in my experience such kids may have some of what are technically ECs, but they are concentrated in academicky ECs related to their core academic/professional interest. They may also have some check-boxy ECs based on recent trends, but not in a way that seems indicative of an authentic interest.

I’m not so concerned about those college admissions decisions. But my concern is that I think at least in some families, social settings, and so on, kids are being pushed from an early age to be like that, due to a massive misunderstanding about what highly selective holistic review colleges are actually looking for.

So holding aside college admissions, it is the actual childhoods some of these kids appear to be having that concern me. And in fact, the ones that even get to the point they have good numbers and get rejected by highly selective holistic review colleges are in some sense the “lucky” ones. A number of other such kids appear to be experiencing serious physical and mental health crises during HS, possibly earlier. Some of that is inevitable, but I suspect some was avoidable.

In that sense, when you read and understand what, say, MIT says about Applying Sideways, it is really quite humane. Like a kid who truly follows that advice is likely to have a good childhood, and be well-prepared for adulthood no matter what comes next for them after high school.

Not so much, though, the kids who are being pushed into these very narrow paths based on what certain people seem to think MIT should want, even though MIT keeps trying to tell them otherwise.

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30

It’s great for the counseling and pharmaceutical industry!!

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31

Not the main focus of this topic but NYU is need blind for domestic applicants and since the last couple of years has met full need for admitted students, so as a result has actually reduced their freshman intake. Unless your friend’s kid is an international applicant (where nyu is need aware), they were not admitted because they could pay, but because NYU wanted them.

32

Is there any evidence that admissions offices pay attention to how well/poorly the kids they accept from particular high schools do once they matriculate into that particular college? That is, if they pay attention, would a trend of HS A’s kids doing well in college vs HS B’s kids not doing well on college change admissions decisions for that high school in the future?

I had heard that they did, but how would they even be given access to that data to map these trends?

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33

That is a great question. They might track it, but I have never seen any examples of them releasing that information. More likely, they would just stop admitting kids from your school if they had concerns.

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34

Yes but this was 2021 - they were need aware. And they were full pay - perhaps why they got in.

35

No, they have always been need blind for domestics, at least since D19 which was before this. They did not meet full need at that stage though.

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I don’t know about evidence, but I have heard this anecdotally (in regards to our school, as an example). I’m not sure that they look at “well” beyond whether or not the students tend to graduate within 4 or 5 years though? For sure, I would think that if a particular high school has a trend of its students dropping out or transferring it might count against them.

37

I’ve seen references to this here at CC for years, but I don’t know the answer. I find it troubling, as there is not likely to be a statistically significant sample of enrolled students at elite colleges from most high schools, and moreover, high school experiences are not standardized, not comparable.

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Why do you assume it is only “elite” schools that might do this? When I’ve looked at some of the schools C26 is interested in, assuming that a lower middle 50 admit for the high school than the one the college publishes approximates a level of faith in the students, it goes quite far down the top 100 or so. After all, a school with a 50% admit rate is still rejecting half its applicants.

39

I don’t assume that. I was just observing, as an example that is more obvious, that elite schools tend to have so few students from any single high school that the dataset would seem insufficient for drawing conclusions. The same idea would apply for non-elite colleges as well if they, too, only tend to enroll tiny numbers from any particular high school.

40

For some of these kids, they do technically have ECs, but they tend to be solitary or outside of school, and the kid has a hard time articulating anything about how the EC makes them a good candidate. Or, they completely overstimate how impactful the EC is. (Usually, it is the parent who doesn’t understand that every 8th grader these days can write an app). While one kid can beautifully craft an essay about how Magic:The Gathering is a metaphor for life, another might not have anything to say about why they spend 15 hours a week playing a video game and write their essay about how their grandfather is their hero.

This is just my take on it, but I also feel like a bit of entitlement comes across in their application. You can see the school/town they are applying from and it’s known to have many extremely high stats kids that are also heavily involved in ECs, yet, this kid is applying to a school that is highly rejective without a flawless, polished resume thinking their high SAT score is going to move them to the top of the pool. The same arrogance that led them to ignore their college counselor’s suggestions most likely comes through in their essays.

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