There were 52,250 students who applied to Yale last year, and only 2,275 were accepted. So holistic admissions worked for fewer than 5% of those students.
That is the rule: holistic admissions works for the students who are accepted, but not for the students who are not accepted. Since there are far more qualified students than there are places for those students at the most popular colleges, we can say that, overall, holistic admissions does not work for most applicants.
That is, of course, only if you consider “working out” as “being accepted to your favorite low-admissions college”.
That being said, if you have great letters of recommendation, that is where holistic admissions are working for you
Those are far more effective than the standard LoRs that most applicants are getting from their GCs. At public schools, there is, on average, one GC per 408 students, which means that each has over 100 graduating seniors a year. At lower income high schools, the situation is far far worse. So the chances that the GC can even connect a name to a face is low, much less write a personal letter of recommendation.
It is also likely that many college AOs have a personal relationship with your high school’s counselors, and so the AOs will give more weight to your counselor’s letters than they will to similar letter from GCs at public high schools, who generally do not know the AOs at colleges with low admission rates.
There is also the fact that familiarity with a high school helps in admissions. College AOs, especially in the NE will be familiar with your private high school and will accept you over students with the similar profiles who attended high schools with which the college AOs are not familiar.
So holistic admissions are working for you pretty well.
GRR:
I look at some high achiever kids at my school and some have no social skills, study non-stop, forced ECs, and studied for years for standardized tests. But day to day, often not that impressive.
I’m also a high achiever and have very good recs and ECs. But my stats are very good, but not amazing.
In most colleges, including those which have “holistic admissions”, academics is the most important factor, and other factors are there to add on to that. A student with a 3.98 GPA who has taken the most rigorous classes that the high school has to offer is already a great candidate. Their ECs just need to demonstrate that they have other interests. A student with a 3.7 GPA with somewhat more serious ECs will not be considered a more attractive candidate, no matter how “holistic” admissions are at a college.
A high GPA will be especially impressive at a high school which admits based on academic achievement.
On the other hand, at a wealthy high school with lots of resources and with a student body from households that are upper middle class or wealthier, simply doing well at ECs is a lot less impressive.
So “studying non stop” and having a high GPA works very well even with holistic admissions.
I will also quote your father who, I may add, is a very wise man:
So it doesn’t really matter whether you get into any of your reaches.
All the best and good luck!