This would be a very, very good idea.
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When my daughter was applying we sat in a presentation given by a Duke AO. He said they get angry phone calls every year about this exact situation. And this was his explanation of the process: He said we should try to look at college admissions like drafting a football team. The school is trying to âdraftâ students to fit various positions. So you might be an amazing quarterback, but if the school already has a quarterback, you might not get accepted. Itâs not that there is anything wrong with you personally.
I remember being super frustrated by this process when my daughter went through it. Her results often did not seem to make sense to us. In retrospect I think about how many AMAZING students apply to each school. I know there are WAY more qualified students for each spot. I imagine admissions committees with a stack files for qualified students that greatly exceeds the numbers of spots available. Though I donât think that admissions is really a lottery, I do think there is a probably a little luck involved at times.
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. Edit to delete as posted before I saw mod message
Itâs very hard not to compare. I know that when my daughter was admitted early on to U of M, she asked me to âspread the wordâ among my friends/other parents that she was a nursing student and that nursing was easier to get into than other majors. I had several people admit to me that their kid was âobsessedâ with the fact that my daughter who they barely even knew but knew was in no honors classes got in (her sister had posted on social media and ours is the kind of school where everyone talks about admittances) while their much higher achieving kids were deferred. Two told me that being able to tell their kids that âwell sheâs a nursing student, and she says thatâs easierâ saved their kids a lot of upset. My daughter who is a nurse because she has high levels of empathy told me âthatâs why I told you to tell everyoneâ
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Gosh, this is so mean. Your D must be a very special soul indeed to be so gracious. Iâm sure she earned her spot the hard way⊠and folks who carp about that should be ashamed of themselves.
Best of luck to your kids!
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I donât think it was mean. Itâs not like they said anything to her. But they sure said stuff to their parentsâŠwhich means in private where I think every kids has a right to carp. I think that this is a natural reaction. I know that her much higher achieving sister would have been PRIVATELY obsessed/upset if a kid who clearly had a much lower WGPA got in to her dream school when she didnât (thank goodness older daughter got in to her dream school early, but Iâm well aware of how she would have been bothered by this.) She would have been nothing but congratulatory to the student but oneâs feelings are oneâs feelings.
And my younger one who is very realistic and doesnât base her self worth on her scholastic record (unlike her sister) really wanted others to know that she would not have been admitted if it werenât for the fact she was going for nursing. Thatâs just a simple truth. Many students in our highschool end up at U of M but she is the only one who got in without a rigorous course loadâŠsomething important to U of M for almost anyone but nursing students.
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In regard to rec letters and teachers writing them, my experience is that teachers in different schools are similarly likely to be more than competent.
I have taught at college-prep private school, public charter school, and magnet program on title 1 high school campus. My own children went to competitive(ish) large public school. Teachers in these schools talk to each other quite often and generally understand the student populations in the other schools.
Most of my colleagues have taught in different schools within or cross districts. We attend teacher conferences and trainings several times a year with colleagues from other districts. Those who teach advanced level courses meet more often at events like academic competitions. AP teachers attend summer trainings and readings (grading the AP exams) alongside teachers from other states. It is human nature that we would âcompareâ our students.
The current campus Iâm on just sent the first graduate to Ivy; however, we do write rec letters for about 10 students every year applying to T20/30 other than UT, they just never got in. The several rec letters Iâve read from my colleagues here didnât feel much different than those we shared at the private school. The biggest difference is that at the private school the college counselors would go over multiple rec letters for the same student and make modification suggestions to teachers. Here on this campus weâre on our own. The other important difference is the students at the private school all understand how rec letters work, but very few of my current students do.
Just curious â what is your current studentsâ understanding of how rec letters work?
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Seems like the opposite of most schools where (direct admission) nursing is the hardest major to get into. (e.g. at UCI, nursing has the highest admission stats and a 1.2% admission rate)
But yes, differences in selectivity by major can be substantial at some schools.
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Most of them donât ask for rec letters and donât need.
Out of the <100 seniors in our magnet program, about 30 qualify for UT auto admit. UT doesnât require rec letter. Among them, two or three who want to major in CS and hold top 1% ranking would think they might benefit from my rec letter and would ask me. Last year there were two. This year there are three. In each graduating class, there may be three four five kids who want to apply to other T20/30 universities that are not UT, and would ask teachers for rec letter. They either have parents who went to college or have made friends in other schools where college is common step after high school.
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Thanks!
Not at Michigan and not at U penn.
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A public school can definitely be privileged, or at least good at getting students into top colleges. My public high school in the 'burbs was placing 100s of kids each year into Stanford, Duke, Ivies, Georgetown, BCâŠsome were athletes but most were just kids whoâd had every advantage in life (tutors if needed, experiences, trips to Europe). The school had a number of guidance counselors, some who specialized in athlete, some in the Ivies or top schools, and of course many kids had private college placement specialists too.
Urban magnet schools also get kids into top colleges, help them apply for need based scholarships, get them into City Orchestra and theater groups.
It may be easier at a private school but can be done from any school. I do think a really good school counselor can make a big difference.
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All of the schools you describe are not in the bucket of schools I am referring to. The type of school I refer to do not have any kids attending or even applying to T20âs or T30âs in any given year. There might on occasion be an odd example of such a student but for the most part, the kids would be going to their local community colleges, certainly not considering a school iike UT. As for letters of recommendation, kids donât usually make such a request - perhaps at most one a year. Ergo, the reason a teacher may not know what the focus should be in such a letter due to unfamiliarity with the process.
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OP however refers to their sonâs school as âtop tierâ, and says he had great recs.
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Yes but Iâm actually talking about the school of the other student which the poster listed as low ranked. For all anyone here knows, that student may have had more barriers to overcome to prove to the college that their background was sufficient vs. a student who comes from a school that already has this reputation due to being a top tier high school. In other words, the other student may have required some meaningful coursework/test scores or something along those lines as part of their academic record to prove that their 4.0 was meaningful.
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OP, my advice is to stop trying to figure out the âwhyâ and move forward. Also, model that for your son. We donât always get what we want or feel we deserve. This is just a part of life.
My oldest son won a partial tuition scholarship to our very selective state flagship.
My daughter, who is the stronger student, applied three years later. I figured sheâd get into honors, maybe even with a larger scholarship than my son received. She was not even admitted. Denied.
My kids are homeschooled, so I had to serve as their counselor in the application process. I knew every detail about their apps - stats, courses taken, essays, ECâs, rec letters, etc. My daughter looked better on paper. Plus, I raised and taught both kids. My daughter was the stronger student.
Sharing this to point out that even when you do know details, you still wonât know or understand why the admissions officers decided as they did.
We were surprised to see the rejection, but we just shrugged our shoulders and moved on. My daughter got a full ride somewhere else.
I suggest you not devote any more time to pondering this. If you have a well-crafted list of schools, your son will end up at the school thatâs right for him.
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@mirandaknight and others, I tried to clarify a bit in subsequent posts to my initial one. I do not want to give any identifying info, as Michigan towns can be feel small, but
These kids are very very similar. The âlower ranked schoolâ is just that, and this kid is not disadvantaged in the least. Tutors, an outside counselor, etc. and The school just isnât as challenging and by default the Aâs are not as tough to attain for a well resourced kid.
I am perplexed at how the U chose straight Aâs over all else and couldnât read between the lines on the kid (infractions, a suspension).
AND, the main point of the post was about helping a parent and first timer get their head around this. I am mature and realize my kid will be fine. He has a balanced list and already has moved on. (Yay to him in doing that in less than two weeks.)
I appreciate the back and forth here and the mostly supportive (saying that this forum would have likely made the same choice - as you said in a previous post - is decidedly NOT supportive IMO but you are but one person). comments you all are putting out there, but for dialogue sake and yes, perhaps a tad in my defense- there is reason the be confused on this admit and deferral. It just doesnât make sense except for the Uâs focus on padding their early numbers and straight focus on GPA above all else. It is what it is.
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@jazzymonof7, this post was super helpful and insightful. Thank you -
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I donât know the school you refer to but I highly doubt a school is only going to admit based on GPA as a way to âkeep their numbers upâ. The only schools I know of that admit based on GPA are those that admit by stats so they will admit students if they meet the threshold. Most other schools are holistic so they take into account the entire package the student presents which include letters of recommendation, course rigor etc.
I actually never said the student was disadvantaged as you pointed out in the first post that the student was in the same SES. I was suggesting that a student from a lower ranked school may have barriers to overcome that a student at a higher ranked school would not ie. issues with getting letters of recommendation to convey what these schools are looking for.
The point is that you donât know what was in the package that the other student submitted. You merely think that the student didnât have ECâs but perhaps there were ECâs that were unknown to you. You are also comparing strictly two GPAâs but you donât know the course rigor. Perhaps the other student took lots of college courses outside the high school that you donât know about. In other words, you donât know what went into the 4.0 GPA or whether that 4.0 was also accompanied by high test scores or proven course rigor in ways you are unfamiliar with.
As for suspensions, my understanding is that some do not follow the student but I donât know much about this subject. Ergo, it may not even have been part of the package that was being evaluated. This is certainly true with your mention of the studentâs drinking or reputation in the community. None of those would be in the studentâs application so not sure why you would bring them up.
Your student was deferred not rejected so if this is your childâs favorite, there is still the possibility that your child will get in. I did mention upthread, I know a student last year who got into the two schools that student was deferred from during the early admission process, at least one of which was one of those schools where the odds after a deferral are below the normal admission rate which was already in the low single digits so it seemed like it would for sure not work out and yet it turned out to be an acceptance during RD. I wish both this other student and your student the very best. I am sure it will work out for your student in the end either at this school or at some other school.
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