<p>My kid presents with an unusual profile despite very high stats, so we are worried about results this spring. My fear about the kid’s safety school (which the kid loves) was that it would say “no, thanks,” because the kid falls so far outside of the 25th-75th precentile range; what if the school thought the kid was not a serious applicant?? So we all were pleased when that acceptance arrived.</p>
<p>The kid also has an offer of full tuition from Pitt, discussed up-thread. We do not qualify for aid, so that scholarship makes Pitt very, very appealing.</p>
<p>I did not read all 22 pages of this thread, but I do know of a student accepted to Ivies who chose UDelaware (I assume there was merit aid involved). And I also know of students who took the “apply to all Ivies with Duke as a safety” approach who were shut out…</p>
<p>What colleges say a family can afford to pay often differs dramatically from what the family thinks it can reasonably pay. FA (per College Board) assumes that a family’s contribution comes 1/3 from savings, 1/3 from current income and 1/3 from loans (past, current and future earnings). The formula also assumes you take your current contribution to your 401(k) and put it towards EFC. Many families (who love their kids, want the best for them, hope to see them succeed) are not able/willing to do that, esp. when there is job instability, illness, special needs, elderly parents, blended families, etc. factored into the financial equation.</p>
<p>Our EFC was 30% of gross income and was close to 40% when both kids were in college. Even folks who have saved diligently since their kids were born and who live below their means in anticipation of college expenses have been gobsmacked by the increases in college costs compared to inflation.</p>
<p>The most important part of college admissions to me is the element of choice – that students have a list that includes places where they will be accepted (academically, socially and emotionally), that the family can afford, and that expose a young person to the wide range of careers/interests/studies that their 17 yo selves have not yet explored. A student who has only one option is not likely to be happy with his/her admissions results, whether that one option is the directional state U or Harvard. </p>
<p>For colleges which use their own EFC formulae, it depends on the college. You may be able to detect whether that is the case by running tests on the colleges’ net price calculators.</p>
<p>I found that the input from the guidance counselor was not necessarily well thought out for my daughter. She really “dummy downed” the schools for her. We hired a college counselor to assist with finding the best schools and helping with the application process. It was worth every penny for this. The list was incredibly well-rounded and so far the responses coming in are very much what we expected. She did all of the EA and rolling admissions first and found out within one week of submitting her application she was admitted to one of the schools. This was in September. So, right there the pressure was off as the school- while not her top choice- is a great college. 3 more EA acceptances were gravy and in fact one of them offered a large scholarship to attend. So, we were very careful taking any advice from the guidance counselor because at times it seemed she just wanted to fill up slots. In fact, I asked her about one school and she said, “Sorry, it is not on our circuit”. What???</p>
<p>Laurapb23, the college admissions reps travel various circuits visiting high schools, mostly in the fall. Perhaps what the gc meant is that your school is not visited by that college’s rep, and therefore the counselor is unfamiliar with that college. I don’t know how they decide which schools to visit (clearly even a school with a huge admissions dep’t can’t visit almost 30,000 high schools, and guidance counselors aren’t going to know about 3,000 colleges).</p>
On our case, a large, well known (on CC, anyway!) OOS public university had never visited my son’s tiny high school on the other side of the country . . . until my son submitted his application early this past fall. Should he end up enrolling there, I think it’s likely his high school will remain on Big U’s travel circuit. ;)</p>
<p>And, with any luck, it will remain on the GC’s radar, as well. The cost is competitive with the in-state universities, but it offers the advantage of rolling admissions, which makes it a much safer “safety."</p>
<p>But when <em>the</em> most important thing to a child is to be in a very intellectual atmosphere, they aren’t going to be thrilled with a school that has a 75% admit rate-</p>
<p>However, when that school with the very intellectual atmosphere does not play the US News ranking games, they have a self selected student body, who want the rigor but aren’t as interested in the perceived status.
So they have a higher admit rate, but closer to 50% than 75%.</p>
<p>I just talked to a student who was accepted to two Ivies but got a full ride from UMaine and is in his junior year now. The school has an Honors College he loves and he’s happy and stimulated. He won a national scholarship awarded to maybe 5% of applicants that’s paying for him to go to India this summer and work on a development project. No doubt he will end up at a top graduate program in international development or economics and do wonderful things with his life.</p>
<p>My Daughter, who falls into the category of over-achieving unhooked white female, was very concerned about her chances… despite an excellent GPA, solid standardized test scores and strong ECs - mostly emphasizing music and theatre. A # of news articles online had warned about the plight of unhooked white female applicants. There are just way too many well-qualified applicants just like her all applying to the same schools apparently. It is exactly why she initially applied to 16 schools in total. </p>
<p>We created a matrix spreadsheet together to chart stats and to make predictions based on those stats, the school’s acceptance rates, etc. So far though, she has been shut out of all of her reach and match schools… being rejected by two (1 reach / 1 match) and wait-listed to all others. This week, she added a 17th school… as she does not want to have to make a decision based on only acceptances from two safeties. </p>
<p>She will receive 6 more decisions on Thursday, March 27th, and another on Saturday, the 29th. Teachers and GCs at her HS had predicted that she would get into 80-90% of the schools that she applied to based on her stats. My D and I were much more cautious… hoping that she would get into maybe 30-50%. Now though we are hoping that she will at least get into 1-2 of her match schools, assuming that her 4 remaining reach schools are now all “out of reach”.</p>
<p>Our advice is simple… aim high, but do apply to a good mix of schools… a few reaches… a few more matches and 2-3 safeties as well. Good luck to all of this year’s applicants. Hopefully every applicant here on CC finds a path that includes at least one school that they find truly inspiring. That’s what we are hoping for during this last week or so of the application process.</p>
<p>WWW I think your statistics may have biased your expectation. If you are matching schools using solid test scores and near 4.0 GPA you are likely getting a lot of schools with < 20% selectivity. </p>
<p>Basically at that point you need to throw statistics out the window. All those schools should be considered reach due to their competitive nature. </p>
<p>So I agree with what you are saying but the using statistics as a predictor should be more reliable for students that arent at the top of the curve. </p>
<p>mitchklong - True. Her stats did likely create an initial bias. Even so, we never really expected her to be able to get into any of the schools that accept less than 10% of all applicants. We did hope though that she might gain admission to 1-2 of the schools that accept 11-20% and to most, if not all, of the schools that accept more than 20%. To date, she has only been admitted to two schools that accept more than 40%… and a school that accepts 26% wait-listed her. That one especially was surprising. Oh well… by April 1st, we will know for sure. Here’s hoping…</p>
<p>WWW, I’m sorry your daughter’s GC misled her. That’s professional negligence. I agree anything under 20% selectivity is a reach, but if you study the Naviance scatter grams for your high school, you may find some patterns that favor some reach schools. Also in the Early round, if your stats are above the 75th percentile that may push you in to match territory at some top tier schools- but probably not at HYP Stanford or MIT.</p>
<p>One of the things that makes admissions to highly selective schools hard to predict is that the stats of an average accepted student can be very close to those of an average denied student. IOW, stats that place you at the 50th percentile for admitted students might only place you in the 55th or 60th percentile for students who were not admitted. </p>