<p>I think if you want to apply to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford et. al you best dig very deep inside yourself and in to those schools and know exactly why you are applying, especially if you are forgoing an opportunity to apply ED elsewhere.</p>
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I don’t disagree with that. My point is that people who apply to just Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as their reach schools typically end up attending their match schools. This isn’t a tragedy, of course, but there might have been a number of other reach schools that they would have preferred to the match schools. Yes, it’s a lot of work to apply to all those schools. But this is kind of a big deal.</p>
<p>“My point is that people who apply to just Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as their reach schools typically end up attending their match schools.”</p>
<p>I agree. I think its more likely the kid applying to say Harvard, Reed, Occidental and Amherst will end up at Harvard.</p>
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It is far more likely that kid will end up at Occidental. Nothing wrong with that, unless he would have liked Dartmouth better. (I don’t know how selective Reed is–maybe he’d end up there.) Again, my point is that there are plenty of people who apply to six to eight super-selective schools and get accepted by one of them–and not necessarily the theoretically least selective one (i.e., Cornell isn’t necessarily easier for YOU to get into than Harvard). I just don’t see how you increase your odds of getting into a school like that if you apply to fewer of them. Of course, fit is what’s really important–but for some kids, super-selective schools are a good fit, and that’s where they’d like to go.</p>
<p>We just learned that USC has a 17.65% admission rate this year vs 19.68% last year. This is likely a pattern that will be replicated at most elite schools.</p>
<p>Absent an ED/EA admit that my younger daughter is content with, I suspect that she too would be applying to 15 or so schools in 3 years. But she is already of the opinion that she is unlikely to want to apply to any school that passed on her sister. If that remains the case, her list will of course look very different…</p>
<p>WWWard, we’re going through the process for the second time (1st was in '12) and boy oh boy did my daughter learn from her older sister’s … well let’s say miscalculations. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the school that was oldest daughter’s “safety” and ended up being her only admission (she applied to only 5 schools, 4 of which are reaches for anybody) is second daughter’s favorite - and she’s had 6 acceptances. It’s all about perspective, I guess. </p>
<p>We all hopefully learn over time I miscalculated myself years ago, only applying to 3 and ending up at my 3rd choice. It sounds like things are working out well for your two girls, honoriaglossop, and that is of course the key thing. I suspect that wherever my daughter ends up this year, that school will have a head start in the race for my younger daughter as well. That is just human nature to a degree… </p>
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<p>Wow! My daughter was admitted early to USC and was awarded 1/2 tuition Presidential scholarship. Looking at those numbers, she’s fortunate to be admitted let alone awarded an scholarship.</p>
<p>@WWWard
Your daughter’s stat is probably comparable to my daughter. Like you we also cast a very wide net and my D applied to 6 “ultra reach lottery” schools. We are also fortunate that we live in California and she applied to 4 mid-tier UCs. The chances of being admitted to one of those is high if you have a relatively high stat. True, you can get rejected to one of them, but eventually you’ll be admitted to one. </p>
<p>We didn’t expect her merit scholarship at USC. She also got UCLA Regents. We didn’t expect that either. Instead of naming the schools, I listed the 2013 acceptance rate wherein she was admitted and still waiting for results.</p>
<p>Acceptance
41.14%
39.36%
39.13%
38.85%
36.76%
34.50%
20.10%
19.68%</p>
<p>Waiting
20.83%
15.15%
12.10%
7.29%
6.72%
5.79%
5.69%</p>
<p>No rejection/waitlist so far. Let’s see what tomorrow brings us.</p>
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<p>If a super-selective college gets enough applications from a high school, wouldn’t Naviance plots show that admits and more numerous rejects mixed together, indicating that, once a student meets the stats criteria, s/he must have something extra to be admitted?</p>
<p>For less reachy schools, a “fuzzy” boundary between the admit and reject dots on a Naviance plot would be an indicator that something other than stats alone is being considered. Sometimes, this can be what major or division the applicant applies for at the school (example: <a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html”>http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html</a> ). In other cases, this could be due to heavy consideration of subjectively evaluated criteria or “level of applicant’s interest”.</p>
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<p>Not all of them. Some schools with overall admission rates under 75% have stated automatic admission criteria which makes them safeties for students who meet such criteria. The Texas public universities are well known examples, but there are various others listed in this thread: <a href=“Updated list of schools with auto-admit (guaranteed admission) criteria - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html</a></p>
<p>The helpfulness of Naviance is proportional to how many students from the high school applied to that college in the past. If there are a lot of them, then you can probably say things like, “nobody with my grades and scores has ever been rejected by College X.” By a lot, I mean like 50, or 100.</p>
<p>Congratulations to you and your daughter, @2018dad! @WWWard, I, along with many of the other posters, am pulling for your daughter. This time is difficult - especially for us parents who no longer have any say in it, and all we can do is support our students, and try to be positive about wherever they find themselves. Although I am no longer in this situation, there are four students who I know who are waiting to hear from Princeton. I look forward to hearing their news, and am hoping for the best for them.</p>
<p>@2018dad - Congrats! Your daughter already has a # of good choices, with USC likely being the most selective so far. Hopefully she can keep her streak of no rejects or wait-lists going. We clearly would have loved that to be the case… but not so fortunate. Of course her non-admits have all been highly selective so far. Yes… tomorrow is a big day - 6 more decisions for us then. Plus USC on Saturday…</p>
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<p>UCLA is probably slightly more selective than USC, although the difference overall is minimal; the selectivity difference between the various divisions at each school may actually make a bigger difference.</p>
<p>Thanks, @PTigerMomAlum Add us to the list waiting to hear from Princeton. </p>
<p>
I’m with Hunt. It is fine to have 6 to 8 reaches as long as you have a couple of safeties. Kids whose stats AND ECs make them good candidates for HYPMCS won’t necessarily have anything that is really a match. (The Tufts, WUSL’s etc, are way too selective to be real matches, and they care even more about fit than the big guys.) </p>
<p>ED is one way to try to avoid the stress, but it wasn’t right for either of my kids, who did not want to be tied down so early in the process. In fact each of them ended up with two very tempting choices in April and waited until the very last day to make the final choice. My older son ended up getting into 3 reaches and 2 safeties, with rejections or waitlists at 3. My younger son got into 3 reaches and 1 safeties, and was rejected by 3 schools. (He only applied to 1 safety because he got into a reach early.)</p>
<p>In our experience with Naviance, the “lottery” schools are clear as are some that are fairly sure bets. The much greater number of red Xs vs green dots is pretty telling at HYPS and Columbia. Nobody is safe! There are also the schools that seem to never reject anyone from our HS (at least as reported by Naviance). Most are in the middle - your student’s scores SEEM like they will get in but there are those random-looking red Xs or diamond wait lists, that truly shows you never know (or that the rejected kid(s) really messed up their application(s)). </p>
<p>WWWard Said: “And yea for me and my family… we get to do this all again in 3 years for my other daughter. And believe me… she is paying a lot more attention to this process and what her older sister has been going through than I would have ever expected. She REALLY wants to find the right school and get admitted EARLY. She does not want to endure this same level of stress and uncertainty…”</p>
<p>If HYP or Stanford is her clear top choice, I’m sorry, God help her and good luck. I mean that sincerely.</p>
<p>If she can find a college she loves where her stats are solidly in the mid 50%, preferably above the 75% percentile, which, unlike HYP, offers Early Decision, she can improve her chances.</p>
<p>If you can direct her more towards the middle instead of the top, she can improve her prospects for admission.</p>
<p>I’ve toured colleges for the past 18 months with my own daughter, and I’m convinced there are plenty of amazing schools that are not at the tippy-top of the food chain. Plenty of incredible LAC’s, public universities and some amazing Women’s colleges out there. </p>
<p>You do not have to apply to 6 to 8 reaches to get in to the right school.</p>
<p>Thanks. At this moment, both of my daughters share the same first choice school… Brown. Tomorrow’s results could sway my younger daughter… but as of last night, she was still saying that regardless of where her older sister goes, she will try to get into Brown ED. Of course, many things can change over the next few years. She could come to love wherever my older daughter goes, for example (if not Brown). Her stats could also dictate things. So far… they are nearly identical on that front though. My younger daughter though does not share the same passion for the creative arts. She is much more committed to being behind the scenes. She’d rather produce or direct versus act. I though will certainly try to persuade her to pick a reasonable path for the early round. Securing the decision you want in December is far better than this uncertainty in March :)</p>
<p>I would encourage your youngest daughter to learn as much about Brown as she can. There are lots of student blogs, websites, newspapers etc… available free online. Brown publishes their adcom travel schedules online, Get to know the adcom.</p>
<p>Maybe also explore other colleges that share the characteristics that she likes about Brown. Wesleyan, Vassar and Bard for example share many characteristics with Brown, but they are not quite as selective.</p>
<p>Thanks. We appreciate it, @arwarw</p>
<p>Back to the current cycle… with all of the control now out of our hands, the only real decision (until deciding between admissions) is what order to check announcements tomorrow… lol. Some applicants have as many as 8 announcements to check beginning at 5pm Eastern tomorrow. My D has 5… and then Duke at 7pm. But how do you recommend checking… the wish list in order? in reverse order? alphabetically? My D will have to decide… possibly the last decision she can control… :)</p>