So many people like to think college admissions is based on merit, and it is especially frustrating when parents themselves don’t really understand how the admissions process work. So many parents think you need high grades, do this or that extracurricular, get X score on the SAT, and so on, and it just shows ignorance. Plenty of well-accomplished students who did academic research or were captains of varsity sports teams get denied from the UCs. The reality is that there is no magic bullet to get into selective schools.
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College admissions are in some ways easy to understand.
But many are not willing to try to understand. They want what they want. Sometimes what they want isn’t obtainable and they need to pivot.
Good luck.
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Correct, because most selective schools have holistic admissions and a long list of institutional priorities they are trying to fill. These schools do tend to tell you what’s important to them if you do admissions sessions and read websites, CDSs, etc.
The selective schools will also be looking for some proportion of under privileged students (URM, first gen, limited income), students from different geographies, students of varying majors (schools can’t accept all applicants who want to major in CS for example), students to fill sports teams and bands/orchestras, etc.
Students and families should make sure they have schools that are less selective and affordable on their college list and most importantly, be open to attending those schools. Most US colleges accept most applicants, so there are many less selective schools to choose from. Good luck.
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It is not formulaic. In some countries, it is – if there are 100 spots to study nuclear physics, the students with the top 100 scores on a national exam who want that course of study get those spots. #101 does not get in.
This is more like getting a job. First, you meet the qualifications of the employer - these are your stats. Then they determine who they feel is going to fit in best with their team and needs. It might be a plus that someone speaks Chinese, or has experience working in a factory, or has longer term goals that match the company’s. You never know exactly why you get an offer or don’t even though you put your best foot forward when applying.
Think of grades and scores as requirements. Also remember, this is more like assembling an entire group of athletes to take to the Olympics to represent the country… Yes, you need the top 4 sprinters for a relay, but you also need swimmers, weightlifters, and gymnasts. So the 5th fastest sprinter, who is clearly an amazing athlete, is left out.
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You “deal” by having a well balanced list of reaches, matches, and true safeties.
High grades, ECs, high scores on tests, etc… are you ticket to being well prepared for the rigors of college, not a guarantee of getting into a top school. All the hard work in high school translates to a good work ethic, good study habits, and good time management which will lead to success in college and in career.
If families don’t understand the current climate, have them come here for a reality check and look through the common data sets of the school’s themselves to see the data.
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Assuming that they also have the baseline of high grades in rigorous courses, that is likely because they are picky and refused to include UCSC, UCR, and UCM in their UC application lists.
If you want greater transparency, you can look at the many CSUs that are non-impacted or which publish prior year thresholds like SJSU and CSUN.
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You need a certain baseline just to be in the hunt. Where parents get it wrong is by not understanding that the vast majority of applicants applying to highly rejective schools will have hit that mark. Far too many kids apply to a small handful of schools.
So, to “deal” you do as @momofboiler1 said, have a balanced list.
It also helps if you understand that the institution doesn’t make the individual. That cake is mostly baked before college even starts. High achievers come from EVERYWHERE and plenty of elite grads do very pedestrian things.
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I think people focus on the wrong things. I was talking with someone this spring who was really upset because their kid did not get into one of their reaches. They still talk about it.
Now, their kid got into other (T20, T10) reaches, including the top program on the East Coast for their intended major. They also had good target and likely/safety options. But they are still kvetching about that one rejection from a reach school and how “unfair” it was.
They told me they were happy when their kid got off the waitlist of a very good state flagship university with a low OOS acceptance rate. They said their kid “needed the win” after their “disappointing” admissions results. I couldn’t help myself. I told them their kid had actually notched quite a few wins.
But it’s human nature to dwell on a rejection, I guess.
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I think you deal the same way you deal with life as a whole…by accepting that while merit helps, so much is just luck of the draw.
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My view is very similar to what @Metawampe said just above.
Admissions at the top ranked schools is indeed not solely based on merit. However, there are a LOT of very good universities in the US, and just as many more outside the US.
In my experience academically strong students, assuming that they apply to a good range of schools, nearly always get accepted to some very good schools that are a good match for them. Maybe they don’t get into Harvard or MIT or Princeton or Stanford, but they do get into other very good universities where they can get a very strong education which will help them do very well in life.
The hiring managers who I know have noticed that the strongest students are graduating from a wide range of universities. If an academically excellent student does not get into Harvard or MIT but does get into U.Mass, then four year later we can still hire them when they graduate from U.Mass. The student gets a good education and a good job, we get a good employee.
Similarly in my experience the highly ranked graduate programs seem to have noticed that strong students apply to them coming from a wide range of undergraduate schools.
I think that we deal with the non-transparency of college admissions by attending very good universities that accept us and that are a good fit and that are affordable. If they do not have the “big name” then I am not sure that I care all that much. Then we do well in life.
And if we don’t like the admissions policies of the big name school(s) where we graduated from decades ago, then we do not send them any money when they ask each year, and we watch our kids do super well with degrees from somewhere else.
Perhaps another issue is that “hype” is by definition nearly always exaggerated. The big name universities are very good schools that provide very good education to many students. I do not think that they are as special as they pretend to be. Perhaps they have to give the allure of being super special to justify their huge price tags.
And this is very true also.
I think that a strong student can find very good universities where they will be accepted and where they can get a very good education. Affordability might be more uncertain, but at least for us also worked out pretty well.
And I am not sure that the non-transparency of university admissions is any worse than the non-transparency of a very wide range of other things in life.
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I also think part of the disconnect for many families is that parents are recalling what was deemed as a super competitive applicant in their day 20/30 years ago when there were less students applying to the top schools (with much higher admit rates), 25/75 test scores lower, no/less grade inflation and EC’s being more pedestrian (editor of school paper, student council, xyz varsity team, etc…).
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These things are not mutually exclusive. It does help to get high grades, be well-accomplished, do research, be great in sports, be a leader, volunteer, be a great performer, etc. And the absence of all of those things (i.e. a candidate who checks none of those boxes) would make someone extraordinary unlikely to get into the most selective schools. So they aren’t wrong.
While I’m sure it’s true for some, I don’t think “most” parents assume there’s a “magic bullet” among all these things that guarantees admissions to selective schools. I think it’s a well understood reality that the most selective schools are a lottery where great accomplishments simply buys you more tickets/chances to win.
That doesn’t mean its not merit-based. I reject the idea entirely that there’s not merit involved. Of course there is. An application is reviewed on grades, (often) test scores, rigor of classes, extracurricular activities and accomplishments, community service, leadership, creativity, personal essays, recommendations, life challenges, etc. Each of those involve merit. It would be almost impossible to compare students accepted and rejected from selective schools and objectively state one had more merit than the other given the complexity of all these different criteria. You could point to a couple of the criteria and say person X had worse grades, took easier classes or had worse test scores. But that’s a fraction of the merit-based categories.
Of course admission isn’t purely merit. Wealth has advantages in every aspect of the process, including grades, test scores, extracurricular success, essays, recommendations, you name it. But that’s true in all aspects of life, without exception – justice, health, workplace opportunities, relationshops, etc. It doesn’t cancel out the massive role merit plays in the process too.
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I don’t think that analogy holds.
Imagine if we selected our Olympic sprinters, not by their times on the track, but by the quality of essays they wrote about their track experience. Imagine if we were choosing between 2 sprinters and weren’t even allowed to evaluate their track times by law, but instead, we had to choose between the sprinter who acted in plays and the sprinter who was on the debate team.
I think we would all be fine with an admissions process that wasn’t transparent if we were given confidence in the process by being able to observe logical results.
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I think you deal with the non-transparency of college admissions by recognizing and checking your privilege. Most kids in America end up in a public institution-- either their own state’s flagship, or a branch that is commutable to their home, or community college.
So once you get to the point of debating how unfair it is that a kid with lower SAT scores got into Stanford- you first need to put that problem into context.
Second, you accept the fact that the “top 50” colleges in America have about 80 or 90 institutions shoved onto that ladder. Our system might have some annoying quirks- but the system has also yielded a very broad and deep set of institutions. Williams isn’t UIUC isn’t Swarthmore isn’t Harvey Mudd isn’t U Michigan isn’t Princeton isn’t U Mass… and how great is that? Each institution excels at many things- but not everything.
And Third- be happy that America is the land of second and third acts. There are physicians in tippy top competitive medical residencies who graduated from an undergrad college you’ve never heard of. There are people at NASA and Oakridge National Lab doing cutting edge work on technologies that most people don’t even know exist- who graduated from “famous” doctoral programs but obscure undergrad programs. And of course people serving society and humanity with or without a degree at all.
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I mean it is becoming increasingly more common now for people to not get into any top 50 colleges despite having a good profile.
And I honestly disagree with your notion that America is a land of second or third chances because what you described are mostly exceptions. Plenty of college graduates get denied from ALL PhD and medical programs because admissions for them is even more competitive than undergraduate admission. Statistically, America has less income mobility than most European countries.
Not challenging you but I would love to see this data…do you have a link to share?
Sure, but there are more students applying/going to college than 20 or 30 years ago, and these schools haven’t expanded their number of undergrads much (some have, many haven’t at all.) I will note there are nearly 3000 four year schools, so the top 5% and even top 10% of schools is much greater than the top 50. Many students do not need to attend a top 50 school to have successful outcomes (whatever outcomes you want to measure.)
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There is no real difference - say between a Rutgers and a U of Kansas or U of Arizona.
Yet one is much easier to get into than the other.
Do you think an employer says - oh well, look at this Psych major from Rutgers (top 50) vs. say U of Arizona or even West Chester U, etc.?
The colleges have done a great job of building this brand and story that you’re buying.
But it’s not difficult at all - with a budget, stats, and other factors to build a list that assures you get into a fantastic program to suit your needs.
btw - there is no such thing as a top 50. That’s a made up myth that people are using to sell lists, subscriptions, magazines or whatever.
And college is a business - and they are eating it up to get help them obtain those premium customers.
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Note that this poster is a college graduate, not a HS student.
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Some links that may be relevant:
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Thanks for the links.
To bring it back to US colleges, I do want to point out that generally, less selective schools are doing better in terms of increasing student social mobility than the highly selective schools as measured by a number of ranking methodologies (student volume and enrolling Pell grant eligible students explains much of the difference):
USNWR: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/social-mobility
WSJ: Gift link article: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/the-top-u-s-colleges-for-delivering-social-mobility-bc990be8?st=3slp8jb4frt9qhb&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Can’t gift link the full rankings: Best U.S. Colleges 2024 - WSJ / College Pulse Rankings - WSJ.com
CollegeNet: https://www.socialmobilityindex.org/
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