At graduation last weekend I chatted with some talented grads heading to some most selective colleges. Something I teased out was nearly all of them were heading to the elite university they spent the most time prepping for. For example, applied to all the Ivies, you know, just because, were rejected from all of them, but admitted to UChicago. She told me the only app and essays she took seriously were those for UChicago.
Another headed to Yale, rejected from Georgetown and Notre Dame. Admitted they didn’t put much effort into GT and ND apps.
Would it surprise anyone if nearly half of the apps these elites receive are just “why not” apps that admissions more or less reject immediately because they can easily tell the student wasn’t serious?
This in very possible, but there are a lot of kids who put their blood and sweat into their apps and still get rejected. Putting time into the app is necessary, but not a sufficient condition for acceptance. I would also like to throw another scenario out there.
It is probably psychologically comforting to tell yourself and others that “I didn’t really put much effort, into that app.That is why I got rejected”, The Alternative would be “I put my heart and soul into this app, but this school still did not think I was good enough”. That would really hurt your self-esteem and confidence.
@VeryLuckyParent Good point, although these were pretty straight shooting kids.
Aside from the “why not” apps, I’m also certain a large chunk are also auto-rejects just based on low scores and low GPAs. Makes you wonder what a 5-10% rejection rate really means. UChicago’s marketing and info sesh pitch was blatantly obviously designed to gin up apps from unqualified students.
My guess is that you encountered the results of classic cognitive dissonance. Once students are rejected they try to make sense of the outcomes of each school. They attribute not getting in to schools to not working hard enough on the applications of schools they were rejected from but it probably has nothing to do with that. I would guess that most of the applications to the elite schools are from competitive applicants who do spend time and effort on the applications.
So otherwise honest kids are lying about the time they spent on certain apps compared to the 10 other apps they submitted? I didn’t say every student I talked to had this experience, it just made me wonder is all.
I can only speak for Brown, and I was only a volunteer interviewer, not a paid Adcom.
But- zero applications are immediately discarded. Every single application gets read seriously.
However- a pretty significant percentage were “no way, no how” applications. I don’t know Brown’s current policy, but for many years, every kid who wanted an interview got one. So I saw a LOT of “hail mary pass” type applicants. Sometimes it was to please Mom, Dad, or Gramps and it was apparent that the kid had zero interest (and in most cases, also not qualified). Sometimes it was a well meaning but clueless guidance counselor “Oh, you should apply to Brown, they have an open curriculum and you can take everything pass/fail”. So there would be energetic and ambitious kids barely pulling a B average wishing and hoping for that open curriculum, i.e. I never have to take math again. Sometimes it was the school’s reputation among HS kids-- with a HS kids take on it- i.e. Brown is the “artsy” Ivy, therefore, every kid who loves poetry and dislikes frats and college athletics should go to Brown (Brown has frats; Brown has athletics; where do these tropes come from?)
Back in the day, it took real effort to apply to college (any college). You had pages to roll into a typewriter, you needed to write and rewrite your essay until it was perfect so you didn’t have great big globs of white out messing up your application, you needed Mom or Dad to write a check, you needed a stamp. Now???
Also, with a school like ND, if the applicant was not a captain of a varsity team, not legacy or didn’t have a sibling attending they are losing out anyway. This year ND’s middle 50% ACT range was 33-35 and about 50% were in the Top 1% of their class.
Reading a bunch of books about elite admissions, and many adcoms are on the record stating that 80% of the applicants to the elites are qualified. Here is another thread where someone says Dartmouth says 80-85%, and other posts seem to support that number.
My younger son was one of those less than perfect applicants U of Chicago reached out to - and accepted. He was very much a diamond in the rough at the time he applied, but I don’t think they made a mistake although he ended up going to Tufts instead.
I’ve read similar numbers, most people who apply to the highly selective colleges are qualified.
“Here is another thread where someone says Dartmouth says 80-85%, and other posts seem to support that number.”
I REALLY doubt that college admissions offices would EVER admit, especially IF it were true, that many students were actually not “qualified”. That would make them look elitist and might result in a dramatic drop in applications.
What they continue to say is that admissions officers have to look for reasons to REJECT students, because they can only accept so many.
Doesnt that sound more pleasant to the ear?
And even if one’s paper application had great big globs of white out messing up one’s application or in my case…globs of ink from a pen which suddenly leaked when I was nearly done with my Oberlin application…that doesn’t necessarily mean a guaranteed rejection.
I was accepted despite having an ink smudged application and sending it close to the deadline. One HS friend was accepted to an Ivy despite finding he had spilled some ketchup from a burger he was eating while working on that app during lunch period and not having enough time to request a replacement app because he finished it only a few days before the deadline.
I think your sample of 2 is flawed (too small). Most students put a lot of effort into all their apps. UChicago does have knarly essay topics – my kid spent more time on them than other schools, but that is because they are meaty and UC looks very hard at that aspect. But she got in everyplace she applied, to schools with hard and easier essays. I also agree that it is just the sort of thing a rejected student would offhandedly say to explain their rejection – they may even have convinced themselves it is true. So it isn’t a shortcut to admission for a student to work hard on their essays – pretty much everyone does.
I can only speak for Duke, FWIW: zero applications are immediately discarded; every application receives at least one serious read by the Adcom; many get multiple reads.
@menloparkmom , that may be true (although personally I doubt they are lying about this), but even so it also supports the answer to the OP’s question about how many applications are immediately discarded (meaning completely unqualified).
If still in doubt, the last post in that short thread from 2011 says “To give you a rough idea of the competition, Princeton received 27,189 applications this past year. Out of those 27,189 applicants, 14,042 had a combined score of 2100 or higher on the SAT (Princeton University - Princeton makes offers to 8.39 percent of applicants in record admission cycle).”
So with that data, even if they threw out the SATs below 2100, that’s still 52%, and higher when factoring in athletes, legacies, etc.
I think the OP was asking if there are a lot of totally unqualified people are applying to elites and artificially reducing the admit rates, and it appears the answer is (unfortunately) no.
^ It’s two-fold. I think there are a chunk that don’t have the stats, period.
But a second, much larger cohort, who do that are thrown out after the courtesy read they all (supposedly) receive. If the supplement essays obviously indicate no prep on the college, that seems like it would be an auto reject. When students apply to 8-12 colleges, how many are doing extensive research for each essay?
Agree that some kids will perceive themselves as not having put as much effort into some of their apps. ITs not lying, it’s , as other said, c9ognitive dissonance.
ANd agree that this “auto reject” without reading the apps is not true for schools building classes. Its also not true that most public schools don’t read essays. Where is this misinformation coming from?
It’s not all about stats, so you can’t assume based on those. Of course there are plenty of kids who don’t make it past first cut. And the 2011 quote was from a student who hadn’t even applied yet.