- The Naviance scatterplots I saw for BU in the fall of 2006 clearly showed that for students to the "north" and "east" of an almost razor-straight line defined as a function of SATs and GPA BU was neither practicing holistic admissions nor yield protection to any significant extent. There was a pretty thin band under the line that looked like someone was differentiating the applicants on a basis other than SATs/GPA, and below that it looked completely stats-based again, except for a very small number of outliers (who may have been athletes). And in 2007 Tulane had just begun to recover from its Katrina shutdown 15 months earlier. It wasn't rejecting anyone who could possibly do the work.
- I get the variety, too. My daughter did the same thing as @mathmom 's son -- all urban research universities, plus Oberlin in case she woke up one morning in April and thought "Why do I want to go to an urban research university?" 18-year-olds don't always fit into neat categories, and there are plenty who legitimately could be happy at a large urban college or a small rural LAC.
Happy for you @3littlebirds . I was optimistic it would work out â and it might even get better.
Postmodern doesnât post postmortems, so I will leave those to the others. Just good vibes from here!
(and sorry for going 3rd person just to get alliteration in).
And hooray, @3littlebirds - Iâm so glad that sheâs in, and even better, has a choice between two strong options so far!
Congratulations on acceptances! The list is extremely reach schools heavy. I am surprised college counselor didnât say anything. She probably will get at least one more acceptance from this list I would think. Hopefully she will have affordable choices.
D1âs safety schools were Rutgers, Trinity and Colgate, and the next level up was Tufts. I donât think D1 liked any of her safeties and I didnât blame her. For many of high stats students they feel they are settling by going to their safeties. I donât think it is wrong to acknowledge that.
My niece is the only one out of my siblingsâ kids who ended up going to a non top 20 schools. She just got herself into Londonâs School of Economics. She said she needed a bit more on her resume. I know CCâers like to pooh pooh on prestige, but many of our kids on this board do end up at many of those schools. So I would try not to be too judgmental of OPâs list. I understand why she didnât want to show the list initially. Sure enough, quite a few people jumped on the bandwagon of judging her, but with âNot to be judgmentalâŠâ
Not being judgmental, Oldfort- being realistic.
I also had high stats kids, have siblings with high stats kids (and a few not) so I fully understand the dynamics at play.
And yes- itâs hard to sell Rutgers Engineering or UIUC Comp Sci to a kid who is in love with MIT or Cal Tech. But guess what- it happens. Kids end up where they end up for lots of reasons. We worked hard to make sure that each kid could find something to love about their âsafetiesâ-- even if it was just âThe Ag school runs the coolest Harvestfest every Fall and Iâve never milked a cowâ type of thing. I know a kid at Stonybrook right now who DID get into her first choice mega reach school⊠after the family ran all the numbers and EVEN with generous aid it just wasnât going to work (complicated family issues). And the kid is miserable, canât find a single thing to like about the school, parents continue to complain âbut she had to turn down âsingle initial collegeâ, she doesnât have a peer group,â etc.
Self inflicted misery. There are other high stats Vals at Stony- even in her own department! There are brilliant grad students who can serve as mentors and coaches. And phenomenal faculty. But if you go in determined to loathe your safety school you EASILY be miserable. And not every family has home equity to tap, after a long period of unemployment a parent can be making a nice salary but they are still digging themselves out of consumer debt, etc.
Try to find something to love about a rock solid/not holistic admissions college folks!
This happened to my relative also, sounds the same. Like in top 1% of class and I believe near perfect SATâs and some college awards. He did not get accepted into any schools! It was very disappointing and shocking, and his mother just blames it on being a Chinese male. When an advisor would call some of the safety schools they said basically he was overqualified, they did not believe he would go there. What they did for waitlists- they re-submitted some things like maybe a new essay and things and he went to visit and speak with the admissions at U of Chicago. A relative also spoke to people at Harvey Mudd that she knows. He ultimately got into those, and is so happy at Harvey Mudd.
Glad your daughter got an acceptance. That guidance counselor should be fired for saying that list looked good. That list set your daughter up for heartbreak. Glad there was a happy ending here.
A good guidance counselor can look at a list and challenge (in a positive, helpful way) students/parents who are prestige hunters. Plenty of kids at my school who walk in with âthe listâ are then forced to sit through my schpiel on âwhat are you looking for and how do each of these schools meet your needs?â. Failure to have visited any of the schools on the list is a HUGE red flag. Lots of times they know nothing about the schools on âthe listâ other than the prestige factor. Sigh. Still a long way to go.
D1 would have moved on if she had only got into her safeties because she is not one for wondering could have/should have (neither am I), but she appreciated the fact that I understood.
Just caught up, glad a couple acceptances came through. I have to admit that it was a bit of a long list that was scattered with 50/50 or way less odds of acceptance, and sometimes that approach works and sometimes it backfires but bottom line each student only needs one acceptance and if the list is manageable and the student would attend any of the colleges on the list then so be it. I agree with you Blossom. Every kid needs one rock solid safety - acceptance, finances, and all those most important factors! After that they can apply to dream schools, or wishful thinking schools, or just plain old 50/50 choices. I think that concept of âhigh statsâ kids thinking somewhere beneath them is endemic and frankly unattractive and elitist thinking. I donât think that is a good quality to acknowledge at their age.
Weâve had a lot of discussions on this forum about why students want to go to higher ranking schools. It is more than just prestige, it is also about those schoolâs academic rigor and resources they offer. I encourage my kids to want more and push themselves for excellence.
Thatâs an attitude I encounter all the time on CC, and I really dislike it. Itâs often expressed as, âIf I wind up at Flagship U with half of my high school class, whereâs my reward for working so hard and being the best student?â
â Your ârewardâ for working so hard and getting such good grades is having learned more. Thatâs the only reward worth having, too. If you were in it for something else, you were wrong.
â You are not diminished by going to the same university as others whose intellectual capacities you regard as less than yours. They are not going to hold you back or weigh you down, and you will have plenty of opportunity to find your intellectual peers, people who excite and challenge you. Everyone deserves an education. And you may be surprised at the capacities and skills of many of the people you are disrespecting now. For the rest of your life, you will be living next to them, voting in the same voting booths, working for the same companies (even if in different capacities), sending your kids to the same schools.
@3littlebirds, on your post #14, you asked about financial aid. It looks like you have a little need.
Are you prepared to be full pay? I donât think applying for aid affected her applications but if she decides to go for any of her waitlists, you should be prepared to not get any FA.
Also from your first couple of posts, it sounded like the GC was perplexed with your Dâs denials and WLâs. And she didnât know who or where to call about these. How long has this GC been in this department? I would seriously consider contacting the head of the guidance department and discuss your Dâs list and the GC she had. I absolutely believe that the head of the department should know what went on the the reachy list that D had with no true safety.
A safety does not need to be an instate school. Off the top of my head, DePauw or Denison would be a contender as a true safety where she would have been accepted and with merit aid. Earlham also, all great schools in the Midwest where plenty of high stats kids go. (I know this personally from kids in the top 10% of my kids very high performing HS went and were very happy).
I am concerned about your first post (and as a first time parent, I am not blaming you) that this was a GC that needs more guidance about having a list that is a bit more balanced. And not gleaned from the Naviance scatterpoints.
People are labeling OPâs D as prestige seeker because of the list. I see it as she is trying to find a school that would match her intellectual/academic ability. No different than when âsmarter kidsâ want to be in more advanced classes.
I gotta agree with @oldfort to some degree. A lot of the so called âprestigeâ schools show really well and offer a lot more resources than a lot of the safeties. And since a lot of the schools cost the same, your getting more bang for your buck at the âprestigeâ place. If someone is spending $70k, they would be getting more value out of a Williams or Duke, than out of an Allegheny (which I actually think is a good school btw) If schools were priced like cars, the conversation may be a bit different
However, prestige as commonly associated with admission selectivity does not necessarily match up with academic rigor of the school. For example, a student looking for a mathematically rigorous economics major may find it more the case at UC Santa Cruz than at Penn State or Florida State, even though UC Santa Cruz is the least selective of these schools.
Sometimes working FOR the people you disrespected. I donât know who said âBe humble or be humbledâ, but I like it.
I will just put it out there, even within Cornell, Probability & Statistic offered at CAS, CoE, business school, Hotel are taught differently and level of difficulty are not the same.
âAnd yes- itâs hard to sell Rutgers Engineering or UIUC Comp Sci to a kid who is in love with MIT or Cal Tech.â
UIUC CS also isnât all that easy to get in to these days (they reject high-stats kids all the time now) and in both CS rigor and employment outcomes isnât much different from the very top schools in CS.
Illinois Comp Sci and Engineering are not considered safeties even for in state kids. I think the Illinois kids use Iowa State for a better engineering safety. Not sure about Comp Sci. I think so many of those programs are hard to get into. Lots of kids at our high school have had good luck getting into Purdue Comp Sci but I still donât think they consider it a safety per se. Depends on the studentsâ stats.
I understand why elite schools have the pull that they do. And I agree that, for many high stats kids, there are good reasons for wanting to be at a top ranked school. My point was just that they are all lotteries at this point and should be viewed as such so that expectations are realistic.