<p>^^^Well said cpt. Strategy is the key word, both for admissions and paying for college.</p>
<p>voss: finally found the extensive list of common data sets for each school. Thanks. I didn’t even know that existed. Do you think those are more accurate than each individual school’s website? Or are they pretty much the same? Either way, it’s nice to have them listed all in one location instead of having to find it on each site. </p>
<p>MD: Yes, that seems to be the consensus. Some schools will be reaches no matter what. We just have to find more safeties for my D.</p>
<p>^ Each school’s web site will be the most accurate, but it’s usually an issue of inclusion and being up-to-date, not accuracy. BTW, what list did you find?</p>
<p>It’s definitely more accurate than the college board. Don’t know about otherwise.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“College Lists Wiki / Common Data Sets”>College Lists Wiki / Common Data Sets]College</a> Lists / Common Data Sets<a href=“said%20it%20was%20last%20updated%206%20months%20ago,%20so%20I%20hope%20that%20is%20recent%20info.”>/url</a></p>
<p>Ah, at first glance, those ARE links to each individual school’s website, so there would be no difference. The data doesn’t change significantly from one year to the next.</p>
<p>Did you click on any of them? It didn’t look like anything I have ever seen on any of their sites…however, I only looked at 2 so far. It’s definitely nice to have them in one place…all the schools aren’t represented there, but a lot are. Maybe I just didn’t know how to get to that info through their site.</p>
<p>Yes, sorry, some links work, most don’t. 
So google for a school’s web site CDS section C9 page (not all schools publish a CDS), e.g.:</p>
<p>[Macalester</a> Common Data Set](<a href=“http://www.macalester.edu/ir/cds/cds10.htm#CCC]Macalester”>http://www.macalester.edu/ir/cds/cds10.htm#CCC) shows (scrolling down):</p>
<p>C9. First-time first-year (freshmen) students enrolled in Fall 2010 who submitted SAT/ACT test scores.</p>
<p>Percent submitting SAT scores: 65%
Number submitting SAT scores: 337
Percent submitting ACT scores: 57%
Number submitting ACT scores: 291</p>
<p>--------------------------25th %tile 75th %tile
SAT Critical Reading—640----------740
SAT Math---------------620----------710
SAT Writing-------------630----------730
SAT Essay---------------NA---------- NA
ACT Composite----------28---------- 32
ACT Math----------------26----------32
ACT English--------------28----------34
ACT Writing---------------8----------10</p>
<p>It’s not just you. It IS a hard year - the hardest one yet:</p>
<p>[10</a> College Admissions Trends: Southern Schools, Waitlist, More - The Daily Beast](<a href=“The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>
<p>gluckie, one other source for figuring out if a school is a reach/match/safety for your D is to ask her school counselor where students with similar stats are being accepted.</p>
<p>I suspected as much from what I’ve been seeing and the most selective decisions are not even out yet.</p>
<p>^^Slithey – that info is only in hindsight, right? I mean the GC can tell you where kids in the past have been accepted, but I relied on that info from my gc, and she and I were both surprised by rejections. Her answer? This year is different.</p>
<p>That article implies that the admissions departments are considering the waitlist as a part of regular admission process, to some extent, this year, since the schools seem to be having a tough time figuring out who is going to accept their offer.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone today and tonight and tomorrow.</p>
<p>Classof2015, I guess all information is in hindsight! 
But it is information that can be folded into the mix.</p>
<p>Thanks voss. Will try each school individually. Thought I had a goldmine there. ;)</p>
<p>Slithey, thanks, I will do that. Didn’t even think of asking the GC about past graduates.</p>
<p>IMHO, this was a ridiculously tough year. My husband and I are “older” parents to our high school senior, and both of us can attest that it was nothing like this back in the day. We applied to maybe 2 or three schools, and were easily accepted to all. My nieces and nephews did the same, maybe upping their applications to 4 schools. But whenever my husband and I went to the parent college night and heard that they wanted our son to apply to 9-12 schools, we were aghast. Being that it is a private school, we assumed that it was because they wanted to have the stats to show all the different types of schools their graduates were accepted to. Now I know it’s because they wanted to ensure our kids had a choice. Those top tier schools are such a shot in the dark anymore, and the kids stress so much about them, it’s very difficult for them to stay positive.</p>
<p>Good luck to all.</p>
<p>I think it’s a very tough year. My daughter has nearly “perfect” stats, good ECs, good recs, good essays, and she didn’t get in to several places. We’re happy with her possibilities but I think that the process has been soul crushing.</p>
<p>megdog: Do you mind saying the places she got in? Just curious to see what schools are saying “yes.”</p>
<p>^^^In the fields of social psychology and game theory, there is a class of problems called social dilemmas. These are situations where the incentives mean that what is the optimal behavior for the individual is detrimental at the group level. Two famous examples are the prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the commons/resource over-exploitation. There have literally been thousands of theoretical, empirical, and experimental academic articles written about these problems.</p>
<p>I have come to understand the college admissions process as it is currently undertaken to be a perfect example of a social dilemma. Because application decisions are unpredictable, every candidate is rewarded personally for submitting more applications. Collectively the result is larger application numbers which drives down acceptance rates and increases the unpredictability, thus closing the feedback loop. In fact, there are some things about college admissions that make the incentives to pursue your self interest doubly compelling. </p>
<p>The result? Each year becomes more difficult than the last because earnest, talented kids look at the results from the previous year, and see their mirror-image counterparts waitlisted from their dream schools. Each year on CC there is a poster child with perfect scores and amazing accomplishments who gets rejected from the hyper-selectives (remember christiansoldier?) Each year there are posts of “Waitlisted everywhere” despair that drives a stake of fear into the hearts of the next cohort and their parents. The insurance policy against disappointment? More applications.</p>
<p>And I am not making this statement from some perch of superiority–I had my son apply to 19(!!) schools–arguably a collectively immoral yet individually optimizing number. As long as the rules are as they are, I cannot foresee anything but continually increasing application numbers.</p>
<p>I’ve been lurking in the shadows too but find this topic compelling. My D is a Junior and we just got back from a spring break college visit trip to the east coast. Why? So that the schools we looked at might give her a small, but probably needed, leg up for geographic diversity. We looked only at smaller schools that have good financial and/or merit aid stats. She’s looking into Engineering school and I hope that helps as well. But it hurts my head imagining applying to 10+ schools next year to be an effective player in the financial aid game. I’ve also been frank with her that finances will ultimately matter and she has looked at state schools here. Fortunately, she’s pretty easygoing and adaptable, so I know that wherever she ends up, she will do fine.</p>