<p>I am not one for obsessing over the “whys and why nots” (I think it’s healthier to look forward), but I wanted to remark that for pretty much every school…needing FA puts you in a more competitive applicant pool. And of course, being Asian (an “Over Represented Minority”) also puts you into an even more competitive pool…there are just too many qualified candidates. When my older daughter went through this process 3 years ago, an AO at a HADES school told me that the Asian girl cohort was THE single most competitive applicant group.</p>
<p>This sort of thing is why some of us parents are so “cast a wide net”/“be very honest about your strength within the applicant pool”/“it is extremely hard to get admitted to the more selective schools” in the months leading up to January.</p>