national admit rate vs school admit rate

Applying to College
1

<p>On naviance there is a tool where you can see how many kids from your child’s school within SAT and GPA bands that you input have been admitted over the past five years.</p>

<p>So, if a college has historically taken 100% of kids with 2xxx to 2xxx SAT and an A average (and it’s a reasonable sample size of 20+ kids), but has a published national admit rate of 32%, and you fall into those stats, could it be considered a safety?</p>

<p>As an aside, I am shocked by the number of kids at my child’s school who apply to HYP et al with less than 2000 on SAT. None of them have gotten in.</p>

2

<p>@neato, we’ve been treating it as a safety if the high school’s Naviance data shows 100% admit for that stats range and DC’s stats are above that college’s reported 75th percentile stats.</p>

<p>You can find the college’s self-reported data by googling:
Common Data Set <<college name="">></college></p>

<p>A safety also has to be a financial safety. </p>

3

<p>The specific information about your stats and your high school’s history of admission decisions at the school is much more relevant to your chance than the overall admission rate for the school.</p>

<p>However, be careful that there is admissions-relevant information that may not be captured in Naviance plots. For example, a school divided into divisions (e.g. arts and sciences, business, engineering) may have different admission standards for each division. If essays, “level of interest”, and other subjective criteria are considered, an apparent safety-based-on-stats may have a significantly lower than 100% chance of admission for you.</p>

4

<p>I have a high stats kid so safeties and matches are what I’m focusing on. </p>

<p>@GMTplus7 The school cited above is one that she sould be thrilled to go to. We visited it and she loved it. It has wonderful study abroad programs in her field of interest and one of the top scholars in her area on the faculty. I’ve been thinking that I could call it a safety but the national admit rate made me cringe. Which school specific acceptance rates are you considering matches? She has two safeties according to naviance school info and her stats and one with a guaranteed scholarship. That’s enough, eh?</p>

<p>@ubcalumnus The very first thing I have done when she mentions a school she’s interested in is run the NPC. If it asks for SAT and GPA and includes estimated merit and is still unaffordable, it’s toast. Her intended major is not a popular one. It’s often one that people make fun of, actually! (which is stupid, but whatever) But all colleges on her list have well developed programs in it. The school that I cited above has a honors college that, while very interesting, would interfere with study abroad opportunities due to required seminars. Should she write the essay for it anyway and apply as a way of showing interest, even if she wouldn’t accept the offer? The topic is an easy one for her because it poses a philosophical question.</p>

<p>If it’s a school with a 50% or higher national admit rate, I go to the scattergram. If there are outliers who’ve been waitlisted and denied, it also gets taken of the list, unless she really loves it. Because who need to fall victim of yield protection?</p>

<p>But I must say that this tool is very reassuring. I just don’t want to overstate her chances. I do look at the scattergrams and when I notice a lower stat acceptance I ask her if she knows who it was. She usually does and it’s always someone hooked. </p>

<p>An interesting thing happens when you start scrutinizing data. At a JHU info session, a parent asked about SAT scores. The rep said, “They are less important than you think they are and more important than you want them to be.” I thought that was a good answer in that it seemed to placate the parent without discouraging applicants. But when I look at the data from my kid’s school at least, it shows a pretty clear picture. For instance, 28 kids with 2100+ SAT applied to JHU. Nineteen (68%) of them got in. So indeed, SATs are no guarantee. Everyone knows this. It’s drilled into every kid’s head from the minute they get their score report. The PROBLEM is that kids with low score are thinking the same thing. From my kid’s school, there were 31 kids over the same time period with LESS than 2000 SAT who also applied to JHU. Five were admitted (16%). </p>

<p>My takeaway from this data is, unless there is something really compelling about the rest of your application, (and it’s usually something the applicant has no control over, like being a refugee or a wealthy student from Senegal) or you’re a recruited athlete, don’t bother applying with low SATs.</p>

<p>High stats don’t ensure admission, but low ones almost certainly keep you out.</p>

5

<p>^ That’s probably a good way to consider it. Stats are just one of the first hurdles.</p>

6

<p>It definitely seems like your kid has a higher than 32% chance but it can still be risky. I know of 2 colleges that were known for accepting large numbers of students from my school, and one didn’t admit a single candidate last year, while another decreased sharply. The one that decreased sharply might have been because a lot of the kids were using it as a safety and so the yield rate from my HS was low. </p>

7

<p>Yes, I’ve thought of that. At some point, this college will stop taking so many because few enroll. I just hope it’s after this season! Beyond showing her genuine interest and putting together the best app she can, I suppose she’ll just have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, which is why I am always on the lookout for safeties to add to the list. If money weren’t an issue, it would be easy. But isn’t that always the case? :)</p>

8

<p>Another thought…it’s also good to see if there are just some colleges that just seem to dislike kids from your school. Brown and Duke come to mind for my kid’s school. DD has no particular passion for either so it’s not a big deal, but it does seem unfortunate. On the other hand, there are a few colleges that seem to really like kids from her school. Higher than normal admit and yield. It must be a fit thing, since she goes to a selective private school. Self selection, ya know?</p>

9

<p>Have you or your kid discussed this with your kid’s college counselor? The counselor will likely have additional insight into the school. </p>

<p>At my kid’s school (also a private school, though it used ‘likely’, ‘possible’, and ‘reach’ categories) we had a similar situation where we weren’t sure about whether to put a college into the likely or possible category (Naviance pointed to likely, whereas the college’s national admissions rate and stats pointed to possible). My kid’s college counselor advised putting it in the likely category based on the Naviance data as well as personal knowledge of the college’s admissions office.</p>

10

<p>netoburrito - be careful extrapolating a school’s view of your child’s HS from naviance. At th beter schools the number of applicants may not be statisitically significant enough to come to such a conclusion. For example my son was really interested in Penn. Penn, however, over the previous eight years had only accepted 3 of 80 applicants and two of those were recruited athletes. Several of the rejected kids were stats qualified. We concluded that Penn did not like our school. My son, however really wanted to go there so he applied. He and another kid from his class were accepted and both ended up at Penn. </p>

11

<p>I think there are probably personal relationships between some colleges and some private schools which increase the admit rate, but that wouldn’t change the ability of a students record to impress a top college from another HS. </p>

12

<p>If my D had a burning desire to apply to either Duke or Brown, I’m sure she’d have the support of her school, but she doesn’t. I just thought it was interesting. The applications to prep schools and colleges are very similar, which I think strengthens the correlation.</p>

13

“As an aside, I am shocked by the number of kids at my child’s school who apply to HYP et al with less than 2000 on SAT. None of them have gotten in.”

For what it’s worth, only one kid at my school has applied to Hahvaad with less than a 2000. Yet, at the tippy top right of the graph there are still only glaring red x’s.

14

Are you a GC?

15

I don’t think anyone who has posted on this thread is a GC. We are all just parents, as far as I know.