Parent of Worried Daughter with Relatively Interesting Stats--Please Help!

Parents Forum
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<p>I strongly agree with both of Calmom’s points:
First control what you can and let the rest go. Nobody is perfect in all areas (and if they are even that can be suspect) and strength in one area can compensate for weakness in another. I personally think that the OP’s daughter’s SATs can be overcome by her strengths IN SOME SITUATIONS.</p>

<p>Secondly, my opinion, Yan, is that your daughter should take a deep breath and re-evaluate her list. It seems to be proliferating without a logical and consistent strategy.</p>

<p>Fit is a lot more important that you might think. Teaching style, environment, interaction with the other kids DOES make a difference in the student’s success rate. It seems to me that the “personality” of some of these schools is at odds with the others and with what you’ve told us about your daughter. </p>

<p>They are all good schools academically, so put that part aside for a minute. Some offer Chinese and/or Arabic – that’s easy enough to determine. I also wouldn’t worry too much about the strength of the economics, international relations and political science departments. These are general groupings and most colleges that are good academically are also good in the social sciences.</p>

<p>I would focus on the following points of differentiation: She is Asian, she is creative, she has a unique international background, she is politically moderate, her scores are on the low side relative to her grades and (presumably) her intellect.</p>

<p>In my opinion Huntsman is an extreme reach. Penn is notorious for statistical emphasis in admissions. That isn’t to say that she shouldn’t apply ED, however. To me that’s the whole point of ED: to give every last ounce of effort to your #1 heart’s desire. Penn is also notoriously biased toward ED applicants (though I don’t know about Huntsman per so) so the positive may outweigh the negative.</p>

<p>After that I’d go back to the traditional 3 reaches, 3 matches, 3 safeties. Don’t worry so much about grey areas, reachy-matches and matchy reaches. Just balance the selectivity while staying within a general ambience or personality. For example Reed and U of Chicago :: Cornell and Boston U – these schools have wildly different characters and environments. My suggestion would be for your daughter to try to think about FIT and come up with a cohesive group of schools.</p>

<p>I would also recommend that she find some schools that go against the grain of those that are stereotypically favored by Asians. I would definitely put some of the more remotely located LACs into that category. For better or worse, she will be competing with the sub-category of Asian demographic. </p>

<p>What I think would an enormous positive at some schools – her creative accomplishments and international experience – may not be enough to offset her relatively weak scores at another. Every school, even among the most selective, doesn’t evaluate on the same criteria. You need to think about what she can bring to the college. In my opinion, a lot!</p>

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Just curious: does anyone know what Penn’s policy would be if an ED applicant does not get accepted to the specific program they want? That is, if the OP’s daughter applies to Huntsman and they turn her down, might she still be admitted to Penn’s Arts & Sciences? And if so, is she bound by her ED commitment, or is there some wiggle room?</p>

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<p>I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. Of course, scattergrams differ school to school. I merely suggested yanimated check to see if his D’s school maintains them. </p>

<p>With low 600 SATs, applying to seven reaches and three safeties is magical thinking and wasted effort, in my opinion (only). Applying to one or two reaches may be worth the effort. ED is certainly the best shot–especially at Penn.</p>

<p>Perhaps the 770 Chinese score (!) will make Penn hold onto her application for a thorough look–perhaps not. Her community work might make Gtown take a thorough look. In the end, she is competing against smart, interesting female candidates from large urban schools on the West Coast. That is a very talented pool. </p>

<p>The decision to make the effort to apply is worth a thorough examination of the course and faculty choice deep into junior and senior year. After all, the first two years are mostly taken up with core requirements. Asking why Penn is her ‘dream’ school is a good question–especially in light of her interests.</p>

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<p>While I think a dead horse is being beaten here, I do think it’s important to note that getting into Barnard and Chicago with low scores is a whole different thing then getting into Huntsman, Harvard or Dartmouth. Both of those schools have at least double the acceptance rates of the really competitive schools.</p>

<p>Huntsman is probably harder than Harvard in general and definitely is for an Asian candidate using Chinese as the target language.</p>

<p>The ivies are numbers driven to a way larger extent than Chicago or Barnard. It’s misleading to use anecdotal evidence (one kid!) when the profile of admits speaks for itself.</p>

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<p>One-quarter of students admitted & enrolled in Harvard in fall 2005 had SAT scores below 700.</p>

<p>One-quarter of students enrolled in Dartmouth had SAT verbal scores below 670, math below 680. </p>

<p>One quarter of the students who enrolled at U. of Penn in 2005 had SAT verbal scores below 660 and/or SAT math scores below 680. The average verbal ACT was slightly less than 700; the average high school GPA was 3.83.
(For what it’s worth, the average verbal SAT of entering Barnard was 700, average GPA 3.96; the Chicago test score range was somewhat higher, with 25th percentile level of 680 verbal, 670 math )</p>

<p>In 2006, Penn admitted 28.6% of early decision candidates, including 24 applicants to Huntsman, which is more than half of the anticipated number of enrollees to Huntsman. </p>

<p>The most significant factor for the OP’s daughter in an application to Huntsman is the strength of the competition, particularly with respect to language fluency and math skills - and the range of target languages they are studying, because it is likely that Huntsman wants its students spread fairly evenly across the major language departments. It’s a long shot, but the specific prerequisites to Huntsman will tend to limit the number of applicants, and the OP’s daughter has met the 2 key requirements in terms of her SAT II language score and AP Calculus score, so she is a viable candidate.</p>

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<p>Calmom, the stats you cite are extremely deceptive since they’re not describing an individual kid with his/her profile up for examination. I think it is very dangerous to predicate one’s admissions strategy on the composition of the bottom of the class.</p>

<p>Does Harvard admit kids with Verbal SAT’s below 700? Absolutely… the numbers speak for themselves. However, I’m willing to bet that if you take out the football and hockey players (which this girl is not) and the kids who coupled the 670 Verbal with an 800 Math, and the kids with a 650 verbal who were Intel finalists and top scorers on the physics olympiad, and/or Olympic figure-skating champions, or whatever, you’re left with one or two "slots’ for your average, garden variety 600-ish scorer. I’m willing to be that both of those slots (or maybe it’s 25… but still a small number) go to kids who grew up on the Navajo reservation, are the first to attend college, are political refugees from the Sudan, or grew up in a housing project 3 miles from Harvard yard (local kid makes good-- the Boston Globe runs one of those stories every year). </p>

<p>It is just not realistic to look at the aggregate stats and say, “hey, kids like me get in all the time” if by kids like me you mean bottom quartile scorers without a world-class, compensating skill to balance those scores.</p>

<p>Yan, your daughter looks like a fantastic kid and a wonderful addition to any college campus. However, I agree with the other posters that adding more reaches to balance out additions like BU isn’t the best use of her time. There are politically aware and active kids at places like George Mason, U Maryland, Wellesley, GW, etc… which is where kids who can’t get into Huntsman often end up…If it were me I’d be helping her add one or two of these schools to the list instead of more reachy type schools.</p>

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<p>Agree with Calmom here–but have found that scattergrams are useful to show the students (and their parents) that their applications to HYPSM (for example) have little chance of success. At least then they know that their application is akin to a “Hail Mary” pass. </p>

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<p>Also agree that a more targeted approach would maximize her efforts.</p>

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<p>yes I posted that my daughters school had scattergrams in #2
*waving- they go to same school :)<a href=“however%20I%20didn’t%20post%20a%20link-%20here%20it%20is”>/i</a></p>

<p>seniors have own password
everyone else can use guest
<a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=garfield[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=garfield&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I would be rather hesitant to suggest specific colleges. First, the kid and the father obviously have their preferences that have little to do with programs, matches etc. Such preferences may be demographic, international reputation etc. Obviously, the kid’s test score can be considered stellar for a majority of the colleges in this country, and there is a huge number of matching colleges that one can suggest. The choice however shoud be dictated by their preferences. Secondly, if the kid does apply to a suggested college without visiting and only after superficial research, it may create problems down the line. </p>

<p>The kid has already picked a safety in UW and a dream school in UP. The rest of the list should be dictated by their own personal preference. It would be presumptuous of me to suggest U of X as being a good fit since I know nothing about the kid’s preference.</p>

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<p>ek, that’s quite a scattergram for UW. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with 500 plot points before!</p>

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<p>The scattergrams for guests are at least the last few years- I dont know if the scattergram for seniors is restricted to the previous year- I think that would make it more helpful-</p>

<p>yes it was interesting
someone was denied with a 1550 SAT and a 3.9 GPA and someone was admitted with 770 SAT & 1.90 GPA</p>

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<p>Padad, the title of the thread uses the words “please help.” Under the circumstnaces, I don’t think that the fact that people are offering suggestions and help is at all “presumptuous.”</p>

<p>Frankly, I’m surprised by how much criticism there has been on this thread toward people offering suggestions, both as to specific schools and ways of presenting the student in applications. Wasn’t that the point of it, or have I missed something?</p>

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<p>It is impressive. Also interesting to see a couple of red x’s at the top right end of it. Scattergrams can be quite revealing about how colleges look on schools. Our son is applying to Stanford and it probably ought to be his second choice, but I don’t hold out much hope he’ll get accepted. Our scattergram for Stanford is a sea of red x’s. The two green squares are smack in the middle of the pack - one of them I know for a fact was a kid who was a legacy and a URM and related to someone famous.</p>

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<p>he doesn’t play football- I suppose- a coworker of my H is at Stanford on an scholarship
( I wonder if that is where the low ranked admits for the UW came from- not that I don’t think that athletes can attend college- but I think it sets them up for failure if their GPA isn’t even a C average in high school)</p>

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<p>No, he’s no athlete. He’s a computer geek. Stanford has one of the best computer programming departments in the country. We’ve got a great football team at our school (they’ll be playing in the finals for the state this weekend I believe,) so maybe one of those kids will end up at Stanford. :)</p>

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<p>Calmom, I don’t think the stats you posted are surprising to anyone here, but Blossom addressed that. What was a surprise to me was info in the link the OP posted to the Economist article about Golden’s new book. It claims that 60% of seats at top schools go to the hooked. I had always been told it was 50%.</p>

<p>There is also a letter from Dartmouth’s president on the Dartmouth board that talks about who gets in ED there and at other schools.</p>

<p>A side note, as another poster said earlier, 770, amazingly, is not a good score for the Chinese SATII. The test is so easy and so many native speakers take it that the curve is crazy. Nearly everyone I studied Chinese with, after 1 year of study, easily got 800.</p>

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<p>Garland, My post was worded as “I would be rather hesitant to suggest specific colleges …….It would be presumptuous of ME to suggest U of X as being a good fit” It is meant to be my own judgement and how I would act. </p>

<p>That said, I do think that the OP was a bit rash to ask for such suggestions. Coming up with a list of colleges to apply is a difficult enough process. Soliciting suggestions from a bunch of strangers, even with superb expertise, seems to me asking for trouble, and I am unwilling to participate. We are not talking about the mechanics of the process, which there are some good experts here but target colleges, which should be left to the duaghter’s preference.</p>

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<p>Padad, Huntsman is a known quantity here. Given that the daughter is indicating that it’s her first choice by applying early, there are a lot of people who can help guide the OP to schools with similar characteristics, or even programs within other schools that attract kids who like Huntsman. I have no idea what would be a good fit for this kid… but if you were to ask , “my kid loves college X but may not get in… what are some reasonable back-up schools with similar student bodies, or similar academic offerings, or have strong internships in marine biology”… there are lots of knowledgeable parents here who can really jump-start the search.</p>

<p>Frequently we get posters who ask questions but are really looking for reassurance that “oh your kids is a slam dunk” and for many of us… not a lot of slam dunks these days, especially when the top choice has an admit rate in the single digits, and some extremely well-qualified, awesome kids get rejected every year. I’d hate to see this kid at the top of a “How did this happen to us” thread next April.</p>

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<p>Padad:</p>

<p>Aren’t you being harsh? Noone on CC is in the position of forcing the OP’s D to do anything she does not wish to do if only because we are not where she is! All we can do is to offer words of advice and caution as well as suggestions–as requested. She is free to follow the advice, disregard both caution and suggestion. What’s wrong with that?</p>

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<p>Blssom, I hear what you are saying. I would agree with you if the timing of the post was around May, a time where they would have ample time to research a suggested college and visit. As it is November already, I would be very hesitant to make suggestions, partly because it may just add confusion and tension into an already difficult process. If these suggestions lead to an expanded list of colleges, it may even be harmful as the kid may not be able to give the necessary care to her large number of applications.</p>