At my local HS if a student doesn’t take the AP exam the class is downgraded to honors level on the transcript.
While S’s High School does not count AP exams’ score towards final GPA, he wants to save $$$ by taking the 4 AP exams this year as his admitted college is generous with AP credits.
That was actually what spurred my child on to withdrawing some applications before we had a decision. They know they’d love to go to their EA school, and these would be middle of a back-up list, so why risk that kind of rejection? Now we get to still like these schools, even if we’re not sending a student there 
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My D received her first waitlist decision the other day and this was more of a match/safety school. We are not feeling confident about the rest to come. It’s so hard to predict. She hasn’t had a rejection yet but I’m worried they will all come at once…that sting will be tough.
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My son got waitlisted at a couple match-ish schools then got into several super reaches. I wouldn’t sweat it. The thing about super competitive admissions is that it produces seemingly inconsistent results. Tons of possible reasons. Some of the schools skew so strongly on early admissions that they become reaches for regular decision – like the difference between 40%+ admission EA and single digit in RD. Many schools also yield protect, so if they believe you’re kid will get into more competitive schools they may not take a chance offering admission. Etc. The result was a roller coaster ride until the end of March.
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Have hope! That’s how were we feeling and then a reach acceptance came 
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Yes, having hope! This is our boat, too. Our list for D24 might not have been appropriately balanced (what did we know back in October/November?) and a combination of yield protection or suboptimal luck could really hurt. March is tough. All four reaches have single digit RD acceptance rates, and if all four target schools yield protect, or if we are wrong about them as targets (ie, they were really reaches, too), then April will be even harder than March!
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We had the same experience last year - D waitlisted at, honestly, MOST that were target/match based on academic profile yet accepted to MOST of her reaches which included a number of reach-for-all schools. Another factor that likely came into play for my D was need-aware vs. need-blind admissions (all but one of those waitlists, I think, were from need-aware schools)…it was, as you say, a real rollercoaster in March. The good part was that once we hit mid March (major selective LAC notification weekend when she heard positive news from 6 of 6 over the course of 18 hours), the waitlists that came later stopped stinging. In fact, we started to see not inconsistency but consistency in her results - just not what we’d expected when helping her build her list!
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Pre-requisite for a successful college application now is a PhD in Game Theory. What a time to be alive.
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As follow-up to our discussions about volunteering for ScholarMatch (helping low-income, first-generation students apply to college), I wanted to share that my application was accepted!
What that means is I’m invited to complete the training modules by 3/26. Assuming I complete them and score well on the assessments of the modules, I’ll be matched with a student.
As a heads-up to those interested, the training modules are estimated to take about 8 hours total. So if you are considering applying, I’d encourage you to do so sooner rather than later.
Also - I’ve learned that while the program was founded in California, students from all over the country participate…about 1,100 each year. I’m sure most of these are from California, but they are not only from California any more.
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Actually, just learned that about 30% of students are from the SF bay area, 4% are from the LA area, and the rest are from the rest of the US (probably including other parts of California, but likely not a huge number).
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I’m grinning like a fool over here. C24 got accepted to SDSU a few minutes ago, and they got the absolute cutest admission video! Turns out I’m an absolute sucker for such things.
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I think more schools should do things like admissions videos. I also loved when a school included a handwritten note on the admissions letter. Such a nice touch. And where’s all the swag?
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Our swag came at admitted student days
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We didn’t even get a physical letter from a couple flagships, let alone swag!
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Ours too. I think they save it for the students that visit on admitted students day.
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Shoot–I was ABD. Sorry, S24.
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This is what gets so confusing and disheartening for kids who get rejected from true safeties. What is the point of a safety if they don’t get in and then get accepted to a reach for everyone. Who is to say they didn’t want the safety and would have considered it, even in light of the reach acceptance.
Seeing this going around a lot with high stat kids getting true safety rejections.
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If you get rejected from a school, by definition it wasn’t a safety.
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Hmm then I need to seriously study up again on what a safety means because I’m getting very confused seeing kids with great stats that exceed the expected student profile of the school, in non-impacted majors getting rejected from schools that were thoroughly vetted by counselors saying it was a safety/likely for them.
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