Thread will soon be about decisions, last 5 schools are all reaches but still hopeful
1570 SAT / 44 IB / Bio&Sustainability/OOS/full pay
Admitted: Caltech, MIT, UVA, UCSC, UCD
Waitlisted: UCLA, Tufts, Santa Barbara
Rejected: Williams, Swarthmore
Waiting: Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth, UCB, Stanford
Congratulations. Great acceptances. Does he do AMC or AIME
No, but considering math/cs minor
When I look at their stats and acceptances and some of the others I donāt know what the schools are looking for, If MIT and Caltech want them whatās with UCLA not accepting. It seems like most schools are not accepting a lot of great kids [ which can happen for some ] and if most schools do that to some students these will be going to less well known schools and will still thrive and make it a successful career.
Sometimes a student focuses on the Common App and school specific supplementals and then tries to make those essays/activities fit into the UC application. It is like putting a square peg in a round hole.
The UC application is very different from the Common App. It includes four 350 word personal insight questions and 20 activities & awards with descriptions. The UCs are test blind. Major matters, as does being OOS. While the nine UCs share the same application, each university looks for different attributes in an applicant.
Iāll be doing a lot more post-mortem thinking later, but one thing Iāll say so far about this year is that test scores really donāt seem to be making much of a difference in results. My S19 had an SAT score that was near the top of the range pretty much anywhere; S24 has a score thatās solid but not remarkable at top schools (1490). Cannot discern a difference in results (if anything, S24s are stronger, likely because he has stronger ECs). S24 has been waitlisted at schools where heās at or above the 75th% and admitted at schools where heās below the average. My initial take is that if itās a choice between devoting time to getting test scores up or diving deeper into ECs or courseworkā¦go with the latter no question.
This was 100% my conclusion, on limited experience. But then there was a robust discussion (with regard to TO) about the cases in which focusing on getting high test scores was important ā¦ so I get that there are other cases out there.
What I hate most about the past few years is how impossible it is to guess about this kind of stuff. For SOME schools, maybe test scores are super important, and S24 should have gone TO if he was below the median. For others it doesnāt matter as much. The last result that he really cares about is Emory (I think part of him would like to be close to home)ā¦right now Iām having very vivid flashbacks to the woman who did the info session we attended saying, āI canāt tell you whether to submit your scores or not; I can just say that if you submit them I canāt unsee themāā¦and wondering if he made the wrong choice. But I think itās ridiculous that he needs to be an expert in game theory to figure out whether he should submit his scores or not (and, indeed, his scores should make it very clear that math is not his strong(er) suit!)
Once I figured out how to use our SCOIR data, I was able to get some idea of whether a college seemed to be looking for a particular score range. Of course this required enough data points, and there were not necessarily a lot of points specifically in the high grade, but not so high test score, during the test optional era, zone. But still, I could at least guesstimate for many colleges. And I could also do the same for GPAs, and actually there often seemed to be more high test score, but not so high GPA, combinations than the other way around.
Overall, I would say I never got the impression a high test score wouldnāt help at all, but to me it seemed like more colleges were more strict with GPA than test scores, meaning a high GPA but not so high test applicant would likely have more options than a high test not so high GPA applicant. On the other hand, a very few colleges (the usual suspects) seemed to be strict about both GPAs and test scores, so those are the ones where maybe a high test was nearly a practical requirement for unhooked admissions, even if it was nominally test optionalāfor our kids, at least.
I definitely think when looking at just RD admissions to selective (and not just the most selective) colleges in the most popular markets, it has become systematically less predictable what those colleges will do with a kid with a given set of numbers, including what may strike people as a lot of āanomalousā results where kids will get waitlisted or rejected from a supposedly less selective colleges while being admitted to supposedly more selective colleges. I personally think this makes sense once you understand the complexities of holistic review, the possibility of different institutional priorities, different applicant mixes, and how all that intersects with increasing RD applications per applicant (particularly for the applicants these colleges seriously consider), and the resulting decline in yield predictability.
But my impression is also that if you get outside of the most popular markets, this is far less true. Meaning RD admissions are still reasonably predictable overall, understanding holistic review creates an unobserved dimension that basic numbers cannot capture, but also understanding certain colleges are regularly looking for certain types of students such that a good fit improves your chances. In other words, in these not-hyper-popular markets, the traditional likely/target/reach approach, thoughtfully applied, will tend to work out well, even if you donāt know for sure what will happen at each specific college. That impression was based on me āstudyingā the available information going into S24ās application cycle, and his decision pattern so far is right on track with that impression as well, as are the other decisions I am hearing about.
So, yes, if you look only at colleges in or near Boston, in California, and so on, I think it is a very challenging situation from an RD prediction standpoint.
But if you are looking at, say, colleges in the Great Lakes/Midwest? Maybe with just a few exceptions (like Chicago, Northwestern, and maybe WUSTL (and even then I feel like I kinda get WUSTL)), I think it usually is more understandable. Which doesnāt mean there will be no āanomaliesā, but fewer, and those will often have an ascertainable basis (like, if you account for residency, school/major, or something like that).
UMass is a great school, but Iām sure the kiddos are all bummed. I love the extra scoops ice cream for saving on money.
I will be struck down by the admissions gawds for saying this but if we arenāt blessed with the Ivies, Iām investing in a condo in Waikiki.
Good luck!! My son is at Brown and he loves it there.
A challenge we had w/D24 is that we are coming out of a very small high school (avg class around 25), very rural, and very hard to get any comparable data, and a completely unexperienced counselor. Most kids donāt go to college as a next step. Test scores and AP gave us something to work with, but outside of their limited use, nothing at all seemed remotely predictable.
Sounds like us. We have great scores/gpa/AP/rank, but under 100 kids in class, and have not had great luck.
Yes, cases like that are naturally going to be a lot less predictable. I do think a sufficiently high test score/AP scores can help, but then in that context a certain test score profile might actually be more helpful than it would be for kids from standard college prep high schools. But exactly what that means at any given college is not going to be easy to figure out. Even more so if you are interested in chasing merit.
So if all this leads to a few more targets and reaches than you might have coming out of one of those college prep high schools, thatās fine of course. And as always, some affordable true likelies is critical.
The concept of affordable, true likelies that are also a good fit academically is a real challenge. I think itās a part of why so many rural kids (and so many others) under match. As was said upthread, our reaches were our financial safeties. One bright side is that colleges are catching on a bit: Top colleges seeking to recruit rural students : NPR
Then again, that is a hook of its own. Particularly if combined with strong test scores. I am not surprised by your results, even if you canāt exactly predict which will be a hit or a miss.
Very rural has been a hook for decades. Almost the definition of geographic diversity.
I think the tricky bit, as has come clear in the Dartmouth and Yale discussions, is at least the most selective colleges really want to skim off what they consider to be the top prospects out of under-resourced areas. That doesnāt necessarily mean having the same qualifications as admits from highly resourced areas, but they want some sort of indicators of exceptionality, like a test score way, way above the normal top of the area distribution.
Has this changed over the past few years? I look at a place like PennState. Fewer than 40 percent of admitted students submit test scores now. Assuming thereās a selection effect going on, doesnāt this skew the final results? Six out of ten people did not have their scores considered as part of the process.