Our weekend brought some highs, a low, and yet another waitlist. I thought we’d be adding another accepted student visit to the list, but surprisingly she seems pretty set on her top choice. It’s funny to me because she made a list before all of this began of what she thought she wanted and the only thing that has stayed the same is the requirement that it be within a six hour drive from home. I can’t even get her to consider going to admitted student events for the latest acceptances. She is really down on one college which seems lovely and is geographically closer to where she said she wanted. I feel like she should be able to articulate better what she likes about her top choice, but maybe it doesn’t matter. If she’s happy and it’s financially in range, that’s what matters.
Note that this table lists institutions that supply 50 or more APPLICANTS. It says nothing about how many are accepted nor where they were accepted.
Late edit: Also be aware the table includes alumni in the applicant count, even though some may have later studied at a post-bacc or graduate program. The data only captures what undergrad institution an applicant graduated from.
Oh my goodness, that’s a huge oversight on my part. Thank you!!! I will edit my post so it’s not stating false info.
It’s been a rollercoaster in our household: after the surprise acceptance to the reachiest reach, D25 was waitlisted at a school with a higher acceptance rate (though still quite selective) that was her unofficial top choice – unofficial because she wouldn’t say so, I think out of trying not to get her heart set on a highly rejective school.
She does have several good options. @Rostov I’m a little jealous of your D25’s certainty- in our case, far from being set on one choice, she is still seeing the benefits of all her choices and having a hard time letting them go. We are trying to figure out the logistics of admitted student events and not miss too much school, as well as have some semblance of a spring break.
The decisions are baffling, aren’t they? I’m a little relieved that D25 didn’t get into the reachiest because I wasn’t convinced she would like it and it sounded more academically intense than I think she was read for. But I guess that school knew that too.
It’s nice that your child has a lot of options. That’s a good problem to have. I hope you all find a way to narrow without going too nuts trying to visit every school. Are they geographically proximal so you can visit more than one on a single trip?
Yes, baffling! Of 4 highly selective LACs, she was accepted at the 2 with lower acceptance rates, and waitlisted at the other 2.
All of the schools are within a 4 hour drive of us and not too far from each other. We could do several back-to-back during her spring break week, but a) it’s the last week in April which feels a long time to wait and b) we’d planned to visit my parents over spring break (they’d understand if we missed it but still). I think we’ll be able to figure out a schedule that works, it’s just a bit maddening the logistics of it all.
D25 decided on college relatively easily I think. I think it was honestly harder for me to move on from her declining free tuition offers even though I knew the schools themselves were not great fits for her. S23s college decision was easy once the money landed where it needed to and we all knew it was the right choice.
After college choice then come all the other little decisions. Neither of my college kids really liked the roommate selection process. S23 is not big on social media and all his closest friendships have happened organically in person. He went random (and it worked out just fine). D25 does look at social media and did the roommate match app through her final choice and sounds like she basically agreed to the first person who asked her. Granted it sounds like its a decent match and honestly, it always feels like roulette regardless when you don’t know a soul on the campus you will be attending. D25 says she was just “done” with making college based decisions and feels more at ease about it all because the “big things” are “all set.”
She is headed to the admitted students day with her dad now. I can’t wait to hear her thoughts about being on campus now that its where she knows she will be in fall (and if her dad likes it as I know that was weighing on her mind.)
Baffling is definitely the right way to describe it. A few years ago my child was accepted to Williams, Middlebury, Colby and Haverford; WL’d at Bates; denied by Bowdoin and Wesleyan. Go figure!
I think that because we don’t see the whole class being put together by the admission office, these decisions seem super arbitrary when they aren’t (at least not in the way we mean).
The amazing applicant with the tiny hook of great tuba player looks fantastic at the school where the orchestra tuba player is a senior, but maybe looks average excellent at the school where the tuba player is a freshman.
Basically, the schools know what they are specifically looking for but we don’t. So while we might wonder why selective college 1 says yes, and selective college 2 says no - I think it is less about the applicant/application and more about what each school is looking to fill/support/create specifically with that year’s admitted class.
I think that because we don’t see the whole class being put together by the admission office, these decisions seem super arbitrary when they aren’t (at least not in the way we mean).
The amazing applicant with the tiny hook of great tuba player looks fantastic at the school where the orchestra tuba player is a senior, but maybe looks average excellent at the school where the tuba player is a freshman.
I do not think this is the case at all. A typical college might be giving admissions offers to about 3000 students. There might be a specialized need for say 50 specialized skills that a college might be in desperate need off. The vast majority of the students are not admitted like this. UVA Dean J talked about this directly something to the effect off - “when we admit x000 students, we don’t need to worry about finding a debate team member, a violinist, a pianist, etc. We don’t go trying to find a few of each. Such a large body of students have diverse interests without us looking to fill each niche.”
That also makes sense. I never head of an AO talking about checking off, “oh we got a tubla player already, we don’t need one more”. They need to maintain a list of all the specialized skills they need and each AO would need to check off from that list for this to work.
I think at a SLAC planning out a balanced class has to be part of the process. While they might not be looking at it so minutely, they don’t want half the class to come from the same background, have similar profiles. Think about geographic diversity alone. There are so many factors involved that we are just not privy to.
That is a regular example i hear of institutional priorities, actually.
" * Students who play underrepresented orchestra instruments such as the Bassoon, French Horn, Harp, and Double Bass"
I do think it is usually far more generic - like “more kids from midwest” or “more kids into classics” as priorities though..
Yes this is a similar list and similar outcomes. And yes we already knew about institutional priorities, it just still feels surprising when it happens to your kid in the moment. I’m glad though we kept the list of reaches as long as it was-- she was worried about being too reach heavy, and might have struck the lower-acceptance-rate ones off the list. And we also made sure she applied to some targets and likelies that she was excited about, in fact this is part of why now she is still so undecided.
Unless we get some bottom-of-the-9th surprises, S25 wants to visit FOUR schools over Spring Break before they make their decision. Our budget is limited, but I don’t want them to decide on any without a visit. Oh, and did I mention that I don’t drive? I even asked ChatGPT to try to make an itinerary for us to visit Schenectady, Hartford, Worcester, and New London within six days. It’s madness.
Oh my! I think we may have a decision over here…
Kid today said they had decided on 
RIT !
We are booked for admitted students day this upcoming weekend, so if all goes to plan, will sign on dotted line there! I hope the bookstore is ready 
.
I am not really superstitious, but had a couple of fun “signs” this week that made it seem like the right choice…
They have been leaning this way for a bit, but seemed SUPER unsure and we had a bunch more admitted students days to visit (some seemed not at all likely to me). '25 spent time learning more about benefits of coop programs this week and I think “got it” better.
It is, on paper, an amazing fit. I remember first learning about it probably 2 years ago now and being impressed it had strong ECs and programs for all my kids interests. It has a few things, that other top choices don’t so really does make sense!
Does you student drive? I used GoSeeCampus.com for planning college visits. It gives you the optimal road trip.
My strategy with accepted visits was to schedule them in order I thought they would fit. After confirming she loved the one she thought was her number one, we cancelled the remaining visits.
We are done with admitted students days and down to three schools to choose between. Yesterday we attended NC State’s event, and after the visit my daughter ruled out RIT. The three remaining are NC State, UNC Wilmington, or Temple. The reasons for her interest are so different from school to school, comparing them to each other has been tough. I feel like she can’t go wrong no matter which one she ends up at. I’m eager for her to decide though!
That is a regular example i hear of institutional priorities, actually.
I understand, that is why I mentioned it. They need a few specialized ones like this and a maybe a few dozen more. It’s not much different from athletics. Once that is done, they are not trying to craft the class in such a precise fashion. So when they fill up the quota of specialized roles a 4th tubla player is not getting any advantage or disadvantage. I am sure they might have some type of dashboard that indicates at a high level the number of states represented, likely majors, underrepresented groups, etc.
Even when they offer there is no guarantee that the student would accept that offer. So it does not make sense to try to tailor the class in a surgical manner. That feels so USSRish.
No argument there. “Crafting a class” seems to indicate some level of precision and selection that I just do not see happening but I have stumbled upon such advice on various college counselors websites.
I think that’s because when there is an actual need for say, the tuba player, the orchestra director made admissions aware.