This might be useful information for those who are wondering about transcript requests that are sent to GCs:
@fretfulmother It was requested, sorry… just receiving it made me feel better, haha.
@DonkeyKong466 For SCEA as a whole, it’s 7% black, 11% hispanic, and 20% asian (not a URM but they give that stat). No clue what the distribution is of those, I’d imagine at least some overlap with the athletic or legacy pools.
Also 11% are international.
Thanks @CautiousOptimist . Chances seem even bleaker
I tried to tell as few people as possible (i.e. just my parents and counselor), but alas my counselor blabbed in front of my entire class (there’s only about 24 of us, and I’m sure she didn’t mean to, but still…). So if anyone was listening, they know, besides my immediate family. I was hoping I could just casually check and everyone would just forget until later this week, but my dad was like, “hey pull up the portal I wanna see what it looks like” after he asked about the exact decision date. I strongly agree with the opinion that no matter what, don’t tell anyone you’re applying! The struggle is real is all I can say.
Almost forgot ~:>
42 more hours :-S ~:>
I don’t understand why so many tried to keep applying EA to Pton under wraps & especially from parents. Seems a very common thing to not tell from reading posts.
Wouldn’t most of your classmates kind of assume (considering stats & ECs I’ve seen posted) that you guys would be applying to this caliber of college anyways? And unless using waivers, how do parents not know since I assume they’re the ones footing the costs for application fees, score reports, & FA info requests.
Insight please? Just very curious
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Wow all of your parents seem so interested in your decision! My parents are so aloof about it (they actually forgot I applied for a while), and they only brought it up last week because someone I know applied early to Harvard. They are quite, quite certain that I’m not going to get in, so they haven’t even bothered checking up with me. That is kinda sad now that I think about it, but that gives me all the more motivation to do the impossible and get in, although there’s literally nothing I can do. But man, wouldn’t it be nice to just casually bring it up in a conversation… “yadayadayada… Oh by the way, I got into Princeton. Pass the peas, please!” But if I get deferred (99.7130% chance) then I won’t even bring it up. I’ll just let it wither away and let the earth consume my failure whole. But honestly, it feels so nice to say all of this. I feel like I can trust you guys with this even though I haven’t met you because we’re all in the same boat. We’re really all in this together, HSM aside. Although I can’t wait for Wednesday at 3pm (2pm for me!) to roll around, I’ll seriously miss you guys and our group-stressing and freak outs. You guys have made this process so much more fun than ever and made the wait somewhat bearable. Even if we don’t get in, all of you will go on to be amazing, successful people. All there is left to say is good cluck on Wednesday!! See what I did there? Ahaha I’m so punny. Alllllright, fine. I’ll see myself out. ~:>
@jumbletumbles My parents know that I’ve applied, but I didn’t tell them the decision date. Like @Almondjoy7 said earlier, if I’m deferred/rejected I can just quietly mention it, and if I’m accepted I want to do something nice and surprise them. My friends are all applying to Ivy Leagues and top colleges as well (I go to a very competitive school), and we’ve just silently agreed not to ask each other about it… I guess I would rather have people not know where I’m applying at all than speculate about whether or not they think I can get in. ~:>
@meaa7130 I think my dad checks CollegeConfidential more than I do, to be honest.
@jumbletumbles I know, it’s fascinating. Especially given that since I don’t have a credit card I have to use their info to pay for them anyway, and it’s kind of a big deal… I don’t really know how they could keep it so tightly locked.
One of my classmates applied to Pton with me and we talk about it a lot. Pretty sure just about everyone knows. I don’t think it really puts any less pressure to hide it, everyone (at least at my school) knows how hard it is to get in, and how arbitrary decisions may seem.
@DonkeyKong466 Don’t be, especially since you don’t have any idea how many URMs are in the applicant pool! My post can’t guarantee anyone admission, nor was it meant to show that there was “no chance.” I think it’s just important to recognize that the chances are low but not terrible (if you had a 1 in 10 shot of winning the lottery, you’d take it, right?) to keep you… well, cautiously optimistic. Stay grounded in reality, but know that admission is firmly on the table. It isn’t just some 3% pipedream, especially if you believe your essays or recommendations set you apart from the group.
@jumbletumbles I can’t speak for anyone else, but the mindset in my high school is you just go to the state flagship. Even the smart kids. Sure, you can apply big, but rarely does anything ever come from it. I personally don’t want people to know because I don’t want them to ask me about it, and then when I get deferred to act all sorry for me and say that I’m better than X University and they missed out on me or encouraging stuff like that (rather hypocritical for me to say that since I just posted something similarly encouraging, but I’m the type to get annoyed by all the feel-good comments especially after a rejection. Sometimes I just want to stew in my self-loathing/self-pity before I pick myself back up.). I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of arrogant kid who applies to all the fancy schools and then make a fool out of myself when I get rejected. I’d rather it be a pleasant surprise than an embarrassing failure. Same with @cinnamonwings , I’ve told my parents I’ve applied (for obvious money and technical reasons) but I’ve left the decision date wonderfully vague. ~:>
@52balletvieta It’s all about taking full advantage of the opportunities you have been given. Good for you for going independently!
Couldn’t have said it better @cinnamonwings and @meaa7130 . Except pretty much no one in my class is applying to top schools besides one other guy in my class (though not EA, as far as I know) so I guess it’s more of a pride/dignity thing if/when the negative decision comes, and then of course people ask about it. In my opinion, it’s a lot worse when you’re in such a small class/school like I’m in, because there’s a lot more attention/pressure as to where everyone’s applying/getting accepted. ~:>
@meaa7130 I totally feel for that, but at this point everyone knows. At my school everyone knows where everyone is attending and is admitted to so there isn’t really much shielding that. I do sometimes wish I could go back and not have been so talkative about the schools I’m applying to because I feel like I’d be a bit of a jerk saying “I want to go to Princeton” and then getting rejected by every top-tier school I apply to. Also totally agree about the self-pity bit, unfortunately exams get in the way of that…
I keep telling myself I’ll be fine with a deferral as long as Michigan picks me up on Friday. If it comes to that, I’ll see if it’s true or not. And of course hopefully Michigan takes me, I wouldn’t consider that one locked up either.
@CautiousOptimist - I think the calculations should be adjusted using last year’s CC Pton’s SCEA acceptance rate just for those on this thread! This is a self selecting group after all…
@CautiousOptimist You did some great work looking at numbers for SCEA admission rates. I might add there is a group that you did not factor in, however. These would be the children of faculty, staff, dignitaries and major donors. I don’t know the numbers of these admits, but I do know several current Princeton students from these categories and therefore I think it’s safe to assume it’s not an insignificant number. All of these students apply in the early round as well.
There are also Questbridge applicants and I am not certain where their numbers fall in Princeton’s statistics but it would make most sense that they would be added into the early round.
@jumbletumbles Hmm? I suppose it would be possible to try to bring CC data into it but that’s not really something I have time for at the moment. Perhaps in the spring, but by then decisions will have already been submitted. Maybe I’ll try to put together something with this year’s data for next year’s applicants though.
@Cantiger yes, that is another elusive group. Regarding major donors, won’t many major donors factor into the legacy category already? I suppose nothing’s stopping anybody from buying a building just because (or to help little jimmy get into college) but I would have assumed that many major donors are giving back to their alma mater, giving it a slightly less significant impact on admissions?
Those people will definitely factor into it but the stats won’t be as easy to find.
Regarding Questbridge I think I saw someone say they just factored into the overall number because they formally apply to the university RD (Questbridge matches are independent from the SCEA process) but it was an applicant not an official, so I don’t know how accurate their input on that matter will be. Not that they were wrong about something they should know, just that they could be wrong about something they couldn’t really be expected to know about.
All valid criticisms, and of course given that it isn’t really a lottery it isn’t really accurate at determining chances either. Just a visualization I guess.
Edit to address @jumbletumbles’s edit: I’m not quite sure how to factor that in as a whole. It’s basically a theoretical vs. experimental value. With enough data points (if I were to analyze it over many years) we could potentially determine a given “CC” bonus (“CollegeConfidential users are XX% more likely to be admitted to Princeton University than the national average”). Otherwise though I don’t think there’s much to be done with historical CC data.
wow guys so this person i know applied to Princeton SCEA but also applied to Notre Dame early and got accepted today. Isn’t that literally not allowed?
Anyone else saying they or their kid got deferred if they get rejected? We (all 3 of us) told EVERYONE when our son got an interview because we were so excited. We know a lot of former and current college professors (none from Princeton) who congratulated him. He told his friends who had been all, “You can’t write an essay about THAT!” Now though, we’re being vague about the decision date, and if he gets rejected, we’re just going to say he was deferred. He’ll get in somewhere come Decision Day at the end of March. By that time, they’ll have forgotten to everywhere he applied to, if they even knew the list. Deferred is better than rejection and will spare him from, “I told you not to write your essays about X” and snide comments about how homeschoolers aren’t smart, driven, socialized, add your stereotype enough.
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@lolacell definitely not allowed… princeton’s SCEA program means you can’t apply to another private university’s early programs.