From his decision letter: Unfortunately, because of the competitive nature of the applicant pool, we are unable to offer you admission. However, the committee recognizes you have the ability to succeed on our campus in Computer Science and would like to offer you a spot on our waitlist for Fall 2020 enrollment.
I have seen so many others admitted with lower stats, that is why I wish I new why. Admissions counselor said they cannot tell him. They had to turn away many So disappointing! He was told they had more qualified students than spots. So really makes me wonder how the decision is made.
@MomofFirst - strongly agree that universities give a sense of why a candidate is rejected/waitlisted instead of hiding behind “holistic review”. Your son has good stats and hopefully gets out of waitlist.
My DS20 is flat-out rejected from his first priority CS (his stats: 1580 SAT; 4 subject SAT’s with 3 of them 800’s; 15 AP’s with most of them 5’s or in-progress; more state level awards in math/cs than we could not fit in the space in the common app; 2xAIME qualifier etc; 4.8/5W GPA; top 5% of class). We went back and checked the essays for the last couple days - they still seemed fine, though they are not spectacular, they are not bad either; nothing much he can do other than a punctuation mark here and there. Teacher reco’s should be strong - because both teachers knew him well and they offered to write on his behalf without being requested. Purdue was one of his top choices. Yet, we don’t know what went wrong or how he can improve in future.
One thing I can think of is, we didn’t visit (son was on Purdue campus as a middle schooler to attend a competition and he referred that in essay but not sure if they believed him). If the universities expect students to visit every univ during the admission cycle or through only official tours - its a ridiculous expectation imho. we already spend hundreds of dollars to prove their academic preparation (ap tests, sat tests, app fee, score reporting fees etc). It may be difficult for Univ to give feedback to every applicant, but in absence of that feedback this whole process feels so unfair.
Stats:
Gender: Female
Decision Plan: Early Action
UW/W GPA: 3.14/3.7
SAT/ACT: 1340/29 (32-Reading 32-Math 28-Science 25-English)
OOS: Virginia
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Deferred … do I have a good chance? They asked for my senior first-semester grades as well. I took a lot of AP’s (7 in junior), and I got 2 A’s, 3 B’s and 3 C’s. I’,m taking community college classes on the courses I did not do well in and to show I know the material. I didn’t do so decent on the AP exams, (i didn’t pass three of them)
EC: NASA Student programs (VASTS, VESS, VSCS), Rocketry Club (NASA SLI this year), and Robotics, (these are my main curricular activities)
I really feel sorry for your son, as that kind of stats and getting rejected outright is almost criminal . I was offended because they did not offers scholarship to my son. My son though wanted to go to chemical engineering with (1560 SAT and 35 ACT ) and other good stats . But not as good as your son’s .
My son already got admission to UIUC cheemical engineering ( honors) with instate so he was not going to take the purdue anyway . But still not offering scholarship hurt. I cannot imagine how you feel . The only reason why we applied is our neighbour’s son 3 years back got into Purdue CS with only ACT 34 and nothing out of the ordinary stats when University of Illinois ( urbana ) did not accept him in CS . And purdue accepted him and made it cheaper than urbana . That made us feel my son with better stats and going to chemical engineering has a better chance . But he did not get anything.
This hiding behind “holistic review” is bogus . This makes the system very unfair and based on luck, as it makes the process very subjective.
That is why I think we need to apply 10-12 colleges to know which college views the kid favourably.
It seems it’s not just the “stats” that matter, otherwise they’d just make a table with the numbers, draw a line below the last spot, and that would be it.
@BluEyeL
Not sure why you think , the parents of high stat kids think that stat is only that matter. Somehow the other parents think that our kids don’t have extracurriculars because the high stat kid did not get in or did not get scholarship .
It may be true in some cases, but not true in all . If my son got scholarship in all other colleges and in honors , and purdue did not give scholarship Then logic dictates that
Either
Those other 5 colleges did something right and purdue did something wrong
or
purdue did right and other 5 colleges did something wrong .
Or purdue thought that my son wouldn’t join purdue any way with his stat and EC. or make purdue look extra compettive on paper .
We are from OOS NJ and did not visit the campus. I said to my son we would visit if he got in since this was a harder school to get in to and a 11 hour drive. He did get in to Polytechnical without the visit though and his academic stats are not near a lot of people on this forum.
Collegedata says Purdue “considers” level of interest, but it is not that important.
@hs2020dad Your son has great stats! Who would think he would be rejected? That is what I mean. Kids wonder what made them not good enough to get in. I think the holistic process beyond hard stats, becomes a very objective process. The reason, whether we agree or not, would be good to know. I just think that being waitlisted is worse than being deferred. Like a soft rejection.
@lvvcsf Purdue could aid in the transparency of the merit process by publishing the number of awards for in-state versus out-of-state for the Trustee and Presidential scholarships, since these seem to be the only awards that out-of-state students qualify for. Many other schools do segregate the awards according to residency, so you can better judge your odds. My own feeling is that the 15% award level does not apply to out-of-state applicants, and that may be why people are so disappointed. You should not be comparing in-state applicants to out-of-state. Purdue, like Georgia Tech, and any of the big publics have a mission to serve their home state students first. Purdue is actually one of the most favorable top 10 public engineering schools, both in admittance and overall cost of attendance, for out-of-state students.
I am actually a bit disappointed by some of the reactions I have seen in the past few days from parents on this board. Things in life do not always work out 100% of the way we would like them to. There will be schools that our kids don’t get into, that don’t hand out merit scholarships to every high stats kid and don’t offer acceptance to their first choice majors. Colleges are entirely free to decide who to make offers to. Frankly, I am not sure I would want my child to go to a college that is comprised entirely of students with perfect SAT scores, 4.0 uw gpas, stellar ECs and parents that obsess over why their perfect child did not have 100% acceptance rates with merit scholarships. The same thing happens in the workplace. A hiring manager will also assess the fit of the candidate relative to the company’s culture. The candidate with perfect stats often doesn’t receive the job offer.
Life is about doing your best and constructively dealing with setbacks that come our way. I applaud Purdue for selecting candidates with lower scores who exhibited some attribute that made them stand out to the admissions committee. Maybe that student dealt with a sick parent or sibling, had to work to contribute to family finances, overcame some sort of learning impairment, etc. That’s not to say that your children are not special! Just that there are only so many spaces available, and the better schools cannot take every perfectly qualified applicant and still leave room for students that will add to the character and diversity of the class.
Peace to all! Step back, gain some perspective and guide your children to the best choices they can make in the stressful college admissions process.
@illinoisdad1729 your kid sounds amazing and it could very well be that they didn’t think he’ll come to Purdue. They admitted him though, just no scholarship, since they don’t give that many. I understand the dissapointment.
I was just saying it’s not that simple, people keep comparing stats ,but they can’t read the files and see how they came through to the committee. Maybe your “why purdue” essay didn’t seem enthusiastic enough and coupled with the very high stats they didn’t think Purdue was the top choice…I don’t know, there are so many pieces in this puzzle. Anyway, good luck, your son will have a great life and experience wherever he goes. UIUC is better than Purdue anyway. I don’t think you should be offended, it’s not a value judgement and very subjective indeed.
@BluEyeL UIUC is not “better” than Purdue. I am a multi-degree UIUC Engineering alum, and I won almost every academic award you could get at the school, including valedictorian of the entire engineering class. That said, I am very disappointed that UIUC Engineering has not adopted a progressive first-year engineering program like many other schools (Purdue, OSU, UMich and virtually all of the Ivies). The UIUC Engineering Honors Program is also not even close to Purdue Honors. The Purdue Honors kids stay in a Harry Potter-style residence hall, entirely dedicated to them, and it’s the closest housing to campus. UIUC Engineering James Scholar gives you potential housing (not guaranteed) on a couple of floors in a residence hall that is about as far from the Engineering Quad as possible. Frankly, the only real perk is the registration priority (which Purdue also has).
That said, if I were in-state at UIUC and the cost of attendance were significantly less than Purdue (which it isn’t due to the Illinois budget crisis), I would still go there. Paying $200K for an undergraduate engineering degree is insane. A hiring manager is going to look at work experience over what you school you went to. I’d rather give my kid the difference as a down payment on a house.
Just an FYI
Purdue is primarily white and is trying to attract diversity (even Asians) so if you are white then your chance at merit aid decreases dramatically, no matter how smart you are. I think the same goes for if you’re from the midwest, but not sure. Also, whether your school has a history of sending people to Purdue helps.
@ohnoitsme This is simply not true. Purdue is less white than a number of big 10 schools that seem to give more aid. Unless you are an underrepresented minority, which typically means Hispanic, African American, Native American, or Pacific Islander, there is no advantage. In fact, the Harvard court case shows Asians get negative points compared to whites. The biggest change in non-white enrollment at the Big 10 schools has been the massive increase in students from China (secondarily, India and South Korea), who are almost always paying full freight.
I’ve come to grips with the situation. It’s just a mark in the negative column for Purdue. There are certainly still quite a few things in the positive column. It’s one of four schools for final choice. All factors will be considered. Whichever way my son goes, it’s still an honor for him to be accepted to such a good school. Best of luck to all in their decision processes.
I think some of you parents need a time out from College Confidential. Although some of your comments are selfish and disappointing, unfortunately they aren’t surprising. Great stats do not ensure acceptance or a merit scholarship. And they certainly don’t entitle you to either. As it was explained to me . . . these schools are trying to put together a football team. You don’t want a team made up of just quarterbacks. You need ALL KINDS of teammates. And please keep your racist comments (cloaked as observations about the “types” of people getting admitted and scholarships) off this board. You are an embarrassment to your kids.
You know, my parents couldn’t tell you if Stanford is a good school. I used to browse this place on and off wishing my parents knew more about American education and pushed me to do more to make me a competitive applicant.
But after reading some of the posts here, I am so grateful that my parents didn’t say a word when it came time for me to go through the process. It’s honestly like watching a Rube Goldberg machine when you’re talking about why Timmy wasn’t offered the full ride he deserved. I pray that your kids aren’t as entitled as some of you because I wouldn’t want them to be sitting next to me in class.
@purduecs2021 - As the parent of an admitted student (First-Year Engineering), I am also shocked by the negative comments, especially those involving race. Thank you for speaking up.
@jdcollegedad@separatelayer thank you for those posts. Glad I am not the only one with similar thoughts. This thread had become a resemblance of things wrong in this country. Yuck.
On a related note, our daughter just decided Purdue would not be for her and cancelled our scheduled personal visit with HHS for later this week. I’m a bit bummed because the academic program would have been a great (arguably best) match for what she wants to study but I will be supportive of her decision and the other values she is putting into her college decision. Good luck to all.