Qualified Applicant Rejected from All Schools

Applying to College
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<p>Demanding accountability is NOT just a label… I just wanted OP to take some responsibility when it sounded like he was blaming the outcome on others. I don’t understand how me wanting him to realize that he was in control of his life makes me condescending.</p>

<p>I was not calling HIM whiny/elitist/arrogant, I was simply saying that’s how he came off. Even the best of people can come off in an unintended manner over the internet.I admit I came off harsh in my first post on this thread. I’ve had time to reread and think, and I now regret that.</p>

<p>On another note… I’ve resolved this misunderstanding with the OP, so why do you care? Doesn’t involve you.</p>

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<p>This sort of thing, I have no doubt, is taken into account by adcoms. And I realize this (my main ECs are teaching music lessons, working a part time job, and working a paid internship - I don’t have monetary support from my parents beyond providing room/board. and BTW, I have never had to show up at work/internship “on a moment’s notice”). I truly believe that a student who has extraordinary responsibilities at home and therefore has few/no ECs but still has stellar grades can be a competitive applicant. I think working a lot can be a great addition to an application. </p>

<p>I don’t deny that money makes designing the “perfect college app” much easier. But I also think that kids with money are held to a different standard than kids without money - not a higher one, but different things are expected of them. It’s about what you do with your opportunities, not what opportunities you have been given. Of course there will always be a few kids in situations that simply cannot be overcome enough to do well in school, and for that I am truly sorry.</p>

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<p>Adcoms take into consideration the socioeconomic backgrounds of applicants. Income status is obviously a factor in what types of ECs (or time available for ECs not spent supporting the family) a person can have.</p>

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<p>^ Thank heavens.</p>

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<p>Ive read the full original post and skimmed through the first page or so. Dont know if the issue had been addressed or not, but there is an extremely easy explanation for the many rejections – SAT scores and the unweighted gpa of 3.85. No way will any Ivy or its like will accept a student who is not an athlete/well hooked with sat subscores of under 700. That’s just plain unrealistic. Even with the OPs very compelling circumstances and the hardships he went through. The other issue is a strangely unrealistic sense of safeties – an ivy and a very popular school in the safety range? If this was done with the charter schools guidance office - that counsellor should be ashamed.</p>

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<p>The fact remains that top schools are dominated by the wealthy. From that fact alone, it is clear that though adcoms do weigh socioeconomic status, the extracurricular opportunities that wealth enables outweigh such a boost.</p>

<p>At Brown and Penn, for example, the majority of students do not receive financial aid - we’re talking about people whose families make more than ~120k+.
Schools like HYP do offer more financial aid, but that is because their endowments are so enormous that they routinely give financial aid to students whose families make six-figures.</p>

<p>[Relative</a> to peers, U.?s financial aid lags behind - The Brown Daily Herald - Serving the community daily since 1891](<a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/relative-to-peers-u-s-financial-aid-lags-behind-1.2734605#.UAkNLKOd58E]Relative”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/relative-to-peers-u-s-financial-aid-lags-behind-1.2734605#.UAkNLKOd58E)
<a href=“https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/business/economy/25leonhardt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all[/url]”>https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/business/economy/25leonhardt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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I care about logic.</p>

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<p>Congratulations! Notre Dame with a full ride - that’s fantastic. Also, they have a very strong counselling program with referrals there. It is obvious from your beautuful essay that yuou have benefitted a lot from all the counseling. You should keep that up when you get to South Bend.</p>

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<p>^ Thank you.</p>

<p>Terenc, that’s really interesting to hear. A lot of what I’ve read from colleges’ websites led me to believe that they truly were very economically diverse overall. Though now that you pointed out that these schools have such large endowments that they will even give aid to very wealthy families it calls that diversity into question. I remember that Columbia said that any student would get a full ride if their family made less than $60K and that students whose family made between $60K and $100K would get substantial aid too — which just goes to show how wealthy the students at Columbia must be if their school can afford such generous aid.</p>

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<p>Okay so I didn’t read the whole thing, but just based on your stats I’m not that surprised that you didn’t get into any of the schools you wanted, and your “safeties” are definitely not safeties.</p>

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<p>@terenc - Your logic is faulty. Having a large percentage of students from wealthy families on campus does not necessarily indicate that adcoms consider economic factors in their decisions.</p>

<p>Wealthy people tend to be smarter than average. People who are smarter than average tend to marry other smart people and have children who are smarter than average. Thus, smart children tend to have children who are smart. These smart children also usually grow up around other smart people who encourage their intellectual curiosity.</p>

<p>Archie Manning has two sons who are All-Pro quarterbacks. Does that mean that the NFL takes the family’s economic status into account when they determine rosters? Or does it mean that Payton and Eli have natural gifts and top rate coaching that has resulted in tremendous success?</p>

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<p>First on the “credit received” I can tell you that’s not the case. I transferred schools after 10th grade and it showed the same “CR” on my transcript. Private schools often do take into account ability to pay, for the same reason they favor legacies. Adcoms have said so in books. I mean this is not debatable. They do favor legacies because alums donate and they even acknowledge that. Ivys like to brag about no loans policy, but they can only sustain it by admitting few like yourself. Elite schools are again becoming for the 2% and some remnant of lower-middle class. </p>

<p>What I find interesting is when I went to look on my school’s site for some kind of free counseling or whatever for when I get to campus, they had some line about how they value students with mental illness and that’s part of their commitment to diversity. It made me wonder if that extends to before they’re admitted…Same person after all. Only diff is they were hiding it until getting to campus. </p>

<p>I think it sends a mixed signal about integrity and it’s kind of shameful of these colleges IF they do reject for that. People with depression have the right to seek the same things in life, and some do get better. It could be that most essays along those lines just suck. Same with death in the family. I mean a 14 year old is gonna struggle with that, so I don’t understand why it’s wrong to mention it as a possible reason for taking a year off.</p>

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<p>I’d like to add to what rmldad said. Another very plausible reason why elite schools have large number of rich kids is because the “competitive” applicant pool for financially disadvantaged students is significantly smaller. Yes there are miracles and hard workers among disadvantaged kids but can they match the number of financially-stable kids who have good knowledge of the college options? I highly doubt it. Most high-achieving poor students would to go to state Us or other schools near their places because their parents and counselors are not very knowledgeable in college admission and thus they will never know much about these top schools or think they just don’t have a shot at all.</p>

<p>I’m sure we all know that until now Ivy League equates to rich elite kids among many ordinary families. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1348602-reactions-attending-yale.html?highlight=reaction[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1348602-reactions-attending-yale.html?highlight=reaction&lt;/a&gt; Here’s one example.</p>

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<p>@steellord - I guess I want to debate the undebatable: “Private schools often do take into account ability to pay, for the same reason they favor legacies. Adcoms have said so in books. I mean this is not debatable.”</p>

<p>If a school advertises that their admissions are need-blind, but they have Adcoms stating otherwise in books, it sems to me that lawsuits would quickly follow. I am confident that there would be no shortage of lawyers from State U. salivating for a chance to take a prestigious school to court with a slam dunk case like that.</p>

<p>Can you state the title of one of these books that you have read?</p>

<p>The only instance where I have heard of a highly selective university considering economic status is on rare occasions when taking students off the Wait List. If June arrives and a place opens up for the Wait List but all FA money has been allocated, a school might consider ability to pay only as a convenience. At that point it would be senseless to admit a student who needs aid since no money is left. Also, this case would only affect a handful of students on an occasional basis (not every year). I believe this arrangement is usually detailed in the fine print of Wait List letters so that it does not violate the Need Blind policy.</p>

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Huh? That was what I was saying. Someone argued that adcoms fully account for economic situation of applicants. I was saying that the higher % of students from wealth indicates that adcoms don’t weigh it that heavily.</p>

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<p>terenc is right, at a need-blind school the ability to pay is not a factor in the decision to accept or reject an applicant.</p>

<p>There are all sorts of other factors that favor a wealthy applicant that could account for the higher % of students from wealthy families on a campus like Harvard. (Some of those factors have been brought up in earlier posts). So you could make the argument that a student from a wealthy family is more likely to end up at Harvard, but the singular factor of ability to pay is not taken into consideration by the adcom committee.</p>

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<p>After reading the initial posts, I felt compelled to respond, however pessimistic and brutally honest my response may be.</p>

<p>First: </p>

<p>“In my UChicago application I wrote a spectacular creative essay for the supplement (I tackled the Plato/Play-Doh question by comparing it to some specific mythological stories and alluded to the Nietzschean Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy)”</p>

<p>The point of the essay went completely over your head. These essays are based on creativity rather than your desire to rattle off complicated philosophical theories. It comes off as being incredibly elitist.</p>

<p>Second: </p>

<p>*“SAT I: 2140</p>

<p>Reading: 800
Math: 670
Writing: 670,</p>

<p>3.85 GPA</p>

<p>AP scores of 1, 2, 3” *</p>

<p>This SAT score falls behind the average of nearly every school on your list. Further affecting your chances is your lack of any sustainable extracurricular that emits any sense of dedication or motivation. You played soccer for a year? Alright, but why is that important? You were class president in 8th grade? Congratulations, but how does this affect you as a student and how will this come into play when you’re surrounded by brilliant students? You may be qualified for some schools, but the Ivies, Northwestern and Chicago are schools that expect both academic and personal brilliance. I don’t see either being evident here.</p>

<p>Next: </p>

<p>*“I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to be in a position where I have to compete with students who have perfect applications and have had their whole lives tailored around getting accepted to an elite college.”</p>

<p>“I don’t have some national science award and I haven’t spent my life doing humanitarian missions and teaching English to children living in war-torn nations, though those are things I would dearly have wanted to participate in.”</p>

<p>“…much of which is still predicated on students being able to have the opportunity to participate in those kinds of experiences which are more readily accessible to students from families of greater means.”</p>

<p>“…colleges would not bother to read my essays thoroughly or that they would misinterpret them.”</p>

<p>“I wonder what percentage of incoming college students going to elite colleges know anything about Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule, or the Simpson-Bowles commission, or any other important economic policy decisions that have been debated over the last few years?”</p>

<p>“…they were overwhelmed by a woefully underachieving administration – from the principal on down to the security guards.” *</p>

<p>Again, this elitist tone is naturally sickening for some of us and wouldn’t go over well in any admissions office. A large percentage of qualified applicants work incredibly hard, sometimes with mitigating circumstances, and make their own way in life. What I’ve seen with you, to this point, is an unwillingness to take initiative, relying on, and blaming, several others when things do not go your way (I.e. your father, the admissions committees, your counselor, your psychiatrist, your school, other students/families). </p>

<p>Moreover, you constantly berate others (specifically your high school) for being under qualified and, somehow, this affects you. I’m not quite sure I understand this. “Qualified” applicants can succeed in tumultuous environments, while you use it as an excuse for disappointing academic performance. </p>

<p>Further, those who have success are naturally RECEIVING this success rather than working and striving for it. Come on. You can’t be serious.</p>

<p>*“Unfortunately, my mentor seemed to be more of a proselytizer for the Libertarian Party than anything else. I reluctantly agreed to try to work with him after the program director agreed to have a word with my mentor. Long story short, my mentor would not or could not let his libertarianism lie and our conversations were strained and uncomfortable. I felt that the only way I could make it end was to quit the organization, so I did. Yet another opportunity lost.” *</p>

<p>You talk about your depth of character, but you feel the need to quit an organization because your mentor has conflicting interests?</p>

<p>*“The tutor was a college student majoring in elementary education and, to be honest, I found that he did not know as much about my subjects as I did and he did little but check my work for completion.” *</p>

<p>Again, an elitist stance. Your blame lies on the tutor who is sacrificing his/her time for your assistance. Whether he can help or not is beyond the point; it’s your refusal to take any sort of blame in not being able to perform to your standards, undercutting any sense of initiative you may or may not have.</p>

<p>*“Most of my interim counseling was taken up by a series of counselors – I believe there were five or six over the next 18 months. Some were helpful. Some, frankly, were terrible. However, the constant change of personnel made progress difficult. In reality, the only meetings I looked forward to were those with my psychiatrist.” *</p>

<p>Here, you blame your psychiatrists because they weren’t up to your standards. It seems as if you’re placing blame entirely on their inability to walk you through your problems and your refusal to help yourself or seek help elsewhere. </p>

<p>*“So by May I was exhausted and crushed by the college applications process and I didn’t have the energy to pursue the matter further at that point.” *</p>

<p>You’re upset because Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Northwestern, and Chicago denied you. I understand that. But do you actually expect to succeed in any of those environments if you’re unable to find the motivation and initiative to pursue your undergraduate education? This is unbelievable.</p>

<p>*“Even though I can’t prove my rejections are due to the omission of my story about depression, I am absolutely sure that it is reason why I was rejected.”</p>

<p>“…I suppose another possible reason…” *</p>

<p>You don’t sound too sure.</p>

<p>Even then, with no evidence, how can you justify that thought process? </p>

<p>*“When I apply to colleges and pay them excessive fees to even have my application considered, I expect the highest standards of professionalism, and quite frankly, colleges don’t live up to them.” *</p>

<p>You had most of your fees waived. What are you exactly complaining about financially?</p>

<p>Again, you’re placing blame on an external source. </p>

<p>“I know colleges can’t chase down information from everyone that applies to them, but can’t they even bother to consult me when they notice that something’s conspicuously missing from my application?”</p>

<p>You answered your own question here. It isn’t their job to theorize why a student has some missing information. When they’re receiving 30,000+ applications in a year, it shouldn’t be their job to complete them for the applicant as well.</p>

<p>*“It seems like colleges take every shortcut that they can to make their jobs easier and don’t have any concern for the integrity of the applications process.” *</p>

<p>This is not true by any means and further cements your elitist and narcissistic nature. This is their job; the university attempts to field the best possible class every year, and failure to do otherwise is a slight not only to the applicants, but the faculty, reputation of the university and the alumni. </p>

<p>*“One final explanation would be that colleges are not really needs-blind. A student like me who has no means at all to pay for any part of his education (hence why I applied to full-needs schools) would be the least likely to be accepted if colleges didn’t swear that they were needs-blind. But who has the oversight to determine whether colleges actually follow through with this policy?” *</p>

<p>I believe there would be legal repercussions if a university uses “need-blind” as a form of advertisement and attraction of more applicants rather than a belief they live by.</p>

<p>Ultimately, it’s evident that, despite your financial and family hardships, you don’t possess the initiative or character qualities that these universities seek. Instead, you emit qualities possessed by ignorance and pretentiousness.</p>

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<p>My, my. What a hasty judgement founded upon assumptions.</p>

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<p>Bane25 - please don’t listen the insensitive comments some of these other posters are making. I’ll admit that I had a similar reaction when I first read your original post, but after seeing your responses to what others have been saying, I understand that you must have been in a frustrated place when you wrote that original post. However, I do think that it’s uncalled for that some of these others posters are calling you pathetic or elitist when in reality, neither I nor they can possibly tell what you went through from just this one thread. </p>

<p>Anyways, I just wanted to say that congratulations on your exception to Notre Dame and how glad I am that you’ve come to terms with going to this fine institution. Please keep in mind that college acceptances only account for what you’ve done in four years of your life and are in no way a testament to what kind of a person you are. I know I’m just repeating what others have said, but your post really did move me once I thought about it for a while. It must take a lot of courage to expose one’s personal situation like you just did, especially on a forum that can be as judgmental as this one. I wish you all of the best luck in the future!</p>

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<p>OP, I truly am sorry for what you went through. Any reasonable human would have been touched by each aspect of your story. But however hard the truth is, I must say it. </p>

<p>First, no one single factor can keep you out of any of those schools. Your letter about your depression could not have helped or taken away from your application. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Ivy League admissions, but having done considerable study on the process, adcoms probably didn’t even read most of your extended essay. You said that it was similar to the post and that would have been too long for most adcoms to read through. Additionally, they generally dislike excessively long applications since they have thousands of applications to sort through. There used to be a phrase that went something like this: “The thicker the folder, the thicker the applicant.” Imagine this: you work in admissions (and they aren’t that well paid anyways) and it’s a stormy, snowy night in December. You’re sitting at your desk with a huge stack of folders to look through, each one for each student. Are you going to favor the concise one or the one overflowing with paper? Admissions officers are only human - they are subject to the same bias as any of us are. It probably is better that you didn’t send your letter because it most likely would never have been read. </p>

<p>Also, your scores are not that competitive for your “reach” schools anyway - the Ivy League, Stanford, and UChicago. Generally, applicants need to clear 700 on SATs across the board to be competitive. Many people have 5s on all APs taken. You had no 5s. While adcoms, like me, sympathized with your situation, they simply did not think you could handle the coursework based upon your SAT I, SAT II, and AP scores. </p>

<p>Further, why are you disparaging those who were admitted to those schools? You say, “I wonder what percentage of incoming college students going to elite colleges know anything about Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule, or the Simpson-Bowles commission, or any other important economic policy decisions that have been debated over the last few years?” Yet you miss the biggest factor in college admissions. Colleges are looking for students who will cherish their opportunity and have the aptitude to LEARN. It doesn’t matter if you memorized every single Wikipedia article or read every reference book there was. Pre-existing knowledge is immaterial. If you knew everything anyway, then what’s the point of admitting you? </p>

<p>Finally, by your tone of speaking, I got the impression that you still hold a great deal of resentment towards all those schools. The sooner you get over it and accept that either A) your application did not convey the meaning that you wanted it to or B) you simply were not competitive enough. Nobody is to blame here. Though perhaps if your guidance counselor was more proactive, things could have turned out differently.</p>

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<p>Oh my gosh this thread should be closed…I think the OP gets it everyone.</p>