Scattergram from a Northern California Catholic school

Parents Forum
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<p>cur, I don’t see anything at all odd about the Princeton scattergram. It just proves what I thought all along – people on this board place WAY too much emphasis on test scores. Grades are more important than test scores. The Princeton scattergram shows an average 4.1 GPA for the students admitted; all of the applicants had very high stats. Obviously, Princeton selected among them based on factors that don’t show up with the stats - it could be strength of curriculum, EC’s, athletics, musical talent, essays, recs, legacy, ED vs. RD, diversity factors - who knows. But the answer you get from that scattergram is that you’d better have a really high GPA to get into Princeton.</p>

<p>The Brown numbers are actually more intriguing, actually – they suggest that there is far more going on than a numbers game to get into Brown.</p>

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<p>I agree with calmom, the Brown numbers are the most interesting because it appears that the students with the lowest stats in the Brown application pool from MCH that applied were the ones that got accepted. However, the sample is quite small.</p>

<p>What I find most interesting is the schools where the students applied. Not surprisingly there is a high number of applications to catholic colleges. Interestingly Boston College (66) had more applications from this northern California HS than the University of San Francisco (50). The most popular schools were Santa Clara (93), Gonzaga (92) and Loyola Marymount (83), all west coast schools.</p>

<p>Additionally, there appears to be a high concentration of students applying to schools here in the Boston area. BC cited above, BU (54) and Northeastern (42).</p>

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<p>My guess is that those Brown applicants are hooked in some way – and/or there’s a little bit of Tufts syndrome going on with Brown. That is, since Brown competes with other Ivies, the ad coms may be inclined to bypass an app that suggests that the student is probably also applying to HYP.</p>

<p>On another note… what’s with Brown’s application this year? Nothing available yet from the web site - which says “check back in late August” and as far as I can tell it IS late August right now.</p>

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<p>I should have said, once you take out the high number of applications to the UC system, there is a high number of applications to catholic colleges.</p>

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<p>09Mom, my sister used to have friends that went to Presentation High School many years ago. Many Catholic colleges on the list. Thanks for the info.</p>

<p>East coast people…west coast people prefer west coast schools.</p>

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<p>Brown and Williams look like athletic or other hook admits (relatively high stat ones).</p>

<p>The Harvard and Yale are the ones that illustrate Curmudge’s point to me - year after year the high stat, high grade kids apply to Harvard and Yale, and mostly get rejected. Is this because they approach it as “oh, I’m val, I’ll just throw in a Harvard app”, or is it because there is some undefinable something about the one person who got accepted, or does that person have a hook as well?</p>

<p>I think Idad is right, there is nothing to lose by emphasizing something in the app that makes you different, it is not as if that negates your more typical accomplishments.</p>

<p>Dartmouth, just as on this board last year, accepted the kid with the highest combo of scores and grades - wonder if that person applied ED?</p>

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<p>My HS produced Scattergrams for us also…one could look at any number of years for factors. Without a doubt once you look at these over a period of time it makes more obvious the randomness of some acceptances. True that one cannot always determine the legacy,development,URM etc. If you were in the class under most recent admits you could if you knew folks make an educated guess but you probably knew the student anyway. High test scores is not what it is all about and for folks who don’t accept the randomness well there isn’t much anyone else can say…Thanks for providing these for folks who don’t have accesss from their own school I think these help families feeling so wounded when the thin letters arrive.</p>

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<p>I have been saying the same thing on these boards that calmom has been saying, and for quite some time. I want to stress right now 3 factors that she mentioned that I think are undervalued or at least underperceived in importance – aside from the subpopulations which tend to be featured as “hooks,” here & elsewhere, & which, as she & others note, could have been additional admission factors in, for example, the Princeton decisions. </p>

<p>These 3 factors I have also brought up in the past: curriculum, essays, & recs. Those are qualitative factors that never appear on scattergrams. Those 3, especially <em>combined</em>, can be tipping factors over candidates with higher stats – even for two side-by-side non-“hooked” applicants. For example, the recs tend to reveal the true flavor & level of the student’s intellectual engagement, which is difficult to fake. A consistenly challenging curriculum – whether or not there are the initials “AP” after those courses – will be apparent on the transcript & possibly further fleshed out in the recs. The essay may expose, positively or negatively, certain traits of the applicant; or it may be neutral information which does not particularly differentiate that applicant from others applying FROM THE SAME SCHOOL.</p>

<p>And this latter area is the area in which I wish people would “get real.” Folks, do the math. Please. The number of upper-level acceptances from the huge applicant pool of a major metro area like Northern California is smaller than many people have come to terms with. If anyone wants specifics on one particular Ivy relative to NoCal, you can PM me about that. But in general, given goals for regional diversity, diversity of school population segment (public/private/religious/secular/homeschooled), the size of a particular h.s.class & the numbers applying relative to that – all these parameters limit the ultimate # of students who will be receiving thick envelopes from highly selective colleges. Sometimes a college will need a compelling reason to take even one student from a particular h.s., given the # of others applying from that same geographical area.</p>

<p>So people with great qualitative aspects along with great quantitative aspects can still be aversely affected by context and location. (This would be the “chance” or “lottery” aspect.) Or, had the U been willing to take that candidate if he/she were an artist type as opposed to a sciences type (which the U may be maxed out in this yr), that is another reality out of the student’s control.</p>

<p>And while it may help, or at least not hurt, to be someone who is just highly unusual & out-of-the-mold, I do not believe that the top tier colleges are mainly looking for offbeat types or those with a single-strand focus. That is not what my D has encountered among accepted students to U’s she revisited. What she did encounter is just uniformly quality students (both in academics & seemingly in character) with a great deal of intellectual maturity. They tended to know their own abilities & direction quite well & were ultra-prepared for the demands of those U’s. </p>

<p>As to someone’s comment about the confidentiality of the scattergrams, I appreciate that request on the part of our own h.s., & will honor it, but I think that high schools are doing a disservice to the process by asking for that. The vast majority of outsiders would not know a single name attached to those stats, esp. because these are always more than one year’s numbers. I’m grateful to those here & earlier who have posted those links, because the Reality Check is really helpful. It would be a responsible thing for the h.s.'s themselves to do, i.m.o.</p>

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<p>I am not sure that one can draw such strong conclusions from looking at the admissions. Let’s look at the Ivies for the past two years, listing 2004 and 2005 stats in that order:</p>

<p>Princeton 3-0 and 7-0
Harvard ?-0 and ?-0 (None accepted in past 5 years)
Yale 5-0 and 5-0
Brown 5-0 and 2-1
Columbia 1-0 and 3-0
Penn 2-0 and 2-0
Cornell 3-3 and 8-1</p>

<p>Take away Cornell in 2004, and there was not a single acceptance in 2004. In 2005, there were two admits (one Brown and one Cornell.) For all we know, the Brown admit may have been a strong athlete. Without knowing anything about the success at Cornell in 2004, there is not much we can gather from that 3-3. Did they recruit the entire backline of the soccer team? </p>

<p>From looking at the Ivies, the only thing we can conclude is that this Catholic School from Northern California does not seem to be able to rely on its academic curriculum to send students to Ivies. For what is worth, the more you check the results of catholic school with the most selectives schools, the cloudier the picture gets. </p>

<p>In the last years, it seems that an over reliance on their their own curriculum, tougher grading policy, a departure from AP, and no real focus on SAT Subject Tests preparation is catching them by surprise. I know a number of Catholic schools and last year admission were absolutely abysmal. Don’t jump on me: I attended a catholic school and so does my sister! </p>

<p>While I still believe that it all comes to the individual strength of an application, I do not see any reason to change my opinion that it takes a very special applicant to overcome lower tests scores and a relatively lower GPA/ranking. I view that, except for a VERY strong hook, having low scores and a non stellar ranking is the surest best to see a glowing R stamp adorning your folder. </p>

<p>Among our most selective schools, there are few -if any- places reserved for the more pedestrian applicants!</p>

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<p>Our high school is using Naviance also. It is relatively new and they therefore have limited scattergrams for us to use. More importantly…DD is applying to two schools that NO ONE from her high school has ever applied to in the past. The school has made a decision (for confidentiality reasons) to only use student info when more than 5 students apply to a school (let’s face it…if only one student applied it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that specific school in a school with graduating classes of only 190 or so). It is, however, helpful for me to see the scattergrams of other schools for the colleges DD is interested in applying to.</p>

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<p>I agree with Xiggi that it would be a mistake to conclude, from a few scattergrams that indicate lower-stat applicants getting accepted where higher performers are denied, that stats don’t matter, and that a fortunate lottery draw, or whatever, does. As others have pointed out here, there are no footnotes to these charts. Does the statistically mediocre kid who gets in to Princeton do it because of a fabulous essay, or is he an all-city defensive back? No way of knowing. Although admissions and denials may appear “random” or “a lottery,” that appearance is caused by incomplete information, about the applications, and about the needs of the institution. It’s much less so than it appears to outsiders.</p>

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<p>I am saying that the randomness when looking at Scattergrams is more of the nature that two candidates with similar stats…you are correct it can be legacy,development, sport,URM,first generation,geographic diversity. So many other factors despite giving equal standing to essays and teacher recs which would also not be scaled.</p>

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<p>There isn’t a lottery. They took the lower ranked kid because that kid brings something to the school that the school wants. We just don’t know what it is. There is no shortage of strong students applying to places like Princeton. </p>

<p>Will Venable just graduated from Princeton after going to a public school
in Marin. I can assure you that there were many, many better students than him. There weren’t any better basketball/baseball players; though. :)</p>

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<p>What I think may be most interesting to many students and parents on CC is how many students with extremely high grades and scores were rejected by HPYS. In many cases, students with far lower stats were accepted.</p>

<p>Too many students and parents assume that high SATs/gpas mean students are likely to get into the most competitive colleges in the country, and that’s simply not true.</p>

<p>I also am assuming that since this h.s. appears to be in Marin County, one of the country’s wealthiest, that these students come from well off, sophisticated families, have excellent GCs, wonderful ECs, and probably are paying for excellent private counselors, tutors, etc. The numbers of them that are rejected should help everyone understand how very competitive top college admissions are. I also would imagine that they have relatively high numbers of legacies applying to top colleges.</p>

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<p>I believe that the use of the term lottery is being used by folks to describe the unknow/unpredictable nature of what “has to offer” may be. Of course there is always something that the selected candidate has to offer and many times that particular something is inherent. If a student is taken for geographic diversity I think folks tend to think of that as a random factor.</p>

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<p>There is also another factor that was not mentioned on this thread, but has been mentioned over and over again on other discussions. The idea of showing high interest by visiting, and interviewing. Also some suggest that for some schools, applying early (not necessarily ED) shows high interest. The scattergram also does not tell you if someone was rejected because of missing parts of the app. or a late app. (either missing the deadline, or schools, or a major was filled). It does not tell you what school within the U a student applied to, some majors maybe easier to gain admission to. A relative of mine got into a school as a computer major. This was a new department at the time, and he was the one of the first to major in this field, and got in easily. Perhaps a school decides to have a marching band for the first time. One may gain admission if one expresses interest, and was in the hs band for 4 years. All of these are examples of possibilities for admitting students with lower gpas and test scores and I am sure there are so many more.</p>

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<p>“Too many students and parents assume that high SATs/gpas mean students are likely to get into the most competitive colleges in the country, and that’s simply not true.”</p>

<p>NSMom, that is very true, but there is the other side of the coin: the NEED of a very string hook for candidates who do not have stellar stats. No matter how we look at it, we have to realize that in today’s environment high stats are what gives candidates the right to play in this high stake game. If you do not have a major hook and have only better than average stats, your chances are really, really small. </p>

<p>The biggest problem I see is that many schools which were very competitive IN THE PAST have now become lost in a sea of inflated numbers. The example of that school in Boston -the name escapes me- which made the headlines about its inability to qualify its students at Michigan AND getting squeezed out of theor perennial target schools should be on everyone’s mind. </p>

<p>While I do not know anything about this school in Marin County, I have to assume that it is one of the best schools in the area. The question that remain unanswered is how competitive the school is OUTSIDE California. </p>

<p>My current take on the national picture is that a candidate who targets the most selective schools is probably better served to attend a LESS competitive high school unless the school is a VERY WELL KNOWN FEEDER school. There is little doubt that schools such as Andover, Exeter, Harvard Weslake, Stuyvesant, or Thomas Jefferson need little introduction. However, the story may be very different at hundreds of private high schools. </p>

<p>I realize that it is easy to fall into gross generalizations, but I know that on our local scene, the private schools are adopting an ostrich attitude. While the local public schools increase their visibility by reporting skyhigh but inflated GPA, continue to introduce watered down IB programs, play the AP programs like Paganini played the violin, the private schools are basking in their former glory by deviously listing TEN years old data on their profiles. It fools the parents a lot easier than the adcoms! </p>

<p>If attending one of the most selective schools in the country is the objective, selecting the right high school before middle schools starts should be a very valuable investment. As ever, caveat emptor!</p>

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<p>Xiggi, It’s a school with probably an average SAT of 1150-1200. The best private schools in the area are Branson, Marin Academy, and just across the bridge in SF, University High School. Students from these three schools go to all the top schools in the country.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.sfuhs.org/about/profile.shtml[/url]”>http://www.sfuhs.org/about/profile.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Northeastmom, showing interest only works well at schools that fall within a very small range. Among highly selective schools, there might ONE Ivy where it works, a handful of LAC, and probably NONE of the public schools. </p>

<p>Playing that card is an expensive and mostly futile exercise. For every one student who had good results with courting a school heavily, you’ll find ten who didn’t do much at all. If you like anecdotes, most of my friends at my current NEVER interviewed and NEVER visited the campus before being admitted.</p>

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<p>DS, thank you for the added information. Do you know how expensive it is?</p>