<p>What other items in a list of “approved reliable sources” do you think there would be? (than those already mentioned) And speaking of CYA, when one goes to ANY college website, even lower-tier, one sees past (recent) results, not projections for next yr. Knowing what clinched it for admission this yr. or last yr. will never guarantee that an “identical” student will be admitted next yr. Maybe fewer of those will be admitted next yr., maybe more of those. Not only will the shape of the total pool be unpredictable, the shape of the admissions committee may change. (As I believe soozie noted.)</p>
<p>The only rationale strategy? Let…go… And I mean this for all of us, self included. Hope for the best, give it one’s all (with research, with care), plan for the worst just in case. The degree of control is quite limited. I think some of you are having a real problem with that idea. </p>
<p>And may I say that certain unmentionable “tell-all” books reinforce that, too. We all tend to stress the word “admissions.” The reality is, it’s a “committee.” A single person can have her or his decision vetoed in the process – esp. by overriding college policy, which would include admitting a certain quota from the local area – or from a segment that is a favorite of the Admissions Dean or President – over someone even better qualified. Some of these books reveal the frustration, & occasionally cynicism, of officers who’ve come to understand that even they do not have ultimate control.</p>
<p>“We also listened & took counsel from her h.s. teachers, who, based on published track records (ie. the school’s Naviance scattergrams), believed my D would get admitted to the U’s she was applying to.”</p>
<p>Was this a prep school? I ask that because at S’s HS no one ever offered us admissions data for reference. I’ve attended every college event at our HS and never heard mention of Naviance Scattergrams. And actually, I did directly ask the GC if he thought my S’s college list was appropriate and on target. He mumbled a vague comment in a tone designed to discourage further questioning.</p>
<p>In the fall, an acquaintance went to see our HS principal to discuss college applications for their senior son, knowing the gentleman was a graduate of Ivy X. They were especially interested in asking if the principal thought their child had a chance at X. What I have since found quite humorous is that the man discouraged the student and his parents from their unrealistic aspirations and proceeded to highlight for illustrative contrast a certain other senior student whom he claimed to be mentoring (I should note that the student says he never mentored her, though). He discussed the girl’s qualifications, and why he believed that she was the perfect candidate for X and other Ivies. Well, she was rejected from Ivy X and every other one too–not even a waitlist. So much for “professional” opinion, lol…The boy should have applied!</p>
<p>Perhaps the greater clarity some of you possess could stem in part from better hand-holding by your (possibly exclusive and wealthy) high school?</p>
<p>No hand-holding. However, it is a small school, which may help (i.e., in terms of more intimate knowledge of each student). GC, however, is clueless as to upper-level admissions, & did not know my D well. No help in that dep’t.</p>
Not really. My concern is not whether applicants know with certainty they will be accepted. I am interested in seeing applicants provided with reliable information so they can avoid applying to colleges where they won’t even make it past the first cut. While I’m sure colleges would hate to lose that revenue, it’s not fair to take those applications and figuratively (or literally) throw them in the trash because the basic numbers don’t get them a first look by the admissions commitee.</p>
<p>As to what I would consider “reliable resources”, who knows? I suspect it would vary from college to college, depending on what resources the college identifies as best explaining how admissions work at that college. Perhaps some colleges will provide excellent reference articles that give clear guidance to applicants. Others might provide little or no helpful information. I suspect that colleges providing good information will benefit from improved recruiting and applications.</p>
<p>I’m not overly concerned that some applicants package their applications to conform to what they think the college wants, rather what the applicant truly is. Applicants do that already, don’t they? Commenters here have spent days telling us how wonderful admissions committees are at their jobs. Perhaps they are and, if so, they will see through any such subterfuge just as they do now.</p>
<p>They only throw ~10-15% of them, figuratively, in the trash. (According to the colleges.) I would actually not like to work in college admissions with such a highly qualified initial pool. I don’t know how you start the winnowing process with 85% of your applicants having the numbers to do the academics. (Not being an insider, I don’t know if they first reject the poorly communicated ones, or first reject any with “off” essays or ambivalently written recs, or whether they start with the academics & e.c.'s instead.)</p>
<p>GFG wrote:
“Perhaps the greater clarity some of you possess could stem in part from better hand-holding by your (possibly exclusive and wealthy) high school?”</p>
<p>Ugh, clearly not the case HERE. My children went to a rural public high school. Only 2/3’s of the student body goes on to four year colleges. Nobody is wealthy. Some are truly poor and others are middle class and a small number are upper middle class. There are no scattergrams here. Each year, perhaps one or two kids go on to an Ivy league school, if that. Two years ago, when my D went to Brown, she was the only one in her class to go to any Ivy League college. Ivy was not her aim but just giving that as an example, given the discussion of Ivies on this thread and the quote about possibly wealthy and exclusive high schools. There was no hand holding at our HS. </p>
<p>We do love our GC because of WHO he is, not so much for guidance with the college process. He knew our children very well, having one since seventh grade and once since ninth grade. He was able to write a rec that revealed he knew them quite well. He was very interested in the kids. He had advocated for them over the years. When it came to the college admissions process, we did all of the selection and app process on our own. He didn’t suggest schools. And he didn’t deal too often with highly selective colleges. I think we knew more the unpredictable nature of elite college admissions than he did. He’d have said my D could get in anywhere and we knew better. To this day, he can’t understand that Yale didn’t take her, but my D and I fully understand it because we are more “up” on the state of highly competitive admissions today. Our GC was there as a support person but we really did the college process on our own and just shared with him and that sort of thing. He was a supportive cheerleader to have in the kids’ court but it isn’t like he was giving lots of college expertise advice. I feel we managed it on our own. But we learned what we did about collge admissions on our own and not from our GC and not from our HS who held NO events about the process other than an evening about financial aid. </p>
<p>Harvard had 22,759 applications last year. 15% of 22,759 equals 3,313 applicants who didn’t make it past the first cut. Each applicant paid a $65 admission fee that generated $215,345.00 in revenue for Harvard. It could be that only 10% (or less) didn’t make it past the first cut, but it also could have been more than 15%. </p>
<p>I see why Harvard wants it this way but I still don’t see why this is a good thing for anyone else.</p>
<p>But the 10-15% are the academically unqualified, not the ones within range of acceptability. Those 10-15% weren’t honest with themselves or were grossly poorly guided by GC’s or parents (or merely pressured by some party, or by peers, to apply for ego’s sake, family pride, some social reason not connected with realism). Those 10-15% could have self-selected out of the pool, with the most minimum level of investigation & with basic honesty. It’s not as if those were the highly qualified with the “wrong” or unlucky e.c.'s. Not Harvard’s fault that someone didn’t do their research or self-assessment.</p>
<p>DR…I agree with Epiphany on this one. I counsel students applying to colleges. At first, they give me their list of colleges and I do a thorough evaluation of their backgrounds and assess their chances at those colleges, as well as suggest colleges they may want to look into that they did not have on their list. I have had several clients this past year or two with very low stats in every which way across the board. Their wish list of colleges is VERY unrealistic. I try to be realistic and tell them the situation. Most listen, though some still apply to out of reach schools. I’m not merely talking “reaches”, I am talking schools where they have a ZERO chance of admission. I am working on such a case today. Hopefully the family will “hear” me and take the advice. I worry that the list of schools I am suggesting that are NOTHING like the ones on their list won’t be seen in the wrong way. </p>
<p>When a student’s SATs are 700 points lower than the low range for a college, their GPA is over a full point lower than the lower range for that college, they haven’t taken the requisite high school courses for admission, have a class rank at the bottom of their class, have no outstanding EC awards//achievements, and wish to apply to these schools…it makes me realize there are a lot of students out there also applying to schools that are not merely reaches but are 0% chance of admissions! I want to say to a student like this (but I won’t say it like this)…my D didn’t get into Yale with a perfect 4.0 GPA, the hardest curriculum in her school and beyond the HS curricululm, pretty high SATs, lifelong EC activities that were not only substantial but involved numerous significant achievements, excellent recs, very good essays, etc. etc. and if a school like this turns away students like that (which they do ALL the time), there is no comparison in qualifications and just no chance of admissions. Families can choose to apply wherever they wish. I won’t stop them but will give a realistic picture. But there are many who still apply and thus, while I realize that the top schools in the land do turn away many qualified students and could fill their freshman class at least two times and have it be as good as the admitted class, there are SOME who should not be in the applicant pool and will get cut early on in the process. Their stats will not nearly meet the minimum for admission. </p>
<p>I have theater students who have Juiiliard as their first choice school. Juiiliard accepts 2% of applicants (20 out of 1000 who audition for Drama). Of the 20 they admit, only a handful are straight out of HS. Of that handful, maybe 2-3 are of a particular sex. I’m not saying not to apply but it should be an extra lottery ticket, not a first choice that someone really thinks they have a chance at, sorry. I don’t take dreams away and people should reach for their dreams. But they should also be realistic about the odds for ANYONE applying, let alone self assess to see if they are at the top nationally to qualify for such places. And yes, we are talking of being at the top in a national pool of applicants. I have students who don’t NEARLY stand out in their local high school, so how are they going to stand out in a national playing field of the most talented kids in the country? One of my children is a musical theater kid, and I was worried if she could get into these highly selective BFA programs. But at least I felt she had SOME chance to get into SOME school because we had some benchmarks on a state wide level and also amongst top kids from many states and nationally. Even then, we were very concerned if she could get in. But for those who are not appropriate candidates for those applicant pools, their odds are almost nonexistant and yet, they don’t realize it or see it that way. I come across this CONSTANTLY. </p>
<p>So, epiphany is right in post #288. There could be at least 10% of appicants who COULD have self selected out of the applicant pool who were not contenders whatsoever.</p>
<p>I was accepted to an LAC top 50 school. I played two sports in school and was in leadership throughout my years in HS. The point made by taxguy is accurate on several counts, but on the sports analogy, here’s how I see it-sports require communication and teamwork. They require determination and resilience. They are obviously competitive and require so many life skills. Doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful without them. But, many top students seem to be unable to easily communicate with others and consequently, this is something that could hurt them with later employment opportunities. It takes all kinds, but in this world it helps to be a good communicator.</p>
<p>…And while H doesn’t it lay it all out there quite as graphically as soozie did in her 2nd paragraph, I think they shouldn’t have to. There is nothing in communication from H in the recent or distant past, that I know of, that implies the opposite of Soozie’s 2nd paragraph. There has not been a general misleading of the public as to how tough it is to make admission to their school. Now all those top-tiers engage in heavy marketing, & we all know that. It’s controversial, too, & has been talked about on CC often. Some Ivies & top-tiers campaign much less than others, some recruit particular kinds of students more heavily than others do. But none of them, to my knowledge, has a history of suggesting that admission to its school is not very challenging.</p>
<p>I wasn’t kidding about the CYA thing. 10-to-1 that some students or families (maybe even a legacy or two) has complained to H about so-and-so getting admitted with lower scores or a lower GPA or less-impressive e.c., from the same high school. So this is the other part, DRJ and GFG: there’s not a formula! As a parent, I’m glad of that. I’m glad that students are still looked at somewhat qualitatively. I’ll bet also that with HYP looking at additional aspects of diversity than previously (economics, geography, unusual or non-traditional e.c.'s) the complaints from “invested” families have increased as acceptances have become less formulaic & less predictable. Hence the CYA statement.</p>
<p>Colleges have diff. ways of saying this, but they all say it one way or the other. I looked at Brown’s site last night. Some colleges, including non-Ivies, break it out as Brown does: listing percentages of acceptances by segments. Some list averages or medians. Ya know, if you still apply to that U when you see that 3% or 9% of students were admitted with <500 on an SAT I section, whose fault is that when you forfeit your $65 application fee? And if you do not have the brains to understand that H is probably more selective than Brown in the score department, but you still apply to H, does that not suggest that you not only deserve to lose your $65, but that you definitely could NOT do the work at either Brown or Harvard? Or same for class rank. If you’re a celebrated, professional musician or a seriously recruited athlete, that’s a diff. matter.</p>
<p>Epiphany, you are right. This kind of information is right on the college’s websites and if someone chooses to apply to a school with an admit rate under 15% and then also has stats that fall under 90-100% of admited applicants, it is their own fault. Some folks are VERY VERY unrealistic and/or not cognizant whatsoever of how challenging admissions is today to top schools. No longer is it safe to say, like maybe it was in the "old days’…you are an excellent student, you can get into any top school. Those days are over. Top students get turned away all the time. So, imagine if you are not a top student and have stats nowhere close to admitted students at X top college that ALSO has a very low admit rate, and you still choose to apply (here is where “prestige” seems to really factor into the choice to apply), then you get what you get. I get clients who write that they want to get into a prestigious school but have done poorly in HS. I don’t know what they are thinking!</p>
<p>I have trouble understanding ANY parent of ANY level of applicant who calls to complain about an admissions decision. I never ever would dream of doing that. We knew going into it that the admissions to selective schools would be difficult and that even though our kids WERE qualified and in the ballpark of admitted students to X or Y college, we still knew they might not get in. We played the game and knew the rules of it. C’est la vie. I can’t imagine complaining in my kids’ cases. I surely can’t imagine complaining when someone doesn’t have the stats to begin with. But even with the stats, top colleges are not going just by numbers…they look qualitatively at the whole person and then build a class. It is perfectly fair that Johnny got in with 1450 SATs and Susie got rejectd with 1500 SATs because admissions is not based on black and white numbers. There are countless posts on CC in the spring where students question how Kid #1 got in but Kid #2 didn’t and the first kid had some higher numbers than the second kid but nobody here knew the full package that goes way beyond merely numbers and also didn’t know how each student fit a need in the grouping that the adcoms were forming.</p>
<p>PS, epiphany, paragraph two of mine in the post you referenced is actually a real case I am working on but took a break to read this thread!</p>
<p>I know of more than one competitive e.c. in which judges are paid NOT to tie competitors, but to choose ultimate winners, regardless of how well each person may have competed, & how “equal” they may look. Sometimes it’s because there are a limited number of physical awards (trophies, etc.). Sometimes it’s because that competition is a decider for the next level of competition, & obviously not everyone can advance to the next level – be it regional, national, international. In those cases there can actually be quantitative ties; yet the judges must choose a ranking. That choice is the subjective & non-quantitative part. They tend to decide based on some intangible factor which is nevertheless observable, just difficult to put in numeric terms. And that elusive “factor” would never be something that could be predicted or projected ahead of time – announced to the public, published on some website. It’s a real-time decision and, again, partly committee, which further makes predictability impossible.</p>
<p>jlo, I like your contribution to the discussion. I think communication is an important aspect of leadership (discussed on another thread, too). Someone who can communicate within a debate team, within a school newspaper effort (not just through articles written but in concert with the other writers), within a school governmental position, within members of an outside community assisting in a community service project, within a classroom (demonstrating, explaining, “translating” to fellow students, sharing knowledge generously), within an advocacy group – all these are avenues of communication that are valued by colleges for what they reveal about the student. Influence (someone else’s word), being a role model, being respected – whether in sports or some other activity – are qualities that H and other top-tier schools truly value.</p>
<p>Help:::: Would the distribution of ECs over the 4 years in question affect admission? I would have a much larger concentration of activities in my senior year compared to my first 3.</p>
You actually believe that 3,313 applicants applied to Harvard and paid the $65 admission fee, even knowing they had no chance to get past the first cut? And they did this, presumably, for the honor of saying they applied to Harvard? That may be true for some, but I submit that most of these students actually thought they had a chance for admission. A prudent college would make its minimum standards clear to avoid that misconception.</p>
<p>"You actually believe that 3,313 applicants applied to Harvard and paid the $65 admission fee, even knowing they had no chance to get past the first cut? And they did this, presumably, for the honor of saying they applied to Harvard? That may be true for some, but I submit that most of these students actually thought they had a chance for admission. "</p>
<p>You may be addressing this to soozie, but I’m answering a resounding YES anyway. Remember that many of those 3K+ students were pressured by parents for social/family reasons, were falsely encouraged by peers, were not discouraged by GC’s, were uninformed (did not do research), or were deluding themselves. About 660, worldwide, in each of those 5 categories. Most definitely that is not a stretch to believe.</p>
<p>Remember that this 3313 figure <em>excludes</em> the nominally qualified applicants who might indeed “actually think [and do have] a chance for admission.”</p>
<p>It is possible that the straight-to-the-trash kids would only be encouraged by published numbers.</p>
<p>For example-- let’s say the lowest admitted SAT is (old test) 1100. Say it’s the score of the kid of the guy that gave a building, or the kid with the devastating curveball, or the kid who spoke only Swahili until last year, or the kid who was enslaved in a Pakistani brothel, or some other <em>completely exceptional</em> kid. That is only going to encourage other 1100s if it is deemed to be a “minimum standard.”</p>
<p>There is already ample evidence in the stats provided, if kids want to pay attention to them and be realistic. Anyone under the 25% SAT had better have some pretty incredible counterbalanciung in their application. These “no chance” kids want to hit the lottery. They are not savvy. They are deluding themselves. Sometimes their parents are delusional.</p>
<p>BUT I agree that all schools like gettting too many apps, because it helps them to have low admittance rates. This is one key factor in USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>Nadash:
The key is to work with what you have. You can’t change it – that is, you can’t go back and add EC’s earlier on. Also, you don’t need to pile on EC’s Senior year just to make your app look good – focus on what really interests you and what you really care about. Many colleges ask you to list the EC’s in order of importance to you – that’s a big help, because it is a top-down list that focuses on the activity, not the dates of involvement.</p>
<p>Finally, if there is a good reason that you didn’t have EC’s before - for example, if you had to work to help out with the family business or taking care of younger siblings at home – explain that. </p>
<p>One other caveat: don’t try to exaggerate or pump up an EC into something it is not. With all the emphasis on having outstanding accomplishments with ECs, we tend to miss the fact that many kids do actually get into Ivies without that world-class level of attainment – they have top grades & test scores and active lives, but nothing amazing. Geographic diversity may work in their favor: that is, Harvard might take the kid from Wyoming with a typical array of high school activities whereas they would expect to see something more outstanding from a kid in New York. But the point is, you are not OUT of the running if your EC’s aren’t amazing – it is just that having amazing EC’s helps put many students over the top.</p>