<p>I hope this sheds light on whats happening in selective college admissions, and why so many are finding that they have been waitlisted or denied at schools they considered matches.
College admissions has become the most competitive ever. There are more children of college entrance age than at any other time in US history, but the size of college classes has not changed that significantly. As a result at many schools across the country there are 24,000 applicants applying for 1600 spots.
Added to this is the fact that several of the ivies and other selective schools have done away with single choice early action and early decision. As a result with over 20,000 appicants competing for admission, it is becoming virtually impossible for applicants to stand in the admission pool. In fact, the exceptional student with outstanding SAT scores and grades, and great extra curriculars often becomes ordinary.
It is important to stand out from the other thousands and thousands of also outstanding applicants. in order to get an admisison officers eye - especially one is not a highly recruited athlete, an under represented high achieving minority, a developmental legacy, or from an under epresented state like Idaho.
Of the 24,000 applicants who apply to very selective schools, the majority will have excellent SAT scores and grades. The majority will have more than just a checklist of extracurriculars. Most will be active in their school commuity. The problem is that there are thousands of applicants who are President of their class, and head of the debate club, star in their schools musicals and and/ or are Editor in Chief of the yearbook and Captain of their varsity team. As amazing at it sounds to have academic achievement and time for leadership in school and sports activities, this becomes ordinary, as everyone is exceptional.
At very selective schools there are ways that some applicants stand out amongst who also have the academics and scores to get accepted. One is for having passions that span years with extraordinary achievements on the national or international level in the arts and in areas that are out of the ordinary. Or to have interesting passions without those achievements but that show they have been developed over years. Other ways some applicants stand out are for having extraordinary academic achievement. These are the students who have perfect or near perfect SAT scores, while being number one in the class, and perhaps having published their research or were a semi finalist in a competitition like Westinghouse.
There are some applicants who just have really good SAT scores and grades, but the combination of the things they have done, or their essays and teacher recommendations just make them more interesting applicants, or the admissions committee thinks they will bring something that is needed to the campus.
What has happened in college admissions is that many who did not get into their early school if they did apply to one, or choose not to apply to one, found that in the regular decision pool, it was just too hard to compete against 20,000 or more applicants for a small number of spots. Many unfortunately found that they were waitlisted or denied. at schools that normally would have been considered matches. It used to be that passions and unusual achievement was needed to gain admission to just the ivy league and other first tier schools, but for second tier competitive schools, very good SAT scores and grades and extracurricular activities with leadership was enough. That has changed however. These second tier schools have found that they can be very selective as they have received also over 20,000 appiicants at most schools. They also hope to capture the students who were qualified for the ivy league and top tier schools who were waitlisted or not accepted.
I do feel that there is a lot of hope for waitlisted applicants this year. In previous years it was impossible to get off a waitlist as colleges estimated correctly the percentage of students who would come if accepted. However, this year is different. Many selective schools do not know who will accept their offer, as many who might have been accepted early to other schools did not apply early, and may be hoping to gain acceptance somewhere else.
Many colleges could not predict yield but still wanted to remain selective, so they accepted the number they did last year, but waitlisted a number just as large. I do believe that many will be offered spots off the waitlist.
For those of you waitlisted at one or several schools, who would rather go there than the schools you were accepted to, I would remain on the waitlist and rally to get one of those spots.
This was probably the toughest year in college admissions.
Where you got in or did not is not a reflection of who you are, and you should not take it personally if you were not taken. I am sure you were outstanding. It is just hard to stand out when everyone is outstanding</p>
<p>Does anyone else long for a simpler time when being on the honor roll, buying a junker car, and getting a date for the prom were “accomplishments”?</p>
<p>puzzledad: do not despair! Although the ‘Ivy League’ schools deserve what reputation they have - they are excellent schools - they are not the only excellent schools around. Much of college is what your child chooses to make of it. I recommend you read this post that I saw yesterday from taomom: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/491200-seniors-2008-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/491200-seniors-2008-a.html</a> I think it will give you and your son hope and inspiration. From your description, your son will do well and prosper wherever he lands. </p>
<p>I would also encourage your son to write to the school that he mosts wants to attend, feels most connected with, that turned him down. Have him express in a very personal way what attracts him to the school, what he thinks he will bring to it and what he will be able to take from it, and ask them to reconsider the denial. Certainly commit to a school he’s been accepted to by May 1, but have him send that letter before May 1. You never know what can happen. This should be sent without expectation, but with hope.</p>
<p>Oh! and on the younger child, encourage him to do all that he wants to do and continue to work hard. All of those accomplishments will teach him how to proceed in life and will prepare him for the future. College admission is a good goal, but he will gain much more in tangible and intangible ways that will be very meaningful to a successful life.</p>
<p>The idea of sending a letter to the schools which denied the OP’s son is a very bad one. </p>
<p>Ivies do not reverse denials. Unless your counselor sent the wrong transcript, the College Board sent the wrong SAT score or some major error of that sort which you already know about and can document happened, a reversal is IMPOSSIBLE. There are hundreds of kids in this pile in the middle called “wait list.” Someone on the “deny” list is NOT going to leapfrog past all of those hundreds of kids on the wait list and get in. It does NOT happen. </p>
<p>No matter what you say, the kid who sends that letter will get his hopes up that there will be a miracle. There won’t be. It’s better to move on. </p>
<p>He can, of course, pursue the wait list he is on if he chooses to do so.</p>
<p>puzzledad, </p>
<p>I really would love to know to what schools your son applied and to how many because, with his profile, it seems odd to me that he didn’t get into any “high-ranking” schools. I wonder if you and I define high-ranking differently. </p>
<p>My children are non-Asian minorities. I can tell you that <em>none</em> of my children have ever been accepted at their first or second choice school! This year, my child was accepted at every school <em>except</em> 1st and 2nd choices where she showed TONS of interest. On paper, there’s no reason why she wasn’t accepted-- except perhaps, that they had too many applicants and they had to choose. Right now, we’re in the same situation deciding on colleges. She got into several excellent schools, loves them all and she has to decide. There is nothing wrong with any of them-- except she can only go to <em>one</em> place. </p>
<p>I think the problem is that we don’t know what the admissions officer has in front of him/ her. For example, I strongly suspect that her top choice rejected her because of her high school. I think that they are very specifically looking for a full-payer with high numbers from her high school and that is not who she is. Another example… You may be an oboe player and they may need a great oboe player-- but this year, they may have 3 competitive applicants who are oboe players: your son, the daughter of the secretary of state of a European country and a tribal kid who beat back cancer-- and admissions needs one more oboe player. </p>
<p>So there’s nothing wrong being, like GFG’s kid, the Hispanic well-rounded kid and there’s nothing wrong being, like OP’s kid, the Asian science-genius, any more than there’s anything wrong with being my kid-- but that doesn’t guarantee any of them entry into one specific school. I can peruse the CC boards for my dd’s #1 and #2 choices and find kids who were accepted with lower stats-- but she’s not who they wanted this year. </p>
<p>I really think the best advice I received was to build the list from the bottom up.</p>
<p>Posts 100 and 105 are right on the money. Excellent, superb, high-achieving, and every other flattering adjective are relative/comparative terms in college admissions. </p>
<p>and</p>
<p>“I really think the best advice I received was to build the list from the bottom up.”
^We did that, too, perhaps out of pessimism. In retrospect, she gave her best effort – not consciously – to her 3rd highest reach. Guess where she was accepted? It could be argued that that was her 2nd highest reach, not 3rd. And they correctly perceived that as a great fit – a better fit than a couple of the safeties that waitlisted her, although most of that category accepted her. It was about how she communicated, as well as what she communicated.</p>
<p>I have more than one child, and my littlest is a special-needs boy. This was my first experience with the college admissions process in over 20 years. I devoted as much time to it as I possibly could, and started during my daughter’s freshman year. I thought I learned all I could to help my sweet, bright, determined daughter ready herself for any type of college she would like when the time came to apply, scoping out potential colleges, looking for reciprocal suitability. </p>
<p>I approached the application process in a logical and systematic fashion, including calling upon the HS experts who are paid to know what’s what. I feel my best efforts were not enough, and now I realize my daughter might have had more choices if I had done even more research. I am not an admissions strategist; moreover, I didn’t know I needed to be one! Again, my fault for not being more informed.</p>
<p>Realistically, though, I don’t think I could spend any more time on this process than I did. It would have meant shortchanging my other children or other commitments and obligations. </p>
<p>I realize more than ever there is no way my daughter could have done this alone! She is far too young and unsophisticated to understand the complexities involved. It may not be “rocket science” to some of you, but to me the various combinations and permutations of all factors involved leaves my head spinning! My poor girl had all she could do to hold up her end, which was a formidable challenge enough. I know she did not have time to spend unlocking the mysteries of the college application process. I’m amazed “we” did as well as we did, and feel we dodged a bullet since we were apparently under-prepared. </p>
<p>In my community, many families hire college consultants to help them wade through the morass. I used to think that was silly, but now I see why it makes sense. </p>
<p>I do long for a simpler time, but in simpler times my little boy wouldn’t have survived. While no system is perfect, I think the applications process could stand some improvement. Greater minds than mine will have to tackle that one. I am obviously not up to the challenge!</p>
<p>jnsq: If you wanted to devote your time to this, I bet you’d be just the person. But I’m sure you have things closer to your heart to think about.</p>
<p>Like so many things, some people just have a talent for something and the process is easy. Others struggle.</p>
<p>For instance, I can’t understand how some people know so much about what to do with their money. When I’ve hired experts my situation hasn’t improved. Not my karma. I’m just always going to be dependent on my salary. Sigh.</p>
<p>So we can’t do everything.</p>
<p>jnsq: I still thing someone’s looking out for your D and it will work out. Call me Pollyanna. (As a child I was really inspired by the scene in which Hailey Mills hangs up all the prisms.)</p>
<p>As many others have said, no matter how sure you are you have done all the right things, there still is some random element involve. How many applied with your profile, from your part of the country, etc, all affect the admission decision.</p>
<p>From the description of your son, he is very qualified and should have gotten in to at least one of top schools he applied to. Perhaps he was just unlucky; yes i know it sucks but sometimes luck plays in too =(</p>
<p>You’re more than a bit out of date. The Boalt letter is from 1989. The Supreme Court dealt with the subject or affirmative action at public universities a few years back.</p>
<p>I understand how you feel…but…</p>
<p>The fact that certain admissions processes had more of an impact on Asians is NOT academic gobbley-gook for “we discriminated.” It means that when colleges seek geographic diversity, it hurts Asians, because most Asians in the US live in a few states. But if you happen to be Asian and live in Wyoming, you are going to benefit from that policy as much as anyone of any other race will benefit from it. It means that when colleges recruit athletes and give them a push in admissions, it hurts Asians because few Asians are recruited athletes. But if you are a 6 foot 10 inch Asian basketball player with a great hook shot you will be helped, not hurt, by that policy. There were few Asian kids in my college class a generation ago because until the mid-1960s, Asians were the subject of biased immigration policies. But the children of my Asian classmates have benefited from their legacy connection to my alma mater just as much as any of their classmates’ children have. </p>
<p>Yes, these policies hurt Asian-Americans as a group, but their intent was NOT to discriminate. There IS a difference. I’m never going to be a professional basketball player, in part because I’m short . But I don’t think the NBA intentionally discriminates against short people or the unco-ordinated. It’s just that being tall is a big advantage in playing professional basketball. And nobody as klutzy as I am is going to be able to play any sport professionally. “Lefties”–people who are left-handed–make up the majority of top ranked professional men’s tennis players. They are less than 10% of all males. I don’t think anyone “discriminated” against those who are right-handed. It’s just that being left handed gives you some advantages. </p>
<p>It doesn’t help when your kid is the one who is hurt by these policies. I understand that. Nevertheless, it doesn’t help to convince your kid that the deck is stacked against him just because of his race. It isn’t. It might be stacked against him because he’s not an athlete, not a legacy, is from a state which has many students apply to the very top colleges. and doesn’t have parents who are celebrities or develpment cases. </p>
<p>And it is true that a smaller percentage of Asian kids are athletes, legacies, celebrities or developmental cases or come from big square states. That’s what the “academic gobbley gook” you quoted means.</p>
<p>So, take the chip off your shoulder. It isn’t doing you–or your kids, if you are a parent–any good. The OP’s son will be fine.</p>
<p>Maybe the Hispanic girl wrote a better essay, or had more enthusiastic teacher recommendations or had more interesting extracurricular activities. Numbers aren’t everything.</p>
<p>
Maybe. But that certainly can’t explain every case of URMs getting in with lower stats. And there are certainly many of them.</p>
<p>I found an interesting book.
[Harvard’s</a> admissions of gilt - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/09/04/harvards_admissions_of_gilt/]Harvard’s”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/09/04/harvards_admissions_of_gilt/)
Harvard’s admissions of gilt By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist<br>
Golden’s new book, ``The Price of Admission
Asian-Americans held to higher standards (they need to score at least 50 points higher than non-Asians even to be in the game) and frequently stigmatised for their “characters” (Harvard evaluators persistently rated Asian-Americans below whites on “personal qualities”). When the University of California, Berkeley briefly considered introducing means-based affirmative action, it rejected the idea on the ground that “using poverty yields a lot of poor white kids and poor Asian kids”.
AMERICAN universities like to think of themselves as engines of social justice, thronging with “diversity”. But how much truth is there in this flattering self-image? Over the past few years Daniel Golden has written a series of coruscating stories in the Wall Street Journal about the admissions practices of America’s elite universities, suggesting that they are not so much engines of social justice as bastions of privilege. Now he has produced a book—“The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates”—that deserves to become a classic. Mr Golden shows that elite universities do everything in their power to admit the children of privilege. If they cannot get them in through the front door by relaxing their standards, then they smuggle them in through the back. No less than 60% of the places in elite universities are given to candidates who have some sort of extra “hook”, from rich or alumni parents to “sporting prowess”. The number of whites who benefit from this affirmative action is far greater than the number of blacks.
The American establishment is extraordinarily good at getting its children into the best colleges. In the last presidential election both candidates—George Bush and John Kerry—were “C” students who would have had little chance of getting into Yale if they had not come from Yale families. Al Gore and Bill Frist both got their sons into their alma maters (Harvard and Princeton respectively), despite their average academic performances. Universities bend over backwards to admit “legacies” (ie, the children of alumni). Harvard admits 40% of legacy applicants compared with 11% of applicants overall. Amherst admits 50%. An average of 21-24% of students in each year at Notre Dame are the offspring of alumni. When it comes to the children of particularly rich donors, the bending-over-backwards reaches astonishing levels. Harvard even has something called a “Z” list—a list of applicants who are given a place after a year’s deferment to catch up—that is dominated by the children of rich alumni.University behaviour is at its worst when it comes to grovelling to celebrities. Duke University’s admissions director visited Steven Spielberg’s house to interview his stepdaughter. Princeton found a place for Lauren Bush—the president’s niece and a top fashion model—despite the fact that she missed the application deadline by a month. Brown University was so keen to admit Michael Ovitz’s son that it gave him a place as a “special student”. (He dropped out after a year.)
You might imagine that academics would be up in arms about this. Alas, they have too much skin in the game. Academics not only escape tuition fees if they can get their children into the universities where they teach. They get huge preferences as well. Boston University accepted 91% of “faculty brats” in 2003, at a cost of about $9m. Notre Dame accepts about 70% of the children of university employees, compared with 19% of “unhooked” applicants, despite markedly lower average SAT scores.
Why do Mr Golden’s findings matter so much? The most important reason is that America is witnessing a potentially explosive combination of trends. Social inequality is rising at a time when the escalators of social mobility are slowing (America has lower levels of social mobility than most European countries). The returns on higher education are rising: the median earnings in 2000 of Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher were about double those of high-school leavers. But elite universities are becoming more socially exclusive. Between 1980 and 1992, for example, the proportion of disadvantaged children in four-year colleges fell slightly (from 29% to 28%) while the proportion of well-to-do children rose substantially (from 55% to 66%).</p>
<p>New data is in on both UCLA and Berkeley. Remember that in California it is illegal for public universities to offer preferential admissions based upon race.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-admissions-data-show-high-48543.aspx[/url]”>http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-admissions-data-show-high-48543.aspx</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/04/14_admissions08.shtml[/url]”>http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/04/14_admissions08.shtml</a></p>
<p>Each of these top ranked UC’s admitted classes that are approx 40% Asian, 33% Caucasian, 14% Hispanic and 4% AfricanAmerican.</p>
<p>Without life challenging tricks(AA is illegal )</p>
<p>Number might have been.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Asian 43% Caucasian 35% HIspanic 10% African American 3% </p>
<p>Wild guess though.</p>
<p>Oh please… if we want to talk about how admissions at top schools is stacked against Asians, we’ll have to talk about how it’s stacked against girls… or how being from Wyoming helps. Really, the problem isn’t that poor hispanics or poor blacks are taking the seats of Asians. There are few hispanics or blacks at most of these colleges-- and some of those people are hardly underpriviledged. So while some schools make a big show about helping some poor, inner-city kid get in (and then trumpet that inner-city kid) there are thousands of poor kids (white, black, hispanic, asian-- rural, urban, and the most reviled suburban) who are tossed aside because they do not have the resumes to compete. Most of these schools aren’t going to let their school become ‘too Asian,’ ‘too black’ or ‘too Hispanic.’ None of these schools is going to start letting in tons of poor kids because 1- poor kids <em>cost</em> money and 2- fundamentally, these schools are bastions of privilege and privilege in America has been about being a WASP. So they owe some loyalty to their constituency (alumni, professors, etc) and they want to keep their status. (What better way to keep status than to attract the child of a famous or influential person?) So they will let in <em>some</em> and make a big show of it-- but they will not let their school become the “Asian kids’ school” or the “Hispanic kids’ school” or the “Black kids’ school” lest they lose their position as a status symbol. After all, isn’t Morehouse an excellent college? Isn’t Howard? Yet how many white kids or Asian kids do you see flocking there? Check out the alumni list at Howard; obviously, people have received an excellent (and economical) education there-- but white/ Asians of privilege don’t send their kids there. Ask yourself why.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>StanfordAlum 82, I’m not so sure about that. As far as UCLA goes, greater effort was put into recruiting highly qualified African American and Hispanic applicants as a way of increasing their numbers. The school has a legacy of illustrious Black and Hispanic alumni, including Los Angeles Mayors Tom Bradley and Antonio Villaraigosa, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche, Congresswoman Yvonne Braithwaite Burke and baseball great Jackie Robinson and there is no reason why that legacy cannot continue. </p>
<p>For comparison, here is what your alma mater Stanford admits, being private, it is allowed to use race as a factor in admissions</p>
<p>Black - 8.3%
Asian -24.9%
Hispanic - 12.7%
White - 40%</p>
<p>I think Stanford is overrated with Grade inflation.</p>
<p>My S chose UCLA over Stanford 5 years ago. Now he is in Boalt
My D decided Berkeley over Pomona.</p>
<p>I agree there are so many great African American and Hispanic American Alumni from UCLA and Berkeley, however, it doesn’t justify the unfair
treatment OP’s son got. </p>
<p>Good luck to OP’s son.</p>
<p>Bye</p>
<p>“the unfair treatment OP’s son got.”</p>
<p>Please.</p>
<p>No one knows whether it was “unfair” unless he or she personally saw the comparisons of same-round applications to the same schools. I notice that the OP has not named the “safety school,” unless I missed that. (And were all the others in the reach category?)</p>
<p>Once more, listen carefully:</p>
<p>Asians are rejected in greater numbers from places like Ivies because they insist on applying in disproportionately high numbers to a smaller set of schools than non-Asians are willing to apply to. They are also, just for your information, ACCEPTED in disproportionally high numbers. Check it out. Except that you can’t check it out, because you will never know the numbers of Asians with multiple acceptances to top Ivies, who have turned down some to attend, for example, Harvard. Those statistics do not show up; only the matriculated statistics show up.</p>
<p>Give it a rest already.</p>