List of reasons why applicants overreach and are disappointed in April:
Over-reliance on test scores. Sometimes, someone will post "how can [college] reject someone with a 36 ACT" or some such. But there are many other factors, like high school record (courses, grades, GPA, rank) and various subjective factors.
Exaggerated high school weighted GPAs that appear higher than they really are. For example, someone may feel confident about his/her chances at highly selective colleges based on a 4.3 weighted GPA, but if it based on a 3.4 unweighted GPA, his/her chances may be much lower than assumed. Some posters apparently do not know what their unweighted GPAs are.
Not considering that many colleges admit by division or major, and that some divisions or majors can be much more competitive for admission than the college's overall admission stats may suggest.
Assuming that top-end stats are sufficient (as opposed to necessary but not sufficient) for admission to super-selective colleges.
Applicant defines "fit" as prestige/selectivity, so that s/he considers only reach colleges to be good "fits" and all others and their students as "beneath" him/her.
Assuming that legacy and/or URM are huge advantages in admission even when they are minor considerations or not considered at all by the particular college.
Not paying attention to whether a supposed "safety" considers level of applicant's interest.
Not considering cost before making the application list, resulting in admission offers that are all too expensive.
Assuming that one will get a large competitive merit scholarship, but does not actually get it, resulting in the college being too expensive.
Parents who have the same mistaken notions and encourage the applicant to overreach.
Parents who have not realized how college admissions and cost have changed since when they were in college.
Not researching what an individual college is looking for to determine fit. In the thread about lottery admissions, someone joked about a kid being admitted because he was going to be the next POTUS. I'm not an expert, but I suspect for at least 2 and maybe 3 of the #1 - #10 schools on USNWR, they're not especially interested in the next POTUS, they want the next Nobel or Fields Medal winner. They are all looking for top stats, but the ECs and fit differ for the different schools. Ignore that and it does become a lottery.
Overestimating how impressive common activities are. Every top school gets 1000s of top local and state level violinists, athletes, etc. If an applicant's ECs are in an area where millions of other kids are doing the same thing, then his/her accomplishments will need to be national or international level to impress.
Overlooking the importance of not just good LORs, but LORs that say the right things. Again, knowing what the college wants is really important. A LOR that talks about how the student was failing Algebra but spent 4 hours a day self studying and ended up with an A by the end of the year is not going to be helpful at a CalTech, for example. It shows the student works hard, but also that they struggle with skills that will be vital to success at that college.
Only thinking of ECs as a "checklist" of activities that colleges look for. When we see questions like "I've spent 100 hours as a candy striper, will it be more impressive to JHU - where I want to be premed - if I spend an additional 200 hours as a candy striper?" it's obvious that kids think of ECs not as a way to show who the kid is and what they'll do at college, but just as an activity to check off a requirements box. Mistake.
– Assuming that the “pond” you see represents the entire world. So the Val has never gotten less than an A! The Sal won the local “Book Award” which always goes to the kid who the HS faculty thinks is hot stuff. Another student took 10 AP’s- a local record! And your own kid was named both MVP for his sports team AND was on the local robotics team which made it to the regional competition!!!
– Figuring that if one college has a 10% admissions rate, applying to ten colleges with a 10% admissions rate means you’ve got a 100% chance of getting in to at least one of them.
– Trying to “back door” a college- applying to Penn Nursing when there is no evidence at all that you know what nursing is. Wanting to study management at Yale when management at Yale is a graduate level program. Harvard’s Ed program, writing an essay for Brown where you discuss how much you are looking forward to cross-registering at RISD (so apply to RISD already).
– Writing an essay for ANY college which is plagiarized from the college’s own viewbook or website (yes, I’ve read some of these).
I think it's really important to realize that competition for spots in these schools is global. There will be no shortage of perfect score applicants.
Also that the students cannot work their way through college like the 70s or borrow whopping amount of money themselves leaving the students financially out of the game.
a. After enrolling, trying to get into the more competitive major means facing another admission process.
b. Sometimes, the supposed “back door” major may be the more competitive major. This is commonly true for nursing, though it may not necessarily be at Penn.
It is not always an overreach. I know some students who will be attending their absolute safety school next year because none of their low matches or high safeties came through- where they were in the top 25% of applicants by SAT/ACT and GPA, and would have to have had amazing recommendations because I have heard their teachers praise them at many an awards night. I did not see their applications so I cannot know if their essays were terrible, but I suspect yield protection played a role.
Assuming that earning an A from a teacher guarantees a strong LOR. A kid can know all of the answers on the tests but be unhelpful, or even grating in the classroom, totally concerned about self, uninterested in the course material. Grade grubbers can earn high marks but not the respect and admiration of their teachers.
Figuring out that without any hooks, how hard EA of HYPSM or RD of next top 10-15 schools is. It is really hard for students with 35-36 ACT, being ranked #1 out of 400+ students in their highly ranked suburban high school, NMSF status, National AP scholar after 11th grade and other accomplishments that they will be easily rejected from a majority of Ivy+ schools (or that they will be lucky to get admitted to one of them).
In my son’s high school, first ranked student from senior class got rejected from all Ivies he applied to – he is a white male who applied for political science, and is a regional quiz champion. An Asian girl ranked lower in the class applied for computer science, and got into Cornell and CMU. A hook like `girl in engineering/computer science’ was enough to make a difference – as far as I know, there were no EC accomplishments outside of school.
Another site had run a poll on college outcomes that had 1300 participants. Analyzing all the data there was an eye opener – Asian/White 35-36 ACT and/or 1500+ SAT and 3.9+ unweighted GPA candidates probably had a less than 10% acceptance rate at any of Ivy+ schools. I would say that around 30-40% of such candidates are headed to one such school, and others are headed to other schools.
GreyKing- a teacher praising a kid at awards night is no guarantee of a good recommendation.
“Suzy is the most diligent student I have ever met in my career teaching history. If she submits a paper which gets a B, she is the first to ask if there is an extra credit project she can do, or some way to rewrite the paper to boost her grade”.
“John is single-mindedly focused on academic success. I admire his pursuit of perfect grades to the exclusion of everything else”.
“Joanne is remarkably mature. She wastes no time on social activities, artistic pursuits, or athletics. Her goal has been to become a physician since she was in elementary school, and she knows that the only way to get there is by studying and logging long hours hitting the books”.
Would you want to teach any of these students? Or have them as a roommate?
@osuprof: “Another site had run a poll on college outcomes that had 1300 participants. Analyzing all the data there was an eye opener – Asian/White 35-36 ACT and/or 1500+ SAT and 3.9+ unweighted GPA candidates probably had a less than 10% acceptance rate at any of Ivy+ schools. I would say that around 30-40% of such candidates are headed to one such school, and others are headed to other schools.”
While such candidates will easily get rejected at top 15-20 schools, better ones are getting rejected too.
I doubt kids I am referring to, top of the class, good EC accomplishments, lots of APs with almost all 5s are getting letters of this nature.
I know this may be a hot button, but I like the `Maths’ I did on another thread. After all hooks – minority, legacy, recruited athletes, first generation, Pell grant awardees, under-represented states, unpopular majors, rich/famous parents, faculty and staff kids, women in engineering/computer science, and then 10% international, you are likely left with 15-20% of all seats (and even fewer in RD for schools that use ED). For HYPSM, it probably means kids with national level awards in something.
When someone does calculation that NMSF is only for 16,000 and less than the number of seats in Ivy+ colleges, they do not expect that they are really competing for a much smaller number. (And again I am not saying that NMSF and other testing scores are the sole consideration – but I have observed kids with NMSF, National AP Scholar after 11th grade , and at least regional/state level EC accomplishments).
Osu- you are proof of my point. Yes- the kids you are referring to- top of the class, “good” EC accomplishments and lots of AP’s. You’ve just described thousands of kids all vying for the same seat.
My response was to the your second message, where you talked about praising letters that actually hurt. I am saying that there is no such glaring weakness for many of the rejects. I agree with your first post – the comparison with local pond.
A lot of high achieving kids come across as fairly generic. It’s hard to stand out when many went to the same schools, lived in the same zip codes, competed in the same events, played the same instruments, took the same AP classes, did the same community service, won the same awards, have test scores with a small range, and then applied to the same universities.
“I am saying that there is no such glaring weakness for many of the rejects.” But neither were there really outstanding, national/international level strengths, either. That’s part of the problem - most people don’t realize how many thousands of high GPA, high test scores, lots of local ECs, great kids applying for those very few spaces.
Note that overreaching can occur outside of the super-selective schools. The “middle” UCs (UCSD, UCSB, UCD, UCI) seem to be well represented in the “disappointment” threads, for example. The plethora of CS major hopefuls means that many of them have to aim lower in order to find matches and safeties, since many colleges are significantly more selective for CS than in general.
Unfortunately, there’s been a shift in acceptance rates, so people need to start thinking of the top 20-30 colleges and a good chunk of the top state flagships like they think of pro sports or the Olympics.
Nobody complains that their kid spent 20 hours a week at practice, always did the extra workouts, was team snacktician, never missed a game, won MVP at a local playoff, had the cleanest uniform, voted most loved team player and got a great letter of recommendation from the coach and still wasn’t selected for the Olympic team. Everybody knows an athlete has to be at the top of the performance scale to be picked for the Olympics, that only a few will be picked and that effort is nice but in the end it’s just based on results and what’s impressive at a local level is not remotely competitive at a national or international level.
To some extent, people should start thinking of admissions to top colleges as being selected for the Olympic team, instead of clinging to the A for effort culture. Results will not always be “fair” and odds will be low, nobody should assume they’ll get chosen because they’re the best darn local player ever.
Obviously it’s not a perfect analogy (they never are!) because the Olympic selection process usually focuses solely on one (or a few) objective metric(s) where the college admissions process contains many subjective variables most of which aren’t known to anybody other than the applicant and the college. But the level of competition and the ability needed to “win” the spot is similar.
Sometimes, forum posters here encourage financial overreaching by suggesting colleges that are unlikely to be affordable within the student’s/parent’s stated financial constraints.