Why applicants overreach and are disappointed in April...

Parents Forum
621

@mathmom I have so many friends that have done alumni interviews for their schools and can’t seem to help anyone get in. Many of them have stopped doing interviews because they feel like “what’s the point?”

I’m more concerned about the actual admissions officers’ relationship with S19. They are the actual people who read his app first and who go to bat for him in committee. (These are smaller schools so I know it works this way.) As far as I can tell, they are interested. I think they know a little about his academics because our GC let it slip that AOs do sometimes ask for that kind of stuff early if they are visiting our high school and having info meetings for the students I also get, though, that schools need to sell their school as much as our kids need to sell themselves so all of the nice, quick responses that S19 gets from his emails to these AOs might also just be them making sure he has a good view of the school. In two cases, the AOs he met at his high school emailed him to find out when we were visiting the school and came down to meet our family. It starts to feel more personal then.

And these are top 10 LACs so the admit rate is very very low. I’m thinking the attention is to maybe encourage him to apply ED, to become a favorite early on. Unfortunately, we aren’t letting him do that because we don’t think he’ll be ready to choose (has a new favorite each week it seems) and because we want to compare all offers.

So, as for getting his hopes up and being disappointed in April - that’s a real thing. The schools seem interested. He knows the person reading his app. The likelihood of not getting in is still very high.

622

As a Cornell alum, we no longer even call our meetings “interviews”. They are information meetings. We still submit reports but we don’t see the entire application and really we are more a resource to applicants to answer questions and help the student make a local connection. We live quite a distance from the university so sometimes we are the only rep a student will meet during the application process.

623

And if they go to college as pre-meds, they continue that for another four years…

624

@ucbalumnus Don’t remind me. I know. But there is nothing you can do about it when your kid desperately wants to be a doctor.

625

I have read through this thread talking about tiger parents and unrealistic odds and I am still very conflicted about what to advise my dd19 next year as she chooses what schools to apply to. She meets all the qualifications to be a contender at any school in the country. Yes, I have read enough disappointment on CC that I will make sure she will have two true “likelies” that have 60% or greater acceptances and she has said she would be interested in attending (and that I will make sure not to “rank”). There will also be 3-4 good “matches” that I think are 30-40% chances based on stats. Now when it come reaches, the way I look at it is the chance she will get an acceptance by picking one or two are extremely unlikely, because not only are they very difficult to get into, by only choosing only one or two, you are lessening your odds because they have to choose you too and most of us have no formula for knowing what schools are really looking for. I have read so many threads when someone gets into Harvard but not Yale, UCLA but not Berkeley, Vanderbilt, but not Duke. And then those who got denied to 7 of their 8 reaches, BUT did get into one of their desired reaches. So to me, that is the reason people apply to so many reaches, after the 2 likelies, the 3-4 matches, then it is up to how many applications do you have time to complete well, how many $70 application fees are you willing to risk, and how much stomach you have for hearing no.

626

This is how I see it. If my daughter had a high tolerance for rejection, was willing to put in the effort for all those applications, including supplements AND the application fees were not burdensome, I would let her apply anywhere she wanted. However, I would insist that the match and safety school applications get done first so there was no question about burn out harming the quality of those applications.

627

@gallentjill - that sounds logical. The best application my younger son submitted was for Tufts which he didn’t submit until the first week of January. The had a supplementary optional essay that he wanted to have fun writing over winter break. (It was an alternate history of the United States - what if we’d lost at Yorktown.) Drove me bananas, but I let him drive the process.

I did insist on an EA application - he got lucky and knew he was into a reach school in December. His safety only had ED, but that application did go in fairly early.

628

This process can be disappointing for amazing applicants as well so its fine if ones who don’t have it all, want to gamble too. Its an absurd process, not a clear cut merit based system, no harm in taking a chance. Well, unless its an unhooked and underqualified applicant, then it only makes sense if you have fee waivers. Even if you do get in, you may not have means to attend so know that disappointments are plenty but they shouldn’t guide your path.

629

I’m realizing that going through college sports recruiting provided experience in handling rejection, Meeting with the coach, being invited to small ID camps where the guys really start to connect with the program and the coaches, being encouraged as a “prospie,” and then, recruiting just stopped. Sometimes the reasons were clear, like not filling a need for the team or not being compatible with playing style. Sometimes it was opaque, like going from being a top 5 recruit to not getting return emails with no explanation. He learned to pick up and move on.

630

GJ, someone mentioned the poor don’t necessarily have their sights set on the most generous colleges, at all. The elite push may be lower income parents of a certain type. But it can also be educated, higher SES families that set high expectations. All those kids doing SATs in 7th grade to get into some program like Duke TIP aren’t from magically clued-in lower income families. Lots of poorer families may fall into the ‘gotta be a doctor’ trap. Or push their kids into the computer fields/engineering. But the same applies to more financially stable parents. Neither study requires an elite college undergrad degree.

I think the issue with overreach and disappointment starts with less understanding than it takes. All these assumptions. And @19parent “by only choosing only one or two, you are lessening your odds” - We have threads all the time clarifying that if you’re not a match, it doesn’t matter how many elites you apply to. There’s no odds making that says 7 Ivies rejected, the 8th is a lock.

631

Our children didn’t overreach and weren’t disappointed by rejections. The oldest didn’t care enough to visit any colleges prior to applying. He didn’t read any college guidebooks, Princeton Review, or whatever. He would have been satisfied to attend our state flagship. He didn’t want to emulate his first cousins who were “Ivy” focused from early childhood and prep school (and attended Princeton, Stanford, and Brown). He just wanted to attend a college “where it’s safe to be a thinker, preferably in a major league city [as in major league sports].” So I composed a list which included Harvard almost as an afterthought, but focused on high-likelihood admittances and that would give him some options: UChicago, Carleton, Reed, Williams, UMich, MSU, and Harvard. He was admitted to all of them except Harvard. THEN he visited a couple of the schools (he already knew UMich and MSU from summer debate camps and other events). The visits stopped after he did an overnight on admitted students day at UChicago, and declared the next morning “This will do.” Decision made. They gave him a nominal ($750!!!) NMS award after he had already accepted.

So this was low pressure, with excellent backup options, and no disappointment. Fortunately, we could afford whatever alternatives came up, though attending instate universities would have been a lot cheaper (full ride at MSU on an Alumni Distinguished Scholarship; and a significant merit award from UMich Honors College).

Our daughter was also totally uninterested in talking about or reading about colleges, perhaps emulating her older brother (3 years older). Until she decided that the only type of college she wanted to attend was a stand-alone art school. She had good grades and test scores. But she didn’t want to apply to our state flagship(s), even as a backup. So her prep for college applications involved attending summer pre-college art programs that the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which contributed to the single most important factor in admission to selective art schools: a portfolio. In the summer after her junior year, she asked us to make a car tour, looking for art schools “in a real city, preferably in the East.” That we did, in a 10-day driving tour that got us from Michigan to Maine (a friend of hers who accompanied us wanted to visit Colby – our daughter didn’t bother to meet with the admissions people, because Colby didn’t fit her core criteria). In the end, she was admitted to all the colleges (programs) that she applied to: CMU, MICA, RISD, KCAI, and SCAD. She also initially applied to Cooper Union but didn’t complete the application because she came down with strep just when the “home test” was to be completed.

632

There’s a form of thinking that comes from understanding statistics a little bit but not understanding it well enough.

“If I apply to a 10% acceptance school, there is 90% chance of rejection. If I apply to 2 10% acceptance schools, there is an 81% chance that I will be rejected from both. Extrapolate that out to 10 schools and you’re down to 34% chance of not getting in anywhere. Extrapolate to 20 schools and I’m sure I’m getting in.”

For 20 schools there is no chance to personalize the application by school or really think how you fit into their ideal student body. So they come off as bland and generic and don’t get into any of their reaches, whereas if they had cut down the list and focused on individualizing their reach applications they may have had a better shot.

633

@gallentjill I think there is an economic factor to this stress, but I think it is a slightly different factor than you laid out. I think the most stress is coming from families in the 150-300k income groups who know that at most schools they will be full pay (but are not, for whatever reason, able to actually full pay).

At our house, we sometimes joke that we know lots of families who have spent a fortune over the years (sports, camps, music, etc) helping make their children awesome candidates to schools the family can’t afford because they spent the money cultivating their children’s interests and abilities. Add in family travel, nice cars, and a great home and where the money for school is coming from becomes an open question.

Going for prestige (i.e., why did my child and I work so hard if not for the school name we can show off to indicate the value of all that hard work) muddies the waters further, as many prestigious (or just well known) colleges come with a prodigious price tag.

I think it gets even harder because for many families, the “reasonable” cost options aren’t really all that reasonable. If you are in Illinois, flagship UIUC is ~ 40k a year (as full pay parents). If the choice is 40k for state flagship or 60k for prestigious OOS or private…well, both are really expensive and if you are struggling to figure out how to pay for it all, again those tippy top schools start to look like a better bet (and you might get some aid because of the bigger endowments). If all the price tags are outrageous, why not shoot for the most expensive, which could actually end up the least expensive?

So, you have families who think lets put into 15 applications, 10 of which are to the hardest to get into schools (but might actually give some need based aid). The same lack of numeracy which leads to spending a high income without adequate savings for college is the same lack of numeracy which leads families to misunderstand their odds of admission. The kids are amazing: smart, talented, hardworking…why shouldn’t we play the odds?

I have sympathy for those disappointed or discovering they can’t afford the schools they are accepted into. I don’t think it is unfair, it is just really competitive - much more competitive than many get. I think a lot of the overreach/disappointment is plain lack of understanding, not wanting to understand and/or wishful thinking that maybe everything will work out. For some, it does…which probably doesn’t help future parents. I keep going back to those “this student got into 20 of the best school” stories we see every year. We see those stories because it is so rare it is a story. And yet, thousand will point to that one data point and wonder why it didn’t happen for them. Back to innumeracy. It really is kind of a closed loop.

634

I didn’t read the whole thread carefully and am not sure if anyone has covered this already…in our case high school Naviance data has been a good guidance for my son. He switched from a public high school to a performing art high school his senior year because he wanted to focus on dance. Found out that some universities that were “reach” for his old public school became “match” for his performing arts school, such as UC’s. Top tier universities remain “reach” no matter where you go of course. It helped him with his list of schools to apply for.

635

“Sometimes there just isn’t enough room.”

I submit that MOST of the time there isn’t enough room- these days.

636

Add me to the list of Harvard alums who have stopped interviewing. Waste of time. BTW, legacy is dead at Harvard unless its accompanied by Huge contributions. I, for one, don’t believe that legacy should actually matter, but neither should all the other preferential categories. It should all be need blind and based on merit. Inability to pay should not matter. But that’s an entirely separate discussion and can of worms.

637

Of course, the college’s definition of “merit” may differ from your definition.

638

Exactly, ucbalumnus. Merit isn’t just this or only that.

Sorry, but what makes alum interviewers frustrated that they don’t have more pull? Isn’t this like only seeing stats and deciding that’s enough? Interviewers are “eyes on,” an important contributions. But not the holistic view.

639

Ah, yes, a list featuring 2 in-state schools, four schools with 2016-2017 admittance rates of (8%, 23%, 31%, and 18%), plus Harvard (5%) as an afterthought is “focused on high-likelihood admittances.”

It’s that line of thinking that ends up with kids who overreach and are disappointed in April.

640

lookingforward wrote: " I think the issue with overreach and disappointment starts with less understanding than it takes. All these assumptions. And @19parent “by only choosing only one or two, you are lessening your odds” - We have threads all the time clarifying that if you’re not a match, it doesn’t matter how many elites you apply to. There’s no odds making that says 7 Ivies rejected, the 8th is a lock."

That is not what I am referring to. Of course, if you aren’t a great qualified match and would never get accepted to a selective college. You can be highly knowledgable and understand on what it takes but there is still a lot of unknown because the numbers at the top are greater then available spaces. Most of the students who I read on CC that get into a highly selective college get rejected to some as well. If someone gets accepted to 4 and rejected to 4, what if the only reach schools that the student applies to are the 4 that they get rejected from.