Acceptance rates are really only part of the picture of safety/match/reach. Schools gosemtheir acceptance rates y being a bit less selective during ED so they can reject more during RD, and I’m starting to read more about waitlist games that also “improve” (as in decrease) acceptance rates.
My daughters’ two safety schools accepted about 80 percent and 45 percent of applicants.
the one with 80 percent had rolling admissions, so we knew she was accepted at first safety
the one with 45 percent had admissions by major and her major is non competitive, nevertheless her stats were above the 75th percentile
Moreover, my kid’s 80 percent acceptance rate safety is a reach for any and all dance majors. The audition process is extremely competitive. (Determining safety/reach/match schools in audition- or portfolio- based visual and performing arts majors is particularly tricky.)
Deciding based on your rejections that you “overreached” depends on how many rejections you got. If you were rejected by more than half the schools on your list, you probably made a poor list.
On the other hand, if you were rejected by one or two reach schools but still had good choices in the end, that’s not overreaching. If you got accepted to all the schools on your list, maybe you played it too safe and sold yourself short.
Sometimes it’s good to take chances. There’s this instinct to protect kids from failure, but as long as there are good options in the end, a couple college rejections are learning experiences.
I am curious. Does anyone here know the answer? When acceptance rates are posted in the common data sets and US News, do these not include acceptances from the wait list? Those are, after all, also acceptances!
In my opinion the unweighted GPA should determine the starting point for all college match searches. In reading hundreds of posts over the past year, it certainly seems to be the primary determinant for bad admissions outcomes. I have seen many posts from students who state they have an ACT score in the high 30’s, or a 4.6 weighted GPA, or great activities or essays but they have an unweighted GPA below what a school accepts on average. There are very few positive admissions stories when this is the case.
There are so many wonderful schools in this country. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a student can’t find at least one safety where they’d be happy and get a good education. That tells me the student/family is focused on rankings and not on fit.
“Schools gosemtheir acceptance rates y being a bit less selective during ED so they can reject more during RD, and I’m starting to read more about waitlist games that also “improve” (as in decrease) acceptance rates.” Boy, I’d like to know what authoritative source you got that from. (We spent a lot of time recently debunking that Early means easier. And I don’t see why waitlist is confusing. You’re an alternate. You don’t know if you’ll get called up.)
Sorry, but it’s written in a way that can mislead families. Kids need to understand more about their targets, what would make the applicant desirable, not just what makes the kid want that college. Not just stats and some titles.
I think you can pretty much count on holistic colleges looking at the transcript, not just unweighted gpa.
@Jon234 my younger son liked his safety school more than some of his reaches. His worry about it was that it was terrific in his department, but not as good overall and he wasn’t 100% sure of his major. (IR) In the end he chose a more selective school and did stick with the major. His best friend attended his safety school. They both ended up in the military. I think my son actually might have been better off at his safety (better grades, possible term-time internships), but I think he probably got a better education where he was.
@TheGreyKing Acceptance rates in the CDS should include acceptances off the waitlist. At this time of year any acceptance rates announced by colleges is preliminary. Although last cycle many top 50 schools were over enrolled and never touched their waitlists.
My guess is for the most part wait list acceptances are such a small portion of the statistics at colleges that it doesn’t move the percentages if at all when considering where to apply.
I also don’t believe that any one student can’t find a safety that has their major, will accept them and can be afforded. My guess is for most college ready kids there are several in every region of the country. Many kids have a slightly twisted belief of what an undergrad degree really means and that when they do enter the job force they will be sitting next to others from all sorts of colleges and it is up to adults who have been there done that to help them understand the realities.
Yes! My daughter chose her safety over what she thought was her dream school. They made an excellent finacial offer which prompted her to take a serious second look. She visited several times, met with a professor, toured the facilities, read the bios of alumni and talked to professionals working in her field to see her the degree would be looked upon. At the end she chose Safe U even though I told her that we would make the finances work and that she should choose the one she felt would be best for her. It has worked out as well as we had hoped, if not better.
My nephew transferred to UCLA from a regional college with 3.4 or 3.5. I know kids with 4.0 gpa who cannot get into UCLA even for an uncompetitive major. There are other ways.
Anyway, we never had a goal for our kid to get into one of top ranked colleges; our goal was to prepare him for college and find his thing. But we always had him learn languages when he could. We left it up to him to pick schools except for safeties when I knew he would be NMF in CA. We considered Univ of South Carolina Honors College a safety because their CA rep told us he will get into HC because of his hard stats and NMF status, and he did. Frankly, my wife not involved at all in his education matters; she just tells him to do his best. Anyway, his goal as a HS freshman was to get into UC Irvine ranked top 50. Then, as a sophomore, his goal was to get into either UCLA or Berkeley. As a junior, we never mentioned to him to apply to any HYPSM because I thought frankly his hard stats were not good enough. But more I looked at his ECs and what he was good at, more I became convinced his 3.9 UW GPA, 33 ACT and 2150 SAT as a sophomore would not be obstacles, and when he told us he had been secretly harboring a desire to apply to Stanford and asked me if we could afford to send him there, I told him go ahead and he has a chance but he really needs to dig down deep like he did when he did well in his final project in journalism class to end up top 5 in his class to work as a staff in his HS newspaper as a reporter. We applied to Stanford as a REA because it really was his number one choice, and my kid was shocked he got in, although I was not. I really thought he had things in his application that other smart kids in his HS did not: ability to speak 4 languages, focused ECs with two decent national scholarship programs related to language and culture. I thought these were pretty objective facts, but subjectively, I also thought he would come across as a likable kid. His hard stats were good enough so that no one in his HS could say he did not deserve to get in. But was he the smartest kid in his HS? Absolutely not? Did he write one of the best application to Stanford out of 70 kids in his HS who applied to Stanford? Probably. Then another unexpected thing happened after he got into Stanford: he got one year study abroad scholarship. It took 5 minutes for us to take a gap year and another 20 minutes for Stanford to grant it. I was actually happier for him that he got the one year study abroad than Stanford acceptance because he will always be able to get similar College experience at another college but never have an opportunity to live and study one year abroad. It would have been a real dilemma if he had gotten into “only” Univ of South Carolina HC, UCLA and Berkeley because these public schools don’t hold a spot or merit scholarship for you and allow you to take a gap year, which I think is a terrible policy. I think we would have declined offers to attend and taken the gap year to study abroad and would have had to go through college application process again, but it would have been stressful for our kid to apply to colleges while he’s abroad. So I do feel like I got some money back on our future full pay obligations.
But what I wanted to say was we never made it a goal for him, although he might have had it as his goal, to get into certain college but to improve or take advantage of certain skills and opportunities he had.
@TheGreyKing Usually they call waitlisted students and ask if they still want to come. They only write acceptance letters for someone who says yes. So, it gooses the overall yield rate like ED does.
@websensation, actually, study-abroad programs (for one year if you want) are common at all colleges now. Though I certainly wouldn’t pay Stanford tuition to do that.
Tom’s right, it’s not that common. What colleges chase waitlist kids? I’d guess not the ones with plenty of admits and a high matriculation rate.
If you mean in the 11th hour, when they can’t fill the class, need to hunt down kids who’ll come, that’s a different scenario. I doubt those schools have much goose juice.
My “waitlist is used to increase yield” information source is Peter Van Buskirk
Start at 21:33 here (and watch this answer plus the next couple of follow-up questions) https://youtu.be/xCLJ3AEUJqs
@itsgettingreal17 “There are so many wonderful schools in this country. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a student can’t find at least one safety where they’d be happy and get a good education. That tells me the student/family is focused on rankings and not on fit”
There are, you’re correct. For various reasons, mostly logistical and financial, the whole country isn’t open to all students, so it’s probably not telling you the whole story. I think it may also depend on the major and strength of the department. I’m sure there are other factors come into play that neither of us have considered.
The stories of kids going to their safety and loving it are great to hear. This whole college arms race is a nightmare.
I am sorry if anyone feels I have taken this thread off track in anyway.
Parents and guidance counselors need to do a better job. First, students/parents/counselors need to make a list of schools where the student can best learn. Yes, that’s reach, match, and safety - although we need to get away from those labels (somewhere there is a thread that has better categories). Students need to fall in love with their list of schools not a single one or only the highest “rated”. If a student feels that any college on their list will help them achieve their dreams then disappointment will be minimized. In the end there where always be some disappointment, but the process should arm the students with confidence that they can achieve their goals at any of the colleges they applied to.
“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.”
@theloniusmonk writes: “If you assumed this, you would not be disappointed as you would think that your acceptance rate for a college is considerably lower than the average acceptance rate. If the acceptance rate is say 20%, you would think it’s less than 10% because of the preference given to URMs, first gens, legacies, athletes.”
@theloniusmonk, I think that warning was written for those of us with kids that DO fall into one or more of those categories. The point is not to confuse a hook with a guarantee.
How much time parents and counselors should devote their time to know the mind of the adcoms?
I have been on CC for more 10 years but I still cannot figure out. My kids’ public HS counselors have no idea.
We cannot expect normal parents and 17 year old students know everything about college admission processes.
To me, adcoms are just the wizards of Oz. They have no crystal balls to predict the future of the young students.