So the results are in. The Ivy’s, the top liberal arts colleges, the flagship state universities have all released their notifications and there is a mixture of disappointment and excitement spreading through adolescent hearts across the country. If you listened to the advice, parents should be preparing to send their college bound seniors off to receive a solid education somewhere next fall and student should be excitedly planning their futures at a school to which they chose to apply. It was a tough week though. As someone who has been on the inside of college admissions to someone who has been the parent of an ambitious teen, I don’t think anything is a given when it comes to who gets in where and it is important to realize that both when you choose your safety schools and when you see the words, “we’re sorry to inform…”-no need to read beyond that. I’m the parent of a piano playing/composing/leader of a band HS senior with a 4.38GPA (3.93 unweighted) with 1550 SAT scores and 5s on all of her AP exams. She got rejected from Stanford, Yale, Brown, Columbia and UC Berkeley, waitlisted at UCLA and UCSD and got regents fellowships into UCSC and UCSB and a prestigious John Frederick Oberlin Scholar award to Oberlin College and Conservatory. WOW! Those are some great honors to reward all the hard work she did. But that’s not the first reaction a HS student has. It is sinking in now, but first there is the self-doubt that accompanies that many schools telling her “no” after she worked so hard and thought she was an excellent candidate. She even worked all summer in a neuroscience lab at Yale and wrote about it in her Yale essay. She loved the campus. She was ready to start there. It was pretty devastating, right up there with unrequited love. Now here’s where I have had people argue with me. One of the first things that happens after that day of admissions notices and rejections is “Why her/him and not me?” Someone at your school got in and you didn’t. Maybe you don’t think they were a better candidate. Wise and sanctimonious adults shake their heads, “It’s not a competition. We can’t be having negative thoughts about other students.” And other such admonitions. It’s ok. It kind of is a competition, but you don’t know exactly what it takes to win. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Yes, someone will get in where you got rejected. Someone will get into ALL the Ivy’s AND the flagship state school. Why? Well, my darling daughter got 2 B+ grades, in the first semester of AP Euro and the first semester of AP English. She finished the year with A’s in both classes and 5’s on the AP exams. That really shouldn’t matter. Some of the people that got into her top schools had 3 or 4 B’s and lower SATs. Others had no B’s and perfect SAT’s. There are a lot of students like her. Some of you reading this have kids or are kids with identical credentials. The thing is–the schools are not concerned with making sure they don’t reject an exceptional student. They are concerned with taking in students who will fit into what they need in terms of interests, talents, diversity, etc., and who can handle the curriculum. No matter who you are, there are going to be more students that fit that bill than there are slots at those elite schools. Many of the Ivy’s have similar “tastes” in terms of students, so often that one kid will get into all of them and the other kid that seems just as good will get rejected from all of them.
Why do so many exceptional students get rejected at multiple places they apply? First, because many have a misguided notion of what a good school is. Oberlin, UCSC and UCSB–in my sample scenario – are incredibly awesome schools. You are going to get every bit as good of an education at those places as you would at Yale or Berkeley. Whatever safety school you got into, you are going to get a fantastic education, assuming you picked one where you can be happy and enjoy the culture and your non-study time. This brings me to my second point-so a B or 2 in high school seems to be the end of the elite schools for some and not others. Why? You need to stand out and it needs to jump off the application. Certain things do–leadership and. teamwork are two. In my scenario, my daughter didn’t play sports or do government or even join clubs. Her extracurriculars-playing and performing music, winning some composition contests, completing an accredited piano diploma program were mostly individual and hard to describe on paper without an arts portfolio. From my years on UC admissions, I can say they would go largely unnoticed. She was section leader of her choir. Every school has a choir and every choir has section leaders. Top schools have enough applicants with perfect GPAs and near-perfect SATs to fill every available space. In the end, you want the place that wants you. If two B’s and a lack of sports takes you out of the running, don’t look back and say you should have joined the waterpolo team, even though you hate the sport, embrace the place that wanted you for what you did bring to the table. You are not less qualified than whoever got into the school that rejected you. That’s important to remember.
Amen!
I’m not sure it was the 2B’s and lack of sports. My son has similar stats, 35 ACT, 1540, 13 AP classes, 1B+ for 3.97UW and was also denied at Yale, Princeton, Penn and NW. Waitlisted Michigan. (Accepted at 3 other public schools) He was also a team captain and first team all-state in his sport. Here I thought musicians had the advantage over kids that play sports…
Kids all over the country, with varying GPAs and ECs and work experiences and ambitions, have all felt the sting of those horrible thin envelopes.
And, after a while, the “why” stops mattering. What matters is that this is something they wanted so very badly, and they’re not going to be able to get it. As a parent, I know how very hard it is to see my kids beat themselves up over those thin envelopes, knowing there’s not a thing in the world I can do to make the hurt go away. Only time-- and the occasional ice cream therapy-- can take away the sting.
My 18 year old daughter has been playing with the idea of getting a tattoo. She’s been back and forth on varying ideas, wanting something with 60 or 70 years of staying power. Her latest idea is a simple flower… to remind her of all the times we’ve spoken this year of 'blooming where you’re planted."
She is now happily committed to a school that wasn’t even on her radar when she got denied by her original first choice school last fall. She’s convinced, as am I, that it’s the place she was meant to be. And had she not gotten that hurtful thin envelope last fall, she would never have considered the school that she’s now so excited to be attending.
I know the question is unanswerable. But there is a part of me that is still screaming for an answer. I look at @mwdad2018 's son’s stats and I just can’t wrap my head around it. Even after reading here (a bit obsessively) for the past few weeks and seeing thread after thread of the same story, I just want a reason. I want to hear an actual admissions officer explain how that kid lacked something. What tiny justification could there possibly have been? What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in the admissions room.
@mwdad2018’s son’s experience is why kids are applying to 20+ colleges.
Does anyone know an admissions officer at an elite university? We could all get together, take him out to dinner, get him drunk and then induce him to spill all his secrets.
Let’s face it: assuming you have a good academic record, everything else on paper is an admissions crapshoot on an annual basis. We’ve seen it play out all over CC this admissions cycle. I feel guilty on some level that, for some reason, historical data re the schools’ requisite GPA, ACT, and academic rigor pretty much held true for my S this year: he got in where we thought he would, and didn’t where we didn’t. He may be the only one who can say that. Who knows why? His ECs were few; but, they were focused on the same thing. I think he came across as a good old-fashioned “good student” who spent his EC time doing “normal” kid things. There were no athletics; he didn’t start any clubs or invent any apps; there were some consistent community service hours; and otherwise he honestly just spent his time either studying or cultivating friendships. That formula bombed with the UC schools, but seems to have been a hands-down winning combo at the OOS private and public schools. We definitely handicapped the hell out of his final list of applications, so maybe he just went with close matches. We studied the application requirements carefully, followed the rules to a T, and submitted EVERYTHING early or on time. His Common App essay was so “him” that I think it rang clear and true to anyone who spent the time to read it, and he wrote on a topic that carried no emotional quotient and even had a couple lines that would make a reader chuckle. Maybe that was a welcome relief from essays that were emotionally draining or tried too hard to be clever…I don’t know. Regardless, I heartily applaud every applicant. I am so impressed and encouraged by the kids and parents I have read and met in this overall forum. Our future is better off than I thought before going through this process on CC. Well done, everyone!
I think in our case it must have been the essay or the teacher recommendations that didn’t cut it. While we hired a consultant to assist him with his essay, he’s no Charles Dickens. I thought it was solid but it didn’t knock my socks off.
I’m also thinking the teacher recs didn’t say he was the most intellectually curious student they’ve seen in their 30+ years of teaching. I don’t think athletics matter unless you are good enough to play for the school (D1). NMF is not a differentiator either - even though there are only 15,000 (fewer than total slots at all top 20 schools). I thought he had a slight hook at Yale because he won the Yale Book Award at his school - sponsored by the local alumni association to encourage high potential kids to apply.
These denials are tough on parents who have never seen a B on a report card, have seen them win award after award and have done everything possible to give their kids every advantage to get admitted to a top school. You think you’ve done everything right all along then bam! - more bad news in 1 week than they’ve had to deal with in the last 18 years combined!
At the end of the day we have to trust the process. There is something in the app that isn’t the right fit. The admissions professionals are looking at the whole class and how students complement one another. It’s tough to start with 30,000 and cut it to 1,500. They should cut back on marketing to us and publish the acceptance rates by ACT score and for NMF - so there isn’t a false sense of hope if you are sitting at 35 and a 4.0.
I think back to the tour at Yale. I honestly can’t really see him being friends with or having a lot in common with the tour guide (as the prototypical Yale student). Same at Princeton. Same at Penn. Somehow that comes out in the app.
The process concluded he’s a Big 10 School Honors Program type kid (but not quite Michigan or NW). So not only did they save us a lot of money, but the denials probably did him a favor as well - as he probably wouldn’t have been the right fit out East
Onward and upward! We’ll save some money towards grad school!
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-honest-college-rejection-letter
@gallentjill, there’s no lack.
But all 30 Ivies/equivalents (and I count Oberlin among them, BTW, OP, as they are by alumni achievements) don’t have enough slots between them for even 1% of the US HS graduating class.
When you then take in to account that those schools typically fill half their class in ED and half their entering class (or more) are hooked, then you realize that a high achieving student almost has no shot in RD at those schools without a major hook. In this case, the OP’s D actually counts as a success as she got one of those coveted slots.
With sports, the way to think about it is like this:
Either you are recruited, or it’s a worthless EC.
Duke has no use for a basketball player who can dominate in DivIII but won’t be able to make their basketball team.
With music, it may be somewhat like that.
In this case, Oberlin saw the value of the OP’s D’s musical abilities. In the case of the other Ivies/equivalents, she was probably beaten out by other musicians (who may have brought more to the table with other ECs). She wasn’t rejected because of a few B’s.
The top UCs, BTW, are about or almost as competitive to get in to as the lower Ivies/equivalents, now. Certainly on par with the near-Ivies (I mean, Cal is one).
In the tier of Near-Ivies/Good-schools just below the Ivies/equivalents (which include a lot of LACs), kids like these experience much more success. Maybe 50% or more acceptance rate. UMich, UVa, NYU, USC, UW-Madison, etc.
@mwdad2018, I would think first team all-state would be good enough to be recruited for DivIII. Was he not interested?
@PurpleTitan I understand the math and the lack of spots. I just have a morbid curiosity to see how the actual decisions are made. How exactly do you separate one 35 4.0 kid from another? Sometimes I wonder if a straight A record isn’t something of a detriment. Schools say they want to see kids challenge themselves and show resiliance. How can you demonstrate that if you’ve never gotten less then perfect marks? I don’t know. I’m clutching at straws. But, I’m very aware of the problem of of 30K applicants for 1.5K seats.
He could play d3 but has (had) his sights set on a bigger school and top academics
“admissions professionals” (?? cough, cough)
My kids will be going through the process this fall and thus, I shouldn’t pooh pooh the process before they even start, but most of the admissions “professionals” I’ve met at these “top” schools are fresh out of college or close thereto (an alumni of the school they work for), and the thought that these youngin’ will be reading my kids’ application and making a determination on their future helped me understand that wow, this is going to be really random.
@mwdad2018, well, some Div3 LACs have top academics too. Granted, they have a limited number of majors, so it depends on what his interests are.
Though there are also DivIII research U’s. UChicago, WashU, CMU, Emory, etc.
Though honors at a price savings isn’t a bad deal.
@gallentjill, for the small number of slots that the tippy-tops have for the non-hooked in RD, it comes down to academics and ECs.
So to answer your question, they differentiate academically perfect/near-perfect kids by the strength of their ECs as well as essays and recs. Top achievements where they advance causes greater than themselves is ideal. Top (as in nationally top) achievements are also good. Multiple ones are even better. So are terrific essays that really move people.
We toured wash u and considered that but the facilities etc are not much of a step up (or actually a step down) from a good high school program. I don’t think the U Chicago teams could compete with a Big10 club team. I don’t think he loves the sport enough to play d3 (no crowds, dumpy facilities, lot of time) and he didn’t think he would need to rely on his sport to get him into a top school because his academics were (seemingly) strong. Yes it was a consideration.
The reason is that there are thousands of kids who fit this profile who apply every year. I don’t think the colleges care about the B+ grades or the 10 points missing on the SAT. In fact, I think they admit more than a few with less than perfect stats were admitted because the school saw something in that app that said this person would be successful at Yale or MIT or Stanford. A smaller, colder school like Dartmouth might be concerned about someone from LA whose essay talked about the excitement of Rodeo Drive or a quick trip to Vegas.
I don’t agree with this at all. Duke wants all of its students to love basketball. They want them to fit into the school, to have school spirit, to embrace the All-Basketball-All-the-Time attitude (okay, a few lacrosse players are needed too). Duke appreciates how hard those high school athletes worked while in school. Duke has plenty of former basketball players who could have gone to D3 but want to be part of the big dance even if it only from the stands.
Duke also cares about he violin player who is no longer playing violin, or the debater who isn’t going to major in math and might not do debate again. It wants students who were active in high school, who show leadership or talent or interest. They need journalism students who know the rules of basketball, announcers who know what they are talking about, cheerleaders who know the difference between offense and defense.
The UCs ARE the Ivies of the West.