<p>As a parent, it doesn’t really matter to me why a school may tell my son “no thanks.” We know his strengths, we know his weaknesses. We can comtemplate our belly buttons for hours on what might have tipped him one way or the other. DS has done a bang-up job of pursuing his passions, and it shows in his application. If he’s not a “fit,” the school may be doing DS a huge favor by telling him no.</p>
<p>To me, it keeps coming back to building a well-considered list in the first place. A couple of friends have astutely noted that DS’s approach to picking undergrad schools is the way many people approach grad programsl. For him, this is a method that works. He has done his homework, and the schools that review his app will realize that he’s not just tossing apps in the wind to see what sticks. We’ll see how his results come out in April.</p>
<p>Intriguing concept- MY D was only denied one school- a top five which was not on her list until the coach started calling and finally convinced her to apply early. Then she was denied early. NO hysterics, not a huge deal, just some what disappointing.</p>
<p>Sadly, we later determined that school’s coach would have been her best match for her sport. She was later asked about possibly transferring to that school and said, “nope, they had their chance” though I can tell she would have really flourished with the coach there. It would be interesting to know why they did not choose her- just as an academic exercise- she met the essential requirements to be considered and was recruited- though the guy that recruited her moved on that year and it was the new guy who would have been an amazing coach for her- so do they NOT have admissions pull? Did admissions know he was moving on (I don’t think so, since it was early)? </p>
<p>Why would some one who fit their basic needs and who was recruited and who got into other top publics, top LACs, etc be denied? It would be fun to know the reason, but it would not change anything.</p>
<ol>
<li> Your teacher “recommendation” was not a recommendation at all.</li>
<li> By the way, did you know that your guidance officer hates your guts too?</li>
</ol>
<p>I want to highlight something that others have referred to:</p>
<p>A competitive private university’s admissions staff make 15,000-25,000 discrete decisions in the space of a few months based on highly idiosyncratic applications. Notwithstanding lots of good faith and a large investment in the process, it is likely impossible to make that many subtle discrete decisions that quickly and to have them be perfectly consistent and error-free (assuming that anyone knows what an “error” is). It can’t be an important goal for the university to achieve completely error-free decisionmaking, because the costs of errors are so minimal – many if not most of the rejected applicants are largely indistinguishable from the accepted ones – and the additional cost of marginal improvements in accuracy would be significant. (And then of course there’s the issue of errors in the information received from outsiders, as orchid_2010 points out.)</p>
<p>Kids and their parents simply can’t expect perfect rationality, because the process effectively precludes it. I think that, on an overall basis, admissions staffs do a remarkably good job. But in this context doing a remarkably good job does not necessarily mean that every applicant accepted is objectively superior to every applicant not accepted, no matter what criteria are used for judging them.</p>
<ol>
<li> Your application was near the bottom of my pile and I’d already recommended way too many applicants for admission.</li>
<li>On the day I reviewed your application, my horoscope said “Don’t admit any Capricorn’s today.”</li>
</ol>
<p>I think a rejection during the early rounds should be questioned. There might be something in that package that can be fixed in the later apps. If deferred, it is certainly appropriate to ask what specifically could enhance the app. I know some moms whose kids did ask why they were rejected and did get very specific answers. Yes, most of the time, the answer wll be vague because there was not a specific reason why the student was not accepted–just so many apps, so many spaces and there had to be cuts. But sometimes the answer can be valuable. If the response is something that does not pertain to your student, a mistake just might have been made that can be corrected and the application reconsidered. Or you learn for future kids in the family. One mom told me that her son was rejected from a good match school because he did not interview, did not show up when the admissions rep came to his school; did not show enough interest. Her daughter is now applying to the same school, and you had better believe she is letting them know of her interest. </p>
<p>Sometimes a counselor will inquire, if it is a surprise reject, or if the school just wants to know in case this is something that can be addressed for future applicants on part of the school or student.</p>