WL everywhere - Disappointed and Stressed

[Anonymous]

I put my kids stats into collegevine for this last year, and the algorithm has been very accurate for kid. He got into all safeties and targets, so outperformed expectations in those two categories, but had a little worse results in reaches. Still, go into one reach out of 7 and is thrilled to go! Every other reach was a WL or denial.

Collegevine doesn’t adjust for majors, so you’ll need to reduce expectations if you’re CS or engineering boy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I put my kids stats into collegevine for this last year, and the algorithm has been very accurate for kid. He got into all safeties and targets, so outperformed expectations in those two categories, but had a little worse results in reaches. Still, go into one reach out of 7 and is thrilled to go! Every other reach was a WL or denial.

Collegevine doesn’t adjust for majors, so you’ll need to reduce expectations if you’re CS or engineering boy.

What does it use in its algorithm except sat/act and gpa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its tough OP. Two years ago, my kid applied to a lot of reaches (think Harvard, Yale, MIT, Duke, Williams, Amherst) and some targets (think UVA, Wake, Northeastern) and some safeties (we thought), such as JMU and Virginia Tech. He didn't get into any of the reaches, and two of the targets. Initially, he was pretty disappointed at the results, but he picked one of his targets after visiting both admitted student days and, so far, has had a terrific experience. I expect your kid will do the same. It is disappointing after all of the work they put in through HS that it is seeming "unrewarded" in the college admissions process. However, based on the experience of both my kids (the other one also didn't do well with the tippy top schools (other than Grinnell), the work they have done in HS will pay off once they are in college because their time management skills and their "smarts" will make college seem easier than it will be for many.

Except UVA and Northeastern are NOT targets for anyone. UVA hovers around 18-20% acceptance rates, so does Wake. NEU has been single digits during that time, so it's a reach for everyone.
That's the issues---if you don't define these categories accurately, your kid will be disappointed. Your kid didn't really have a target---they had mostly reaches.

I suppose in hindsight you may be right, though at the time both UVa and Northeastern seemed like targets for my kid (and in hindsight Virginia Tech was probably a target more than a safety): 3.98 GPA/4.53wGPA/35 ACT, full IB student at a NoVA public school (and ultimately an IB Diploma recipient), Eagle Scout, and 2-time captain of both HS and club sports teams. The Naviance chart showed a sea of green around his spot. I wonder whether in subsequent years his red "X" on the chart is alone, or whether more and more kids near him are now being rejected. I was shocked when he didn't get in to UVa, but it happened. Fortunately, it wasn't his first choice and, as I mentioned, he is super happy at Northeastern, which has been a great fit for him.

thats scary, in IB program too DC has the gpa, stil tbd sat score---may I ask what your son is majoring in?

He's majoring in Business with a concentration in Financial Technology and a minor in Data Science. For schools without business majors, he indicated economics, I think, as an intended major

[Anonymous]

Can the posters whose kids applied and were admitted to “safeties” name the schools? It would help to know where to find these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can the posters whose kids applied and were admitted to “safeties” name the schools? It would help to know where to find these schools.

My kids safety on collegevine was University of Pittsburgh.

Targets were VTech, W&M, and UMD.

Collegevine adjusts for activity accomplishment and number of AP/DE classes. Also SAT and GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put my kids stats into collegevine for this last year, and the algorithm has been very accurate for kid. He got into all safeties and targets, so outperformed expectations in those two categories, but had a little worse results in reaches. Still, go into one reach out of 7 and is thrilled to go! Every other reach was a WL or denial.

Collegevine doesn’t adjust for majors, so you’ll need to reduce expectations if you’re CS or engineering boy.

What does it use in its algorithm except sat/act and gpa?

How does collegevine work if your child attends a school that does not weight GPAs? Can you weight them yourself and if so, is it still accurate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can the posters whose kids applied and were admitted to “safeties” name the schools? It would help to know where to find these schools.

My kid wanted to be in the South, so safeties/targets (none of these have an 80% admissions rate, but are close to a sure thing for a very high stats kid) were:

Sewanee
Rhodes
University of Tennessee
SMU
Auburn (no longer a safety, at least for OOS)

Admitted with substantial merit aid to all of the above. You can eliminate a lot of stress if you can find an acceptable safety/target school that notifies early for EA. DC applied to Auburn early and got an admission notice in the fall. Pitt serves this function for people who want to be in a more northerly direction. I think they would have been happy there, so it took the pressure off re: applying to "true safeties."

[Anonymous]

My child’s safeties were:
Indiana
South Carolina
Kansas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted at most of their reaches. Rejected at a couple. Def a top 10 percent student at a top DC private. Counselor's indication was that DC was competitive everywhere and had "as good a chance as any one else from this school" at Ivy. Feeling very disappointed/stressed. Realize that WL has zero chance of moving. Sorry to vent.

1. It is well-known that only kids of alumni have a chance at Ivies and similar, when they come from top privates. This is because everyone has great stats at a top private! The difference is made on who your parents are, and since you're at a top private, a lot of parents will be Ivy alumnae.

2. When the counselor says "as good a chance as any one else from this school", it means "very low chance". Otherwise they would have said: "you have a BETTER chance than most people at this school". Logical reasoning!

3. Caveat to 2: don't put all your trust in any one counselor. There are things they can't say, like 1, and things they don't know in this changing landscape. You really need to do your own research and rely on no one but yourself.

Sorry for the tough love, but there way too many parents who think it's in the bag because they've paid the hefty tuition and someone else will do their thinking for them. No. Either you're super hands-on and own the process (with your kid), and are thus entitled to some expectations; or you're hands-off and accept whatever happens.

You have no idea what you're talking about. At the top 3-4 DC privates, you may have 10% of the class with a 3.9 and above. The Average GPA is roughly a 3.5. Now the average SAT is around 1500. So in that regard, everyone has top stats. But there are clear top academic kids. This is in contrast to public where everyone has an A average.

You're wrong, because I know kids in public who fail or have Cs and Ds and an abysmal gpa. What I meant was that, in public AND in private, there are more high stats kids than there are Ivy seats (or similar highly selective colleges). The difference is that there are a lot more parents in privates who are alumnae of these colleges, than there are parents in public who are Ivy alumnae. Therefore, who do you think colleges are going to choose, given they have quotas? The top private school kids who ALSO have an alumni parent, or the top public school kids who ALSO created a non-profit, or is a Regeneron winner, or whatever.

This is how the game is played. Maybe there will come a time when no Ivy considers alumni relations. But until that day, if you're not an alumni yourself, and your kid is in a selective private high school, you should know your kid is probably not getting in. Unless he or she is the valedictorian. Remember that Harvard rejects more valedictorians than it accepts...

I think the legacy numbers for Princeton are around 30 kids or 2% of their admitted students.
So the kids aren't getting in because there is a lot of competition, not because of legacy admissions

(reference:https://www.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2024/03/ad-hoc-committee-undergraduate-admission-031424.pdf)

Reading is fundamental. That is NOT what the study says. It claims that only that 30 kids get a "bump" from being legacies, not that only 30 kids are legacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its tough OP. Two years ago, my kid applied to a lot of reaches (think Harvard, Yale, MIT, Duke, Williams, Amherst) and some targets (think UVA, Wake, Northeastern) and some safeties (we thought), such as JMU and Virginia Tech. He didn't get into any of the reaches, and two of the targets. Initially, he was pretty disappointed at the results, but he picked one of his targets after visiting both admitted student days and, so far, has had a terrific experience. I expect your kid will do the same. It is disappointing after all of the work they put in through HS that it is seeming "unrewarded" in the college admissions process. However, based on the experience of both my kids (the other one also didn't do well with the tippy top schools (other than Grinnell), the work they have done in HS will pay off once they are in college because their time management skills and their "smarts" will make college seem easier than it will be for many.

Easy for me to say - but I feel like this is also a good lesson in resilience and adaptability.

Excellent point. Just notice that their "targets" are in actuality Reaches for everyone. So that might explain their "disappointment".

1000%

This happens year after year after year. High stats do not change the fact that any school with less than 20-25% acceptance rate is a REACH for everyone. If you don't recognize this fact, the process can be extremely brutal. But if you accept reality/facts, then it doesn't have to be so brutal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of these posters weren't in the game this year. It was a mess. I'm so sorry OP. Hopefully your kid can get excited about the safeties. But it's ok to be disappointed.

It’s been like this for the past three cycles (since the adoption of test optional). You just weren’t paying attention.

It was like that Pre-Test Optional as well.
Fact is T25 schools never really considered much of a difference between a 1540 and a 1600. once a kid surpassed the "lower bar" for test scores it doesn't matter what their actual test score was. So yes, your 1600 kid is the same as a 1520 or 1540 kid, the school looked at everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put my kids stats into collegevine for this last year, and the algorithm has been very accurate for kid. He got into all safeties and targets, so outperformed expectations in those two categories, but had a little worse results in reaches. Still, go into one reach out of 7 and is thrilled to go! Every other reach was a WL or denial.

Collegevine doesn’t adjust for majors, so you’ll need to reduce expectations if you’re CS or engineering boy.

What does it use in its algorithm except sat/act and gpa?

How does collegevine work if your child attends a school that does not weight GPAs? Can you weight them yourself and if so, is it still accurate?

It only takes unweighted gpa for everyone. You then enter the number of AP/IB/DE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child’s safeties were:
Indiana
South Carolina
Kansas

Thank you and also to the other PPs who IDed their child’s safeties. Much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its tough OP. Two years ago, my kid applied to a lot of reaches (think Harvard, Yale, MIT, Duke, Williams, Amherst) and some targets (think UVA, Wake, Northeastern) and some safeties (we thought), such as JMU and Virginia Tech. He didn't get into any of the reaches, and two of the targets. Initially, he was pretty disappointed at the results, but he picked one of his targets after visiting both admitted student days and, so far, has had a terrific experience. I expect your kid will do the same. It is disappointing after all of the work they put in through HS that it is seeming "unrewarded" in the college admissions process. However, based on the experience of both my kids (the other one also didn't do well with the tippy top schools (other than Grinnell), the work they have done in HS will pay off once they are in college because their time management skills and their "smarts" will make college seem easier than it will be for many.

Except UVA and Northeastern are NOT targets for anyone. UVA hovers around 18-20% acceptance rates, so does Wake. NEU has been single digits during that time, so it's a reach for everyone.
That's the issues---if you don't define these categories accurately, your kid will be disappointed. Your kid didn't really have a target---they had mostly reaches.

I suppose in hindsight you may be right, though at the time both UVa and Northeastern seemed like targets for my kid (and in hindsight Virginia Tech was probably a target more than a safety): 3.98 GPA/4.53wGPA/35 ACT, full IB student at a NoVA public school (and ultimately an IB Diploma recipient), Eagle Scout, and 2-time captain of both HS and club sports teams. The Naviance chart showed a sea of green around his spot. I wonder whether in subsequent years his red "X" on the chart is alone, or whether more and more kids near him are now being rejected. I was shocked when he didn't get in to UVa, but it happened. Fortunately, it wasn't his first choice and, as I mentioned, he is super happy at Northeastern, which has been a great fit for him.

How can a school with SINGLE DIGIT acceptance rates "seem like target for your kid"? That means it's a crap shoot for everyone. They get 96K+ applicants. I suspect most of those are "highly qualified" students. It's a high reach for everyone. Glad your kid got in, but he got lucky and got into a reach. You did not pick a balanced list of Reach, target, safety, likelies.
75% of the kids applying to those schools have the same stats as your kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted at most of their reaches. Rejected at a couple. Def a top 10 percent student at a top DC private. Counselor's indication was that DC was competitive everywhere and had "as good a chance as any one else from this school" at Ivy. Feeling very disappointed/stressed. Realize that WL has zero chance of moving. Sorry to vent.

1. It is well-known that only kids of alumni have a chance at Ivies and similar, when they come from top privates. This is because everyone has great stats at a top private! The difference is made on who your parents are, and since you're at a top private, a lot of parents will be Ivy alumnae.

2. When the counselor says "as good a chance as any one else from this school", it means "very low chance". Otherwise they would have said: "you have a BETTER chance than most people at this school". Logical reasoning!

3. Caveat to 2: don't put all your trust in any one counselor. There are things they can't say, like 1, and things they don't know in this changing landscape. You really need to do your own research and rely on no one but yourself.

Sorry for the tough love, but there way too many parents who think it's in the bag because they've paid the hefty tuition and someone else will do their thinking for them. No. Either you're super hands-on and own the process (with your kid), and are thus entitled to some expectations; or you're hands-off and accept whatever happens.

You have no idea what you're talking about. At the top 3-4 DC privates, you may have 10% of the class with a 3.9 and above. The Average GPA is roughly a 3.5. Now the average SAT is around 1500. So in that regard, everyone has top stats. But there are clear top academic kids. This is in contrast to public where everyone has an A average.

You're wrong, because I know kids in public who fail or have Cs and Ds and an abysmal gpa. What I meant was that, in public AND in private, there are more high stats kids than there are Ivy seats (or similar highly selective colleges). The difference is that there are a lot more parents in privates who are alumnae of these colleges, than there are parents in public who are Ivy alumnae. Therefore, who do you think colleges are going to choose, given they have quotas? The top private school kids who ALSO have an alumni parent, or the top public school kids who ALSO created a non-profit, or is a Regeneron winner, or whatever.

This is how the game is played. Maybe there will come a time when no Ivy considers alumni relations. But until that day, if you're not an alumni yourself, and your kid is in a selective private high school, you should know your kid is probably not getting in. Unless he or she is the valedictorian. Remember that Harvard rejects more valedictorians than it accepts...

I think the legacy numbers for Princeton are around 30 kids or 2% of their admitted students.
So the kids aren't getting in because there is a lot of competition, not because of legacy admissions

(reference:https://www.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2024/03/ad-hoc-committee-undergraduate-admission-031424.pdf)

And those legacy kids are not getting in without a competitive resume. Except for ones who's family name is on a building on campus (think 10Ms ++++ donated to the university). Most of those legacy kids would have still been ideal candidates without that box checked