Anyone else getting lots of deferrals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Calc BC counts as 1 AP.
AP macro-micro, taken in one year, has two different exams in May and counts as 2 APs.

Are the deferrals mostly in popular majors and large universities that have more impersonal applications (no supplemental essays, etc)?

No

Thanks. My senior applied to an international affairs major, and took his time customizing his essays. He only has one deferral to a reach school that rejects no one in early action, which was expected. The rest are acceptances. His friend applying to engineering has lots of deferrals, and kind of blew off the essays, so I wondered if it was either the field of study or the lack of demonstrated interest or both.

It's several things, but largest factor is an overwhelming number of applicants. Schools are actively trying to increase those numbers, so their acceptance rate goes down. I would not say it's the fault of kids - ie writing poor essays or not demonstrating interest (not saying you are saying that). Schools are picking their ideal candidates in early rounds and many many schools defer a huge chunk now to RD, instead of just denying. It's an acceptance rate game, and a yield game. I agree that major is a factor too. No skin in the game as mine last year did very well despite several deferrals and denials, and my current year was accepted ED so never saw outcome of other schools applied to. But for this year and last, we know a ton of smart, active, thoughtful kids who had a ton of deferrals. It just is, for now.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

all deferrals (7EA mix of solid target and 2 low reaches) and one "let's look at mid-year grades" from what she thought we totally a safety. 2 Rejections from super high reaches.

It sounds like you got bad advice when you developed your list of schools. Safety schools aren't asking for mid-year grades - many are offering honors college, and sharing research opportunities and study abroad options to encourage high stat students to attend.

NP. We received advice constructing my DC’s college list from the school counselor at our “Big3” private school. Rejected at 2 likely schools (safeties), one target, 1 reach. Deferred from 2 likely schools and 5 target schools. I think the counselor was giving good advice based on knowledge in hand and was blindsided by this year’s admission results. They are not following the patterns in scoir AT ALL.

Are you willing to share names of these safeties?

What you are saying makes sense if this were 2021. We are several years into this new world of admissions, though. If a school doesn’t accept more than 50% of applicants, it is not a true safety for anyone, period. This goes double/triple for majors like engineering, CS, business, and neuroscience.

This is spot on. I don’t know think most college counselors appreciate this. I know I didn’t had a parent new to this process. I see so many parents with juniors now making the same bad assumptions.

So far my high stats kid (Mcps magnet, 4.0 UW, 13 AP, 35 ACT) has only gotten into 2 safeties and UMd honors college. Deferrals from the rest of EA.

Weird tangential Q, what mcps magnet has room for 13APs? Or, did your kid self study on a few based on a similar magnetclass? I have kids at 2 different magnets, and I don’t see how this is possible with the magnet schedules. Which magnet is this?

Poolesville SMCS. No self study. AP Calc BC counts as 2 tests because of the AB sub score. SMCS also has an extra period/extended school day. So yes, my kid worked his butt off through all those classes and 2 years of college math with straight As to get deferred by Case Western.

AP Calc BC never counted as 2 classes/tests for my Blair kid (or for me 30+ years earlier). So, I call a littlebs on that. (Now, what colleges choose to give credit for is a different story). So that's 12 APs, really. My Blair kid also had an extra period and worked her tail off, starting with Functions and finishing with Complex Analysis. Only could fit about 8-9 APs with all the magnet classes and the fact that APs weren't allowed in 9th. One thing that may have made a difference is arts classes. Mine did an advanced art most years. I think the arts helped her with admissions.
Still, this time last year, she only had umd honors (which is a great admit, so hooray for that) and one other safety. Ended with several T15/top LACs. So, hope yours will get some more good news, but, if not, umd honors is a wonderful program.

No BS. Application lists 13 exams. 5 of which have not taken test yet. But point is that other than UMd, just like OP it’s defer City over here too.

Are you saying your kid took AP calc BC and scored X, and and their score showed an AB subpart score of 5, and then they listed on the common app both ap calc AB with a score of 5 and BC calc with a score of X? I have never heard of anyone listed AP calc as such. Mine just listed their BC calc score (and they also had a 5 on the AB subpart). The calc exam isn’t like econ with two separate tests.

Common App literally has a pull-down and selection for AB subscore so not sure why one wouldn't report it?

[Anonymous]

Yes!

1 ED defer
1 EA OOS state flagship defer
1 EA instate flagship acceptance (DC getting themselves excited to attend)
1 EA private acceptance (DC says it falls below the instate)

Grateful for instate acceptance and trying not to feel down about RD potential based on EA/ED results (8RD plus deferrals)

[Anonymous]

I'm curious, how many of these defferrals are high reach/reach schools or some of popular large schools in the south (Clemson, Auburn, etc).

[Anonymous]

My DC has 6 deferrals. Many are large schools in the south (Clemson, UofSC, Tennessee, SMU).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

all deferrals (7EA mix of solid target and 2 low reaches) and one "let's look at mid-year grades" from what she thought we totally a safety. 2 Rejections from super high reaches.

It sounds like you got bad advice when you developed your list of schools. Safety schools aren't asking for mid-year grades - many are offering honors college, and sharing research opportunities and study abroad options to encourage high stat students to attend.

NP. We received advice constructing my DC’s college list from the school counselor at our “Big3” private school. Rejected at 2 likely schools (safeties), one target, 1 reach. Deferred from 2 likely schools and 5 target schools. I think the counselor was giving good advice based on knowledge in hand and was blindsided by this year’s admission results. They are not following the patterns in scoir AT ALL.

Are you willing to share names of these safeties?

What you are saying makes sense if this were 2021. We are several years into this new world of admissions, though. If a school doesn’t accept more than 50% of applicants, it is not a true safety for anyone, period. This goes double/triple for majors like engineering, CS, business, and neuroscience.

This is spot on. I don’t know think most college counselors appreciate this. I know I didn’t had a parent new to this process. I see so many parents with juniors now making the same bad assumptions.

So far my high stats kid (Mcps magnet, 4.0 UW, 13 AP, 35 ACT) has only gotten into 2 safeties and UMd honors college. Deferrals from the rest of EA.

Weird tangential Q, what mcps magnet has room for 13APs? Or, did your kid self study on a few based on a similar magnetclass? I have kids at 2 different magnets, and I don’t see how this is possible with the magnet schedules. Which magnet is this?

Poolesville SMCS. No self study. AP Calc BC counts as 2 tests because of the AB sub score. SMCS also has an extra period/extended school day. So yes, my kid worked his butt off through all those classes and 2 years of college math with straight As to get deferred by Case Western.

AP Calc BC never counted as 2 classes/tests for my Blair kid (or for me 30+ years earlier). So, I call a littlebs on that. (Now, what colleges choose to give credit for is a different story). So that's 12 APs, really. My Blair kid also had an extra period and worked her tail off, starting with Functions and finishing with Complex Analysis. Only could fit about 8-9 APs with all the magnet classes and the fact that APs weren't allowed in 9th. One thing that may have made a difference is arts classes. Mine did an advanced art most years. I think the arts helped her with admissions.
Still, this time last year, she only had umd honors (which is a great admit, so hooray for that) and one other safety. Ended with several T15/top LACs. So, hope yours will get some more good news, but, if not, umd honors is a wonderful program.

No BS. Application lists 13 exams. 5 of which have not taken test yet. But point is that other than UMd, just like OP it’s defer City over here too.

Maybe this is why you and OP are getting deferrals... the colleges don't agree with your kids counting Calc BC as 2 APs. Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't need to use Wiki. There are plenty of sources to confirm the term Public Ivy is known. Any search engine should suffice.

"The term “Public Ivy” was coined by higher education expert and author Richard Moll in 1985. A graduate from Yale who later worked in the admissions offices at Yale, UC Santa Cruz, Bowdoin College and Vassar College, Moll published two books on elite college admissions: one titled Playing the Selective College Admissions Game, and another titled The Public Ivys: A Guide to America’s Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities. Many of the Public Ivies are recognized as top US universities that provide Ivy-level education at public school prices."

Included in Moll’s original list of Public Ivies are the following universities:

College of William & Mary
Miami University
University of Michigan: Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill
University of Texas: Austin
University of Vermont
University of Virginia
The University of California system (encompassing 9 schools)

However, in addition to this selection, Moll also determined a list of “runners-up” which included:

University of Colorado: Boulder
Georgia Institute of Technology
The University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign
New College of Florida
Pennsylvania State University
Binghamton University
University of Pittsburgh
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin: Madison

Miami and Vermont seem a tad out of place. A lot can change in 40 years

Miami now has a 91% acceptance rate and is barely T100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

all deferrals (7EA mix of solid target and 2 low reaches) and one "let's look at mid-year grades" from what she thought we totally a safety. 2 Rejections from super high reaches.

It sounds like you got bad advice when you developed your list of schools. Safety schools aren't asking for mid-year grades - many are offering honors college, and sharing research opportunities and study abroad options to encourage high stat students to attend.

This is just not true from what I have seen. Somehow, this year more schools are deferring EA/ED applicants - even when comparing to same GPA/Test stats in pandemic era on Naviance/SCOIR-like platforms for the same HS. Kids are getting deferred from schools where their stats were very solidly in accepted range - plus a lot of wiggle room to spare. These are places where past ALL kids of similar stats (and buffer of stats below) had been accepted regardless of whether it was an ED/EA/RD application. I've been very surprised at results for high stats kids we know. (and again, this is accounting for Fall 2021/2022 admissions).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

all deferrals (7EA mix of solid target and 2 low reaches) and one "let's look at mid-year grades" from what she thought we totally a safety. 2 Rejections from super high reaches.

It sounds like you got bad advice when you developed your list of schools. Safety schools aren't asking for mid-year grades - many are offering honors college, and sharing research opportunities and study abroad options to encourage high stat students to attend.

NP. We received advice constructing my DC’s college list from the school counselor at our “Big3” private school. Rejected at 2 likely schools (safeties), one target, 1 reach. Deferred from 2 likely schools and 5 target schools. I think the counselor was giving good advice based on knowledge in hand and was blindsided by this year’s admission results. They are not following the patterns in scoir AT ALL.

For the price you pay, your Big 3 counselor should have done a better job. I had no idea what I was doing and played college counselor. My kid is in at all the places I calculated they would get into. Kid wanted to apply for reach schools and so it was no surprise to get deferrals to reaches.

My kid doesn’t have an Ivy resume yet I thought one particular Ivy might be worth a try so applied to the one. Assuming it will be a deferral or rejection.

Our Big3 is getting strange results too. Based on how our experience this year with counselors "in practice", I really am starting to question operations. I have kept quiet about it but I have heard about many head-scratching CCO experiences this year (some from other parents, some from kids...add in a few of my own).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

all deferrals (7EA mix of solid target and 2 low reaches) and one "let's look at mid-year grades" from what she thought we totally a safety. 2 Rejections from super high reaches.

It sounds like you got bad advice when you developed your list of schools. Safety schools aren't asking for mid-year grades - many are offering honors college, and sharing research opportunities and study abroad options to encourage high stat students to attend.

NP. We received advice constructing my DC’s college list from the school counselor at our “Big3” private school. Rejected at 2 likely schools (safeties), one target, 1 reach. Deferred from 2 likely schools and 5 target schools. I think the counselor was giving good advice based on knowledge in hand and was blindsided by this year’s admission results. They are not following the patterns in scoir AT ALL.

For the price you pay, your Big 3 counselor should have done a better job. I had no idea what I was doing and played college counselor. My kid is in at all the places I calculated they would get into. Kid wanted to apply for reach schools and so it was no surprise to get deferrals to reaches.

My kid doesn’t have an Ivy resume yet I thought one particular Ivy might be worth a try so applied to the one. Assuming it will be a deferral or rejection.

Our Big3 is getting strange results too. Based on how our experience this year with counselors "in practice", I really am starting to question operations. I have kept quiet about it but I have heard about many head-scratching CCO experiences this year (some from other parents, some from kids...add in a few of my own).

I’m the PP you replied to. I’m not a Big 3 parent but it boggles my mind that I knew nothing 12 months ago and these “experts” at “Big 3” are scratching their heads. Hubris is my guess.