How the hell is anyone supposed to get into college now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

same.

4.92 wgpa
4.0 gpa
1580 sat

THIS. Try applying to Michigan 00S with a 1350 and not at the very top of your class with excellent ECs and essays and awards and see what happens. It's on par with ivies for OOS kids - the 20% is for in-state kids. That 1350 poster always pops up to crap on Michigan and say how easy it is to get in.

Michigan is just not a good example, it's a state school so obviously it's much harder for OOS. That has always been true.

Also people are always saying their kid took some enormous number of APs. What were there actual scores? A lot of private school kids and kids from other less crazy school districts take a small number and get 5s. That's what's actually impressive to these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

same.

4.92 wgpa
4.0 gpa
1580 sat

THIS. Try applying to Michigan 00S with a 1350 and not at the very top of your class with excellent ECs and essays and awards and see what happens. It's on par with ivies for OOS kids - the 20% is for in-state kids. That 1350 poster always pops up to crap on Michigan and say how easy it is to get in.

Major matters….

ok, so major in art history, as a PP stated. Certainly not CS or Eng, like my super high stats DC did.

You clearly weren’t strategic.

How would they have been strategic in order to be a CS major? I don't think it's easy to transfer into CS.

Starting in 2023, you have to be admitted to CS program. You cannot just declare CS as your major after you are admitted. UMD is somewhat similar now. This is all due to the popularity of the major.

https://cse.engin.umich.edu/academics/undergraduate/admissions/

Due to capacity constraints, students who are admitted to the University of Michigan in Fall 2023 or later must first be selected for the Computer Science (CS) major before they can declare the major. This selection policy, described in this section of the website, is the same for students in both the College of Engineering and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA).

The selection policy applies only to the CS major and does NOT apply to students seeking to major in the Computer Engineering (CE) or Data Science (DS) programs jointly administered by CSE with other units.

[Anonymous]

pay no attention to rankings etc go where your kid will be happy and healthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

Anyone with some hard classes and good but not great scores can get into VT with this, even without all As. ECs /essaysare not used for VT except for borderline cases. They dip below the top30% at my school. UVA and Michigan require more. Ivies require hardest courses in all areas and all As/top5% and better ECs than this.

What? VT absolutely uses essays - their own, not the Common App. And ECs too. Where are you getting your information? VT is quite competitive to get into at our high school - certainly not below the top 10-20%.
DP

DP from our private school kids around the average get in , 1300 or so, middle of the pack Gpa. The head dean of counseling has college representatives come to the school for parent and student panel discussions and they say they use grades , courses, scores first. ECs do not need to be extensive, a part time job or a sport, or volunteer for something. One or two things is plenty. The essays are more of a check box , and as long as you don't say, Wahoo-wa or some other reference to a particular school, it is fine. He actually mentioned wahoo-wa as something they had seen. The uva panelist laughed and agreed the essays are a small part, it is mostly transcript but that person really emphasized taking all the hard courses especially advanced english seminar which is our hardest level equivalent to AP lit. The smaller school panelists such as the one from Wellesley said they get so many top -transcript applicants and have so few spots that the essays and being able to show your ECs are varied and impactful are a sizable part of the final cull. When you listen to the differences it starts to be very clear why some schools only take from the top 20% of the school and others take from the middle of the pack.

NP. Makes me wonder if CollegeVine's recent algorithm change may be onto something. Supposedly was mostly about GPA rounding, but I am speculating that it's something more, maybe more reliance on test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

My daughter's friend who got into Yale was an Asian male with a very high wGPA who won Science Olympiad competitions and is an advanced string player.

Straight A doesn't mean anything, OP, you should know this. There is a world's difference between an A in a regular classs and an A in an AP class. Kids who get into the top colleges have 10+ APs, have a national level EC, etc. Your newpaper editing and team captainship worked a generation ago, but not today.

This is sounds exhausting. Kids have no time to be kids.

So don't do all the "stuff". Let your kid do what they enjoy for ECs and take 6-8 APs and "enjoy HS". They can still get into many schools ranked 30-70.

+1000. Not everyone can go to T10 and not everyone wants to. Further not everyone can major in CS or Engineering and frankly some shouldn’t.

Ditto. My kids were good but not stellar students (in part because both have ADHD). One had barely any ECs, the other a couple normal things similar to what my siblings and I did back in the 80s like school band and a couple clubs. Both applied to schools that made sense for them and each only had one reach school on their lists. Got in everywhere except the reaches and are happy with their choices (and we're happy with the cost) and doing well.

It simply isn't necessary to massively stress yourself out for the slim chance to get into a super tiny slice of available colleges. DH and I both went to regional public universities and are doing well in life. I work with people from a wide range of schools and we ended up in the same place. I do think it's important to do the research to find schools that have good programs in the kid's specific interests and the school "matters" in that way. But overall it's what you do at school that is more important than any particular brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Full pay helps

Didn’t work for us

+1 so many full pay, especially from this area, how would this help

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like so many straight A students who were chief school newspaper editor, captain of a varsity sports team, volunteering, and more who can't even get to VA Tech. I don't know what people who get into schools like Michigan or the Ivy Leagues are doing in high school.

My daughter's friend who got into Yale was an Asian male with a very high wGPA who won Science Olympiad competitions and is an advanced string player.

Straight A doesn't mean anything, OP, you should know this. There is a world's difference between an A in a regular classs and an A in an AP class. Kids who get into the top colleges have 10+ APs, have a national level EC, etc. Your newpaper editing and team captainship worked a generation ago, but not today.

But that is the absurdity of it, imo. (NP).

[Anonymous]

Most colleges accept most students. It's not hard to get into college. It's hard to get into a very small number of schools. Any student can find a fit if they widen their scope.

I just looked up the VA public schools admit rates from Fairfax County. Only three of the universities have acceptance rates below 50% -- UVA (30%), W&M (42%), VT (43%, yes engineering admit will be lower).

JMU admitted 68.5% of Fairfax apps.

ALL OTHER VA public Us admitted at least 85% of applicants. And VCU is now an automatic admit for GPAs 3.5+ (excluding Arts and Engineering).

I know really smart kids having a great experience at VCU, GMU. I work with someone who speaks highly of her time at UMW. My husband is a successful engineer who went to ODU. There are so many options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most colleges accept most students. It's not hard to get into college. It's hard to get into a very small number of schools. Any student can find a fit if they widen their scope.

I just looked up the VA public schools admit rates from Fairfax County. Only three of the universities have acceptance rates below 50% -- UVA (30%), W&M (42%), VT (43%, yes engineering admit will be lower).

JMU admitted 68.5% of Fairfax apps.

ALL OTHER VA public Us admitted at least 85% of applicants. And VCU is now an automatic admit for GPAs 3.5+ (excluding Arts and Engineering).

I know really smart kids having a great experience at VCU, GMU. I work with someone who speaks highly of her time at UMW. My husband is a successful engineer who went to ODU. There are so many options.

This prestige obsessed crowd doesn't get it though. It's truly a sickness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

same.

4.92 wgpa
4.0 gpa
1580 sat

THIS. Try applying to Michigan 00S with a 1350 and not at the very top of your class with excellent ECs and essays and awards and see what happens. It's on par with ivies for OOS kids - the 20% is for in-state kids. That 1350 poster always pops up to crap on Michigan and say how easy it is to get in.

Major matters….

ok, so major in art history, as a PP stated. Certainly not CS or Eng, like my super high stats DC did.

You clearly weren’t strategic.

How would they have been strategic in order to be a CS major? I don't think it's easy to transfer into CS.

Don’t be a CS major.

[Anonymous]

I just looked up the VA public schools admit rates from Fairfax County. Only three of the universities have acceptance rates below 50% -- UVA (30%), W&M (42%), VT (43%, yes engineering admit will be lower).

Where is this?

SCHEV tells you in state vs OOS admissions rates but not by county so far as I can tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I just looked up the VA public schools admit rates from Fairfax County. Only three of the universities have acceptance rates below 50% -- UVA (30%), W&M (42%), VT (43%, yes engineering admit will be lower).

Where is this?

SCHEV tells you in state vs OOS admissions rates but not by county so far as I can tell.

This report lets you drill down by county: https://research.schev.edu//enrollment/b8_admissions_locality.asp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most colleges accept most students. It's not hard to get into college. It's hard to get into a very small number of schools. Any student can find a fit if they widen their scope.

I just looked up the VA public schools admit rates from Fairfax County. Only three of the universities have acceptance rates below 50% -- UVA (30%), W&M (42%), VT (43%, yes engineering admit will be lower).

JMU admitted 68.5% of Fairfax apps.

ALL OTHER VA public Us admitted at least 85% of applicants. And VCU is now an automatic admit for GPAs 3.5+ (excluding Arts and Engineering).

I know really smart kids having a great experience at VCU, GMU. I work with someone who speaks highly of her time at UMW. My husband is a successful engineer who went to ODU. There are so many options.

+1000
Thank you for the data. Stop the DCUM hyperbole that VA in-state schools are almost impossible. Even the top three are relatively accessible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

TO plus no special case made in essays most likely. There appear to be plenty of DMV applicants so no geographic hook. Don't take it personally. Your kid probably did a lot better on the essays for where they really wanted to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting into the second tier schools like Mich really isn’t that hard. You just need the stats and scores. And you need to be strategic, know which regions and which schools the college likes the pull kids from. There are schools that have 3-4 kids accepted into Mich every year. This may not be where your HS sends kids. So figure out if they send kids to NYU or another school.

I disagree. Michigan routinely denies valedictorians

Michigan waitlisted my A Student IB Diploma DD. Has old time ECs like newspaper EIC and sports captain, plus a couple of good internships. Perhaps because TO. But going to a top 15 school.

same.

4.92 wgpa
4.0 gpa
1580 sat

THIS. Try applying to Michigan 00S with a 1350 and not at the very top of your class with excellent ECs and essays and awards and see what happens. It's on par with ivies for OOS kids - the 20% is for in-state kids. That 1350 poster always pops up to crap on Michigan and say how easy it is to get in.

Major matters….

ok, so major in art history, as a PP stated. Certainly not CS or Eng, like my super high stats DC did.

You clearly weren’t strategic.

How would they have been strategic in order to be a CS major? I don't think it's easy to transfer into CS.

Don’t be a CS major.

but, that's what they are interested in, so that doesn't really work.