Help with least competitive of the three colleges: Duke, Brown, Dartmouth

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is semi-amusing how some posts on this thread make it sound easy breezy. It’s obvious if you’ve looked at any of the HS instagram pages how rare it is outside of athletes. The others you don’t know if there is a hook. It happens, but it is RARE 1-3% chance.

Doesnt it depend on your school?
Some private schools get 3-5% of the kids in the class into Duke. Others, 0.

What school is that? I live nearish Duke and there is a clear local advantage from our rigorous school, more than I see at other top schools that send multiple, and it’s still not that amount.

Carey Academy.

Cary Academy and disagree.

https://www.caryacademy.org/app/uploads/Matriculation_College-Counseling-School-Profile-24-25_FINAL.pdf
More than 20 in 3 years, each year at least 7? More than 5% go to Duke.

Yes, local bump, our former school gets same or more. I was more disputing its 5% of class, didn’t think it was that high.

Cary has a class of 119 kids. At least 7 means at least 6% of the class goes to Duke.

In reality, more than that.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

NP. Also from a public HS. No one ever gets into Harvard/Yale from our school unless legacy + some other hook (athlete, URM, etc.) My kid was probably the first unhooked student in decades to be admitted to Harvard. I have seen younger students who tried to get into the same activities/competitions/etc but their level of accomplishment was not enough, and not one student has managed to do ALL the activities as my kid did — you need a certain energy to be able to go all out. No one has been accepted after my kid. TLDR; sometimes Ivies do not accept kids from a particular high school because they simply are not competitive enough.

Not accepting bc kids aren’t competitive enough is different from not accepting bc the college doesn’t take kids from that particular school (ever). Meaning even your superstar wouldn’t have gotten in. Since your kid shined at your HS, he looked amazing. That’s why applicants are viewed in light of their particular school. Areas/schools with very high achieving kids makes it much more difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is semi-amusing how some posts on this thread make it sound easy breezy. It’s obvious if you’ve looked at any of the HS instagram pages how rare it is outside of athletes. The others you don’t know if there is a hook. It happens, but it is RARE 1-3% chance.

Doesnt it depend on your school?
Some private schools get 3-5% of the kids in the class into Duke. Others, 0.

What school is that? I live nearish Duke and there is a clear local advantage from our rigorous school, more than I see at other top schools that send multiple, and it’s still not that amount.

Carey Academy.

Cary Academy and disagree.

https://www.caryacademy.org/app/uploads/Matriculation_College-Counseling-School-Profile-24-25_FINAL.pdf
More than 20 in 3 years, each year at least 7? More than 5% go to Duke.

Yes, local bump, our former school gets same or more. I was more disputing its 5% of class, didn’t think it was that high.

Cary has a class of 119 kids. At least 7 means at least 6% of the class goes to Duke.

In reality, more than that.

Okay, but really only applied to local
bump schools I’d think with those percentages. At ours, top students want Ivy as Duke is under appreciated due to bump and doesn’t feel as special when several or more attend. Not sure if that’s a thing there or not at CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is semi-amusing how some posts on this thread make it sound easy breezy. It’s obvious if you’ve looked at any of the HS instagram pages how rare it is outside of athletes. The others you don’t know if there is a hook. It happens, but it is RARE 1-3% chance.

Doesnt it depend on your school?
Some private schools get 3-5% of the kids in the class into Duke. Others, 0.

What school is that? I live nearish Duke and there is a clear local advantage from our rigorous school, more than I see at other top schools that send multiple, and it’s still not that amount.

Latin School of Chicago - 130 kids, 3 got in ED, expect 3-4 more to get in RD. Usually yearly trends.
Brendwood in LA is similar for Vanderbilt.
It's not that rare.

Last year ONE Latin kid went to Duke. you're saying that it's going to go from one to 7 this year?.
And it's not like they got into Duke and matriculated elsewhere as Latin only sent 2 to Harvard, 1 to Yale, ZERO to Princeton, ZERO to MIT (so save us that "they got into Duke but went elsewhere" line of BS.


You are making sh$%T up.

They had a scandal a few years ago (Google), and it impacted admissions for last 2 cycles (but they still got kids in to top schools). They usually send 3-5 Duke (But that's not the # admitted). If you don't get into your early choice, at least 20-30 kids are applying RD from Latin to Duke.

Look at the grade distributions on the school profile - no GPA, etc. Note, I don't have a kid there, but I researched it heavily when I was in the area and have the matriculation data going back 10 years.

It's like Ransom Everglades in FL now. Both have rocket college placement with mediocre grades. Doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is semi-amusing how some posts on this thread make it sound easy breezy. It’s obvious if you’ve looked at any of the HS instagram pages how rare it is outside of athletes. The others you don’t know if there is a hook. It happens, but it is RARE 1-3% chance.

Yes, it’s mostly “nonDMV” trolls making things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is semi-amusing how some posts on this thread make it sound easy breezy. It’s obvious if you’ve looked at any of the HS instagram pages how rare it is outside of athletes. The others you don’t know if there is a hook. It happens, but it is RARE 1-3% chance.

Doesnt it depend on your school?
Some private schools get 3-5% of the kids in the class into Duke. Others, 0.

What school is that? I live nearish Duke and there is a clear local advantage from our rigorous school, more than I see at other top schools that send multiple, and it’s still not that amount.

Carey Academy.

Cary Academy and disagree.

https://www.caryacademy.org/app/uploads/Matriculation_College-Counseling-School-Profile-24-25_FINAL.pdf
More than 20 in 3 years, each year at least 7? More than 5% go to Duke.

Yes, local bump, our former school gets same or more. I was more disputing its 5% of class, didn’t think it was that high.

Cary has a class of 119 kids. At least 7 means at least 6% of the class goes to Duke.

In reality, more than that.

Okay, but really only applied to local
bump schools I’d think with those percentages. At ours, top students want Ivy as Duke is under appreciated due to bump and doesn’t feel as special when several or more attend. Not sure if that’s a thing there or not at CA.

Jesus, no one here freaking cares, get a life.

[Anonymous]

If you see a white UMC ED kid from a major metro area at Duke, there is a decent chance it is a legacy or some other hook. Duke has historically liked its legacies but the bump is primarily ED (I have heard that legacies who don't do ED actually get penalized). However, based on my few data points this year I know several legacies who got dinged ED so who knows.

[Anonymous]

Duke ED legacy not as strong this year, per private counselor.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

That’s because Yale has a small undergrad class and most high schools in the country won’t have a single student accepted to Yale. That’s not uncommon-it’s just the entitlement of private school kids thinking they should be accepted because they are privileged big fish swimming in a tiny pond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

That’s because Yale has a small undergrad class and most high schools in the country won’t have a single student accepted to Yale. That’s not uncommon-it’s just the entitlement of private school kids thinking they should be accepted because they are privileged big fish swimming in a tiny pond.

That’s not why. In decades and decades at our public, yale has not accepted a student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

That’s because Yale has a small undergrad class and most high schools in the country won’t have a single student accepted to Yale. That’s not uncommon-it’s just the entitlement of private school kids thinking they should be accepted because they are privileged big fish swimming in a tiny pond.

That’s not why. In decades and decades at our public, yale has not accepted a student.

they prob don't know your school. T20 like a known commodity. They go to the same schools every year to get the majority (or maybe even more) of their class. I saw a stat somewhere (NYT maybe?)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

That’s because Yale has a small undergrad class and most high schools in the country won’t have a single student accepted to Yale. That’s not uncommon-it’s just the entitlement of private school kids thinking they should be accepted because they are privileged big fish swimming in a tiny pond.

That’s not why. In decades and decades at our public, yale has not accepted a student.

they prob don't know your school. T20 like a known commodity. They go to the same schools every year to get the majority (or maybe even more) of their class. I saw a stat somewhere (NYT maybe?)?

Agree, think they choose from the same cast of characters from the most part unless trying to fill an institutional need. They know what they’re getting, in that way I think they are risk averse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Student has a couple B+ from rigorous private school, otherwise the rest are A's or A-'s. Which of the three colleges Duke, Brown, or Dartmouth will be most selective about the grades?

You better hope they are a terrific athlete!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

NP this happens. Our public HS college counselor says this about one ivy. Never accepted someone from our school ever. My friend’s kid is at a feeder private HS outside the DMV area. Their college counselor says Yale doesn’t really accept kids from their school. Kids apply annually and get into other places but not Yale.

That’s because Yale has a small undergrad class and most high schools in the country won’t have a single student accepted to Yale. That’s not uncommon-it’s just the entitlement of private school kids thinking they should be accepted because they are privileged big fish swimming in a tiny pond.

That’s not why. In decades and decades at our public, yale has not accepted a student.

Do you think it’s some ancient feud where today’s admissions officer for your region at Yale had a grandparent who was angered by someone at your large public school? How has the hatred towards your school continued over so many “decades and decades.”

[Anonymous]

I think it's relationship-based in some regions, especially schools like Dartmouth. Admissions can't take every exceptionally qualified private school kid in Fairfax County, VA or Bergen County, NJ. They have a few go-to schools where a favored alum/donor/whoever went, there's some shared history or lineage there, and unfortunately that checks the box for the region. The other schools aren't on a blacklist, there just aren't enough spots for their kids because a different school (or schools) is preferred.