When posters relay their experiences in admissions, how far back is relevant/relatable to the 2024+ scene?
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Anonymous
| Often I see people respond saying, "In 2020, my child...[fill in the info]" or has another year inserted. How far back is relevant to how things are going in admissions now? |
Anonymous
| Honestly, and I can only speak for our school, each year has been decidedly different - 21/22/23/24. It’s maddening and I can’t imagine being a college counselor. |
Anonymous
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2020 was another world, as that was before test optional policies were widespread.
2021 was also a little different, as colleges were still finding their footing. And I think they still are. The landscape is constantly shifting with TO policies (whether stated or unstated) and an applicant accepted even this year doesn't mean the same would be accepted next admission season and vice versa. |
Anonymous
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Class of 2021 was the first year post shutdown where kids had missed school or hadn’t already taken the SAT for college apps.
Class of 2020 deadlines had already passed before the world came to a stop. |
Anonymous
| Only last year. |
Anonymous
| The admission rates for top 20 schools are in the single digits and have been that way for quite some time. TO or no TO your child has a 90 percent chance of rejection. Once you wrap your mind around that you will not be surprised. Five years ago someone posted a long rant about who gets in, I thought they were exaggerating, they were right then and they are right now. |
Anonymous
| Only Class of 2027. And for URM students: all previous years are irrelevant. |
Anonymous
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2021 was unique because it was the first application season affected by Covid. Kids couldn’t do ECs, and had online school for half of junior year which is the most important for colleges. They couldn’t take SAT or ACT, so if they submitted TO they weren’t trying to game the system. So that is an outlier.
All the other years since are relevant. |
Anonymous
Every single year someone posts how much worse this year was compared to last. It’s not different it’s just still a crapshoot and that’s not new. 2022, 2023, 2024 all working with the same TO situation and everyone had some online HS. It’s interesting that next year will be the first cycle with kids who did not have their HS classes online due to Covid. |
Anonymous
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If you go to college confidential you can go back to posts from their origin.
You can see people claiming “it’s different this year!” Every single year. Does that mean it is NOT different now? No, that is not evidence of that. But for perspective… |
Anonymous
Yep. All the “it’s different!” posters are just surprised that the crap experience other people’s kids in the past is going to apply to their kid too. It’s not different. For years, high stats haven’t been any kind of guarantee. |
Anonymous
| 1 year tops. Though with SC decision this year and digital SAT next year and legacy changing many places—-it has become a year to year thing. AOs have changing objectives. |
Anonymous
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I can remember as a non-DMVer and current college student in 1988, hearing my then-boyfriend's mom bemoaning that her eldest kid was told by B-CC counselors that he didn't have much chance of getting into Brandeis because he was a cookie-cutter applicant from the region. Eldest kid indeed ended up somewhere else and was doing great.
The message I got then and is still true today, is that it's unwise to be a generic applicant. Following that, through observation, I've learned that even seemingly "unhooked" kids can develop legitimate hooks. Even without spending a lot of money. But it does require more of parents (acting like a college counselor, acting like a career coach, strategizing) and of the applicant (who may have to work even harder if their family or school system cannot provide such mentoring). When I read through this board, one thing that comes across is that parents of generic candidates (no offense, I just mean kids with similar records that apply in huge quantities) seem to have difficulty iumderstanding that situation and how to react to it. In my specific circumstances, I had two fallbacks prepped. One was for my child to go to the equivalent of UMD-BC and transfer to main campus. And the other was to go to my undergrad U which has a 50% acceptance rate. I have done quite well with my education from there. |
Anonymous
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It has been different every year. The change was much more gradual over the past few decades, with various things like schools being added to Common App occurring along the way, and then the switch to test optional felt like a bomb went off.
What is different: first, acceptance rates are, in fact, lower. Second, it is more difficult to choose what is a reasonable reach and what is a target. In olden times, pre-2021, published score ranges were very helpful for this, but that is no longer the case, as one can simply ignore the published range and apply TO, provided that one considers the % of enrolled students who submitted scores. |
Anonymous
It’s absurd and causes people to lie, manufacture, and manipulate in order to seem special (because most of us are not). The silver lining for “just” smart and hardworking kids is that they can get a very good education for free at a lot of state schools. |