Top Stats students that had difficult admissions last year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:HS Teacher

My top students with multiple waitlists/rejections were all asian males. They ended up at (good) state schools but by and large were rejected by privates.

raise hand.. that was my CS Asian male. Very high stats. Now at a state flagship with merit.

They would have probably gotten amazing merit at second tier privates.

My Asian kid did, because they seek diversity.

? the flagship is very diverse.

Flagships are usually HS 2.0

yes, that is the case for the vast majority of college kids in this country since most go to in state colleges.

+1

This.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people who are delusional about the importance of essays and recommendations. They aren’t difference makers unless they are really bad.

Ultimately it is important your kid do a good job on the application so as to not wind up on the bad category, but the difference makers are mostly out of your child’s control at this point. They’re going to be compared to their class mates and kids from similar local schools. The school may want kids looking for a certain major or that have a certain talent (e.g. a harpist). But mostly it’s just a numbers game.

Hard disagree. If you are applying to T20 colleges - where every single applicant is going to have stellar academics - the essays and the letters of recommendation are hugely important. This is where you have a chance to get the reader on your side so they argue for you at the table. It's important. The essay is the one place on an application where the student can really show who they are. And personalized letters of recommendation from teachers who know the students help schools feel confident in extending an acceptance. It's foolish to ignore essays and letters of recommendation. They are very often the difference makers at highly selective schools that accept fewer than 10 percent of all applicants.

I have two kids at T20 universities presently. Both spent a lot of time on their essays. Very unique. Very funny. Very well written. I'm convinced the essays and really good letters of rec - plus exceptionally good ECs - are what distinguished them from all the other unhooked applicants with outstanding GPAs and test scores.

I have 2 kids at T10 universities and I am guessing their essays were good. I have no idea if that helped or not. How can anyone? In sheer number- it seems impossible that the admissions staff can read the volume of essays which are in the 10s of thousands. I truly don’t believe every essay gets read. 3-4 mins per application, correct?

I think the letters of recommendation have some weight. Best of the best stuff helps, I think. That, IMO, is why my kids were accepted. Their objective stats are similar to many, many applicants.

I think essays helped my son a lot last year. He got into Stanford which was a total shock, and the admissions officer wrote him a postcard saying how much she liked his main essay. He also got into UVA as an Echols Scholar and all the other schools he applied to except the Ivies. Stats were great, ECs were very good but nothing crazy (internship, started a club, Governors School), and I assume recommendations were very good. But that's similar to a lot of kids, so I really think the essays set him apart.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Among by dd’s friends, kids with top stats that were shut out wound up at Georgetown and Boston College. Another with incredible extracurriculars (won the school service award) and great grades shut out everywhere but Maryland.

So much of college admissions to the top colleges appear to be a lottery.

It’s a lottery because the kids are all the same.

UMC, suburban, 1450+, 3.8+, classical instruments (piano/violin NEVER accordion or blaster beam), Key Club, Shadow a Doctor (parent or parents friend), STEM (NEVER classics or poetry or basket weaving), essay is about dead grandma/dog or trip abroad opened my eyes, Model UN (France, NEVER Papua New Guinea) there are only four future professions: law, medicine, engineering or finance.

You’re the AO at an T25 and you get 25k applications that look like this-100 alone from TJ.

Now what?

+1
Have 2 unhooked DCs admitted to their 1st choice (ivy and top ranked SLAC) in past several years. Prob admitted due to unique EC/hobbies that aligned to their intended course of study (not STEM related). One is now majoring in CS now. Other looks to be going into Finance/Consulting after graduating. Every dept has profs that needs students to major in the subjects they teach.

My DS could have done that, but he decided to be honest and say he wanted to study CS, which is what he is doing and minoring in the unique area. To each his own.

Nice assumption. DC’s advisor suggested they take a CS course and they loved it. AOs reading essays can tell if an applicant is passionate about what they CURRENTLY plan to major in. These are 18 yr olds so of course that may change - and SHOULD change if their creativity and interests are sparked by a particular prof or course in college. IMHO many parents push the interest in STEM because it leads to an automatic/high paid job after graduation. The STEM applicant who lives, breathes and loves it stands out. All the others are better advised to write about what they really love doing and what THEY think they want to major in at college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

Curious why you did not submit the ACT. I thought the guidance was for any TO to submit an ACT of 34 or higher - otherwise they will assume it is lower than a 34.

UCs are test blind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Among by dd’s friends, kids with top stats that were shut out wound up at Georgetown and Boston College. Another with incredible extracurriculars (won the school service award) and great grades shut out everywhere but Maryland.

So much of college admissions to the top colleges appear to be a lottery.

It’s a lottery because the kids are all the same.

UMC, suburban, 1450+, 3.8+, classical instruments (piano/violin NEVER accordion or blaster beam), Key Club, Shadow a Doctor (parent or parents friend), STEM (NEVER classics or poetry or basket weaving), essay is about dead grandma/dog or trip abroad opened my eyes, Model UN (France, NEVER Papua New Guinea) there are only four future professions: law, medicine, engineering or finance.

You’re the AO at an T25 and you get 25k applications that look like this-100 alone from TJ.

Now what?

+1
Have 2 unhooked DCs admitted to their 1st choice (ivy and top ranked SLAC) in past several years. Prob admitted due to unique EC/hobbies that aligned to their intended course of study (not STEM related). One is now majoring in CS now. Other looks to be going into Finance/Consulting after graduating. Every dept has profs that needs students to major in the subjects they teach.

My DS could have done that, but he decided to be honest and say he wanted to study CS, which is what he is doing and minoring in the unique area. To each his own.

DP. So did PP's kid. He also stood out more with the story his academics and ECs told. PP gave no indication of a bait and switch-- that is coming from the chip on your shoulder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

They are not underrepresented. They don't apply in high numbers, and the lawsuit showed that they have much lower stats than Asian Americans.

You need some critical thinking skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unvarnished and perhaps unwelcome truth from someone who's been in University administration and knows EXACTLY how things work:

The essays and the letters of recommendation. That's what distinguishes your kid.

Yes, just like with job applications you need to personalize the essays to each specific college. Personalization makes the school think you're actually interested in them, and that there's a good chance you'd go if you're accepted. So yield probability is higher than with students just spraying applications out there. Dumb to blow this off, and worth grounding your kid if they try to be lazy. Alternative is to employ your kid from the start of summer to write the essays and then personalize each one so they're done by the end of summer.

A corollary to the personalization--be sure to distinguish why you personally would be thrilled to bring your gifts to that college or university. In fact this is probably more important, regardless of whatever pablum the college/university spews about being "need-blind". Admissions officers know how to count and add. Make sure those gifts correlate positively with the ability to pay full tuition. Best if those gifts also indicate a higher likelihood that you and your family will donate beyond tuition paid over your lifetimes.

BTW that's where the aforementioned HS Service Award winner who got rejected all over the place went wrong. A kid who gets a Service Award sees the world beyond her family's front door, and is less likely to value donations to the alma mater above whatever "food for the poor" or "save Third World babies" nonprofit catches her fancy. The kid needs to become a superstar in saving the world to generate enough positive PR for the university to outweigh the frat kid whose family routinely donates a few K to the alma mater each year as an alum.

Finally, the letters of recommendation. Note that none of you people know what your recommender actually submits to the college. Sure, they may "show" you the "Letter". But are you sitting with them as they pull up the "Letter", show it to you with the filepath and filename, post it to the University website and sign off that indeed you parent and student have followed your promise to waive your right to see the letter? Or for the Luddites out there, are you sitting with the recommender as they take the printed letter directly from your hands, place it into the envelope, seal it in front of you (of course you already stamped it), sign it in front of you, and walk with you to the mailbox to drop it off?

No, you're not. You're placing your faith in the recommender to write a superlative letter for your kid. You're trusting further that the recommender has credibility and an excellent track record with institutions of higher education (who talk with each other and have employees previously working in admissions at other schools). You're praying further that your recommender does not just sing hosannas to your child, but that the recommender explicitly ranks your child above current peer applicants from the school as well as past applicants for whom they submitted a letter of recommendation.

Uncomfortable truth: not all letters of recommendation have these qualities. You're supposed to be choosing the person who will write you the best recommendation. So it's supposed to be a showstopper. Some letters then are positive but not positive enough, letting down the Admissions Officer and making them wonder about your judgment. Some are poorly written and indicate that your high school (and thus your student) is a joke. Some praise the wrong things such that the University wonders what exactly is going on between the recommender and the student (i.e. the Civics teacher/Head Football Coach writes that the student "returns from cheerleader workouts at lunch ready to go, strutting into his room looking like a million bucks exuding grace confidence and loveliness as she gets ready to discuss civics in America").

Schools want kids who will accept their offers, and who will be a net positive. That's the needle you need to thread.

Back in the 80’s, my best friend and I asked the same English teacher for a college recommendation. He handed us the sealed envelopes at the same time. After school, we steamed them open and discovered he wrote the exact same letter for both of us. He wrote that we both shone while acting out the part of Hester Prynne of the Scarlet Letter in class. Never happened. Anyway I got into Stanford and she got into UVM.

[Anonymous]

Op you can start with MD data from last year, draw your own conclusions https://moco360.media/2023/09/13/where-montgomery-county-high-school-graduates-are-going-to-college/?fbclid=IwAR2YfP4n7Ibg_kEX0KmkM8lmhuS0YuvoOjBsyi3rNB2vo4lbJ63K4xyKfdE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

FOR 50 years colleges have been bending over backwards, cooking the books, winking & nodding, & pretending there is no difference between a 1500 and a 1350 SAT to get more URMs. If they are underrepresented it’s not due to lack of effort from the colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

FOR 50 years colleges have been bending over backwards, cooking the books, winking & nodding, & pretending there is no difference between a 1500 and a 1350 SAT to get more URMs. If they are underrepresented it’s not due to lack of effort from the colleges.

There isn't really a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Among by dd’s friends, kids with top stats that were shut out wound up at Georgetown and Boston College. Another with incredible extracurriculars (won the school service award) and great grades shut out everywhere but Maryland.

Yeah, Georgetown is a good safety school. I'm adding that one to the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

FOR 50 years colleges have been bending over backwards, cooking the books, winking & nodding, & pretending there is no difference between a 1500 and a 1350 SAT to get more URMs. If they are underrepresented it’s not due to lack of effort from the colleges.

There isn't really a big difference.

Then apparently you agree there is a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somewhat surprisingly, my black daughter with a 4.0 and 35 ACT (one sitting) didn't get into Berkeley OOS for engineering, albeit the ACT score wasn't submitted.

They stopped practising AA years ago.

Shouldn't matter for those stats, right?

One would think but you will always have racist a$$holes who still just assume every black kid on these campuses are there because of affirmative action. Yet all the other kids who get a boost (athletes, faculty kids, donor kids, etc.) don't have the joy of experiencing such BS...

dp.. they don't experience the side eye because you can't see who's a donor or faculty kid. But, you can see the skin color of a person without knowing their background.

It's not fair, I agree, but that's what happens when colleges play the DEI game.

Or when racist people make false assumptions.

everyone knows that colleges play the DEI game. The Harvard lawsuit even showed how prejudiced they are towards Asian Americans.

No, it didn't. It just showed how politicized the SC is. URMs are under represented at T20 universities.

+1

Asians are very much NOT underrepresented at T20s, but Asians do not tend to understand or accept how the U.S. system works.