Naviance is wrong
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Anonymous
What were her matches and reaches? As stated in numerous threads, high stats kids (assuming your kid is one) often have a hard time targeting matches because often times these schools have <30% acceptance rates. In that case, her rejections wouldn’t be surprising. You must also consider that her recommendations may have been subpar or highlighted a weakness in character. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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"This exactly. I have a friend whose son was rejected from many schools (targets and reaches) with near perfect SAT, 4.5 GPA, took every possible AP, high SAT II scores, etc. He had a great story to tell about struggles in his family life (alcoholism, etc.) but sadly, he did not let anyone review his essays prior to submitting them. His mom got a peak at his common app essay and did not like what she saw, but he refused to change it. He should have gotten into those schools with those stats and with the story he could have told. The essays are SO important."
My guess is that the essay was not the problem. My guess is that the essay guaranteed that his application got the all important second look at every school. Then everyone sitting around the table chanted in unison, "He is certainly capable of doing the work. He can certainly handle any adversity. But what's in it for our school? What will he bring to college that will improve our community?" Did he have any ECs? If he didn't have ECs because of his struggles, did he try to describe what he wants to do at college once he has "separation" from his struggles. It's not about "story". Story is just the "attention grabbing" part of the essay. Once he had their attention, my guess is he told them nothing or maybe nothing they wanted to hear. |
Anonymous
The Five Steps of White Grief Over College Rejection: 1. Blame non-white people 2. Blame Athletes and Legacies 3. Blame Rich People 4. Blame the entire system as rigged 5. Rationalize that the schools that you were dying to attend are actually elitist and not worth attending anymore because they're so 'liberal' |
Anonymous
All of the above is spot on. Also to the parent of the girl described above, did she consider the admit rate for women vs. men? More likely her child was rejected due to her gender than her race. |
Anonymous
The fact you say she could "pay full tuition anywhere, cash" shows how little you understand about colleges. This isn't like buying a car. So your DD was an academic star at her high school, but maybe colleges know that her high school isn't very challenging for reasonably intelligent kids. She won the Wellesley Book Award - did she then apply ED to Wellesley? That would've been the only advantage the award might have given her. A STEM student? Did she have summer internships? Do research? Win state or national science fairs? Get published? How many leadership roles did she have in school? Was she a team captain? Devote 100's of hours to volunteer work? For better or worse, your DD is quite average - there are tens of thousands of girls like her applying to college every year. As another PP said, the fact she's female was probably a bigger disadvantage than anything else. |
Anonymous
Maybe if she had applied to Ivies which have more men in the applicant pool should have been admitted. Also there is no mention of the reputation at the school she received all As or the reputation of the student. Anyway white rejected people sound a lot like what they accuse minorities of doing... wanting special treatment and other to "lend a helping hand. " No One is posting about how they did any research beyond Naviance. WHO APPLIES to colleges based solely on third party information???? No one is saying I looked at the school common data sheet and saw who applied , was admitted and was rejected. I looked at the most recent acceptance information before finalizing the college list. Nope they are all rely on some third party website to judge safety, match and reach. There is no helping foolish white people that are not equipped for adversity. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Academic environments have ALWAYS been liberal. |
Anonymous
^ but people are getting rejected who would have gotten in just a few years ago. No question something has changed recently. And this seems to be happening at places with "holistic" admissions; not so much at places like the UC system, or where schools where grades and test scores are the main factors in the decision. |
Anonymous
| For my son, white male, high stats, good but not out of the park ecs and awards, no hooks--Naviance was a surprisingly spot on predictor for schools where there was sufficient data. For schools where under 20 or so from his public high school applied in the last 3 years and/or less than 20% are admitted overall, I didn't make assumptions based on Naviance but instead looked at their Common Data Sets and considered them reaches unless he was above the 75% in which case they became targets (not safeties). I would say those were pretty spot on too. He got into all his targets and safeties and one of his reaches. But I work with data sets and statistics a lot as part of my job so I understand the many limits on the kinds of inferences I can make from different data sources so maybe I'm more cautious in calling something a "target" vs. a "safety" vs a "reach" than others. |
Anonymous
Can you comment on what other factors besides 75%ile we should look at in the Common Data Sets to help understand the institution and fit with our DCs? I'm new to this and not clear on what to be looking at/for with these college stats. |
Anonymous
More likely Asian kid. |
Anonymous
Grit, effort and analysis always yields results. Good for you and your son. |
Anonymous
The main other thing to look at besides 75%ile mark is the overall acceptance rate (and to look at the overall acceptance rate for Regular Decision if you're not applying Early Decision). We just said nothing is a total "safety" unless Regular Decision acceptance rate is over 50% and DCs scores are above 75%ile mark. Targets were schools that had acceptance rates above 20% AND DC was above their 75% mark or schools that had acceptance rates above 50% and DC was above their median. Reaches were anything that were more stringent than these criteria. This helps you make sure you have a true array of safeties (some call them "likelies"), targets and reaches. |