High test score kids who didn't get in where they thought they would

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

A decent private would send 25% to T25, at least 40% to T30. A strong Boston private would do better than that. This is an isolated case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

I am guessing counselor recommendation went wrong.

Did you listen to counselor’s advice on ED school? If you insisted on overshooting, the counselor cannot support you on the recommendation. The consequence is that the same recommendation letter is sent to your ED school and RD schools.

The 3.7 gpa at a rigorous school always guarantees a T50, sometimes a T20, absent grade inflation and when supported by counselor.

Agree. There’s something more here.
Where else did kid get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

Which T50s did she apply to?

This was not the last cycle but within the last few.

Reaches were too high.

Tufts, BC, BU, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin were targets and got on some WL but not taken off. She have EDed at tufts.

In the us go into GW, Elon, Providence College

Rigorous private - did not have highest rigor, as noted ECs lackluster. Was in the cohort from Covid were half of hs was online and everyone’s GPAs were weird, maybe over inflated. It was just a bad combination of a tough admissions year, covid weirdness, and not selling herself properly. She got into every international school applied to: McGill, Queens, St. Andrews, Edinburgh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

Which T50s did she apply to?

This was not the last cycle but within the last few.

Reaches were too high.

Tufts, BC, BU, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin were targets and got on some WL but not taken off. She have EDed at tufts.

In the us go into GW, Elon, Providence College

Rigorous private - did not have highest rigor, as noted ECs lackluster. Was in the cohort from Covid were half of hs was online and everyone’s GPAs were weird, maybe over inflated. It was just a bad combination of a tough admissions year, covid weirdness, and not selling herself properly. She got into every international school applied to: McGill, Queens, St. Andrews, Edinburgh

What was the ED reach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About 50% of 1500+ sat applicants go to a t20
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1kygeez/at_least_48_of_1500_sat_applicants_go_to_a_t20/
About 80% of 1540+ sat applicants go to a t20

University 1500+ Class size % who submitted SAT #1500+
Brown 75%+ 1700 61 778
Caltech 75%+ 200 79 119
Carnegie Mellon 75%+ 1800 53 716
Columbia 75%+ 1500 40 450
Cornell 75%+ 3500 45 1182
Dartmouth 50%+ 1200 43 258
Duke 75%+ 1700 47 599
Emory 25%+ 1400 42 147
Georgetown 25%+ 1600 78 312
Harvard 75%+ 1600 52 624
Johns Hopkins 75%+ 1400 50 525
MIT 75%+ 1100 83 685
Northwestern 75%+ 2100 50 788
Notre Dame 50%+ 2000 31 310
NYU 50%+ 5800 27 783
Princeton 75%+ 1400 56 588
Rice 75%+ 1100 50 413
Stanford 75%+ 1700 50 638
UC Berkeley 25%+ 9100 21 478
UChicago 75%+ 1600 46 552
UCLA 25%+ 6600 18 297
UMich 25%+ 7300 18 329
UPenn 75%+ 2400 51 918
USC 50%+ 3600 32 576
UVirginia 25%+ 3900 46 449
Vanderbilt 75%+ 1600 25 300
WashU 75%+ 1800 29 392
Yale 75%+ 1500 61 686

Some of these are incorrect, USC is only 25%+ for a 1500, Emory is 50%+. Also Georgetown is test required so that should be mentioned as well.

[Anonymous]

DD has a 1550 superscore but we don’t have a lot of confidence about getting into a T20. Applying to lower ranked schools (but still decent schools) and hoping for merit money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

Which T50s did she apply to?

This was not the last cycle but within the last few.

Reaches were too high.

Tufts, BC, BU, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin were targets and got on some WL but not taken off. She have EDed at tufts.

In the us go into GW, Elon, Providence College

Rigorous private - did not have highest rigor, as noted ECs lackluster. Was in the cohort from Covid were half of hs was online and everyone’s GPAs were weird, maybe over inflated. It was just a bad combination of a tough admissions year, covid weirdness, and not selling herself properly. She got into every international school applied to: McGill, Queens, St. Andrews, Edinburgh

What was the ED reach?

Not going to say specific ED, but reaches were Cornell, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Chicago, and JHU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD has a 1550 superscore but we don’t have a lot of confidence about getting into a T20. Applying to lower ranked schools (but still decent schools) and hoping for merit money.

My ‘24 kid had a similar superscore and took the same approach. They applied to only 1 T-20. Had good results with merit aid in the T-40 to T-100. However, they wish they had been a little braver and taken a shot at a couple more T-20’s. The odds are daunting but nothing wrong with your kid taking a shot at T-20 as long as they understand the odds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

Which T50s did she apply to?

This was not the last cycle but within the last few.

Reaches were too high.

Tufts, BC, BU, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin were targets and got on some WL but not taken off. She have EDed at tufts.

In the us go into GW, Elon, Providence College

Rigorous private - did not have highest rigor, as noted ECs lackluster. Was in the cohort from Covid were half of hs was online and everyone’s GPAs were weird, maybe over inflated. It was just a bad combination of a tough admissions year, covid weirdness, and not selling herself properly. She got into every international school applied to: McGill, Queens, St. Andrews, Edinburgh

What was the ED reach?

Not going to say specific ED, but reaches were Cornell, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Chicago, and JHU

Why not? It’s anonymous and we’re all trying to learn from each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

What was her ED choice? Did she do any EAs for targets or ED2? If so where?

[Anonymous]

Public student with 35 act, 3.9uw/4.78w and great ECs and essays shut out of 5 top 20 applied to.

Accepted to 6 schools in the 30-50 range, some with big merit.

I will always wonder what happened but they are very happy at their final choice and doing well academically.

Some of it was likely that they did not go ED, there was not one school that they felt comfortable with committing.

[Anonymous]

P.S. 14 AP courses, heavy Stem, and athlete though not recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT and 3.7 UW GPA from a strong Boston private, average ECs, full pay girl - overshot ED, then did not get into any T 50 schools. Ended up at St Andrews

Which T50s did she apply to?

This was not the last cycle but within the last few.

Reaches were too high.

Tufts, BC, BU, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin were targets and got on some WL but not taken off. She have EDed at tufts.

In the us go into GW, Elon, Providence College

Rigorous private - did not have highest rigor, as noted ECs lackluster. Was in the cohort from Covid were half of hs was online and everyone’s GPAs were weird, maybe over inflated. It was just a bad combination of a tough admissions year, covid weirdness, and not selling herself properly. She got into every international school applied to: McGill, Queens, St. Andrews, Edinburgh

These are T30s, not T50s.

T50s would include Rochester, Wake Forest, Case Western.

Which Boston private is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my small sample size (30 or so friends and neighbors in the past few years), a key factor is the high school. Some high-stat kids get into multiple top 15 colleges without cancer-curing level ECs and the common denominator seems to be a HS top colleges already accepts from every year. These kids are otherwise non big donors/legacy, non athletes. Whenever I hear from a friend their DC has high stats and is choosing between Yale and Williams for ED and then 5 months later I hear they ended up at a still great but below top 40 schools, usually they come from a non JT level public or a good but not well-known private. Aiming too high coming from an unconnected HS is a risky move.

+1 Unhooked kids from the public high school here never get into Harvard, Yale or Princeton. A 1600 got into Harvard and a 1590 got into Yale, but those kids has ECs that were out of the norm for our school.

As for those who aimed high (Harvard, MIT and Princeton)

Top 5 GPA, 1540, advanced math beyond BC, public hs, first gen hook — rejected Harvard, WL @ MIT and Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD has a 1550 superscore but we don’t have a lot of confidence about getting into a T20. Applying to lower ranked schools (but still decent schools) and hoping for merit money.

My ‘24 kid had a similar superscore and took the same approach. They applied to only 1 T-20. Had good results with merit aid in the T-40 to T-100. However, they wish they had been a little braver and taken a shot at a couple more T-20’s. The odds are daunting but nothing wrong with your kid taking a shot at T-20 as long as they understand the odds.

DD is applying to one Ivy RD but understands it is a super reach. Her ECs are really great but nothing terribly unique or top leadership. Huge public high school so it’s hard to get those opportunities.