schools that left a bad taste

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NYU - will always be a hater after rejection.

Eh, I don’t think that’s the point of this thread, just negative about schools that rejected you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 for UMD. DH and I are alumni and love the school, but our 4.4gpa/29 ACT/solid ECs kid didn’t even bother applying from her W school because almost no one with less than a 4.8w/1550 SAT gets in from their school and writing all those essays for a near-certain rejection didn’t seem worth her time. About a 30% acceptance rate from the school and only about 20% of the 30% actually go. I wish they would yield protect!

PS: I’m with the PP in wishing there were other strong in-state options. I’m so jealous of my friends in VA, though it sounds like it’s gotten hard for kids from the equivalent of W schools in NOVA to get into JMU and Va. Tech, too.

Not sure if I buy this. Sounds like exaggeration or attempt to make UMD sound more exclusive. There are literally only around 20,000-22,000 test takers who score higher than 1550 in a given year, fewer than total acceptances among just the 8 Ivies alone, not counting other T20 schools like Stanford, MIT, or higher-ranked publics like Michigan. Test score was not the reason that applicant didn't get in, if it was, the math wouldn't make sense for the UMD admissions officer and they do not understand their competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stanford and Princeton for accepting 2 well known MEGA-striver kids. Like the absolute textbook definition of striver. “Sour grapes” all you want, I don’t care.

What does this mean? They accepted kids that work hard and strive and that's bad?

No. Dedicating their entire lives to getting into HYPS. Brains wired only for college admissions.

NP

I'm not seeing the problem here. They dedicated their lives to getting into HYPS, they get into PS. So what's the problem?

Would it be a more just and fair result if the kids who did nothing just coasted into HYPSM while the ones that gunned HYPSM didn't get in?

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like someone had a goal, did everything possible to achieve it, and won. Good for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 for UMD. DH and I are alumni and love the school, but our 4.4gpa/29 ACT/solid ECs kid didn’t even bother applying from her W school because almost no one with less than a 4.8w/1550 SAT gets in from their school and writing all those essays for a near-certain rejection didn’t seem worth her time. About a 30% acceptance rate from the school and only about 20% of the 30% actually go. I wish they would yield protect!

PS: I’m with the PP in wishing there were other strong in-state options. I’m so jealous of my friends in VA, though it sounds like it’s gotten hard for kids from the equivalent of W schools in NOVA to get into JMU and Va. Tech, too.

Not sure if I buy this. Sounds like exaggeration or attempt to make UMD sound more exclusive. There are literally only around 20,000-22,000 test takers who score higher than 1550 in a given year, fewer than total acceptances among just the 8 Ivies alone, not counting other T20 schools like Stanford, MIT, or higher-ranked publics like Michigan. Test score was not the reason that applicant didn't get in, if it was, the math wouldn't make sense for the UMD admissions officer and they do not understand their competition.

Test optional drives the required scores way up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First time mom in this process. A lot of wins and a few hard losses. All losses hard but some felt 'cleaner' than others. Some made sense/fair enough and others left a bad taste with seemingly non transparent admissions policies, agressive marketing, all the 'we care about the kids' bs, evident yeild managment, games etc. Anyone else have a bad taste for particular schools or the entire process in general? I have another dc about to apply and man I am not looking forward to it. This are big businesses, they do not 'care about the kids.'

Stanford for taking only large donors from our private school and no one on pure merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First time mom in this process. A lot of wins and a few hard losses. All losses hard but some felt 'cleaner' than others. Some made sense/fair enough and others left a bad taste with seemingly non transparent admissions policies, agressive marketing, all the 'we care about the kids' bs, evident yeild managment, games etc. Anyone else have a bad taste for particular schools or the entire process in general? I have another dc about to apply and man I am not looking forward to it. This are big businesses, they do not 'care about the kids.'

Stanford for taking only large donors from our private school and no one on pure merit.

How do you know that the families are donating and how much they're donating? We donate, but no one knows, not even our kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First time mom in this process. A lot of wins and a few hard losses. All losses hard but some felt 'cleaner' than others. Some made sense/fair enough and others left a bad taste with seemingly non transparent admissions policies, agressive marketing, all the 'we care about the kids' bs, evident yeild managment, games etc. Anyone else have a bad taste for particular schools or the entire process in general? I have another dc about to apply and man I am not looking forward to it. This are big businesses, they do not 'care about the kids.'

Stanford for taking only large donors from our private school and no one on pure merit.

Sounds like unhooked kids from your school just weren’t strong enough. Our private had two unhooked kids accepted this cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 for UMD. DH and I are alumni and love the school, but our 4.4gpa/29 ACT/solid ECs kid didn’t even bother applying from her W school because almost no one with less than a 4.8w/1550 SAT gets in from their school and writing all those essays for a near-certain rejection didn’t seem worth her time. About a 30% acceptance rate from the school and only about 20% of the 30% actually go. I wish they would yield protect!

PS: I’m with the PP in wishing there were other strong in-state options. I’m so jealous of my friends in VA, though it sounds like it’s gotten hard for kids from the equivalent of W schools in NOVA to get into JMU and Va. Tech, too.

Not sure if I buy this. Sounds like exaggeration or attempt to make UMD sound more exclusive. There are literally only around 20,000-22,000 test takers who score higher than 1550 in a given year, fewer than total acceptances among just the 8 Ivies alone, not counting other T20 schools like Stanford, MIT, or higher-ranked publics like Michigan. Test score was not the reason that applicant didn't get in, if it was, the math wouldn't make sense for the UMD admissions officer and they do not understand their competition.

The 4.8W is true for many W school students to get into Maryland, but the SAT required is an exaggeration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The university of Maryland system. Kid got rejected. 3.9uw, 3.6w from a Catholic with a tough grading scale. Taking 5 ap classes senior year. Captain of 2 varsity sports teams. Volunteered for 4 years. Great recommendation letters. Mature kid. We know lots of kids like this that didn’t get in. It wasn’t even their first choice but it ticked me off as a taxpayer.

For kids like this there is nowhere else to go. Umbc is a commuter school. Towson seems like huge step down. So it’s oos for her.

I’m not sure how Maryland selection works but it doesn’t seem right. And if it’s going to be like this they need a second university with some name recognition.

Same for my DD. Great stats, but rejected by UMD. I did something that I never in my life thought I'd do: I went to college park and asked to meet with someone at admissions to try to understand this. She told me that because the number of applications has grown so exponentially, they find themselves having to reject kids who got a C or similar freshman year in high school. She said literally their entire incoming class will be made up of kids who have never gotten anything below a B, and even then, the Bs would have come freshman year. It's ridiculous. So we get to pay OOS tuition for him to go to a virginia school.

So all 30K students admitted last year had all As and if they had a B it was from freshman year? I know UMD is very competitive, and I believe this may be the criteria for kids coming from Whitman, Churchill, B-CC, etc., but I find it hard to believe that a school with a 45% acceptance rate is only accepting kids with straight As except for maybe a B or two in 9th grade.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

My FCPS kid was admitted to UMD in 2025. She got Bs in language classes every year - languages were just not her thing and it showed. The rest of her grades were As and As except for a B+ in AP chem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The university of Maryland system. Kid got rejected. 3.9uw, 3.6w from a Catholic with a tough grading scale. Taking 5 ap classes senior year. Captain of 2 varsity sports teams. Volunteered for 4 years. Great recommendation letters. Mature kid. We know lots of kids like this that didn’t get in. It wasn’t even their first choice but it ticked me off as a taxpayer.

For kids like this there is nowhere else to go. Umbc is a commuter school. Towson seems like huge step down. So it’s oos for her.

I’m not sure how Maryland selection works but it doesn’t seem right. And if it’s going to be like this they need a second university with some name recognition.

Same for my DD. Great stats, but rejected by UMD. I did something that I never in my life thought I'd do: I went to college park and asked to meet with someone at admissions to try to understand this. She told me that because the number of applications has grown so exponentially, they find themselves having to reject kids who got a C or similar freshman year in high school. She said literally their entire incoming class will be made up of kids who have never gotten anything below a B, and even then, the Bs would have come freshman year. It's ridiculous. So we get to pay OOS tuition for him to go to a virginia school.

So all 30K students admitted last year had all As and if they had a B it was from freshman year? I know UMD is very competitive, and I believe this may be the criteria for kids coming from Whitman, Churchill, B-CC, etc., but I find it hard to believe that a school with a 45% acceptance rate is only accepting kids with straight As except for maybe a B or two in 9th grade.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

My FCPS kid was admitted to UMD in 2025. She got Bs in language classes every year - languages were just not her thing and it showed. The rest of her grades were As and As except for a B+ in AP chem.

Sorry, As and A-s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stanford and Princeton for accepting 2 well known MEGA-striver kids. Like the absolute textbook definition of striver. “Sour grapes” all you want, I don’t care.

What does this mean? They accepted kids that work hard and strive and that's bad?

No. Dedicating their entire lives to getting into HYPS. Brains wired only for college admissions.

NP

I'm not seeing the problem here. They dedicated their lives to getting into HYPS, they get into PS. So what's the problem?

Would it be a more just and fair result if the kids who did nothing just coasted into HYPSM while the ones that gunned HYPSM didn't get in?

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like someone had a goal, did everything possible to achieve it, and won. Good for them.

.

If you're not "striving", not sure those types of schools would even be a good environment. Those schools are full of uber motivated students. It's exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Yale for taking obvious legacies from our school and then issuing a report about how to fix public trust in the process. Also sending out gorgeous booklets to encourage more applications

[Anonymous]

Cornell has been so incredibly non transparent about class size and answering questions once dd admitted. Also admitted students day showed very little effort. Was underwhelming to say the least. I guess they are comfortable with their yeild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yale for taking obvious legacies from our school and then issuing a report about how to fix public trust in the process. Also sending out gorgeous booklets to encourage more applications

+1, Sidwell

[Anonymous]

VCU. Got into the honor colleges with merit money but the tour was terrible. It was a great option for our kid's intended path but the slacker tour guide seriously undersold the school.