So much disappointment this week

[Anonymous]

I think people forget that racial minorities are a small portion of the American population. When you get to the college campus that your child has been accepted to in the fall you'll notice this:

Most seats go to:
Upper Middle Class/Wealthy Donors or athletic students
Well connected children of Alum (politics or some other hook)
International students who can afford full price tuition
Middle Class White Students (from flyover students--Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma)
LGB students
Under-represented minorities of color

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop fixating on the same 50 schools.

You can do everything “right” and not be accepted when there are tens of thousands applying for a few thousand spots at these big name schools. That’s just how it is at those schools. There will always be some disappointment at getting rejected, but if you go into the process knowing those schools have thousands of qualified applicants, you wouldn’t be shocked.

The disappointment is avoidable. Expand the horizons and don’t look at schools that will eagerly accept your kid as “lesser” institutions compared to the big names.

My kids went to "lesser" schools, and are doing GREAT!! Accepted at #1 very prestigious grad program from the not-at-all prestigious undergrad. Second child has a great, high-paying job directly out of the non-prestigious college. Both kids did extremely well (summa cum laude) at their respective schools. And, more important, both kids were very happy at their schools. They were disappointed at first when they weren't able to go to higher ranked colleges where they were accepted (not enough $$), but in the end it all worked out. Fear not, parents!! Your kid will do great at a "lesser" college!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all these “high stat” kids, how many of you are also submitting 4’s or 5’s from
Your AP tests to show that you actually earned the A? Thay may be the difference in many cases. Lots and lots of public high schools are handing out A’s way too easily. And as for SAT scores, does anyone find it weird that 1400
And 1500 scores seem like a dime a dozen these days? The curve is unreal which is even making those seem less valuable. You have to show you earned those A’s so you need AP Scores and you need excellent teacher recommendations.

Mine has many 5s and 2 4s. And near perfect SATs. And a good gpa and activities… people need to stop trying to find fault with these kids who were rejected or WL and instead understand how opaque/random the process is nowadays.

What schools was your kid rejected from?

It's hard to believe that a 1600/4.0 kid with lots of ECs, sports, etc., is getting rejected from UMich and Georgetown. Something's wrong.

[Anonymous]

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I really believe wait lists are going to move like never before given the surge in # of apps per student and you can attend only one school. I think schools will dramatically undershoot yield and need to go to the wait list.

I think schools accepted significant numbers ED, but agree wait lists will move. Unfortunately, we likely won't see movement before 5/1, when deposits are due.

Not true. DS was WL at a school and 1 week later moved to accepted. This was 2019 but it’s not uncommon to hear back well Before May 1.

Please. 2019 may as well have been in another century. This and the last election cycle are markedly different from the ones before.

Sincerely,

Parent with relative in the admissions business

Exactly. Test optional has revolutionized admissions.

I am not going to be PC - how do the truly intelligent and hard working kids stand out? And yes, I think test optional kids are a bit lazy and not intelligent.

They can try, but it doesn’t necessarily matter.

2 kids at our small private just got into Northwestern. They are in all regular classes, with a mix of A’s and Bs. They are not athletes, dancers, musicians. They hold no class office (despite running). They need FA. But they are Hispanic. The (white) all advanced class straight A class rep, musician, etc. is waitlisted. Holistic review is really about advancing demographic priorities. It is what it is.

Armchair analysis. Unless you reviewed their applications you have no real idea how they stood out. You go for the easy thing by noting their ethnicity. Because your sense of entitlement makes you unable to imagine they might have something interesting or unique to offer beyond demographics.

I say this as a mother of an intellectually brilliant white kid who got rejected or wait listed to 5 of their top choices. It is what it is.

Ps it’s kind of creepy you know those kids’ grades.

Everyone knows everything. These kids blab and complain. As you can see from their failure to be elected to any class office, they were not well-liked or respected by classmates or teachers (one was kicked out of dc’s chem class basically). So clearly not great recs. Funny that you insist on thinking they have some hidden charms just bc they are Hispanic though.

Almost as funny as you assuming they only got in because they’re Hispanic.

Not PP but it’s hard to fathom any other reason these kids got in over the others. Just reading the stats leads one to that conclusion. I think many people underestimate how badly elite schools want Latinx students, especially those who are immigrants, 1st gen or 1st to college.

Yes, esp a school like NU, which is basically the middle of nowhere. They probably feel they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get Hispanic kids. I posted abt them and 1 of them was also admitted to Wash U, which is similar to NU in some ways. They were rejected to Duke and Brown ED.

Did you just say call Chicago 'the middle of nowhere'?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tough week: mostly rejections. 34ACT, IB

UCLA - reject
Berkeley- reject
Hopkins- reject
UNC- waitlist
USC- in

Congrats on USC, and wow, waitlisted at UNC isn't bad!! Your kid will do great!! Don't worry!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's flat out depressing. I feel like I failed my child and I am not sure what else could have been done but all those years of striving for excellence, working so hard, dong so many ECs, choosing the hardest classes possible to impress colleges - it was all for nothing. With a virtual perfect academic record and a host of passionate ECs, he's rejected/wl everywhere he really wants to go.

He is in a safety schools that literally the class clowns get accepted to. I'm so sick of talking to people about it, everyone in our community assumed he was going to a T5 school - he is practically famous for being so smart - like photographic memory genius smart and they ask me about it constantly. They cant conceal their shock when I tell them the options. I cant deal with the reactions anymore.

This is a sad post.

I hope your child has better luck on Ivy Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for all these parents complaining about “lesser” kids taking up spots in the top tier schools. If top ranked schools are admitting all these unqualified applicants, why do you want YOUR kids to attend these schools that obviously have such low standards? Seems like if all these brilliant and high stats kids are only getting into safety schools, all those safety schools will be full of other brilliant and high stats kids and they’ll be crushing those dumb Yale and Amherst kids in the jobs and grad school markets.. So why do you want them to be in schools with kids you look down on anyway? If the top tier schools are doing it wrong, surely their reputations will take a tumble and you’d kid would be better off not having that diploma.

So the market will tell. If these schools truly are not selecting the best and brightest, they’ll lose their luster. Or we will see that they actually know what they are doing in looking beyond grades and test scores.

I've been hearing that the top liberal arts schools (not CMU or MIT) are choosing kids who don't have perfect grades/scores. They're looking for individuals with potential. There are underachievers who really excel in college who get into T20 colleges these days. I think parents whose kids have perfect grades, scores, ECs forget that there is some alchemy to this process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This makes sense, but it seems hard to gauge if your kid has a .01 % shot or a 20% shot with the black box of holistic admissions. Many people are sharing that their kid had stats above average for a school and were rejected. and it is happening again and again as the rejections roll in.

Yep +1

It IS hard to gauge. So, I would argue, it makes sense to assume your kid is in the 0.1% category and plan accordingly.

Find a safety your kid can live with, preferably one with rolling admissions or EA, and your kid should make sure the school knows of their interest.

And make sure you, the parent, demonstrate interest as well. Your kid needs to see your interest. Don't indulge dream school nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This makes sense, but it seems hard to gauge if your kid has a .01 % shot or a 20% shot with the black box of holistic admissions. Many people are sharing that their kid had stats above average for a school and were rejected. and it is happening again and again as the rejections roll in.

Yep +1

It IS hard to gauge. So, I would argue, it makes sense to assume your kid is in the 0.1% category and plan accordingly.

Find a safety your kid can live with, preferably one with rolling admissions or EA, and your kid should make sure the school knows of their interest.

And make sure you, the parent, demonstrate interest as well. Your kid needs to see your interest. Don't indulge dream school nonsense.

My kid got waitlisted at Case Western. Her stats were far higher than CW's averages, but she didn't visit the school and didn't show any interest other than applying. I found it baffling, but I'm guessing they didn't want to increase their admit rate for a kid who is unlikely to attend?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP, we feel your pain. Our high-stats FCPS DC (4.41w/3.89uw, mid 1500s SAT, full IB diploma, most rigorous classes) was rejected or waitlisted at every single reach/hard target this week (Rice, WashU, NU, Mich, UCLA, Berkley etc.). Looks like the figurative University of Illinois for us.

These are all reaches. What were her matches/safeties? UVA or WM are at least as good as those schools, and a whole lot cheaper.

Message to parents of future applicants - help your kids have more realistic expectations

Our matches/safeties were Wisconsin, W&M, Pitt and a few others. DC is insisting on OOS--does not want to go to W&M and refused to apply to UVA (we insisted DC apply to one VA school and they grudgingly picked W&M). You make an excellent point about managing expectations. I was thinking that since DC was well within statistical range for every reach one would pan out since we applied to several--DC was rejected at an Ivy ED and UChi ED2. To DCs credit, they are accepting the news better than I am. DC worked really hard and we wanted them to be rewarded for it.

The was a big error in your assumptions that many, many, many parents make. But statistically, applying to 10 schools with very low acceptance rates doesn't give your kid better odds of admission than applying to 1 school with very low acceptance rates.

Also "we" didn't apply; your kid did.

Actually, applying to 10 schools with very low acceptance rates does give a kid a better chance of admissions than applying to one, but not as much as people think.

If a kid applies to a school with a 5 percent acceptance rate, if we know nothing else about that kid (hooks, RD/ED, etc, stats, ECs), our best guess is that they have a 5% chance of getting in.

If a kid applies to 10 schools, each with a 5 percent acceptance rate, their chance of getting in to at least one school is NOT 10 x 5%--that is the error that many people make.

Again, without knowing anything else and assuming college decisions are "independent events"--that is, acceptance to one is not correlated with acceptance to another--their chance of getting in to at least one school is 1-the odds of not getting into any of the ten school = 1-95%^10 = 40 percent.

But here's the thing...and again, this is where people get in trouble--that 5% acceptance rate is the rate we all have to rely on but doesn't really tell us the odds for my kid based on their profile, nor does it tell you the odds for yours. In reality, the odds for my kid getting in during the ED round might be closer to 2%.

Even bright people do not grasp this.

Relatedly, college decisions are really not independent events. As noted, the 5% admission rate is an average-- some applications have closer to 10 or 20% likelihood of admission, while others have closer to 0%. The kid with the 0.1% chance of admission to a top rated school probably has close to zero chance at any top school. The kid with 20% chance probably has a higher likelihood of admission at all the top schools. The "standout" application at Harvard will stand out everywhere.

I think two things are getting conflated here:

1) The overall acceptance rate (5 percent in the PP's example) is NOT necessarily the likelihood of any one kid getting in. That has to do with a lot of different factors. For some kids it might be 2% for others 20% but none of us know the "true" likelihood for our kid.

2) The independence of events is a bit different- that has to do with whether admissions to one school is independent from/i.e., not conditional on, admissions to another school. Regardless of your kids "true" likelihood of getting in (whether it is 2% or 20%), it is hopefully the case that schools make their decisions independently from one another.

That's not what I mean by "independent." The schools absolutely make their own decisions independently of one another. But they are looking for similar things, so being accepted at one top school gives you pretty good information about your attractiveness to other top schools.

A completely independent event, statistically, is like having a winning lottery ticket. Having one winning ticket doesn't increase your chances of buying another winning ticket. But getting admitted to Yale? Statistically, your chances of being admitted to Harvard just went up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for all these parents complaining about “lesser” kids taking up spots in the top tier schools. If top ranked schools are admitting all these unqualified applicants, why do you want YOUR kids to attend these schools that obviously have such low standards? Seems like if all these brilliant and high stats kids are only getting into safety schools, all those safety schools will be full of other brilliant and high stats kids and they’ll be crushing those dumb Yale and Amherst kids in the jobs and grad school markets.. So why do you want them to be in schools with kids you look down on anyway? If the top tier schools are doing it wrong, surely their reputations will take a tumble and you’d kid would be better off not having that diploma.

So the market will tell. If these schools truly are not selecting the best and brightest, they’ll lose their luster. Or we will see that they actually know what they are doing in looking beyond grades and test scores.

I've been hearing that the top liberal arts schools (not CMU or MIT) are choosing kids who don't have perfect grades/scores. They're looking for individuals with potential. There are underachievers who really excel in college who get into T20 colleges these days. I think parents whose kids have perfect grades, scores, ECs forget that there is some alchemy to this process.

I laughed out loud. Not our experience all. 4.5 and 1500 or don’t bother was my takeaway this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This makes sense, but it seems hard to gauge if your kid has a .01 % shot or a 20% shot with the black box of holistic admissions. Many people are sharing that their kid had stats above average for a school and were rejected. and it is happening again and again as the rejections roll in.

Yep +1

It IS hard to gauge. So, I would argue, it makes sense to assume your kid is in the 0.1% category and plan accordingly.

Find a safety your kid can live with, preferably one with rolling admissions or EA, and your kid should make sure the school knows of their interest.

And make sure you, the parent, demonstrate interest as well. Your kid needs to see your interest. Don't indulge dream school nonsense.

My kid got waitlisted at Case Western. Her stats were far higher than CW's averages, but she didn't visit the school and didn't show any interest other than applying. I found it baffling, but I'm guessing they didn't want to increase their admit rate for a kid who is unlikely to attend?

This is absolutely a thing. Visit your safety! Send an email asking about local events. I am convinced they know who is checking the portal, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's flat out depressing. I feel like I failed my child and I am not sure what else could have been done but all those years of striving for excellence, working so hard, dong so many ECs, choosing the hardest classes possible to impress colleges - it was all for nothing. With a virtual perfect academic record and a host of passionate ECs, he's rejected/wl everywhere he really wants to go.

He is in a safety schools that literally the class clowns get accepted to. I'm so sick of talking to people about it, everyone in our community assumed he was going to a T5 school - he is practically famous for being so smart - like photographic memory genius smart and they ask me about it constantly. They cant conceal their shock when I tell them the options. I cant deal with the reactions anymore.

This is a sad post.

I hope your child has better luck on Ivy Day.

Please come back and tell us for Ivy Day, fingers crossed for you. But even if it doesn’t work out next week, it wasn’t for nothing! He is going to do great and be a star at where he ends up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people forget that racial minorities are a small portion of the American population. When you get to the college campus that your child has been accepted to in the fall you'll notice this:

Most seats go to:
Upper Middle Class/Wealthy Donors or athletic students
Well connected children of Alum (politics or some other hook)
International students who can afford full price tuition
Middle Class White Students (from flyover students--Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma)
LGB studentsEven Gen
Under-represented minorities of color

This is kind of true, and kind of absurd. First, you are 100% right that schools give the most preferential treatment to recruited athletic students (who tend to be white and wealthy), wealthy donors and legacy students, and full-pay kids generally.

Second, it's nutty to suggest that kids get an admissions boost because they are LGBTQ. This is such a weird bigoted idea that keeps getting bandied about (and I'm pretty sure you are the DCUM poster who keeps suggesting this). Gen Z has a self-identified LGBTQ of over 20%, so I assume it's even younger for the college set. You are just unfamiliar and obviously deeply uncomfortable with that, in suggesting that it's a plus (all of which has weird vibes of the "they are predators trying to convert my straight kid"). Eww.

Third, when you suggest that URM students have some kind of admissions extra, you do understand that at most schools, URM are way smaller than their percentage of the population, at least nationwide, right? The last census - which wildly undercounted racial minorities - show that POC are 25% of the country. And if you think that persons of color who have been systematically and structurally discriminated against over centuries (leading to less structural wealth and fewer opportunities to pass down to their children) deserve an additional leg up, that doesn't seem in any way surprising to me that a school would aim for a higher percentage.

I hope that when you get to your end of this you take some time to try to examine your feelings about this. Because from the outside, there seems to be a lot of assumptions grounded in animus.

[Anonymous]

Maybe also ask your kid about the rationality of what you're saying. Most kids from DMV are affirmatively looking for schools with a high degree of racial, economic, and geographic diversity. Plus international students. That is viewed as a plus, not a minus. Indeed, there's a whole book about this - "Who Gets In and Why" - that breaks this down for you. The biggest affirmative action at small expensive schools is for serious athletes, especially in sports that rich white kids play.

But there is still plenty of room for other kinds of kids. They just need to bring something different to the table. I hear that you are feeling a lot of grievance but I'm finding it a little hard to tell just what the grievance is beyond "my kid is better than all other kids, and school shouldn't be allowed to balance the classes of who they select, without regard to majors, backgrounds, interests and activities, or other forms of diversity of any sort."