All these rejections and deferrals reported on DCUM and CC are shocking and discouraging

[Anonymous]

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Not a parent of a senior here, so please bear with me - So, how does that work, though? When I'm seeing reports of kids with 4.0+ GPAs that, at least according to parents, have good ECs being rejected from Penn State, for example, how was that not them being rejected by a safety?

The Penn State system received 95,999 applications. There are just too many high stat kids applying to the same schools, for the same majors.

Disappointed that they couldn't generate just one more application.

Isn’t engineering Penn State’s most popular major? All of my kids went there for math and had no problem getting in. Maybe change majors.

You couldn't find a current thread to troll? This thread is from a year ago.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the test-optional mess, OP. The gap year was only for 2021. Test-optional has meant many more applicants to all schools that have the Common or Coalition App and as a result some high stats kids are deferred/rejected. They get lost in the shuffle, essentially. TO is not an advantage for selective schools unless the profile is highly unusual and the score would only detract from that, so it's not that going TO is better, quite the contrary. It's that there are too many applicants applying "just to see" and it's hard to admissions officers to triage. This is a self-perpetuating cycle as high-achieving kids then start to apply to more and more schools (shotgunning) to be sure of admission to at least one - which from their perspective is entirely understandable.

The good news is test optional is creating wonderful cohorts at the colleges. It's been a win, overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're thinking about it all wrong. There are many more great schools, students, and professors than there were when we were kids. That's cause for celebration, not despair. It's only if you refuse to broaden your view to acknowledge that improvement beyond the traditional elites that things look grim. Adjust your thinking to fit reality for the sake of your own mental health--and especially for your kid's.

+1000

Look outside the T25 and your kid will have many excellent choices. Many of those will give excellent merit as well

But if you choose to only apply to Reach/High Reach schools, you will end up disappointed in most cases. Find the true targets and true safeties that your kid loves and you won't have many concerns.

This is the key. People spend too much time looking at reaches. DD didn't get into her reaches but didn't care because by the time acceptances rolled in her favorite school was a safety.

[Anonymous]

I felt that collegevine gave us an accurate picture of how admissions has gone. You enter your academic and EC profile. I didn't adjust for a tougher school, since in DMV there are lots of tough schools.

Sure, it's not perfect and sometimes makes major errors. But for my kid it's been right so far, in that collegevine 20% chance of getting into the reach schools means A LOT of rejections--and one admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great point about many schools going TO. That said, I'm also seeing an incredible number of students with 1400+ SAT scores. I get that I need to not draw from my experience in the 90s when it was rare to hear of someone getting such high or near perfect scores but what is up with so many high scores these days? Has the scoring changed since I remember it? Or has the test itself gotten easier? Or maybe those are the only ones we hear about on here?

The test was "normalized" in 1995 (and then taken to the 2400 and then back to the 1600 but the normalized concept still stands). So if you were pre1995, you can add 100-150 to your own SAT to get "todays equivalent". So yes, there were not many scores in the 1400/1500s back then. Also, not nearly as many did test prep back then. We took the PSAT junior year, then took the SAT (PSAT was our prep) and were likely done. Some people took the test a 2nd time and that's it. If we did any prep it was a few hours, not 6 months of intensive prep.

So if you had a 1300+ score, you'd be 1400-1450+ now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been lurking on this board and College Confidential since DC started freshman year in the fall and I am so shocked and sad for so many of what seem to be stellar students on paper getting deferred or even outright rejected from what used to be deemed "safety' schools. I know we're in a bit of a bubble in the DC area and it can be more competitive trying to get into certain schools from certain school systems (or at least that's what I'm told) but it seems to be especially bad this year? Do you think some of it is a result of COVID with '21 and '22 students taking gap years, and will normalize over time or do you think it will only get worse?

Parents say that every year.. this year is especially bad?? No its been like this

Yup, it's always been like this. It is somewhat worse with the common app, makes it much easier to apply to 15+ colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been lurking on this board and College Confidential since DC started freshman year in the fall and I am so shocked and sad for so many of what seem to be stellar students on paper getting deferred or even outright rejected from what used to be deemed "safety' schools. I know we're in a bit of a bubble in the DC area and it can be more competitive trying to get into certain schools from certain school systems (or at least that's what I'm told) but it seems to be especially bad this year? Do you think some of it is a result of COVID with '21 and '22 students taking gap years, and will normalize over time or do you think it will only get worse?

It’s been hard for years. You, like many parents, are just out of touch and remembering how it was in 2000.

[Anonymous]

My heart is starting to hurt a little for my senior, who so far is only in at safeties and has been deferred or rejected from the targets and reaches that have made decisions so far. DC is a super interesting and intelligent kid who - I thought - had some pretty good essays that showcased their strengths and interests. Stats are strong. It seems like DC’s friends who had higher SATs but took less rigorous courses and spent most of their time looking at screens rather than doing interesting things did better. I’m talking mid-1500s vs high 1400s, so all highly qualified kids. It’s very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Y'all, this thread is from last spring, class of 2023

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I felt that collegevine gave us an accurate picture of how admissions has gone. You enter your academic and EC profile. I didn't adjust for a tougher school, since in DMV there are lots of tough schools.

Sure, it's not perfect and sometimes makes major errors. But for my kid it's been right so far, in that collegevine 20% chance of getting into the reach schools means A LOT of rejections--and one admit.

I’m on my second kid applying to college, and found CollegeVine helpful in chancing both times. Even where I was surprised that cv thought something was a target rather than a reach, my older kid (HS class of 21) did indeed get accepted. Pretty damn good for a free service.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been lurking on this board and College Confidential since DC started freshman year in the fall and I am so shocked and sad for so many of what seem to be stellar students on paper getting deferred or even outright rejected from what used to be deemed "safety' schools. I know we're in a bit of a bubble in the DC area and it can be more competitive trying to get into certain schools from certain school systems (or at least that's what I'm told) but it seems to be especially bad this year? Do you think some of it is a result of COVID with '21 and '22 students taking gap years, and will normalize over time or do you think it will only get worse?

Parents say that every year.. this year is especially bad?? No its been like this

+1. Yes, parents say that every.single.year. Process hasn’t changed and it isn’t any worse. What has changed is now it’s your kid’s turn to go thru the meat grinder and that makes it look and feel much worse than years before.

That isn’t correct, the test optional years have been harder given the huge increase in applications to top schools. Thar said, this year is pretty similar to last year in terms of results.

It is true. Parents always come up with some reason they want to believe. This cycle, it's because TO. A couple years back, it was because Covid, a few years before that, more kids applying, then before that it was Common App...etc. Believe what you want to believe, but it's always the same.

Except we can all look at objective information such as numbers of applications received and acceptance rates. It’s a fact that acceptive rates have plummeted over the past three years.

That is true in part because kids apply to a ridiculous number of schools. But each year, some people get shut out because they don't make balanced/realistic lists.

If you don't believe me, spend time reading postings from past years, which say what a particularly bad year it is for their poor child. The "horror stories" of not getting in anywhere or having to contemplate attending a (God forbid) safety school, with students who are clearly not good enough to sit in class with the likes of their son or daughter.

+1000

And typically many don't really search for good safeties. They like to claim "there are not real safeties for my special snowflake, they are too good for those schools" well those are the kids stuck scrambling when they don't get into the 15+ reaches with single digit acceptance rates that they applied to. There are plenty of great schools in the 50-150 range, in reality if your kid has the resume for a T25, they will get into most schools in the 50-100 range, many with good merit. So spend time finding good target and reach schools that your kid would actually be excited to attend. Otherwise you will be scrambling for "leftovers" come April/May and I can assure you wont have as many good choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone knows.
Test optional policies have increased the pool of qualified applicants to the top schools by many fold.

Also, the class applying this year had Covid-era grading for 2 years of the 3 that are considered for applications. In DCPS (for instance) the lowest grade a kid could get was a B if he/she did any work. MCPS bumped all final grades up by one letter grade. Lots of stuff like this happened all around the country in giant school districts (so hundreds of thousands of students impacted).

The class of 2025 will be the first that will have all 4 years back in a classroom with normal grading scales.

That is such a good point. My 2025 kid has decent grades, but not straight As, and goes to a school that doesn't weight any classes. So her gpa can't compete with the 4.0 that even schools with a high admissions rates are reporting as their average admitted gpa.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My 3.7/1300s (and submitted) kid did well. My feeling is that some people are overestimating their odds given the stats, AND not playing the ED game if they are in the fortunate position to do so. ED1 to a reach, fine. If it doesn’t work out and it’s a deferral, ED2 somewhere more reasonable for gods sake unless your kid is satisfied with a couple safeties they hopefully got into EA. Don’t hang around waiting on the ED1 deferral which is likely NOT to happen. Play the odds. Our kid wanted to wait out RD from the ED1, we and her counselor strongly advised ED2 to her 2nd choice, and she got in and was THRILLED. Just my two cents from our experience.

Love how you throw that in there. As you know, many people are shut out of this due to not being in a position to do so.

Have you run the NPC? If the college is not affordable, it is such whether ED or RD, so there is no reason you cannot apply ED if there is a clear first choice.

It's not really that black and white.

And furthermore, if it's not affordable at all, they are shut out altogether. The point is that the MONEY matters. A lot. Even if they are smart enough, capable enough, and ambitious enough to want a top school. You all come on here like is so super easy for everyone to just apply full pay at the top schools.

It isn't. And that should be acknowledged as a problem more widely in this country. Esp. when going to a low ranked school can keep you perpetually in the plebe class. Look at all the smug opinions of the various schools on this board . . . .

The thing is everyone is subject to the same financial aid formula. So you don't need to be full pay--you just need to save what is estimated to be reasonable based on your income/assets. And there is room for exacerbating expenses like medical expenses to be figured in. You may not like that number, but we're all subjected to the same financial assessment. ED doesn't require being full pay--it requires being able to pay what you are estimated to need based on a federal and sometimes also institutional formula. We're all expected to save some, cash flow some and borrow some.

And there's little evidence that going to a low-ranked school holds you back. Students that could get into a T20 school have similar outcomes if they go to even a much lower ranked school. On average the only real social mobility factor from college ranking is if you are low-income and go to a top school. Otherwise it really is the student not the school.

You are still making the point. "You just need to save." Oh, is that all?

No, I am not. I'm making the point that the financial aid formula is applied to ALL of us on what is reasonable to save, pay, borrow based on our incomes. I personally found the financial aid formula tight, but not impossible--and we're in what is considered one of the "worst" positions in terms of financial aid-- moderate income for a HCOLA of 150k -- after completing graduate school so not having a lot of time even at that income and not much time to grow assets. So bottom edge of the donut hole. We've been saving what we can since our kids were born and don't have any grandparent help. But our kid opted to ED at a school because the NPC suggested the financial aid would be reasonable. We pay 40k/yr all in which for our income/assets is tight, but doable. Our kid is taking out federal student loans, but we're not borrowing anything else so the loan burden will be reasonable. If we had a lower income, we'd have to pay less. If we had a higher income, we'd be expected to pay more. If for whatever reason we couldn't or didn't save, our kid would go to a more affordable school.

[Anonymous]

Started by Anonymous, 02/23/2023

[Anonymous]

Well, we are in suburban public HS in NC. There might be some disappointments with individual results, but kids are still getting in MIT, Duke, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Williams, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, and even UNC Chapel Hill. Some as TOs.