What has surprised you - as your kid comes to the end of this process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can in fact be a white male non-athlete that is wealthy, but not wealthy enough to be a donor, and get in to a top school. People would say...no that's impossible. All the spots are taken by x y or z.

Take a rigorous schedule in all 5 subject areas, get some leadership, do a sport at your school that you enjoy (or debate or theatre or dance). Get all or nearly all As and a good SAT score. Yes, i know that last part is hard, but you would think from reading this and other internet sources that white males have no chance. Simply not true. The ball's in your court. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I thought that the story from reading DCUM and the internet is that Asian males are discriminated against.

[Anonymous]

My DC, got into a lot of flagship state schools, with high stats, activities, national awards etc. and great essays. Even accepted into
the honors programs with direct admit to the capped majors with scholarships. we would be full pay anyway, no financial aid.

However, was rejected at Northeastern, and waitlisted at Vt ( in-state) . We were perplexed. i actually think schools evaluate the students based whether they would attend or not. she would have not gone to either but its like they have a sixth sense.

[Anonymous]

I was surprised at how good it felt all year that DC ED'd to a loved target and got in. I worried we'd all feel some 'what if' regret at not shooting for the moon, but nope. It's been a great year and DC is super excited to get to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC, got into a lot of flagship state schools, with high stats, activities, national awards etc. and great essays. Even accepted into
the honors programs with direct admit to the capped majors with scholarships. we would be full pay anyway, no financial aid.

However, was rejected at Northeastern, and waitlisted at Vt ( in-state) . We were perplexed. i actually think schools evaluate the students based whether they would attend or not. she would have not gone to either but its like they have a sixth sense.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Northeastern yield protects, but VT is a state school. Do any state schools yield protect? They don’t in CA, where admissions may seem perplexing because there’s a mandate to serve students of all CA school districts not just the highest performing ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC, got into a lot of flagship state schools, with high stats, activities, national awards etc. and great essays. Even accepted into
the honors programs with direct admit to the capped majors with scholarships. we would be full pay anyway, no financial aid.

However, was rejected at Northeastern, and waitlisted at Vt ( in-state) . We were perplexed. i actually think schools evaluate the students based whether they would attend or not. she would have not gone to either but its like they have a sixth sense.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Northeastern yield protects, but VT is a state school. Do any state schools yield protect? They don’t in CA, where admissions may seem perplexing because there’s a mandate to serve students of all CA school districts not just the highest performing ones.

For example, just last week at DC’s school, a kid who got into Stanford REA was admitted UC Davis for CS while another kid who got into MIT EA was waitlisted at the same school for the same major. The MIT kid was not yield protected; the Stanford kid just edged them out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I was surprised how mean and judgmental people can be about other people’s kids. Adult snark is one thing, mocking teenagers quite another. Regardless of the anonymous nature of this forum, I don’t understand why anyone feels the need to belittle a high schooler’s character, intellect, or choice of ECs, college, major, etc.

I admit anonymously to being overly harsh about a few kids who appear to have waltzed into tippy top schools to play sports but have not done anything close to the academic work my kid and friends have done (many of whom are still waiting for decisions).

There are a lot of students who are top academics. They aren’t rare. Talented athletes are rare so they are sought after. Sports are big money in this country. The universities make quite a bit of money from their athletes. There’s no point in getting upset.

Division 3 says hello. We are not talking about Alabama Div. 1 football or Stanford Olympic athletes. Given that Williams is 40% athletes, no, it is not at all rare. BTW, if your kid wants to go to Alabama, the athletes do not get in the way of your admission. In fact, there are fewer athletes there than Amherst College.

And the athletes at Williams do not get in your way either. Changing the acceptance rate from 6% to 10% means that the answer is still no for the vast majority of applicants and that a huge number of kids with equivalent stats were denied. And most athletes at Williams will have academics similar to typical admitted students meaning nobody lost out to anyone "less deserving".

Cutting athletes in 1/2 means 20% more “equally deserving kids” who are not athletes get in. This is a zero sum game — and not too difficult to understand.

Really isn't hard to understand if you look at the entire picture. Athletics is important to Williams, very important. I understand that you don't like it but they are an institutional priority at Williams.

Athletics is a huge priority at all of the Elite D3 schools because they value broad excellence and the skills that athletes bring (leadership, determination, grit) are highly valued. The combination of high academic capability and high athletic capability isn't common but and the applicants that have both tend to do very well. These schools want those kids, they really want them.

You really won't like what follows:

Who has the largest athletics program in D3? MIT
Who has won the most Directors Cups at the D3 level? Williams
Who has the second most? JHU
Who is in the top 10 this year?
JHU
Middlebury
W&L
Tufts
Emory
Williams
Amherst
CMU
WashU
MIT

NYU, Wesleyan, and CMS are the next 3.

Williams will never slack off on athletic recruiting because their peers aren't going to slack off. They will take 3.9UW, 1500 and very good athlete all day because that is an exceptional candidate and they are lucky to get them. Cutting athletic recruiting wouldn't mean fewer athletes, it would just mean weaker teams and which is in conflict with Williams institutional priority which is dominating the Directors Cup standings.

Athletics is a key priority for virtually every elite D3 school.

I’m a PP. I have no issue with a 3.9(high rigor), 1500, good athlete (i hope with some leadership) getting into Williams, etc.

I do have a problem with 3.5 (low rigor), TO athlete with no other activities getting into T20 schools.

Athletes are great, but no one else with one activity and those stats is getting into T20.

Just to be clear, you are jealous of a kid that spent thousands of hours more than your kid improving his/her athletic craft and is admitted to those schools?

Let me tell you. I have been a recruiter for the 2 of the top 5 IBs and the top MC group over the last 20 years. In all cases we would ALWAYS take the Athlete from the top schools, even if their GPA was a 3.0 than the non athlete with a 4.0. Very simple. You can teach that drive….once you remove the athletics out of the way, they have shown to be on avg, much better workers than the non-athletes….complain all you want. That is a fact.

This is yet another reason why top unhooked kids need to avoid SLACs with 30-40% athletes. Go to Chicago…

Unhooked students are becoming more savvy about where they apply ED or SCEA. It's not just Williams and Amherst that are losing exceptional students. So many of the more accomplished unhooked students now are applying ED where it matters. I'm coming to believe that most Harvard and Williams students admitted in the RD round were likely rejected in the ED round from Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Rice, Johns Hopkins and the other schools were strong unhooked ED applicants have a meaningful chance.

I think this is almost certainly correct.

[Anonymous]

What surprised me is how many "top" students cannot read a novel, cannot write a coherent paragraph (let alone essay), cannot have a conversation or interview without staring at their phone and cannot think critically without being told how to do so.

If you kid can do the above they will get into top universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is arguing that athletes aren't super motivated and focused. But so are kids who maintain high GPAs in really hard classes, or the kid who volunteers 800 hours a year, or the musician, or someone who has to work to support their family.

I think it's helpful to remind EVERYONE that there are MANY different admissions processes happening simultaneously and different groups of students are held to different standards. It's the school's right to admit whomever they want for whatever reason they want.

Just be aware that there are different roads to the same place.

Yes, but those others aren't consistently accused of being "unworthy" or of having "unfair advantages" by certain groups the way that athletes are here on DCUM.

It's because the academic bar is lowered for athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised at how good it felt all year that DC ED'd to a loved target and got in. I worried we'd all feel some 'what if' regret at not shooting for the moon, but nope. It's been a great year and DC is super excited to get to college.

Same!!!! Highly recommend ED'ing if your kid KNOWS without a shadow of a doubt it's the place for them. Has really made for a relatively fun and stress-free Senior year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an athlete the admission process was insane.

Coaches approaching children to go to their school only to ghost them 3 weeks later. They had to do an immense amount of interviews, visits, showcases.

You only hear about the top athlete and how easy it is for them but the others it’s crazy.

The admission process was 3 full years.

100%

For my sons' sport it is really self-recruiting which is a full-time job. We weren't will to do all of that work--for a 'maybe' chance. The sheer amount of emails, creating videos, marketing, etc. that people do is crazy and so few in their sport get a scholarship--let alone an admissions boost to a top academic school.

My kids put in the work on the field, and extra hours---but we 100% told them to concentrate on academics--make a list of the schools that fit your area of interest and where you would actually like to spend 4 years--and work in getting in on your own academic merit. The portal and age of players has created a completely different scene. Kids that weren't recruits in HS are playing in college and getting $ through the portal--and they are recruiting less and less directly out of HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAT really doesn’t matter so much anymore.

Disagree. I’m convinced DC’s 1500+ sat score got them into top 30 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an athlete the admission process was insane.

Coaches approaching children to go to their school only to ghost them 3 weeks later. They had to do an immense amount of interviews, visits, showcases.

You only hear about the top athlete and how easy it is for them but the others it’s crazy.

The admission process was 3 full years.

100%

For my sons' sport it is really self-recruiting which is a full-time job. We weren't will to do all of that work--for a 'maybe' chance. The sheer amount of emails, creating videos, marketing, etc. that people do is crazy and so few in their sport get a scholarship--let alone an admissions boost to a top academic school.

My kids put in the work on the field, and extra hours---but we 100% told them to concentrate on academics--make a list of the schools that fit your area of interest and where you would actually like to spend 4 years--and work in getting in on your own academic merit. The portal and age of players has created a completely different scene. Kids that weren't recruits in HS are playing in college and getting $ through the portal--and they are recruiting less and less directly out of HS.

I have a ton of respect for student-athletes as it seriously sounds like so much work. I’m only half joking when I say my DC got into their T5 “the easy way” - by just being a great student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC, got into a lot of flagship state schools, with high stats, activities, national awards etc. and great essays. Even accepted into
the honors programs with direct admit to the capped majors with scholarships. we would be full pay anyway, no financial aid.

However, was rejected at Northeastern, and waitlisted at Vt ( in-state) . We were perplexed. i actually think schools evaluate the students based whether they would attend or not. she would have not gone to either but its like they have a sixth sense.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Northeastern yield protects, but VT is a state school. Do any state schools yield protect? They don’t in CA, where admissions may seem perplexing because there’s a mandate to serve students of all CA school districts not just the highest performing ones.

Michigan yield protects in the EA round from some private schools. Very top kids do not get in but kids in the next decile do. It happens every year. Some top kids then get in RD after writing the LOCI and saying that they'll attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can in fact be a white male non-athlete that is wealthy, but not wealthy enough to be a donor, and get in to a top school. People would say...no that's impossible. All the spots are taken by x y or z.

Take a rigorous schedule in all 5 subject areas, get some leadership, do a sport at your school that you enjoy (or debate or theatre or dance). Get all or nearly all As and a good SAT score. Yes, i know that last part is hard, but you would think from reading this and other internet sources that white males have no chance. Simply not true. The ball's in your court. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

What?!? The college admissions system was designed for white males! For centuries, they've had a monopoly on it. Between legacy (due to longstanding admissions advantage), athletic recruits at top academic schools, large donors, and usual ol'boy network, white males will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What has surprised you - that you were clueless about?

That 5 schools would accept my 2.5, 1100 troublemaker.