Schools more difficult to get in than their rankings appear to indicate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vt now has more than 1/2 its class from first gen students. That disadvantages many applicants with college educated parents, disproportionately those from Northern VA. The % first gen at WM and UVA is much lower.

Please provide your citation.

Will this continue with the de-emphasis on DEI? I’ve been wondering if they will change for the upcoming admissions cycle.

Is the focus on first gen and Pell really due to DEI at the institutions, or is it due to the change in ranking methodology at USNWR, which favors schools with higher Pell and first gen percentages?

[Anonymous]

georgeglass wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vt now has more than 1/2 its class from first gen students. That disadvantages many applicants with college educated parents, disproportionately those from Northern VA. The % first gen at WM and UVA is much lower.

Please provide your citation.

Not the other poster, but can provide real numbers!

VT enrolled 943 First Generation students for 2024-25 out of 7,289 in the freshman class. I wasn't a math major, but that's certainly not "more than half."
Source - https://udc.vt.edu/irdata/data/students/admission/index#college

More data for other comments - the longstanding belief that NOVA kids get accepted at lower rates than other localities. You can check that for yourself for any county/city and VA public college here - https://research.schev.edu/enrollment/b8_admissions_locality.asp

DP. Thank you so much for disproving the PP's ridiculous claim that "more than 1/2 its class is first gen." I knew that was a lie as soon as I read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vt now has more than 1/2 its class from first gen students. That disadvantages many applicants with college educated parents, disproportionately those from Northern VA. The % first gen at WM and UVA is much lower.

Please provide your citation.

Will this continue with the de-emphasis on DEI? I’ve been wondering if they will change for the upcoming admissions cycle.

You really need to factcheck before relying on someone's absurd claim with no citations. Thankfully, another poster provided the citation which totally disproved this.

[Anonymous]

Caltech. Yes, it is extremely highly ranked. Even then.

[Anonymous]

Why do people want to go to this wannabe-Stanford?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people want to go to this wannabe-Stanford?

Don’t think Stanford admits well over 40% in state and over 30% overall. No one is making that comparison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD if in state from a W school. 50% does not tell the real picture.

Can you explain what this means?

I assume they mean the 50% acceptance rate does not apply to a number of MCPS schools (the "W schools") where UMD is now taking fewer applicants.

It's true at non-"W" schools as well.

Poolesville went from 62% accepted last year to 44% accepted this year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. Georgia Tech is good at engineering. That's about it. For everything else, UGA.

A similar pair is UNC and NC state. UNC doesn't have an engineering school, NC state has it.

LOL. Good at engineering. Try world class. THE ranks GT at #15 globally for engineering. Numerous other U.S. rankings have GT in top 5.

Best UGA rank is education at #74 with the next best being business in the 100s.

Emory is #43 in medical and #68 in life sciences.

Emory is a better school in terms of number of high-quality offerings, but only GT offers a program that is among the best in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the top LACs since they are so small and there aren't that many of them.

Especially the NESCAC (UConn and Trinity excepted) if you aren't an athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the top LACs since they are so small and there aren't that many of them.

Especially the NESCAC (UConn and Trinity excepted) if you aren't an athlete.

Connecticut College. UConn is in whatever is left of the Big East.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people want to go to this wannabe-Stanford?

Don’t think Stanford admits well over 40% in state and over 30% overall. No one is making that comparison

Maybe look at it. Also it’s trying to excel in things directly related to Stanford’s success. UT is wannabe Stanford

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the top LACs since they are so small and there aren't that many of them.

Especially the NESCAC (UConn and Trinity excepted) if you aren't an athlete.

Connecticut College. UConn is in whatever is left of the Big East.

good catch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wild that this board needs to “well actually” for a week because people can’t get their arms around the idea that the “top” 150ish schools in the country are hard to get into. Like, you people think Emory has no right to say no to a kid with a certain SAT score. Not prestigious enough. Love it.

Im not sure why Emory gets that sentiment, their median is a 1520/34 and at the admitted students day they said that around 80% submitted scores this year so realistically its more selective than schools ranked higher than it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. Georgia Tech is good at engineering. That's about it. For everything else, UGA.

A similar pair is UNC and NC state. UNC doesn't have an engineering school, NC state has it.

LOL. Good at engineering. Try world class. THE ranks GT at #15 globally for engineering. Numerous other U.S. rankings have GT in top 5.

Best UGA rank is education at #74 with the next best being business in the 100s.

Emory is #43 in medical and #68 in life sciences.

Emory is a better school in terms of number of high-quality offerings, but only GT offers a program that is among the best in the world.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tufts is one.
WF?
Tulane.

Tulane, Tufts, Chicago are all in the "ED or bust" category. Either much easier or much harder to get into than rankings indicate, depending how you apply.

Wild differences between these. I literally don’t know anyone that has been rejected from Tulane. Uchicago uber hard and WF middle of the road.

Agree Chicago is the most difficult admit.

But it is also school dependent. Horace Mann sends a large drove to Chicago each year. At these feeders, an average student can get in ED.
At non-feeder high schools, yes it can be "uber hard".

In fairness, Horace Mann is one of the most rigorous HS in the country (I don't have a child there), widely known for grade deflation. Even an average student there is still a top student.

I agree that it is very schools dependent for Chicago. For example, Harvard Westlake sent 16 kids last year to University of Chicago (and presumably others got in since 70 others went to top 15 schools). Its class averages about 260 students.