Class of '26 Instagram College Decisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dalton sent a ton of kids to Vanderbilt which has lower percentage of acceptance than Harvard right now. HYP are in some flux, curious to see whether the numbers trend in this direction. A friend of mine’s daughter went to Duke over Harvard and Yale.

Vandy is no where near as selective as Harvard/Yale/Princeton or even most of the T10. Still test optimal and low acceptance rate is due to Vandy having both ED1 and ED2 which Ivies don’t do.

I think this is more a reflection of the dynamic where these schools, some more than others, are pushing unhooked kids towards good but non-HYP schools with ED1 as a risk-adjusted strategic move. So that’s why you see a lot of Chicago/Duke/Vandy type of schools these days. Horace Mann especially does this.

I wonder what they do for kids in financial aid. Presumably, those universities are feasting on private school ED1 kids because they provide a good cash influx along with the strong-enough academics.

Financial aid kids applying ED lose the opportunity to compare package but generally private schools (especially TT private schools) recommending ED to a particular college have got a good view into what level of financial assistance an applicant might receive.

[Anonymous]

Vanderbilt and Yale have the same average SAT scores for incoming applicants.

[Anonymous]

Isn't Vanderbilt still test optional so reported scores tend to be overstated in comparison to real averages?

FWIW, I think Vandy is a great school and I also see smart kids choosing it over some of Ivies but a super low admission rate is clearly a product of their strategy (that encourages a high volume of applications).

[Anonymous]

All fair — it’s just when I was applying out in the 90s, the idea Vanderbilt would be on the same list as these places would have seemed crazy. Columbia was regaining popularity it has now blown again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vanderbilt and Yale have the same average SAT scores for incoming applicants.

This is laughable. The quality of admitted students and the applicant pool at Yale is leagues ahead of Vandy. Stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New admin at Brearley from a middling school upstate with low Ivy admissions (1 girls to Harvard in 4 years, 2 to Yale). Curious to see how that works out in next 5-10.

Shouldn’t matter at all if it has nothing to do with the school and all to do with the hooks of the kids, as has been suggested here.

[Anonymous]

I think most of the people on here are not hooked in that way and are trying to figure out if it’s a good idea to build their lives around a K12 TT. The hooked kids get in no matter what, but if your kid is one of the unhooked, the best chance you have is a school that can get a large number and not just the three kids who would get in no matter what. At that point, 3 matriculating vs 6 matters, and the head of a place that had one girl go to Yale in 4 years is not a person who can make that happen or has deep connections at these places.Its not hard to get the wealthy in, the hard part is at the margins and I assume the wealthier are on a different reddit board we have never even heard of.

[Anonymous]

How can you objectively tell other than scores? I went to Yale and some people were bonkers smart, and some weren’t all that smart at all. Some did really well, and some failed to launch. SAT scores are one of the few objective measurements we have for raw horsepower. Most of the bonkers smart people were from random places in America who got in entirely on merit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vanderbilt and Yale have the same average SAT scores for incoming applicants.

This is laughable. The quality of admitted students and the applicant pool at Yale is leagues ahead of Vandy. Stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can you objectively tell other than scores? I went to Yale and some people were bonkers smart, and some weren’t all that smart at all. Some did really well, and some failed to launch. SAT scores are one of the few objective measurements we have for raw horsepower. Most of the bonkers smart people were from random places in America who got in entirely on merit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vanderbilt and Yale have the same average SAT scores for incoming applicants.

This is laughable. The quality of admitted students and the applicant pool at Yale is leagues ahead of Vandy. Stop

I went to undergrad in Europe and HYPS grad, I work in an industry with a preponderance of HYPS undergrads, and I've managed and mentored hundreds of them. Many are impressive but not most. The ones who've stood out to me most as the smartest and most driven have been the kids that come from state school undergrad (most of whom went on to HYPS grad) especially the UCs, Mass and Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Untalented rich kids waltz into Vanderbilt. If you talk to the development office there, you can literally pay your way in. This doesn’t happen anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

^^as in, the amount you need to donate is very low compared to Ivies/T10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^as in, the amount you need to donate is very low compared to Ivies/T10

Correct. Vandy is a poor man’s faux-Ivy, without the high SATs that are required

[Anonymous]

Unqualified rich kids waltz into all these schools. The people who don’t know that didnt go to school at one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New admin at Brearley from a middling school upstate with low Ivy admissions (1 girls to Harvard in 4 years, 2 to Yale). Curious to see how that works out in next 5-10.

So far Brearley has 5 going to Harvard, and the decisions are still coming in on the instagram account (they post about one a day).

So I guess the new admin from some random upstate school isn’t doing such a bad job 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New admin at Brearley from a middling school upstate with low Ivy admissions (1 girls to Harvard in 4 years, 2 to Yale). Curious to see how that works out in next 5-10.

So far Brearley has 5 going to Harvard, and the decisions are still coming in on the instagram account (they post about one a day).

So I guess the new admin from some random upstate school isn’t doing such a bad job 🤷🏻‍♀️

They’d have gotten in from Jackson MS High too. Their TT had nothing to do with it. Rich parents did.