Success stories this cycle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After hearing dozens of high stats stories for last few weeks where kids are disappointed, wondering about those of you who have happy kids.

Curious about success stories this cycle - for kids who had decent (3.8ish) stats and got into T25, and also kids who lower GPAs who far exceeded theirs (or your) expectations. Curious about the below.


- background/stats of applicant
- what do you think made the difference?
- what admission surprised you?
- what rejection surprised you?
- what was the largest weakness in the applicant profile and how did kid overcome it?

Accepted into four Top 25 schools, two publics and two privates (along with a handful of schools in the 26 - 75 range, a mix of publics and privates). After preparing for a bloodbath, acceptance into two Top 15 schools surprised us the most.

DS has chosen one of the public schools, and seems to be very happy with the opportunity ahead.

The lowest of his three safety schools was the most surprising rejection - ultimately, it's challenging to overcome a pedestrian GPA when a school doesn't consider testing, essays, or recommendations. Hard to pin that one on yield protection, but maybe. Who knows? But it was a surprise, to say the least.

GPA at time of submission, which was the largest weakness - overcome, I'd guess, through overall rigor and grade trending:
3.72 unweighted / 3.95 UC weighted, capped / 4.13 weighted / 4.20 UC weighted / uncapped

AP classes: 8 (6 tested by May 2023, all 5s)

GPA at time of mid-year update:
3.76 unweighted / 3.95 UC weighted, capped / 4.21 weighted / 4.29 UC weighted / uncapped.

AP Classes (at graduation): 14 (6 more to be tested in May 2024).

Standardized testing: 1600 SAT, one admin. (along with AP test results, the tip of the spear in his applications - but not even considered by 1/3 of the schools applied to).

Extracurriculars: Good ECs including mix of varsity team sports, sustained volunteerism in community, and targeted research at local university in area of interest for undergraduate and grad. study.

Awards: Not really, but basic ones like NMSF, team captain, AP Scholar with Distinction, etc.

Essays / PIQs: Good essays, but difficult to calibrate against others.

Recommendations: Probably average, at best. DS isn't an apple polisher, so we were not expecting miracles here.

Demographics: White male, full pay, no hooks, public high school in affluent coastal community.

Forgot to mention the primary lessons learned:

1. Tend carefully to your GPA, which can have far too great of a role in college admissions these days. DS will graduate with probably 13 - 14 Bs over the course of his high school career (but none in the AP classes, thank goodness). All but one of those Bs landed within a single point of securing an A in the respective classes. All of them resulted from simply failing to turn in basic assignments. The carousel of frustration is a real downer, but you gotta play the game; and

2. Ignore anyone who tries to convince you that your kid with pedestrian grades has no shot at this school or that school. They are typically uninformed, at best.

You may take or leave Jeff Selingo, but he did embed himself in the admissions at several schools and his one key take away is that around 65% of an admissions decision is based on GPA and rigor of schedule.

I would argue the opposite...that for all the noise that you have to cure cancer to get into some of these schools...well, it turns out your HS GPA still counts for a ton and you can absolutely control for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After hearing dozens of high stats stories for last few weeks where kids are disappointed, wondering about those of you who have happy kids.

Curious about success stories this cycle - for kids who had decent (3.8ish) stats and got into T25, and also kids who lower GPAs who far exceeded theirs (or your) expectations. Curious about the below.


- background/stats of applicant
- what do you think made the difference?
- what admission surprised you?
- what rejection surprised you?
- what was the largest weakness in the applicant profile and how did kid overcome it?

I would kindly suggest that your measures of success (kids with "decent" stats getting into top schools, acceptances exceeding expectations) are exactly the problem with college admissions today. Measuring success based on a few schools with limited enrollment is a recipe for unhappiness.

True success in college admissions is getting into a school that is a likely or target or target based on stats and that is a good fit personally and financially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After hearing dozens of high stats stories for last few weeks where kids are disappointed, wondering about those of you who have happy kids.

Curious about success stories this cycle - for kids who had decent (3.8ish) stats and got into T25, and also kids who lower GPAs who far exceeded theirs (or your) expectations. Curious about the below.


- background/stats of applicant
- what do you think made the difference?
- what admission surprised you?
- what rejection surprised you?
- what was the largest weakness in the applicant profile and how did kid overcome it?

I would kindly suggest that your measures of success (kids with "decent" stats getting into top schools, acceptances exceeding expectations) are exactly the problem with college admissions today. Measuring success based on a few schools with limited enrollment is a recipe for unhappiness.

True success in college admissions is getting into a school that is a likely or target or target based on stats and that is a good fit personally and financially.

While you make a great point, I think OP has a right to ask the question about how they define success in college admissions. I think it's clear that many students are angling for the same schools and there is an interest in trying to figure out what makes/breaks an admission decision, since frankly holistic admissions at the top schools seems like a black box. So it's fine for you to reject the premise, but OP is allowed to ask the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to get more success stories from senior parents from this cycle....

Hearing Duke and Vanderbilt are the two hardest schools to get into this year. Is that true?

Hearing test scores should go down and submitting a 1490/33 everywhere makes sense now?

Also was told to research the underlying priorities of the school - that many colleges have admissions task forces and give you clues as to the specific type of student they are looking for. Anyone have links to this?

While Duke and Vanderbilt have gotten much harder this year according to some college counselors, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Caltech remain the hardest. Yale and Harvard are very tough admits as well. Some may say Duke is just as hard as Yale and Harvard.

What ranking would you give to schools being the hardest T20 schools to get into - this year? Not what is the best school. What is the very hardest admit?

Our counselor said at lot changed this year and kids that would have gotten in or been WL did not this year. My ranking based on the schools mentioned in this thread.

MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Duke
Princeton
Yale
Harvard
Vanderbilt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After hearing dozens of high stats stories for last few weeks where kids are disappointed, wondering about those of you who have happy kids.

Curious about success stories this cycle - for kids who had decent (3.8ish) stats and got into T25, and also kids who lower GPAs who far exceeded theirs (or your) expectations. Curious about the below.


- background/stats of applicant
- what do you think made the difference?
- what admission surprised you?
- what rejection surprised you?
- what was the largest weakness in the applicant profile and how did kid overcome it?

I would kindly suggest that your measures of success (kids with "decent" stats getting into top schools, acceptances exceeding expectations) are exactly the problem with college admissions today. Measuring success based on a few schools with limited enrollment is a recipe for unhappiness.

True success in college admissions is getting into a school that is a likely or target or target based on stats and that is a good fit personally and financially.

While you make a great point, I think OP has a right to ask the question about how they define success in college admissions. I think it's clear that many students are angling for the same schools and there is an interest in trying to figure out what makes/breaks an admission decision, since frankly holistic admissions at the top schools seems like a black box. So it's fine for you to reject the premise, but OP is allowed to ask the question.

I agree. Its the right question (but not the only one).
And that's why all of these podcasters spend hours each week discussing this. Its good food for thought for those of us with juniors.

The YCBK podcast recently indicated that certain schools seemed to get much harder while others less so. You have to wonder why (institutional priorities, new schools, new focus, new AO etc).

[Anonymous]

My kid had many APs, 1550 SAT, rigorous but not top rigor schedule. EC were part time job, some IT projects, little leadership. Kid at a tough private. Essay ok. Recommendations probably pretty good.

Kid in at a top 25. Theres just a lot of variability in how colleges read the app! Just apply to a large number of reaches as shown by collegevine. If its 10% or less on collegevine estimates its super high reach in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid had many APs, 1550 SAT, rigorous but not top rigor schedule. EC were part time job, some IT projects, little leadership. Kid at a tough private. Essay ok. Recommendations probably pretty good.

Kid in at a top 25. Theres just a lot of variability in how colleges read the app! Just apply to a large number of reaches as shown by collegevine. If its 10% or less on collegevine estimates its super high reach in my experience.

3.9/4.4 GPA.