Nonhooked Top 15/Ivy Acceptances from DC Area Privates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many of these VIP + legacy hook admits do you think there actually are in any given year among the approximately 4000 admits to Yale and Princeton?

You are missing the point. What matters is how many VIP + legacy are in your child's graduating class. Often, you don't find this out until May.....because nobody is advertising this (understandably)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many nonhooked students at your DC area private school were accepted into top 15/Ivies this year? If willing, please share the name of your school or at least the size of student body and the specific acceptances.

Will you please stop?! How many ways can you ask the same question? Go back to your SCOIR data and obsess. You can't match SCOIR data (unhooked kids) to anecdotal info. News flash: NOT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT A HOOK OR NOT. You know who can help you out? Your child's college counselor. He/she is just an email away.

New PP here - but sadly, this is not the case at some schools.

And counselor will NEVER tell you even from past data whether most people were legacy or athlete (let alone VIP and diversity)

And? What difference does it make? Your kid should pick schools that are good fits for them and let the chips fall where the will. What happened with other kids iin a different cycle has almost no bearing whatsover with your kid, their application and the cycle they are in.

Of course - and this is what we did. But it is 100% helpful to be told (made up example) "I see Duke is the top of your list. Just to let you know, the only people who have gotten into Duke from our school over the past 10 years were athletes or legacy. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try, but when strategizing your applications, I thought it might be helpful for you to know this."

Right, and the closest you will get to an accurate answer is from the school's college counseling office. If you can't get the answer there, an anonymous forum, where people have anecdotal info is not going to get you any closer.

[Anonymous]

At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

yep, at these small privates (70-120 kids), everyone knows who is a legacy or an athlete. Because the kids are pretty much friends by senior year and the parents emblazon their linked-in pages or company websites with their own college pedigrees. Legacy status is not information commonly kept close to the chest. There are some kids who float around the periphery and remain more of a mystery but it's nothing like a public school class of 500 where you know absolutely nothing about 350 of your classmates or their college plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

yep, at these small privates (70-120 kids), everyone knows who is a legacy or an athlete. Because the kids are pretty much friends by senior year and the parents emblazon their linked-in pages or company websites with their own college pedigrees. Legacy status is not information commonly kept close to the chest. There are some kids who float around the periphery and remain more of a mystery but it's nothing like a public school class of 500 where you know absolutely nothing about 350 of your classmates or their college plans.

How dare these boastful parents post their educational histories on their linked in or company "who we are" pages. So distasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

yep, at these small privates (70-120 kids), everyone knows who is a legacy or an athlete. Because the kids are pretty much friends by senior year and the parents emblazon their linked-in pages or company websites with their own college pedigrees. Legacy status is not information commonly kept close to the chest. There are some kids who float around the periphery and remain more of a mystery but it's nothing like a public school class of 500 where you know absolutely nothing about 350 of your classmates or their college plans.

How dare these boastful parents post their educational histories on their linked in or company "who we are" pages. So distasteful.

Not saying that. Just that people often come on here (including this post) and ask "how do you know who is legacy?".

Well, Ivy pedigree is something that DC parents tend to advertise coming and going--professionally, socially, etc. It's generally not kept close to the chest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

yep, at these small privates (70-120 kids), everyone knows who is a legacy or an athlete. Because the kids are pretty much friends by senior year and the parents emblazon their linked-in pages or company websites with their own college pedigrees. Legacy status is not information commonly kept close to the chest. There are some kids who float around the periphery and remain more of a mystery but it's nothing like a public school class of 500 where you know absolutely nothing about 350 of your classmates or their college plans.

This knowledge is far less known for families that started in 9th.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school everyone knew who was a legacy and who was going for sport. The kids strategically structured their early round admissions around those kids, figuring they had an easier chance going for a school that didn't have a likely legacy in the early round.

yep, at these small privates (70-120 kids), everyone knows who is a legacy or an athlete. Because the kids are pretty much friends by senior year and the parents emblazon their linked-in pages or company websites with their own college pedigrees. Legacy status is not information commonly kept close to the chest. There are some kids who float around the periphery and remain more of a mystery but it's nothing like a public school class of 500 where you know absolutely nothing about 350 of your classmates or their college plans.

This knowledge is far less known for families that started in 9th.....

I'll add - I suppose families with fewer long term opportunities for these interactions could actively look this sort of thing up - but we didn't (nor did other families we knew - who were also new at 9th). And I doubt my child did either. But - by May - this sort of information comes out about all admits - kids talk more - parents talk more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no way to know people's "hooks." If my cousin is the director of admissions at Yale, I'm not telling!

It all ends up coming out by May of senior year at DMV small privates - the kids suss it all out - it's hard for a Yale or Princeton admit to go unnoticed when they have never been in rigorous courses or get average grades.

No one gets into Yale or Princeton with average grades.

LOL - yeah - right.

I can give you two examples from our DC's graduating class. And yes - both had VIP + legacy hooks.

I doubt they really had average grades. I do not know what school or kids you are referring to but even 3.5 is a good gpa at these top privates and if you look closely at their transcripts as colleges do I know of friends who have kids that have all A's and tanked a random class in an elective like Art or something that brought down GPA but if you recalculate it it would be much higher. So you really never know and besides who cares?! This is life.

[Anonymous]

See OP? Three pages on this thread and no clear answer. But you will be back, as you always are in a few weeks or a few months asking the same question. And you won't get clear answers then either. So maybe worry about your kid and plan a good list of safety, likely and reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no way to know people's "hooks." If my cousin is the director of admissions at Yale, I'm not telling!

It all ends up coming out by May of senior year at DMV small privates - the kids suss it all out - it's hard for a Yale or Princeton admit to go unnoticed when they have never been in rigorous courses or get average grades.

No one gets into Yale or Princeton with average grades.

LOL - yeah - right.

I can give you two examples from our DC's graduating class. And yes - both had VIP + legacy hooks.

I doubt they really had average grades. I do not know what school or kids you are referring to but even 3.5 is a good gpa at these top privates and if you look closely at their transcripts as colleges do I know of friends who have kids that have all A's and tanked a random class in an elective like Art or something that brought down GPA but if you recalculate it it would be much higher. So you really never know and besides who cares?! This is life.

Doubt all you will. I wouldn't give an example with no support.

And, to your 3.5 point..... I'm sorry - but you are delusional if you think a student who took none of the higher rigor courses offered in HS is considered as having a good GPA at 3.5. Especially among their peers who did take higher rigor classes offered and have 3.9 and know the amount of difference it takes.

Our school doesn't even give GPA (only to mark on the SOIR/Naviance type product) and Art is not included.

Again - I'm not sure why you are doubting something when you have no idea of which school, which students, etc. This isn't conjecture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no way to know people's "hooks." If my cousin is the director of admissions at Yale, I'm not telling!

It all ends up coming out by May of senior year at DMV small privates - the kids suss it all out - it's hard for a Yale or Princeton admit to go unnoticed when they have never been in rigorous courses or get average grades.

No one gets into Yale or Princeton with average grades.

LOL - yeah - right.

I can give you two examples from our DC's graduating class. And yes - both had VIP + legacy hooks.

I doubt they really had average grades. I do not know what school or kids you are referring to but even 3.5 is a good gpa at these top privates and if you look closely at their transcripts as colleges do I know of friends who have kids that have all A's and tanked a random class in an elective like Art or something that brought down GPA but if you recalculate it it would be much higher. So you really never know and besides who cares?! This is life.

PS - I don't really care - but it's a riot that people actually believe that nobody gets into Yale or Princeton (or whatever Ivy you want to list) with average grades. Of course some people do. People with connections. I'm not complaining - it's life. But it absolutely happens and I have seen examples of it happening.

[Anonymous]

Legacy is also tricky. It matters much more at some schools than others and from everything my DC was told during the admissions process, it really only matters for early applications. Additionally, just because a student is a legacy at the school where they matriculate doesn't mean that they didn't get into other T10 schools where they don't have legacy status. I know of several students at my DC's "big 3" who had multiple admissions offers and only one of those offers was from a legacy school.

[Anonymous]

Holton had a good number of unhooked Ivy/Ivy adjacent admits. I can’t give exact numbers but this class did well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Legacy is also tricky. It matters much more at some schools than others and from everything my DC was told during the admissions process, it really only matters for early applications. Additionally, just because a student is a legacy at the school where they matriculate doesn't mean that they didn't get into other T10 schools where they don't have legacy status. I know of several students at my DC's "big 3" who had multiple admissions offers and only one of those offers was from a legacy school.

For us - there were Ivy legacies who were accepted in RD at the legacy school after being deferred at REA (and then WL at RD) to the non-legacy Ivy they applied to.

Some got into high SLACs though.

Usually legacies that were accepted had to also be a very top student or also have VIP or URM.