No more safeties since they now focus on yield protection?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's going to make it hard to convince "top" kids not to apply to 20 schools is the randomness. My child has three or four friends who applied to all 8 Ivy's and got into one, and not the one they would have applied to if they'd winnowed down their list. The randomness works against applying to a limited list. They're glad now that they cast a wider net, especially since they got rejected at places like Colgate while getting into Brown or Penn. I wish USNews would change its metrics to eliminate colleges' perceived need to game kids' intentions & yield protect though. Some of my child's friends were waitlisted or rejected from so-called safeties and ended up having a slew of waitlists, even though they were 1500 plus SAT, top 5% of class students. I have to believe the waitlists will move, especially if those kids show strong interest now, but there has to be a better way than dragging the whole process out so long. When my child applies, they will apply ED1 and then ED2 if ED1 doesn't work out, while also applying to a bunch of state schools with rolling admissions and more predictable results - ie nonflagship state schools and others who through research seem to do less in the way of yield protecting. If that doesn't work out, they'll apply to 20 just like the kids this year. Not how it should have to be, but it's just so unpredictable. I'm sure that people will figure out who yield protects and avoid those schools, so it could backfire on them anyway. Yeah, maybe some kids didn't have them as their first choice, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't go. I have another child who went to their 7th choice school. They were still excited to go once they got over the initial deflated feelings and disappointment, and would be the first to tell you that it worked out for the best anyway. I think it will be better this fall though, because there will be fewer deferrals to contend with, and because the class of 22 has the benefit of seeing what happened with this year's seniors. For class of 21, it felt like the rules of the game were changed in the 11th hour, and while the end results may ultimately be similar, it's been a tough and confusing process for them.

This. Someone can catch Columbia, be rejected from the rest of the Ivys, and WL and the next tier. This seems to be a result that a number of people experienced. If that is true -- the net needs to be wide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Demonstrating interest is exhausting. My DD needs to focus on finals, IB essay, SAT but she is supposed to also zoom into a million virtual sessions for the schools she likes? She is really interested in three school but every week they send sone new virtual session around sone seemingly random/super specific topic — how much attendance is enough???

She should really pick her true favorites--realistic favorites, and focus on those for the virtual events, and hopefully even a few in-person visits. You are not wrong. I have a senior and fall semester was by far the hardest he has ever had. Trying to fit in pretend interest in schools that he wasn't really interested in because his college counselor insisted he needed more safeties, was exhausting and not a good use of time. With that said, he got into the schools--several reaches--that he showed true interest in and waitlisted from schools that were true safeties that he didn't do so much as a virtual tour for. He got into a top 25, several top 60 (all of which he "showed interest," and waitlisted at a school that is somewhere around 85 and another not in the top 100. A very strange process.

[Anonymous]

This has all gotten out of control. The class of 2022 should boycott this process and go to community college for a year. Force these schools to stop gaming the system and making these kids jump through a thousand hoops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

+1000. Also apply early to 1-2 rolling admission schools to relieve the stress: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/top-rolling-admissions-colleges/ Pitt and Penn State are popular choices in the area.

You should also consider playing the geographic diversity game in your favor by applying further away (but not too far away - we knew an FCPS kid who applied to U Hawaii with this in mind (and surfing) and got rejected!).

If money is an issue, then your DC will need to get comfortable with GMU, VCU, CNU, ODU, Towson, UMBC, (depending on your state).

[Anonymous]

For the people saying one in person visit is enough — most schools are not allowing visits. Sone act like they’d hold it against you if you say you went when they said not to. If these places open up in the fall it’ll be hard to take off that much school and work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

+1000. Also apply early to 1-2 rolling admission schools to relieve the stress: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/top-rolling-admissions-colleges/ Pitt and Penn State are popular choices in the area.

You should also consider playing the geographic diversity game in your favor by applying further away (but not too far away - we knew an FCPS kid who applied to U Hawaii with this in mind (and surfing) and got rejected!).

If money is an issue, then your DC will need to get comfortable with GMU, VCU, CNU, ODU, Towson, UMBC, (depending on your state).

Which sucks for kids who actually want to go to Pitt or penn state because they have to compete with the entire world that just wants an early acceptance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demonstrating interest is exhausting. My DD needs to focus on finals, IB essay, SAT but she is supposed to also zoom into a million virtual sessions for the schools she likes? She is really interested in three school but every week they send sone new virtual session around sone seemingly random/super specific topic — how much attendance is enough???

She should really pick her true favorites--realistic favorites, and focus on those for the virtual events, and hopefully even a few in-person visits. You are not wrong. I have a senior and fall semester was by far the hardest he has ever had. Trying to fit in pretend interest in schools that he wasn't really interested in because his college counselor insisted he needed more safeties, was exhausting and not a good use of time. With that said, he got into the schools--several reaches--that he showed true interest in and waitlisted from schools that were true safeties that he didn't do so much as a virtual tour for. He got into a top 25, several top 60 (all of which he "showed interest," and waitlisted at a school that is somewhere around 85 and another not in the top 100. A very strange process.

QQ- so do the universities track attendance at these virtual events? Or do applicants just indicate how many events they attended and the impact of those events on them?

[Anonymous]

They track who attends virtual events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They track who attends virtual events.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

+1000. Also apply early to 1-2 rolling admission schools to relieve the stress: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/top-rolling-admissions-colleges/ Pitt and Penn State are popular choices in the area.

You should also consider playing the geographic diversity game in your favor by applying further away (but not too far away - we knew an FCPS kid who applied to U Hawaii with this in mind (and surfing) and got rejected!).

If money is an issue, then your DC will need to get comfortable with GMU, VCU, CNU, ODU, Towson, UMBC, (depending on your state).

Which sucks for kids who actually want to go to Pitt or penn state because they have to compete with the entire world that just wants an early acceptance

I think this is more of a problem for Pitt, since Penn State’s yield is pretty good. Not sure if being the “top safety” is worth is for Pitt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is good.
Students need to stop applying to 20+ schools. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Find a couple true safeties you actually would be happy at, visit them, and apply to them. Stop tossing out random apps to see who bites.

(Note, if the acceptance rate is less than 75%, it’s not a safety, no matter what your stats are)

I agree with this 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has all gotten out of control. The class of 2022 should boycott this process and go to community college for a year. Force these schools to stop gaming the system and making these kids jump through a thousand hoops.

While I agree the process is brutal, I disagree that anyone is made to "jump through hoops". It's not made brutal by the colleges, it is made brutal by the pure amount of people who insist on a very small number of the 3,000 US colleges. As the Wargames cliché goes "the only way to win is not to play".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has all gotten out of control. The class of 2022 should boycott this process and go to community college for a year. Force these schools to stop gaming the system and making these kids jump through a thousand hoops.

While I agree the process is brutal, I disagree that anyone is made to "jump through hoops". It's not made brutal by the colleges, it is made brutal by the pure amount of people who insist on a very small number of the 3,000 US colleges. As the Wargames cliché goes "the only way to win is not to play".

True, in theory but how do you not play? My DS is very interested in a school that should be a good fit but in order to be considered he has to do all this extra crap to show intent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

+1000. Also apply early to 1-2 rolling admission schools to relieve the stress: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/top-rolling-admissions-colleges/ Pitt and Penn State are popular choices in the area.

You should also consider playing the geographic diversity game in your favor by applying further away (but not too far away - we knew an FCPS kid who applied to U Hawaii with this in mind (and surfing) and got rejected!).

If money is an issue, then your DC will need to get comfortable with GMU, VCU, CNU, ODU, Towson, UMBC, (depending on your state).

Add U of Delaware to the early/rolling admission. They also give good merit for OOS students (and majority of students are OOS since Delaware is so small).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They track who attends virtual events.

Another important piece of tracking interest is the email/website tracking. Always open the marketing emails from the schools you are applying to, click on the links in them, spend time on the website.