Unpredictability of admission decisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something I was surprised about was that the College office defined a target as a “50/50 school.” Basically a coin flip. Before talking to them, I thought a target to be more like a match or a likely. A target is school where a kid has a 50% chance of acceptance - certainly not a sure bet.

Target does not have a set definition--unless a particular high school defines the term for all students.

To me, a target school is a first choice school for which the applicant's numbers and qualifications are at least at or near the median.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD had pretty unpredictable results this year. Rejected or waitlisted from top 10 schools, 3 acceptances from top 25 schools, 1 acceptance 5 waitlist from her target schools, basically schools between 25-50 range, accepted to all 3 of her likely schools. She was surprised by being waitlisted from so many target schools. But she is happy with the results.

Why is this unpredictable?

It’s unpredictable to get into reaches (3 top 25 schools) but not targets.

Hmm…not how I look at it. I think these scenarios are predictable: rejected for reaches; accepted or waitlisted for targets; accepted for safeties. Seems like this is what happened so outcome was not really unpredictable.

You think it’s predictable to get into 3 Top 25 schools that are lottery schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It feels like a lottery and I say that as a parent whose kid was accepted everywhere.

Congratulations to your student, however, your post makes no sense unless your student was undeserving of the acceptances.

My DC was deserving but had friends with extremely similar profiles who were rejected almost entirely from the same range of schools. That’s what I mean about feeling like a lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I was surprised about was that the College office defined a target as a “50/50 school.” Basically a coin flip. Before talking to them, I thought a target to be more like a match or a likely. A target is school where a kid has a 50% chance of acceptance - certainly not a sure bet.

Target does not have a set definition--unless a particular high school defines the term for all students.

To me, a target school is a first choice school for which the applicant's numbers and qualifications are at least at or near the median.

That’s not the generally used definition of a target school. It doesn’t need to be a first choice school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty predictable for my kid this year.

Big 3. 3.8+ unweighted. Just under 1500 SAT

I looked at CDS data and used adjusted acceptance rate for kid gender (male usually slightly higher acceptance rate but not always) and for one of the OOS flagships, used acceptance rate they publish for kids with less than 5 AP because our school dropped AP courses and honors don’t count.

Accepted at
54%
48%
34% will likely attend
30% state flagship OOS < 5 AP

WL at
44% seemed like a yield protect to me
20.8% state flagship OOS < 5AP
17.3%
14.2%
12% legacy

Rejected at
26%
11.5%
4.8% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.3% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.2%
4% legacy
2.9% state flagship OOS no AP rate

I haven’t yet put kid GPA into the Harvard-westlake data but I’m guessing would be also similar.

I wish I had done more of this when list was being formed.

Our school doesn’t give scattergrams to kids or parents and generally shuns data driven list formation. They make it all about kid “feels”

I would have had kid do more in the 30-60 percent weighted accordance range for kid gender based on CDS

What does put kid GPA into Harvard westlake data mean?

Harvard Westlake is a Big 3 in LA. They publish a data set PDF each year that shows for unhooked kids acceptance rate to each college by unweighted GPA.

It’s posted on DCUM if you search. It’s rolling 3 year look back at data. And a good way to GPA sort. For instance HYP accepted zero unhooked HW kids with gpa less than 3.8 last 3 cycles. Pretty good indicator.

How do you know the data is for unhooked students? I am surprised they took out the legacies, URM and Athletes and published the data. If they did that would be excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty predictable for my kid this year.

Big 3. 3.8+ unweighted. Just under 1500 SAT

I looked at CDS data and used adjusted acceptance rate for kid gender (male usually slightly higher acceptance rate but not always) and for one of the OOS flagships, used acceptance rate they publish for kids with less than 5 AP because our school dropped AP courses and honors don’t count.

Accepted at
54%
48%
34% will likely attend
30% state flagship OOS < 5 AP

WL at
44% seemed like a yield protect to me
20.8% state flagship OOS < 5AP
17.3%
14.2%
12% legacy

Rejected at
26%
11.5%
4.8% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.3% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.2%
4% legacy
2.9% state flagship OOS no AP rate

I haven’t yet put kid GPA into the Harvard-westlake data but I’m guessing would be also similar.

I wish I had done more of this when list was being formed.

Our school doesn’t give scattergrams to kids or parents and generally shuns data driven list formation. They make it all about kid “feels”

I would have had kid do more in the 30-60 percent weighted accordance range for kid gender based on CDS

What does put kid GPA into Harvard westlake data mean?

Harvard Westlake is a Big 3 in LA. They publish a data set PDF each year that shows for unhooked kids acceptance rate to each college by unweighted GPA.

It’s posted on DCUM if you search. It’s rolling 3 year look back at data. And a good way to GPA sort. For instance HYP accepted zero unhooked HW kids with gpa less than 3.8 last 3 cycles. Pretty good indicator.

How do you know the data is for unhooked students? I am surprised they took out the legacies, URM and Athletes and published the data. If they did that would be excellent.

They say excludes legacies and recruited athletes plus ETC. Not sure if ETC includes URM. Page 27.

https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/2022Handbook.pdf

[Anonymous]

Here’s another good tool in the San Francisco Chronicle. You can see admission to the UC’s based on high school, ethnicity and GPA. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/uc-admissions-acceptance-rates/
It’s ungiftable, but you can pay 25 cents for 4 months to get to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty predictable for my kid this year.

Big 3. 3.8+ unweighted. Just under 1500 SAT

I looked at CDS data and used adjusted acceptance rate for kid gender (male usually slightly higher acceptance rate but not always) and for one of the OOS flagships, used acceptance rate they publish for kids with less than 5 AP because our school dropped AP courses and honors don’t count.

Accepted at
54%
48%
34% will likely attend
30% state flagship OOS < 5 AP

WL at
44% seemed like a yield protect to me
20.8% state flagship OOS < 5AP
17.3%
14.2%
12% legacy

Rejected at
26%
11.5%
4.8% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.3% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.2%
4% legacy
2.9% state flagship OOS no AP rate

I haven’t yet put kid GPA into the Harvard-westlake data but I’m guessing would be also similar.

I wish I had done more of this when list was being formed.

Our school doesn’t give scattergrams to kids or parents and generally shuns data driven list formation. They make it all about kid “feels”

I would have had kid do more in the 30-60 percent weighted accordance range for kid gender based on CDS

What does put kid GPA into Harvard westlake data mean?

Harvard Westlake is a Big 3 in LA. They publish a data set PDF each year that shows for unhooked kids acceptance rate to each college by unweighted GPA.

It’s posted on DCUM if you search. It’s rolling 3 year look back at data. And a good way to GPA sort. For instance HYP accepted zero unhooked HW kids with gpa less than 3.8 last 3 cycles. Pretty good indicator.

How do you know the data is for unhooked students? I am surprised they took out the legacies, URM and Athletes and published the data. If they did that would be excellent.

They say excludes legacies and recruited athletes plus ETC. Not sure if ETC includes URM. Page 27.

https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/2022Handbook.pdf

Thank you, I just looked through it. It has very useful data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s another good tool in the San Francisco Chronicle. You can see admission to the UC’s based on high school, ethnicity and GPA. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/uc-admissions-acceptance-rates/
It’s ungiftable, but you can pay 25 cents for 4 months to get to it.

Same info here for free...

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/admissions-source-school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty predictable for my kid this year.

Big 3. 3.8+ unweighted. Just under 1500 SAT

I looked at CDS data and used adjusted acceptance rate for kid gender (male usually slightly higher acceptance rate but not always) and for one of the OOS flagships, used acceptance rate they publish for kids with less than 5 AP because our school dropped AP courses and honors don’t count.

Accepted at
54%
48%
34% will likely attend
30% state flagship OOS < 5 AP

WL at
44% seemed like a yield protect to me
20.8% state flagship OOS < 5AP
17.3%
14.2%
12% legacy

Rejected at
26%
11.5%
4.8% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.3% state flagship OOS no AP rate
4.2%
4% legacy
2.9% state flagship OOS no AP rate

I haven’t yet put kid GPA into the Harvard-westlake data but I’m guessing would be also similar.

I wish I had done more of this when list was being formed.

Our school doesn’t give scattergrams to kids or parents and generally shuns data driven list formation. They make it all about kid “feels”

I would have had kid do more in the 30-60 percent weighted accordance range for kid gender based on CDS

What does put kid GPA into Harvard westlake data mean?

Harvard Westlake is a Big 3 in LA. They publish a data set PDF each year that shows for unhooked kids acceptance rate to each college by unweighted GPA.

It’s posted on DCUM if you search. It’s rolling 3 year look back at data. And a good way to GPA sort. For instance HYP accepted zero unhooked HW kids with gpa less than 3.8 last 3 cycles. Pretty good indicator.

How do you know the data is for unhooked students? I am surprised they took out the legacies, URM and Athletes and published the data. If they did that would be excellent.

They say excludes legacies and recruited athletes plus ETC. Not sure if ETC includes URM. Page 27.

https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/2022Handbook.pdf

Thank you, I just looked through it. It has very useful data.

1 for 69 at Duke and 0 for 19 at Pomona.

[Anonymous]

The reason why so many students apply to these top schools is because of the unpredictability of admissions. They apply because they think they might win the lottery. And I think those schools like it this way. It makes them look even more elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I’m not too surprised overall but still a little disappointed for my kid. Got into all but one “likelies” (5 of them - added three after ED1 rejection spooked DC). Four with merit aid. Only got into one Target (~30% admit rate) so feeling very relieved by that. Rejected at all reaches (including ED) and WL at all other Targets (4). Strong stats and school scattergram implied Targets were “real” targets. Still undecided and will visit target acceptance and maybe 1-2 likelies (haven’t visited them all) before making a call.

What do you think he should have done differently?

Good question. I think it would have been better had she not used her ED1 shot at a reach - would have been better to use on a target. Definitely lower stat kids from her school got in ED to places she was waitlisted. But it’s hard to know.

[Anonymous]

My kid got into 1 reach (T20) and their safeties (T60+). Rejected at 2 reaches and WL at 6 from hard to soft targets (T30-50ish). We thought applying to 6 targets was a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got into 1 reach (T20) and their safeties (T60+). Rejected at 2 reaches and WL at 6 from hard to soft targets (T30-50ish). We thought applying to 6 targets was a lot.

That is wild. That said, I think the universities in that range (high 20s to low 60s), and especially the private universities in that range, play the most admissions games (ED1/ED2/EA/demonstrated interest/merit discounts/etc.). The higher ranked schools don’t have as much need to lock in high-performing students and the lower ranked schools are more apt to take who they can get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got into 1 reach (T20) and their safeties (T60+). Rejected at 2 reaches and WL at 6 from hard to soft targets (T30-50ish). We thought applying to 6 targets was a lot.

That is wild. That said, I think the universities in that range (high 20s to low 60s), and especially the private universities in that range, play the most admissions games (ED1/ED2/EA/demonstrated interest/merit discounts/etc.). The higher ranked schools don’t have as much need to lock in high-performing students and the lower ranked schools are more apt to take who they can get.

Kid wouldn’t ED, but EAed everywhere offered and tried to make up for not EDing, especially at the privates, with demonstrated interest.