For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a weirdly aggressive post, op.

OP here: I didn't mean for it to be aggressive. Honestly trying to understand what happened/why people are surprised. This includes college counselors!

NP. Nearly every time I would see someone roll out their student's "safeties" list on this site, I would think to myself, good luck if you think all those [non ivy, not SLAC, etc.] schools are your safeties, or even targets. And now here we are.

Exactly! Safety for us meant 65%+ general admissions rate, and even then stuff can go sideways. So made it 3 safeties.

Some here aeem to have exaggerated views of what a true safety is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a weirdly aggressive post, op.

OP here: I didn't mean for it to be aggressive. Honestly trying to understand what happened/why people are surprised. This includes college counselors!

NP. Nearly every time I would see someone roll out their student's "safeties" list on this site, I would think to myself, good luck if you think all those [non ivy, not SLAC, etc.] schools are your safeties, or even targets. And now here we are.

Exactly! Safety for us meant 65%+ general admissions rate, and even then stuff can go sideways. So made it 3 safeties.

Some here aeem to have exaggerated views of what a true safety is.

Yeah I remember kids at my DC’s school looking down on umd and saying its a safety school and everyone gets in.. then many kids didn’t get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”

1) The system is not "broken."

2) The process and the results ARE logical, for the current climate - you just don't like that.

3) Why in the world would you think that you are entitled to be able to "predict chances of admission?" And even if you could, if you're looking at top schools with acceptance rates in single digits - can you not understand that that applies to you, too. THAT IS your "chance of admission."

4) Please explain how you come to regard this as a "needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches non-profits." I'm open to hearing a credible explanation of this, but doubt you have one.

There are entire books on this very topic that explain why the process is broken and arbitrary. It is not remotely transparent. And is focused on the benefit of the school, not the families.

What is completely transparent is that there are more than 150,000 students who score 1400 and up on the SAT each year. Over 200k score 1350 and up-- the top 10 percent. There are not enough seats in the Ivy League for all of them.

When will you people understand that even if you were given exact test scores and GPA cutoffs, there would still be little guarantee?

I don't see anyone here complaining that their kid with a 1350 or 1400 not getting into Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Apply to rolling admissions schools in August and September … Pitt, Arizona State, Iowa State, Minnesota. You’re welcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”

1) The system is not "broken."

2) The process and the results ARE logical, for the current climate - you just don't like that.

3) Why in the world would you think that you are entitled to be able to "predict chances of admission?" And even if you could, if you're looking at top schools with acceptance rates in single digits - can you not understand that that applies to you, too. THAT IS your "chance of admission."

4) Please explain how you come to regard this as a "needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches non-profits." I'm open to hearing a credible explanation of this, but doubt you have one.

There are entire books on this very topic that explain why the process is broken and arbitrary. It is not remotely transparent. And is focused on the benefit of the school, not the families.

What is completely transparent is that there are more than 150,000 students who score 1400 and up on the SAT each year. Over 200k score 1350 and up-- the top 10 percent. There are not enough seats in the Ivy League for all of them.

When will you people understand that even if you were given exact test scores and GPA cutoffs, there would still be little guarantee?

I don't see anyone here complaining that their kid with a 1350 or 1400 not getting into Ivy.

Thread OP here: curious, do you think there are enough seats for kids that scored 1500+ in the top 10 schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a weirdly aggressive post, op.

OP here: I didn't mean for it to be aggressive. Honestly trying to understand what happened/why people are surprised. This includes college counselors!

NP. Nearly every time I would see someone roll out their student's "safeties" list on this site, I would think to myself, good luck if you think all those [non ivy, not SLAC, etc.] schools are your safeties, or even targets. And now here we are.

Exactly! Safety for us meant 65%+ general admissions rate, and even then stuff can go sideways. So made it 3 safeties.

Some here aeem to have exaggerated views of what a true safety is.

Yeah I remember kids at my DC’s school looking down on umd and saying its a safety school and everyone gets in.. then many kids didn’t get in.

The idea of a safety school is not just the acceptance rate, but the expectation that they are more focused on stats and objective measures than subjective ones. So if a kid has 75% percentile test and GPA score, they are pretty confident that they will be accepted into a 50% acceptance rate school. There is of course a chance that they won't be, but it's not the expected result.

The wife and I think that so many people applied to "safety" schools this year, including higher stat kids that normally would not have applied, that these stat-focused schools have had to adjust their acceptance criteria upwards even when factoring in yield protection. It's going to be interesting to see what the yield turns out to be this year. I don't see schools building in a safety margin, even considering their waitlists, which will dwindle fast as the students become committed to their schools of choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”

1) The system is not "broken."

2) The process and the results ARE logical, for the current climate - you just don't like that.

3) Why in the world would you think that you are entitled to be able to "predict chances of admission?" And even if you could, if you're looking at top schools with acceptance rates in single digits - can you not understand that that applies to you, too. THAT IS your "chance of admission."

4) Please explain how you come to regard this as a "needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches non-profits." I'm open to hearing a credible explanation of this, but doubt you have one.

There are entire books on this very topic that explain why the process is broken and arbitrary. It is not remotely transparent. And is focused on the benefit of the school, not the families.

What is completely transparent is that there are more than 150,000 students who score 1400 and up on the SAT each year. Over 200k score 1350 and up-- the top 10 percent. There are not enough seats in the Ivy League for all of them.

When will you people understand that even if you were given exact test scores and GPA cutoffs, there would still be little guarantee?

I don't see anyone here complaining that their kid with a 1350 or 1400 not getting into Ivy.

Thread OP here: curious, do you think there are enough seats for kids that scored 1500+ in the top 10 schools?

No of course not. Nor am I arguing that SAT test scores alone, or SAT+GPA alone, should result in admission into highly selective schools. My view on this is that having test scores and GPA within the 25-75% range, absent any other hooks, merely gets someone looked at by the AO, who ultimately makes admission decisions based on the ability of the candidate to communicate his accomplishments and plans for the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Entitlement despite the fact that there are thousands of kids domestically and internationally with similar academic profiles applying to the same 50 schools.

It's not "entitlement" so stop saying that. THey aren't saying their kids are ENTITLED to get in. They are saying their kids worked hard, got great grades, checked all the boxes. And working hard has, in the past, managed to get those kids into "good" colleges. That is not the norm now. But, many parents' views are colored by what has been the case in the past. You can argue whether the past v. present is the better model. But that feeling is not "entitlement."

5% chance. That was known all along. That means 95% chance of a no. People do not seem to grasp this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

My son’s counselor said JMU would be a good fit, and my son (3.8 GPA/1470 SAT) was waitlisted, so that was a surprise. He was accepted with merit at an out of state school, but their acceptance rate was more like 65%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

My son’s counselor said JMU would be a good fit, and my son (3.8 GPA/1470 SAT) was waitlisted, so that was a surprise. He was accepted with merit at an out of state school, but their acceptance rate was more like 65%.

I'm so sorry, OP. I'm curious if your son was applying to a competitive program like engineering/comp sci?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”

1) The system is not "broken."

2) The process and the results ARE logical, for the current climate - you just don't like that.

3) Why in the world would you think that you are entitled to be able to "predict chances of admission?" And even if you could, if you're looking at top schools with acceptance rates in single digits - can you not understand that that applies to you, too. THAT IS your "chance of admission."

4) Please explain how you come to regard this as a "needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches non-profits." I'm open to hearing a credible explanation of this, but doubt you have one.

There are entire books on this very topic that explain why the process is broken and arbitrary. It is not remotely transparent. And is focused on the benefit of the school, not the families.

What is completely transparent is that there are more than 150,000 students who score 1400 and up on the SAT each year. Over 200k score 1350 and up-- the top 10 percent. There are not enough seats in the Ivy League for all of them.

When will you people understand that even if you were given exact test scores and GPA cutoffs, there would still be little guarantee?

Any idea on how many score 1500 and up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

My son’s counselor said JMU would be a good fit, and my son (3.8 GPA/1470 SAT) was waitlisted, so that was a surprise. He was accepted with merit at an out of state school, but their acceptance rate was more like 65%.

I'm so sorry, OP. I'm curious if your son was applying to a competitive program like engineering/comp sci?

Biology. I guess one could say it was yield protection, but I’m curious what a target school would have been for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

So you acknowledge the system is broken and no one should expect it to be logical and therefore they shouldn’t complain? Applicants can and should be angry. It’s ridiculous that there’s no reliable way to predict chances of admission and people are right to be aggravated with a needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches these “non-profits.”

1) The system is not "broken."

2) The process and the results ARE logical, for the current climate - you just don't like that.

3) Why in the world would you think that you are entitled to be able to "predict chances of admission?" And even if you could, if you're looking at top schools with acceptance rates in single digits - can you not understand that that applies to you, too. THAT IS your "chance of admission."

4) Please explain how you come to regard this as a "needlessly opaque and Byzantium system that protects and enriches non-profits." I'm open to hearing a credible explanation of this, but doubt you have one.

There are entire books on this very topic that explain why the process is broken and arbitrary. It is not remotely transparent. And is focused on the benefit of the school, not the families.

What is completely transparent is that there are more than 150,000 students who score 1400 and up on the SAT each year. Over 200k score 1350 and up-- the top 10 percent. There are not enough seats in the Ivy League for all of them.

When will you people understand that even if you were given exact test scores and GPA cutoffs, there would still be little guarantee?

I don't see anyone here complaining that their kid with a 1350 or 1400 not getting into Ivy.

Thread OP here: curious, do you think there are enough seats for kids that scored 1500+ in the top 10 schools?

No, not based on the stats I know and the results for some of DC's friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

I heard there was expected to be a huge increase in applications but I wasn't sure what that impact would be. We figured that the schools would still look at tests for those students that did submit them. I remember seeing statistics showing that for TO schools in the prior year, the acceptance rate was higher for students that did submit test scores. We guessed that the increase in applications is mainly from students who are reaching at schools that they normally would not have applied to and that the schools will still find a way to admit students according to their normal standards. In short, we figured that TO was largely a form of virtue signaling. Apparently, we were wrong.

My kid's counselor was very reassuring to our kid regarding his chances of being accepted. Looking at the Naviance map for his ED school, his stats are in the heart of a cluster of checkmarks and only one X. Despite this, we applied to 20+ schools because ED/EA rounds completely shattered our preconceived notions. Now the counselor is voicing frustration and the sinking feeling that the students haven't been given adequate guidance this year. One student with a 3.6 GPA and 1350 SAT applied to a "normal" number of schools and did not get into any of them.

We did consider the math/odds but felt confident about our kid's stats, ECs, recommendations, and essay quality. Even if he has bad luck at one, two, three, or four schools, he should not have bad luck at 10 or 20 schools. We are engineers and we understand statistics; both of us are also in administrative roles and write documents targeted toward a variety of audiences so we understand the importance of connecting with the reader. I believe we were rationally optimistic based on the then-best-available information.

I do want to congratulate all the students that got into a school that they are happy with. It's a valuable opportunity and I wish them the very best.

And???

And is right.

And by the way, if this is a public school you're talking about, all you're doing is proving our point. A 3.6 GPA is inconsistent with a 1350 SAT score.

I don't see that the "And???" poster made anything resembling a point. Either you two are telepathic or you are sock puppets.

My guess is they (and I) want to know what happened. It was a very dramatic and well-written post, and we were left hanging.

PP here. What happened was that my kid didn't get accepted... and we as parents are shocked.

Wow. You and your DC had such a rational approach to process - argh! GL going forward!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

Mine has had rejections and acceptances. We were initially surprised at the first early rejection, not that we expected acceptance but thought it would be at least deferral. The numbers we had had were from previous years, so we weren't prepared for the increase this year (we thought last year was the crazy year and this would be not as bad). After that, we adjusted expectations for RD. There was only 1 there that was a surprise and that was because the department chair gave DD unsolicited positive feedback on her arts supplement ("highest marks" to be exact) then offered to answer any questions, then offered to zoom with her, then spent 40min chatting about the arts and answering questions about the institution (which went really well). So, to get WL after that was a surprise, especially considering that DD had gotten accepted to equally or more competitive schools.

We have had some unexpected surprises as well, so you win some you lose some in our case! DD very happy with current choices, but it took a lot of efforts -- high stats, achievements etc. There are just more students applying, more applications per students and same or fewer (over-enrolled from last year) spots. It's frustrating for many kids and parents. We are lucky.