Naviance is wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easier to find a scapegoat (i.e. kids of other races) than believe your kid blew his essay/interview or had made a bad impression on the teachers who wrote his recommendations.

I get it.

Yup.


My white boy did better than we (or our college counselor) expected when the admission results came back. Clearly his letters, essays and interviews were pretty good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t trust naviance. My son with near perfect SAT score and 4.89 GPA was rejected from every single school except for his safeties.

Let me guess, the rejections were from colleges with <25% acceptance rates? Then yeah, don’t count on those.

This. You can't count on Naviance for those schools. Once you have the stats to be in range, it's really just a lottery.

Unfortunately, these kids can also then be rejected from schools that should easily be matches due to yield protection.

It's a lottery and the odds aren't independent. Once the first result comes back, you know more about the odds of getting into any of the other schools than naviance could tell you.

[Anonymous]

Our counsellor did tell us that although data on where students apply are automatically populated, it's up to the students to go back in and say where they were admitted. The HS tries to confirm whenever a college requests a final transcript, because that does corroborate an acceptance, but that's the only check they have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's an example from DD's Naviance: I'm picking NYU, because it's popular, but my DD doesn't want to go there. In the last 3 years, 33 students have applied and 6 have been accepted. That's an acceptance rate of 18%, which is much lower than the national acceptance rate for NYU. Looking more closely at the Scattergram, 6 out of 7 students who applied with an SAT over 1400 got accepted. (I'm not sure how many years of application cycles the Scattergrams cover). There were many students waitlisted who scored between 1350 and 1400.

My DD is at a school with a high poverty rate. Less than 50% of students go directly to a 4 year university. A small percentage go out of state. I think that in this circumstance, a high SAT counts for a lot, because universities can't trust that an A means a lot (there isn't much competition). We have a very diverse school, and I want to assure the public that URM's are not getting high acceptance rates simply because they are URM.

It's also possible that NYU doesn't bother to admit many students from DD's school because NYU knows that it offers crappy financial aid. The yield is not likely to be high once students see the bottom line. My conclusion is that IF DD wanted to go to NYU, she would have a very good chance with a 1400+ SAT, but nothing is guaranteed. Thoughts?

No, you have the acceptance rates wrong, sadly. The acceptance rate at NYU (Manhattan campus) this year was 16%. The average SAT was 1480. Average GPA was not provided. See https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/march/Class_of_2023_Admits.html

FWIW, my kid got waitlisted. 1500 SAT, other stats to match.

Also FWIW, my kid got into only 1 of his reach schools, Michigan. (Yes, Michigan is definitely a reach school for every single out-of-state kid with a 1500 SAT. Anyone who tells you otherwise is dealing with very old info.) He was waitlisted at every other one, including Penn and Brown. (I was under no illusion that he had a shot at those, but it can be hard to dissuade someone who is 17.) Most of his friends who had similar stats and who got into one of their reach schools had the enormous legacy advantage.

In other words, the single best thing your child can do to prepare for college admissions is to be born to parents who graduated from his/her desired school. A study a while back calculated that being a legacy effectively gives a student a 160 point SAT boost. I'm going to guess that what it really does is put the student in a completely separate pile, where overall stats can be 3/4 of what everyone else's are. That's not to say that these kids aren't smart, hard-working, and deserving--but they're not smarter and more deserving, they're just luckier.

It's a stupid system that wastes countless hours and dollars, and your kid will probably still want to play the lottery, but as a parent you might as well go into it with your eyes open. Glad we did; wish I had been able to convince my kid, who is pretty down about his overall results, but really happy to be heading to Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's an example from DD's Naviance: I'm picking NYU, because it's popular, but my DD doesn't want to go there. In the last 3 years, 33 students have applied and 6 have been accepted. That's an acceptance rate of 18%, which is much lower than the national acceptance rate for NYU. Looking more closely at the Scattergram, 6 out of 7 students who applied with an SAT over 1400 got accepted. (I'm not sure how many years of application cycles the Scattergrams cover). There were many students waitlisted who scored between 1350 and 1400.

My DD is at a school with a high poverty rate. Less than 50% of students go directly to a 4 year university. A small percentage go out of state. I think that in this circumstance, a high SAT counts for a lot, because universities can't trust that an A means a lot (there isn't much competition). We have a very diverse school, and I want to assure the public that URM's are not getting high acceptance rates simply because they are URM.

It's also possible that NYU doesn't bother to admit many students from DD's school because NYU knows that it offers crappy financial aid. The yield is not likely to be high once students see the bottom line. My conclusion is that IF DD wanted to go to NYU, she would have a very good chance with a 1400+ SAT, but nothing is guaranteed. Thoughts?

No, you have the acceptance rates wrong, sadly. The acceptance rate at NYU (Manhattan campus) this year was 16%. The average SAT was 1480. Average GPA was not provided. See https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/march/Class_of_2023_Admits.html

FWIW, my kid got waitlisted. 1500 SAT, other stats to match.

Also FWIW, my kid got into only 1 of his reach schools, Michigan. (Yes, Michigan is definitely a reach school for every single out-of-state kid with a 1500 SAT. Anyone who tells you otherwise is dealing with very old info.) He was waitlisted at every other one, including Penn and Brown. (I was under no illusion that he had a shot at those, but it can be hard to dissuade someone who is 17.) Most of his friends who had similar stats and who got into one of their reach schools had the enormous legacy advantage.

In other words, the single best thing your child can do to prepare for college admissions is to be born to parents who graduated from his/her desired school. A study a while back calculated that being a legacy effectively gives a student a 160 point SAT boost. I'm going to guess that what it really does is put the student in a completely separate pile, where overall stats can be 3/4 of what everyone else's are. That's not to say that these kids aren't smart, hard-working, and deserving--but they're not smarter and more deserving, they're just luckier.

It's a stupid system that wastes countless hours and dollars, and your kid will probably still want to play the lottery, but as a parent you might as well go into it with your eyes open. Glad we did; wish I had been able to convince my kid, who is pretty down about his overall results, but really happy to be heading to Michigan.

We were pleasantly surprised our DS, 4.3/1400 got into Michigan also. No particualar hooks and we're not full-pay (which is why he probably won't be able to go...). It's a great school--congrats to your son!

[Anonymous]

So much for the thing about demonstrating passion.

OP your DC is going to do great wherever he goes! He is in a unique position to make the most of what his profs have to offer, be a leader academically, and maybe have the bonus of being able to relax and have less stress than if he were at a reach school--which means more fun and more space to grow as a person. Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who said Naviance was a definite predictor of where your kid would get in?

No one, however, it is misleading. So just a heads up

No. It’s just data. If you choose to interpret it one way, that’s on you. You have to take into account that the data may be several years old and that colleges may become more/less competitive over several years. As another poster noted, you have to take into account how many data points there are. And you have to remember that you’re only getting a partial picture. You can’t see what extracurriculars or hooks were also part of the application with those scores.

Don't be a dick, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t trust naviance. My son with near perfect SAT score and 4.89 GPA was rejected from every single school except for his safeties.

naviance does not tell you if the kid is a legacy, recruited athlete or URM. That is the thing

[Anonymous]

Does legacy status help in admissions even if the parent doesn’t donate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t trust naviance. My son with near perfect SAT score and 4.89 GPA was rejected from every single school except for his safeties.

. What was his unweighted GPA? WHat were the target schools where he was not admitted? The crap shoot schools are crap shoots for nearly everyone.

3.93 target was cmu (rejected)uiuc (waitlisted). Kids with lower stats were accepted. I think he is the wrong color. Sad but true.

looking at the demographics of both CMU and UIUC White seems to be the right color.

Stop making excuses.

[Anonymous]

Wait a second, OP’s child had close to 1600 SAT and close to 4.0 unweighted gpa (and clearly a rigorous course load in weighted gpa was close to 5.0) and no one thinks it is unusual that he was rejected from UIUC?? Even with no extracurriculars he should have been a lock, come on. Frankly I am surprised he was not admitted to Carnegie Melon either, unless he applied to CS. I am sorry OP, that must be very disappointing to your son. I hope that he is happy with his admitted choice and I am sure that he will do great wherever he lands.

[Anonymous]

I’m not OP but would expect a kid with those stats who applied to CMU and UIUC was going for CS. Not much reason to apply to UIUC otherwise.

Sorry, OP, but I’m sure he will have a great experience at one of his safeties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait a second, OP’s child had close to 1600 SAT and close to 4.0 unweighted gpa (and clearly a rigorous course load in weighted gpa was close to 5.0) and no one thinks it is unusual that he was rejected from UIUC?? Even with no extracurriculars he should have been a lock, come on. Frankly I am surprised he was not admitted to Carnegie Melon either, unless he applied to CS. I am sorry OP, that must be very disappointing to your son. I hope that he is happy with his admitted choice and I am sure that he will do great wherever he lands.

CMU CS and UIUC CS have applicant pools that are just as competitive as Caltech/MIT/Stanford. 1600 SAT and perfect GPA are just floor level of achievement not the ceiling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easier to find a scapegoat (i.e. kids of other races) than believe your kid blew his essay/interview or had made a bad impression on the teachers who wrote his recommendations.

I get it.

+1. White people are so greedy now they want to own racism. As if they don’t enjoy the benefit of being white in every other aspect of society.

Your kid just wasn’t good enough. Every school thought the same thing. It’s not a fluke.

I don't agree that this is "owning" racism. First of all, NOBODY "owns" racism. Racism is racism is racism. It happens to people of all races, and one is not worse than the other. IT IS ALL BAD AND UNACCEPTABLE. This is "my truth!"

[Anonymous]

My daughter was rejected from from two safeties, waitlisted to a Target, and accepted to all her reaches. It was an insane year.