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

[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?

Any idea on how many score 1500 and up?

NP: difficult to tell because the College Board stop publishing data for 1500+. However, the number of students that score 1500+ has significantly increased over the last 10 years. Here is an older article that explains: https://www.compassprep.com/great-to-good-the-diluted-value-of-high-test-scores/

With the release of class of 2018 results from both ACT and College Board, we can now say definitively that students saw the most competitive scores ever. In the last 10 years, the number of students scoring 1400–1600 on the SAT or 31–36 on the ACT doubled.

In just the last 5 years, the number of students scoring 1500–1600 or 34–36 has doubled.

I think MIT is correct that SAT math scores matter to establish a baseline to determine if students are ready for high-level math instruction. However, as the article explains, differentiating between scores over 1400+/31+ doesn't mean as much as parents think and schools know this (they have the data to compare performance).

[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?

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.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/change-college-acceptance-application-process/627581/

[Anonymous]

Plus the SAT scores got "recalibrated" four years ago and so all these comparisons are really apples-to-oranges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

a great list
thank you

[Anonymous]

Some of the best advice I’ve seen on this board on these last few posts. Particularly the focus on safeties that your kid can l love. Easy to fall in love with a reach, harder to find a great fir with a safety or target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a sophomore the thing I find concerning reading all these posts is that the system seems so capricious with a hefty dose of luck involved. My kid will probably be fairly high stats and I think is going to want to ED to a school ranked around 25. That may work out or not, and we get that and that other top schools are a lottery. What freaks me out a little is the stories of kids not getting into the safeties it’s been recommended they fall in love with either because of yield protection or increases in applications. It seems like some kids can fall betwixt and between. Hopefully applying to enough schools will lessen that risk however 1) it may be hard to “fall in love” with multiple safeties and 2) it does seem like all of that is just compounding the problem with kids feeling they need to apply to 15 plus schools to spread the risk.

Another sophomore mom sweating alongside you for the same reason. It seems like things are in a spiral of ever increasing numbers of admissions, ever declining ways of showing merit, and rapidly falling odds of getting in at most schools with any level of positive reputation. As someone said earlier in the thread, I have come to regard college admissions to anywhere but the local community college as a lottery, with the odds worsening by the day. I do not look forward to the first 3 months of 2024.

[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."

It is entitlement to think your kid is so super duper special that they should get in where they want to go because they’re one of hundreds of thousands of kids with top apps and stats. We don’t live in the past, so the past is irrelevant.

[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.

My favorite was the one whose “safeties” were Rice and schools of a similar ranking.

Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

I agree with most of this — but it is contradictory to encourage applying ED, while saying “don’t visit top schools.” Not many kids are going to want to ED a school they’ve never visited. If you’re going to ED, your kid, by definition, is going to get their heart set in a the ED school to some degree.

Do agree that you need to find a safety school that your kid is happy with. However, that has become harder and harder, as applications to many schools previously considered safeties go up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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."

It is entitlement to think your kid is so super duper special that they should get in where they want to go because they’re one of hundreds of thousands of kids with top apps and stats. We don’t live in the past, so the past is irrelevant.

For some reason, I think of Gilmore Girls whenever someone mentions elite schools being easier for...them? to get into in the past. Obviously, it's a TV show, but it's not 2003 anymore. If you watch it again, you'll notice it is lily-white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

I agree with 6 but it’s somewhat at odds with suggestion 1. I’m trying not to set my kid up for disappointment but I think ED is a good idea - I’m the one whose kids will probably be interested in a few schools around 25 in the rankings that could be targets. He might not get in but I feel like we at least need to visit schools he’s thinking about to pick the one for ED. We’ll manage it and push the idea that it’s still a lottery and try to become excited about safeties but I don’t think it’s a great idea only to visit safeties if you want to apply ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

I agree with most of this — but it is contradictory to encourage applying ED, while saying “don’t visit top schools.” Not many kids are going to want to ED a school they’ve never visited. If you’re going to ED, your kid, by definition, is going to get their heart set in a the ED school to some degree.

Do agree that you need to find a safety school that your kid is happy with. However, that has become harder and harder, as applications to many schools previously considered safeties go up.

By "apply early," I meant apply EA to your safeties, or early in the fall for those schools with rolling admissions.

But I take your point--of course a strategy of applying ED is going to involve making some visits, no question. I think one needs to weigh carefully whether it is worth it to go down this path. This is a decision to invest in pipe dreams, so proceed at your own risk.

[Anonymous]

Close to 4 million kids will graduate high school this year. If you look at the top 20 schools they will take about 40,000 freshmen. That is 1% of graduating seniors will go to a T20 school. My DCs regular public school has 400 kids graduating this year. So the top 1% is 4 kids. Since the school provides class rank and DC has been in the same rigorous courses with the same top 30 students or so, they know where most kids fall on class rank, SAT scores, GPA, ECs, etc. The top 4 were accepted to MIT, JHU, Penn (ED) and Vanderbilt (still waiting on Ivy day). It’s the kids who are ranked 5-15 who are struggling. These are still 3.9-4.0, 1500+ SAT, with plenty of ECs, but they’re seeing a lot of WL and rejections. In at state school, but most are disappointed by that. We all think our kids are superstars (and they are), there’s just even bigger superstars out there.