Williams ED Bloodbath?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school counselors have access to this function to identify “hooks”-at least in SCOiR-and they should be notifying parents!!

Someone posted a link last year to a guide Harvard Westlake gives parents of juniors/seniors and every school should aspire to do this. It provides stats for hooked and unhooked students who were accepted to various schools in the prior year’s admissions process (maybe multiple cycles, I can’t remember exact details now). I don’t understand why schools hold this info back when college matriculation is one of their main “selling points” and sharing this info will increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.

Do you have the link? I’d like to send it to our private college counseling office.

Think this it. Holy sh*t eye-opening.

https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/completehandbook2023.pdf

The Harvard data for this school is not impressive at all. Once you take out legacy and recruited athlete. Eight admits out of 105 applications over the last three years?

Meanwhile in 2023,
14 to Harvard
10 to Columbia
9 to Stanford
8 to Cornell
7 to Penn
6 to Brown
5 to Yale.... and so on.

Does that mean - a lot of athletic recruits and legacy???

I would assume recruited athletes, legacy, donor/development families, URM, and possibly first gen are excluded. So what you’re really looking at are the stats for unhooked white and asian kids. And those kids are competing against their hooked peers for spots at top schools so they’re really at a disadvantage.

Do they exclude kids of famous people? A ton of celebrities send their kids to this school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Sounds like Potomac-didn’t know about the 2 legacies. Thought Williams doesn’t care about legacy anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Sounds like Potomac-didn’t know about the 2 legacies. Thought Williams doesn’t care about legacy anymore.

Yuck. If that's going to be the mix of the Freshman Class who wants to go there anyways?

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, that Harvard Westlake chart is interesting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Wow. What school?

A boarding school in Mass

It took three pages to find out we are talking about a likely feeder school. Talk about burying the lead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm, that Harvard Westlake chart is interesting!

And disappointing? Right? Given all the hoopla I thought it would be more stunning, but it is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Wow. What school?

A boarding school in Mass

It took three pages to find out we are talking about a likely feeder school. Talk about burying the lead.

?? This was about the five kids that got in, including the Afghan refugee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Sounds like Potomac-didn’t know about the 2 legacies. Thought Williams doesn’t care about legacy anymore.

Yuck. If that's going to be the mix of the Freshman Class who wants to go there anyways?

Agreed-my DC wants as far away as possible from this population!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearing stories of very few admitted ED1, many (unexpectedly) rejected outright and few deferrals.

Any personal insight?

What does this say about larger early decision trends?

What is an "(unexpectedly) rejected outright" decision? How is that possible in these times?

Legacy may be a light thumb on the scale for qualified applicants, but will not necessarily work for students who are in the lower range or below of admit stats.

The pp didn’t mention legacy. My guess is the applicants had high stats and therefore expected, worse cases to be deferred based on prior applicant experience at their high school.

Yes. Based on our private, hearing this.

I included legacy because I couldn't possibly imagine what "(unexpectedly) rejected outright" could possibly mean in these times save that. I do know a case from 2 years ago - not a NESCAC - where a recruited athlete was told "all's good," then got dinged ED1.

Can't imagine that folks possibly still think that even prior year can be predictive here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wish Naviance would have an indicator for all
Schools if those accepted were:

Athletes
URM
Legacy
First
Questbridge

Would be the fairest way for those applying to know their actual shot they have and plan accordingly.

Our school has never had anyone accepted who did not meet one of the above criteria so it significantly skews the results in Naviance / makes it looked more attainable than it is for an unhooked kid.

If a public, I get it. If a private, this should be pretty easy to figure out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t have time to read through all the comments but my children’s school had 5 seniors admitted to Williams last Friday. 2 athletes, 2 legacies and 1 refugee from Afghanistan. It was like a textbook illustration of why not to apply ED.

Sounds like Potomac-didn’t know about the 2 legacies. Thought Williams doesn’t care about legacy anymore.

No, that’s Amherst. Amherst got rid of legacy preference a while ago.

[Anonymous]

Five is a crazy number to such a small school but you”ll notice all of these admits have hooks:

-2 athlete
-2 legacy
-1 URM with interesting life story

My theory is that college counseling at these privates doesn’t provide any useful data to parents because the truth is that they do very little to help the non-hooked population get into the elite colleges. With legacy becoming more and more obsolete, look to future admits to private school to be Uber-rich or college recruitable athletes-your average smart kid without an extra need not apply!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Five is a crazy number to such a small school but you”ll notice all of these admits have hooks:

-2 athlete
-2 legacy
-1 URM with interesting life story

My theory is that college counseling at these privates doesn’t provide any useful data to parents because the truth is that they do very little to help the non-hooked population get into the elite colleges. With legacy becoming more and more obsolete, look to future admits to private school to be Uber-rich or college recruitable athletes-your average smart kid without an extra need not apply!!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school counselors have access to this function to identify “hooks”-at least in SCOiR-and they should be notifying parents!!

Someone posted a link last year to a guide Harvard Westlake gives parents of juniors/seniors and every school should aspire to do this. It provides stats for hooked and unhooked students who were accepted to various schools in the prior year’s admissions process (maybe multiple cycles, I can’t remember exact details now). I don’t understand why schools hold this info back when college matriculation is one of their main “selling points” and sharing this info will increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.

Do they consider it a hook to have an Academy Award or Grammy Award winner for a parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering what is happening in the world, referring to results for early admissions as a “bloodbath” is tone deaf and offensive.

For many years, the term "bloodbath" has been an accepted slang word within college admissions discourse. It's just a dead metaphor that people use all the time when talking about highly rejective schools. I'm sure OP meant no harm.