Where do top students who got rejected early from Ivy/T10 land?

[Anonymous]

My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

Unless you have a hook, getting in HYPSM is impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your DC is way outside the ballpark in terms of stats, I would say ED results at very selective schools don't necessarily define future results.

Our DS got rejected Duke ED with 1570/4.0UW/high course rigor/solid ECs. In regular round was accepted to multiple T10s and other great schools, and now is happily at Penn. Of course would have preferred getting a yes from his dream school during ED, but he's made great friends at Penn and has mostly forgotten Duke at this point.

+1

I don't think you can tell much from a rejection at one school.

Same. Rejected from Columbia ED. Accepted to Stanford and Harvard RD. Rejected at other ivies however.

What changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am talking about applicants who have the academic stats (1500+, 4.0+, high rigor) but didn't make the cut. Unhooked. What typically happens to them?

Of the people I know personally, who are currently ages 20-24:

Rice
WashU
Tufts
UCLA OOS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

I would say answer here depends on a true assessment of your high school. Is it a no-name public in some suburb that rarely sends kids to ivies? Then, accept counselor’s assessment. Is it a rigorous private or well-known public (most likely test in) that regularly sends a handful or more of kids each year to ivies? Then you have a slim chance. Feeder schools are real.

[Anonymous]

The reality is that even though acceptance rates are much higher ED, the vast majority of acceptances are offered RD, even at Ivies. Mathematically has to be true. Even if a class is filled ED, remember there is 100% yield ED. So to fill the other half of the class, even if RD yield is as high as 50%, a school needs to accept 2x as many applicants in RD vs ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

Wrong. My kid didn’t ED anywhere. RD got into two Ivies, Hopkins, Pomona, Georgetown, etc,

Don’t ED anywhere in a panic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

It's hard to say. Yale doesn't defer many applicants so kid has a strong app. But HSPM difficult as Yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am talking about applicants who have the academic stats (1500+, 4.0+, high rigor) but didn't make the cut. Unhooked. What typically happens to them?

If they got rejected not deferred they are more likely to end up getting no T20s. If they are deferred and also have the hardest courses and are close to the top of the class, 1550+ just 1500, we know 1-2 each year who get in to at least one ivy/top10 in RD after deferral from a different one in Early round

Eh, I don't think this is true. If a kid has the qualifications for top schools, as others have noted, the ED result at a highly selective school are not particularly predictive the results at similar schools. My DC was outright rejected in ED at a T20 school and got into 3 others in RD. DC knows a kid from an earlier class who was rejected from Williams in ED and ended up committing to Stanford in RD. That said, I suspect that there a lot of kids with good-not-great qualifications who use ED as a kind of hail mary--e.g., applying to Brown with a 3.8 UW, 8 APs, and a 1450 SAT.

[Anonymous]

This is why Cornell exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

CC has to be conservative. Your kid has as good a shot as anyone. RD to the schools kid is hoping for (worst they can say is “no” and they can’t say “yes” if you don’t ask) and throw in some Wesleyan, Tufts type LACS and a couple big state schools.

[Anonymous]

We have a kid who had similar stats. He was the guy who affirmatively wanted UChicago or Hopkins. He’s now at Chicago after ED1. That said, looking back, I think we were given overly pessimistic advice by CC. We assumed that everyone was like DS, when looking back and learning actual scores and GPAs of others, we realized his stats were standouts. No guarantees obviously since it’s such a crap shoot, so you can take my thoughts FWIW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why Cornell exists.

Mine got into Cornell RD.
But lots of top stats kids were denied in RD too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid has 1590/4.0 top rigor (school doesn’t weight or have AP classes but took three APs 5/5/4). I think essays show kid’s strengths, ECs are strong but not amazing. White, not legacy or big donor. Deferred at Yale early. College counselor says if kid doesn’t ED2 at UChicago there’s a strong likelihood of ending up in RD only having options at a large public or a school that’s a lot lower ranked than kid’s hoping for. Is college counselor being overly conservative? Kid likes Chicago well enough but would prefer HYSPM.

I would say answer here depends on a true assessment of your high school. Is it a no-name public in some suburb that rarely sends kids to ivies? Then, accept counselor’s assessment. Is it a rigorous private or well-known public (most likely test in) that regularly sends a handful or more of kids each year to ivies? Then you have a slim chance. Feeder schools are real.

True

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your DC is way outside the ballpark in terms of stats, I would say ED results at very selective schools don't necessarily define future results.

Our DS got rejected Duke ED with 1570/4.0UW/high course rigor/solid ECs. In regular round was accepted to multiple T10s and other great schools, and now is happily at Penn. Of course would have preferred getting a yes from his dream school during ED, but he's made great friends at Penn and has mostly forgotten Duke at this point.

+1

I don't think you can tell much from a rejection at one school.

Same. Rejected from Columbia ED. Accepted to Stanford and Harvard RD. Rejected at other ivies however.

What changed?

Nothing it seems as I used similar essays. Process can be random.