If you had a high stats kid from a strong local private . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

Sure- here is his reach list and results
Yale (SCEA rejected)
Harvard (rejected)
Princeton (WL)
Columbia (accepted and what he choose)
Brown (accepted)
Duke (rejected)
Rice (accepted)
U Chicago (Wait list)
Cal- Accepted
UCLA- Accepted
Williams- Accepted

Interesting. Columbia, Brown, Duke. If he didn't apply to Columbia and Brown, he would have fallen to Rice.

A numbers game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

Sure- here is his reach list and results
Yale (SCEA rejected)
Harvard (rejected)
Princeton (WL)
Columbia (accepted and what he choose)
Brown (accepted)
Duke (rejected)
Rice (accepted)
U Chicago (Wait list)
Cal- Accepted
UCLA- Accepted
Williams- Accepted

Interesting. Columbia, Brown, Duke. If he didn't apply to Columbia and Brown, he would have fallen to Rice.

A numbers game.

Well he didn't get into Duke, it was the one that as parent's we really didn't see as a fit and I think they saw the same thing. Columbia and Brown were always on his apply to list, he actually liked Columbia more than Brown (and both of those more than Penn which he didn't apply to) based on visit and various student interactions. He is a very organized kid so I think Columbia's core appealed to him whereas Brown's open curriculum he found more of a distraction. In the end that is how he picked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

Sure- here is his reach list and results
Yale (SCEA rejected)
Harvard (rejected)
Princeton (WL)
Columbia (accepted and what he choose)
Brown (accepted)
Duke (rejected)
Rice (accepted)
U Chicago (Wait list)
Cal- Accepted
UCLA- Accepted
Williams- Accepted

Interesting. Columbia, Brown, Duke. If he didn't apply to Columbia and Brown, he would have fallen to Rice.

A numbers game.

As someone with zero connection to any of the schools named, "fallen" is a spectacularly dumb thing to say about Rice.

[Anonymous]

My child was top of class, competitive private, and this was what their list looked like (they got in early decision to Duke, but would have applied to the list below). As you can see, they didn’t have a strong preference for location, size etc. and kind of just chose based on good vibes at visits.

Reaches: Dartmouth, Penn, Brown, Vanderbilt
Next tier: Georgetown, Michigan, Boston College, Middlebury
Likely: UMD, College of William and Mary, Indiana

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child was top of class, competitive private, and this was what their list looked like (they got in early decision to Duke, but would have applied to the list below). As you can see, they didn’t have a strong preference for location, size etc. and kind of just chose based on good vibes at visits.

Reaches: Dartmouth, Penn, Brown, Vanderbilt
Next tier: Georgetown, Michigan, Boston College, Middlebury
Likely: UMD, College of William and Mary, Indiana

Agree on this list.

Perhaps don’t call them “target”.
“Next tier” is entirely appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

Sure- here is his reach list and results
Yale (SCEA rejected)
Harvard (rejected)
Princeton (WL)
Columbia (accepted and what he choose)
Brown (accepted)
Duke (rejected)
Rice (accepted)
U Chicago (Wait list)
Cal- Accepted
UCLA- Accepted
Williams- Accepted

Thank you for sharing this and congratulations to your kid. It gives me hope as my kid was rejected SCEA Yale last month despite being valedictorian, having high test scores and multiple awards, varsity sport, etc. My DC would absolutely love to go to either Columbia or Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

Sure- here is his reach list and results
Yale (SCEA rejected)
Harvard (rejected)
Princeton (WL)
Columbia (accepted and what he choose)
Brown (accepted)
Duke (rejected)
Rice (accepted)
U Chicago (Wait list)
Cal- Accepted
UCLA- Accepted
Williams- Accepted

Can you share his profile & metrics/ec’s

[Anonymous]

Does he like Columbia? Just wondering how that worked out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does he like Columbia? Just wondering how that worked out!

Answering all of the questions in one-
Good luck OP, Yale is one of the ones that doesn't defer very many from SCEA so it is not necessarily an indication. It is pretty much a random black box, no way of knowing what any of their institutional priorities are or how many spots for students like your student there are vs how many are filled.

Stats, 3.93UW (couple of A-'s in 9th and 10th grade) 4.43 w/ max rigor what brought his weighted GPA down a tiny bit is that he took extra elective classes in 11th/12th (I suspect AO's liked this) top 5% in his class would have been higher without the extra electives. 1540 SAT. Took AP tests for all AP classes and scored 5's in all (as of application that meant 5's in World History; APUSH, Calc AB; Chem; Lang Comp; AP Lit; AP Span) Significant EC with leadership and some national competition wins; did do a research paper w/ a post doc

His a Stem major and loves Columbia- though the curve grading worried him at first he has done great and appreciates it now, thinks it helps have confidence for skipping ahead and also helps students who need more help/focus who otherwise could be behind and not know it. He now thinks its a better fit for him than Yale would have been, he is a happy, outgoing person and frankly would have been fine at any of his options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top stats isn’t as important as relative rank as pp noted above. The school will try to get the top ranked kids into the best schools. If your kid has great stats but isn’t tippy top focus on top 25 LAC and top 25 universities and then look for best fit.

I am confused… hard to imagine any top ranked kids who are low stats. What are you talking about?

OP here,

I didn't write that. But my kid goes to a school where they don't weight classes. A student can have a 3.9 GPA and be in the top 10%. They don't publish ranks, but this is clear from the student profile.

At our local public school, more than half of the kids have GPA's over 4.0, because of generous ranking.

A kid from our school with a 3.9 has a shot at a T25. A kid with a 3.9 from public does not.

NP here - cum laude is a good proxy for rank/understanding what is likely. Most cum laude kids end up at ivies, Jefferson scholar-type programs - def top 25 or Williams.

My kid’s target was state flagship which others will say is risky but worked out for my kid and was recommended by counselor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top stats isn’t as important as relative rank as pp noted above. The school will try to get the top ranked kids into the best schools. If your kid has great stats but isn’t tippy top focus on top 25 LAC and top 25 universities and then look for best fit.

I am confused… hard to imagine any top ranked kids who are low stats. What are you talking about?

PP is refering to the reverse; high stats, but not top ranked. This happens at small, selective high schools and magnet high schools. My DCs were ranked below the 50th in thier classes, but had SATs over 1500. They didn't even apply to any top 20 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top stats isn’t as important as relative rank as pp noted above. The school will try to get the top ranked kids into the best schools. If your kid has great stats but isn’t tippy top focus on top 25 LAC and top 25 universities and then look for best fit.

I am confused… hard to imagine any top ranked kids who are low stats. What are you talking about?

PP is refering to the reverse; high stats, but not top ranked. This happens at small, selective high schools and magnet high schools. My DCs were ranked below the 50th in thier classes, but had SATs over 1500. They didn't even apply to any top 20 schools.

I see. I thought “stats” means including gpa (and rank). Ranked 50 percentile can’t be high stats, right? It’s not just test score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

This was also our approach for 2 kids at a non-DC private.

RD was nerve-wracking though. We found choice of major to matter a lot in outcomes. Non-stem kid had a lot more “top” options than stem kid.

One kid had stronger national level recognition in ECs. Now Ivy and T10 students - who had options for both in RD.

It required an enormous amount of work and customization for the essays. These T20s are looking for different things. I disagree that you can just tweak a supplemental essay and use it for many T20 schools. At least we did not do that. Some schools like more creative and others more straightforward. Some schools want you to stress personal qualities and others want you to stress your academic interest and relevant experience. It’s hard to do all of that and do it well in one template essay.

How do you know which college prefers what in the essays? Are you just guessing or did they tell you at an info session?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got into their SCEA school and had a long list of other “reachy” schools to apply to had they not. My advice is to rely on your school counselors. They were very upfront that my kid had the stats/activities to apply anywhere. Some classmates that were also great students but not at the very top got different guidance.

OP here,

I'm not questioning the school counselors, we just haven't met with them yet, and I'm looking down the road, but we'll definitely take the counselor's advice if it conflicts with DCUM.

My kid is one of those kids where it's worth applying to the very reachy school, but wondering what kinds of schools to look at for target and safety, and how many we need to find.

The way to do this is to determine the attributes that your kid likes in the reach-y school. Dartmouth is rural, Cornell is in a small town, Columbia and Harvard are in big cities. Likely there is no reason to apply to these four schools other than to brag. If your kid prefers a Harvard or Columbia then look for other schools in cities. If your kid prefers Dartmouth, then look at other smaller schools in smaller towns. Geography is important - if they want to be in the south, then Vanderbilt, Emory and similar would be on the same list. Once you cut down for semester versus quarter, size, setting (rural, suburban, urban) curriculum (open or rigid) etc, you can cull a list pretty easily.

Note this DCUM advice is directly the opposite of what "The Game" guy recommends, which is essentially that if you are a high stats student trying for a T20 winnowing the list down based on location/size preferences will massively reduce chances of ending up at any T20.

Every year private school counselors use this to steer kids one way or the other. Be careful when your kid answers the question. No preference at all would be the best answer.

+1 We used a private counselor in addition to the high touch counseling at our Bay Area private school and his advice did differ especially as it related to the Ivy+ schools which was essentially to apply to almost all except ones he truly did not think he would be happy at (in DS' case there were 3 of those he just didn't like). DC's had more and better choices than his peers who followed the more traditional advice of the school counselor . . . If your kid is unhooked and truly high stats (max rigor, top 5% of class, mid 1500's SAT, significant EC's with leadership/impact) you probably don't want to limit their list on the basis of weather, ranking of sports teams etc. . . Kid can those things to decide where to go not where to apply

This is the approach my independent counselor advised as well. It is a long-shot for even the tippy top kids and you never know what will happen at those very selective schools. Curious if you could shares some of the schools your DC got into and which one they chose.

This was also our approach for 2 kids at a non-DC private.

RD was nerve-wracking though. We found choice of major to matter a lot in outcomes. Non-stem kid had a lot more “top” options than stem kid.

One kid had stronger national level recognition in ECs. Now Ivy and T10 students - who had options for both in RD.

It required an enormous amount of work and customization for the essays. These T20s are looking for different things. I disagree that you can just tweak a supplemental essay and use it for many T20 schools. At least we did not do that. Some schools like more creative and others more straightforward. Some schools want you to stress personal qualities and others want you to stress your academic interest and relevant experience. It’s hard to do all of that and do it well in one template essay.

How do you know which college prefers what in the essays? Are you just guessing or did they tell you at an info session?

Our IEC & private COO indicated this to us. You can also read a bunch of social media on this and see it play out in so many ways:
Duke likes ambitious yet collaborative students (a hard balance) - collaboration is a theme, yet dream big.
Cornell likes a "career" focused candidate, less interested in exploring everything and meandering through a slew of unrelated majors and instead someone who knows exactly where they want to go and how to get there.
Northwestern likes creative interdisciplinary big thinkers and emotional community-oriented essays.
Brown likes curious self-directed kids who just like learning independently in their spare time (hence Open Curriculum);
Rice is all about community, community, community, with a sprinkle of collaboration.

A good editor or counselor should be giving your kid this feedback BY school, so you hit the essay correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does he like Columbia? Just wondering how that worked out!

Answering all of the questions in one-
Good luck OP, Yale is one of the ones that doesn't defer very many from SCEA so it is not necessarily an indication. It is pretty much a random black box, no way of knowing what any of their institutional priorities are or how many spots for students like your student there are vs how many are filled.

Stats, 3.93UW (couple of A-'s in 9th and 10th grade) 4.43 w/ max rigor what brought his weighted GPA down a tiny bit is that he took extra elective classes in 11th/12th (I suspect AO's liked this) top 5% in his class would have been higher without the extra electives. 1540 SAT. Took AP tests for all AP classes and scored 5's in all (as of application that meant 5's in World History; APUSH, Calc AB; Chem; Lang Comp; AP Lit; AP Span) Significant EC with leadership and some national competition wins; did do a research paper w/ a post doc

His a Stem major and loves Columbia- though the curve grading worried him at first he has done great and appreciates it now, thinks it helps have confidence for skipping ahead and also helps students who need more help/focus who otherwise could be behind and not know it. He now thinks its a better fit for him than Yale would have been, he is a happy, outgoing person and frankly would have been fine at any of his options.

Very helpful to see what it takes to get into this level. Sounds like your DS found a good fit. I wouldn't have expected that Columbia would be good for a STEM kid because of the core curriculum, but I stand corrected.