Help with least competitive of the three colleges: Duke, Brown, Dartmouth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

And you attributed that to “hate” by a particular admissions office to your public high school, rather than realizing that Amherst is a tiny, highly competitive liberal arts college with an undergrad student body 1/4 the size of Harvard’s? Your conclusion is…very odd.

[Anonymous]

Look at this way these schools have only 1,400-1,700 total Freshmen students in a class and get around 50,000 applications. Now realize you have recruited athletes, celeb kids, uber wealthy/donors that take up a few hundred of those spots.

What’s left? Not much. It’s a lottery after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you not have naviance scattergrams? There's really no way for people on this board to guess at chances. My feeling is that Dartmouth is the easiest of the three. But it's a gut feeling. (I think Duke is hardest.)

naviance doesn't have much data since it's a small school. There has been no acceptances at Dartmouth RD. Not sure if that is because they dislike our school or that they have already admitted legacies and are done admitting from our school.

That’s bizarre that you would think that they “dislike” your school rather than jumping to the more obvious conclusion that your tiny private didn’t produce competitive candidates for a highly competitive university.

Some colleges just don't like certain high schools. Back in my day I remember my competitive public high school had some admissions patterns that made absolutely no sense and no one would get into certain schools - if I recall Amherst hated us - kids would get into Williams, Harvard, Yale but rejected by Amherst. Very odd.

It’s Princeton at our HS. Do well with HYSM, just never Princeton. Unfortunately, my kid didn’t know that until junior year when the HS counselor told him. He was WL RD. He’s at one of the others (got into 2 of them RD).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at this way these schools have only 1,400-1,700 total Freshmen students in a class and get around 50,000 applications. Now realize you have recruited athletes, celeb kids, uber wealthy/donors that take up a few hundred of those spots.

What’s left? Not much. It’s a lottery after that.

Yes which is why when private school parents say a particular university hates their school, they’re misunderstanding their place in the university, because it is far more likely that the university does not know enough about their private school to care about it any more or less than any other public school in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look at this way these schools have only 1,400-1,700 total Freshmen students in a class and get around 50,000 applications. Now realize you have recruited athletes, celeb kids, uber wealthy/donors that take up a few hundred of those spots.

What’s left? Not much. It’s a lottery after that.

Yes which is why when private school parents say a particular university hates their school, they’re misunderstanding their place in the university, because it is far more likely that the university does not know enough about their private school to care about it any more or less than any other public school in America.

To be fair some of these private HSs are over 200 years old, well-known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Then leave. We’ve been begging you to for months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Incorrect, we can use National merit cutoffs as a surrogate for the number of high stats kids in a state. NY, NJ, MA, CA, VA Md and DC are the most competitive with the highest number of high stat kids. GA, IL, and Fl are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Incorrect, we can use National merit cutoffs as a surrogate for the number of high stats kids in a state. NY, NJ, MA, CA, VA Md and DC are the most competitive with the highest number of high stat kids. GA, IL, and Fl are not.

You are also incorrect.
For the class of 2026, NJ and MA had the highest NMSF cutoffs (225), which represent the top 1% in the state. DC is also there, but DC is always set to whatever the highest cutoff state is, so it's a different animal, along with students studying internationally (American and international) who are also assessed at the highest cutoff.
CA, VA, MD, and Washington state have a cutoff a point lower than NJ, MA and DC (224). Illinois is also pretty high (222), higher anyway than Georgia (220) and Florida (218).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at this way these schools have only 1,400-1,700 total Freshmen students in a class and get around 50,000 applications. Now realize you have recruited athletes, celeb kids, uber wealthy/donors that take up a few hundred of those spots.

What’s left? Not much. It’s a lottery after that.

Dartmouth is 1100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Incorrect, we can use National merit cutoffs as a surrogate for the number of high stats kids in a state. NY, NJ, MA, CA, VA Md and DC are the most competitive with the highest number of high stat kids. GA, IL, and Fl are not.

You are also incorrect.
For the class of 2026, NJ and MA had the highest NMSF cutoffs (225), which represent the top 1% in the state. DC is also there, but DC is always set to whatever the highest cutoff state is, so it's a different animal, along with students studying internationally (American and international) who are also assessed at the highest cutoff.
CA, VA, MD, and Washington state have a cutoff a point lower than NJ, MA and DC (224). Illinois is also pretty high (222), higher anyway than Georgia (220) and Florida (218).

You are truly an idiot. Nothing in your post contradicts me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Incorrect, we can use National merit cutoffs as a surrogate for the number of high stats kids in a state. NY, NJ, MA, CA, VA Md and DC are the most competitive with the highest number of high stat kids. GA, IL, and Fl are not.

Deduct 10 for DMV for at the skullduggery that goes on there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, please understand people posting about their schools, those students got in in-spite of their grades not because of them. They had an it factor in the whole package.

Also, many “nonDMV” posters are from parts of the country where the applicant pool is not as competitive, and/or they benefit from adding geographical diversity.

Ha. Yes, the NYC metro area is not competitive. Nor is Chicago. Nor LA.
Who are you referring to?

Who are you referring to, no one identified where exactly they were from only “nonDMV”

It’s not much easier re: competition levels once you get to places like NYC, metro Atlanta, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, etc. Some of those suburban areas rival the DMV in terms of competitiveness.

DMV is easier than NYC. On par with Silicon Valley (for east coast), Chicago and top ATL schools (Westminster, etc). You people have a very inflated sense of DMV importance. As a New Yorker I find this place hilarious.

Incorrect, we can use National merit cutoffs as a surrogate for the number of high stats kids in a state. NY, NJ, MA, CA, VA Md and DC are the most competitive with the highest number of high stat kids. GA, IL, and Fl are not.

Deduct 10 for DMV for at the skullduggery that goes on there

For some larger states with only one major affluent metro area (Georgia) , need to consider that scores from disadvantaged rural/urban areas are factored into the NMF index. Those states would have a far higher cut off otherwise.