Disappointment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Grades. It's all about grades. Little room for error. The rest is window dressing.

The OP had a 4.0 unweighted. Obviously, it's not all about grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Grades. It's all about grades. Little room for error. The rest is window dressing.

Tell that to my DC who has a 4.0 in the most rigorous class (plus near-perfect SATs and all 5s in AP exams).

If you really want to avoid disappointment, see it as a lottery and be sure to stress the wonderful aspects of schools outside the T20.

If your kid is that smart, they should understand that all T20 schools are highly rejective, that most who apply "meet the academic standard needed" so most will be rejected. It is simple statistics. So yes it's like the lottery, even if you get a ticket (high stats), 90%+ are rejected.

How do we explain situations where one kid gets into multiple T20, though, and another only gets into one? Is it luck? Is it that those schools are looking for the same thing? Or is it something else in the application?

Thought this recent Reddit post was really interesting:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1k98ye2/reflection_as_i_see_26_freaking_out_on_here/

The overlap on the Venn diagram is huge. Schools select according to their institutional priorities which are mostly the same priorities of other institutions so an application attractive to one is likely attractive to many.

There was a wild thread not too long ago the demonstrated the fundamental lack of understanding of Probability among the highly educated.

This is why you hear about a URM who gets in to all Ivies.

Funnily enough at my kid’s DMV private, the girl who swept the ivies is Asian!

The applications are race blind now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Grades. It's all about grades. Little room for error. The rest is window dressing.

The OP had a 4.0 unweighted. Obviously, it's not all about grades.

Every high school in the country has a few kids with 4.0. the SAT score is much less common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Grades. It's all about grades. Little room for error. The rest is window dressing.

Tell that to my DC who has a 4.0 in the most rigorous class (plus near-perfect SATs and all 5s in AP exams).

If you really want to avoid disappointment, see it as a lottery and be sure to stress the wonderful aspects of schools outside the T20.

If your kid is that smart, they should understand that all T20 schools are highly rejective, that most who apply "meet the academic standard needed" so most will be rejected. It is simple statistics. So yes it's like the lottery, even if you get a ticket (high stats), 90%+ are rejected.

How do we explain situations where one kid gets into multiple T20, though, and another only gets into one? Is it luck? Is it that those schools are looking for the same thing? Or is it something else in the application?

Thought this recent Reddit post was really interesting:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1k98ye2/reflection_as_i_see_26_freaking_out_on_here/

The overlap on the Venn diagram is huge. Schools select according to their institutional priorities which are mostly the same priorities of other institutions so an application attractive to one is likely attractive to many.

There was a wild thread not too long ago the demonstrated the fundamental lack of understanding of Probability among the highly educated.

This is why you hear about a URM who gets in to all Ivies.

Funnily enough at my kid’s DMV private, the girl who swept the ivies is Asian!

The applications are race blind now

When did you fall off the turnip truck, again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W&M is the top choice of her choices. Great school.

For her interest in biomedical engineering, I would pick Virginia Tech over William & Mary. If she were a humanities major, then W & M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Grades. It's all about grades. Little room for error. The rest is window dressing.

Tell that to my DC who has a 4.0 in the most rigorous class (plus near-perfect SATs and all 5s in AP exams).

If you really want to avoid disappointment, see it as a lottery and be sure to stress the wonderful aspects of schools outside the T20.

If your kid is that smart, they should understand that all T20 schools are highly rejective, that most who apply "meet the academic standard needed" so most will be rejected. It is simple statistics. So yes it's like the lottery, even if you get a ticket (high stats), 90%+ are rejected.

How do we explain situations where one kid gets into multiple T20, though, and another only gets into one? Is it luck? Is it that those schools are looking for the same thing? Or is it something else in the application?

Thought this recent Reddit post was really interesting:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1k98ye2/reflection_as_i_see_26_freaking_out_on_here/

The overlap on the Venn diagram is huge. Schools select according to their institutional priorities which are mostly the same priorities of other institutions so an application attractive to one is likely attractive to many.

There was a wild thread not too long ago the demonstrated the fundamental lack of understanding of Probability among the highly educated.

This is why you hear about a URM who gets in to all Ivies.

Funnily enough at my kid’s DMV private, the girl who swept the ivies is Asian!

The applications are race blind now

When did you fall off the turnip truck, again?

Do you have proof of the contrary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:W&M is the top choice of her choices. Great school.

For her interest in biomedical engineering, I would pick Virginia Tech over William & Mary. If she were a humanities major, then W & M.

NP. I have a humanities major at Virginia Tech who has been exposed to so many opportunities and depth of instruction. It's a great school for wide variety of majors - certainly not just STEM.

[Anonymous]

Op, I can relate, unhooked kid with similar stats didn’t get into her top choices. Settled for Stern, NYU, which is great but lots of similarly stats peers ended up at T15.

Was confused, disappointed but have moved on.

For us, DC essays weren't strong and major was competitive...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

It stinks. Hopkins legacy kid here rejected at 1560, perfect grades, ECs, bilingual, etc. Did not expect as many rejections as we got. But lived where they ended up.

I would say just look forward. Make the most of where they will be. No sense going in bitter.

Also, admissions seeing through these “nonprofits.” Maybe yours was impressive and noble, but WSJ and WaPo both have written about this “founded nonprofit” thing can be a bit of a bogus resume padder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:as a parent of a current 9th grader hoping to avoid disappointment, is there anything OP's child should have done differently? Be more "spikey"? Pick a less competitive major? Or is it just a lottery? Get more excited about "lower ranked" schools? TIA!

Listen to ‘Your College Bound kid’ podcast. It will change your perspective for the better. Op applies to too many ‘Sweatshirt schools’ - you will build a better list after listening to three episodes. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, I can relate, unhooked kid with similar stats didn’t get into her top choices. Settled for Stern, NYU, which is great but lots of similarly stats peers ended up at T15.

Was confused, disappointed but have moved on.

For us, DC essays weren't strong and major was competitive...

What major? Business?

How did you know the essays weren’t strong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

It stinks. Hopkins legacy kid here rejected at 1560, perfect grades, ECs, bilingual, etc. Did not expect as many rejections as we got. But lived where they ended up.

I would say just look forward. Make the most of where they will be. No sense going in bitter.

Also, admissions seeing through these “nonprofits.” Maybe yours was impressive and noble, but WSJ and WaPo both have written about this “founded nonprofit” thing can be a bit of a bogus resume padder

Hopkins only has ED, NOT EA. Maybe that was both pps problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

It stinks. Hopkins legacy kid here rejected at 1560, perfect grades, ECs, bilingual, etc. Did not expect as many rejections as we got. But lived where they ended up.

I would say just look forward. Make the most of where they will be. No sense going in bitter.

Also, admissions seeing through these “nonprofits.” Maybe yours was impressive and noble, but WSJ and WaPo both have written about this “founded nonprofit” thing can be a bit of a bogus resume padder

Hopkins only has ED, NOT EA. Maybe that was both pps problems.

1. OP came back several times to clarify that she typo'd EA.
2. It is so weird to me that people have treated that as some kind of gotcha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

It stinks. Hopkins legacy kid here rejected at 1560, perfect grades, ECs, bilingual, etc. Did not expect as many rejections as we got. But lived where they ended up.

I would say just look forward. Make the most of where they will be. No sense going in bitter.

Also, admissions seeing through these “nonprofits.” Maybe yours was impressive and noble, but WSJ and WaPo both have written about this “founded nonprofit” thing can be a bit of a bogus resume padder

Agree.

Plus, the OP surely emphasized her daughter doing “ -Research with Prof at T3O” when she wrote her daughter’s essays filled out her daughter’s common app.

But the whole “wrote a peer-reviewed research paper” gimmick is also getting tired.

It’s a red-flag to universities now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else facing a lot of disappointment during this cycle? DD got into a couple target schools + most of her safeties... Rejected or WL from the rest. She was (imo and told to us by many others) a great applicant - High stats, great ECs + essays, LORs... Her interviews all went very well, especially JHU. She applied to JHU EA and the rest RD, and we're from NOVA. Intended major is BME (biomed engineering).

Stats:
4.0 UW/4.7 W GPA
1570 SAT (800 M, 770 R&W)
14 APs, all 5s

ECs:
- A few regional awards (STEM)
- 200+ volunteer hours @ local hospital
- Founder of non-profit
- Research w/ prof at T30
- Competitive summer program for BME
- Lots of community service

Results:
JHU EA - Deferred -> Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Brown - Rejected
Dartmouth - Rejected
Columbia - Rejected
Duke - Rejected
UVA - WL
Cornell - WL
CMU - WL
UNC CH - WL
VT - Accepted
W&M - Accepted
Lehigh - Accepted
UPitt - Accepted

DD is incredibly upset and so are we... JHU was her dream school but she relied on UVA + CMU as well. Anyone here confused and facing a similar situation?We all were convinced that DD had it in the bag - Worst of all is that many of her classmates w/ lower stats and worse ECs have gotten into a few of these schools.

It stinks. Hopkins legacy kid here rejected at 1560, perfect grades, ECs, bilingual, etc. Did not expect as many rejections as we got. But lived where they ended up.

I would say just look forward. Make the most of where they will be. No sense going in bitter.

Also, admissions seeing through these “nonprofits.” Maybe yours was impressive and noble, but WSJ and WaPo both have written about this “founded nonprofit” thing can be a bit of a bogus resume padder

Hopkins only has ED, NOT EA. Maybe that was both pps problems.

1. OP came back several times to clarify that she typo'd EA.
2. It is so weird to me that people have treated that as some kind of gotcha.

People are desperate to believe that posters with bad results are lying. If that fails, they insist that the poster has made some strategic error. All of that protects people from having to admit to themselves that the system is f’d up.