For parents that were shocked their kids didn't get accepted...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a weirdly aggressive post, op.

OP here: I didn't mean for it to be aggressive. Honestly trying to understand what happened/why people are surprised. This includes college counselors!

NP. Nearly every time I would see someone roll out their student's "safeties" list on this site, I would think to myself, good luck if you think all those [non ivy, not SLAC, etc.] schools are your safeties, or even targets. And now here we are.

Exactly! Safety for us meant 65%+ general admissions rate, and even then stuff can go sideways. So made it 3 safeties.

Some here aeem to have exaggerated views of what a true safety is.

Yeah I remember kids at my DC’s school looking down on umd and saying its a safety school and everyone gets in.. then many kids didn’t get in.

The idea of a safety school is not just the acceptance rate, but the expectation that they are more focused on stats and objective measures than subjective ones. So if a kid has 75% percentile test and GPA score, they are pretty confident that they will be accepted into a 50% acceptance rate school. There is of course a chance that they won't be, but it's not the expected result.

The wife and I think that so many people applied to "safety" schools this year, including higher stat kids that normally would not have applied, that these stat-focused schools have had to adjust their acceptance criteria upwards even when factoring in yield protection. It's going to be interesting to see what the yield turns out to be this year. I don't see schools building in a safety margin, even considering their waitlists, which will dwindle fast as the students become committed to their schools of choice.

There’s another factor you’re leaving out, which is that several “safety” schools have had larger yields than expected the past few years. Auburn and Pitt, both examples of the increased application phenomenon, both enrolled larger classes than intended last year. Auburn has announced that they want to reduce the size of the freshman class this year. VaTech is another school that has been over-enrolled in the recent past, so they’re probably trying to be conservative re: yield.

[Anonymous]

If you applied to a safety school and is accepted, you have not failed. I think a lot of parents is shocked that their child was not accepted to their target school Op!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

7. Fall in love with 3-4 public EA's and apply as early as you can to them, even if the cut off is Nov 1, get it in early. It will get an earlier read and be sure you are in the first traunch of releases, even if that is in January and not rolling.

8. Find one rolling schools. It used to be Pitt, but I am guessing after this year, that won't be the case. Get an application in early - like September, so you can get one positive notification early and out of the way.

[Anonymous]

Kicking parents/ high school seniors when they are down is ugly and pathetic op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a sophomore the thing I find concerning reading all these posts is that the system seems so capricious with a hefty dose of luck involved. My kid will probably be fairly high stats and I think is going to want to ED to a school ranked around 25. That may work out or not, and we get that and that other top schools are a lottery. What freaks me out a little is the stories of kids not getting into the safeties it’s been recommended they fall in love with either because of yield protection or increases in applications. It seems like some kids can fall betwixt and between. Hopefully applying to enough schools will lessen that risk however 1) it may be hard to “fall in love” with multiple safeties and 2) it does seem like all of that is just compounding the problem with kids feeling they need to apply to 15 plus schools to spread the risk.

Part of the phenomenon that I think I'm seeing is that particular schools that have been safeties all of a sudden get incredibly "hot." So you may have 1/3 of the graduating class applying to the same school as a safety. At some point, there is simply a limit to how many students are going to be admitted from any one school to Pitt, or UVM, or UCSB, or UICU. The parents and the college counselor are looking at Naviance and seeing a sea of green checkmarks, but they aren't taking into account that there are literally 5X as many students applying in this cycle then 3-4 years ago. And because schools tend to get "hot" not just at one school but regionally/throughout similar school districts with similar student bodies, it becomes even harder to stand out. And so acceptances plummet.

You could kind of see this happening in real time over last summer and early fall, and you could also see the acceptances and merit aid at those schools dropping precipitously. My DC is at a private school, but just looking at Naviance, and to give one example, the number of students applying to Pitt more than tripled between 2018 and 2022, to the point where more than 1/3 of the class applied there. The number of acceptances remained about the same, but it means that it completely changed category-wise. UCSB applications more than doubled in the past five years, and UVM application numbers were also markedly up.

In trying to figure out whether a school that was previously a safety remains a safety (and a match a match, reach a reach), you need to look not just at historic admissions rates but also at sheer volume of applications and trends over time. That's the only way to assess whether the historic admissions data can be a reliable indicator of DC's chances.

FWIW, all of my kids' safeties were at small schools, but there just weren't a lot of kids from DC's school applying to them and there weren't any more this year than in past years, with our DC as often the only applicant or one of only 1-2. In our case, the historic #s were extremely predictive of admissions outcomes, although we had a couple of nice surprises from reach schools also.

Bump. Nobody wants to hear this, but it's true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kicking parents/ high school seniors when they are down is ugly and pathetic op.

The OP simply asked questions. Defensive parents who overreached will get salty.

Hopefully, the class of 2023 parents will take heed and adjust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

7. Fall in love with 3-4 public EA's and apply as early as you can to them, even if the cut off is Nov 1, get it in early. It will get an earlier read and be sure you are in the first traunch of releases, even if that is in January and not rolling.

8. Find one rolling schools. It used to be Pitt, but I am guessing after this year, that won't be the case. Get an application in early - like September, so you can get one positive notification early and out of the way.

8a. When you get into the rolling school, buy a sweatshirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a sophomore the thing I find concerning reading all these posts is that the system seems so capricious with a hefty dose of luck involved. My kid will probably be fairly high stats and I think is going to want to ED to a school ranked around 25. That may work out or not, and we get that and that other top schools are a lottery. What freaks me out a little is the stories of kids not getting into the safeties it’s been recommended they fall in love with either because of yield protection or increases in applications. It seems like some kids can fall betwixt and between. Hopefully applying to enough schools will lessen that risk however 1) it may be hard to “fall in love” with multiple safeties and 2) it does seem like all of that is just compounding the problem with kids feeling they need to apply to 15 plus schools to spread the risk.

Part of the phenomenon that I think I'm seeing is that particular schools that have been safeties all of a sudden get incredibly "hot." So you may have 1/3 of the graduating class applying to the same school as a safety. At some point, there is simply a limit to how many students are going to be admitted from any one school to Pitt, or UVM, or UCSB, or UICU. The parents and the college counselor are looking at Naviance and seeing a sea of green checkmarks, but they aren't taking into account that there are literally 5X as many students applying in this cycle then 3-4 years ago. And because schools tend to get "hot" not just at one school but regionally/throughout similar school districts with similar student bodies, it becomes even harder to stand out. And so acceptances plummet.

You could kind of see this happening in real time over last summer and early fall, and you could also see the acceptances and merit aid at those schools dropping precipitously. My DC is at a private school, but just looking at Naviance, and to give one example, the number of students applying to Pitt more than tripled between 2018 and 2022, to the point where more than 1/3 of the class applied there. The number of acceptances remained about the same, but it means that it completely changed category-wise. UCSB applications more than doubled in the past five years, and UVM application numbers were also markedly up.

In trying to figure out whether a school that was previously a safety remains a safety (and a match a match, reach a reach), you need to look not just at historic admissions rates but also at sheer volume of applications and trends over time. That's the only way to assess whether the historic admissions data can be a reliable indicator of DC's chances.

FWIW, all of my kids' safeties were at small schools, but there just weren't a lot of kids from DC's school applying to them and there weren't any more this year than in past years, with our DC as often the only applicant or one of only 1-2. In our case, the historic #s were extremely predictive of admissions outcomes, although we had a couple of nice surprises from reach schools also.

Bump. Nobody wants to hear this, but it's true.

ITA. Thinking more about this, some ideas for "safety" universities that aren't as hot as Pitt, UVM, etc but which are great (and fun) schools:

Indiana--Bloomington
UMass Amherst
Delaware
Auburn

and SLACs:

Clark
Lawrence
St. Olaf
Muhlenberg
Wooster
Wheaton (MA)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

7. When determining safeties and targets look at acceptance rate differences between ED and RD and be aware of differences in acceptance rates for intended major. There was one school that dd was considering that once we learned the RD rate was 18% when overall acceptance rate was 28% (or something like that), it was clear it would be a big reach since ED was not an option for us financially.

8. See if child is willing to branch out and apply to places that maybe aren’t as popular from their HS. I think a pp was into something with the “hot” schools where you look at Naviance and the number of kids applying has taken off and the percent getting in from your school starts going lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

I heard there was expected to be a huge increase in applications but I wasn't sure what that impact would be. We figured that the schools would still look at tests for those students that did submit them. I remember seeing statistics showing that for TO schools in the prior year, the acceptance rate was higher for students that did submit test scores. We guessed that the increase in applications is mainly from students who are reaching at schools that they normally would not have applied to and that the schools will still find a way to admit students according to their normal standards. In short, we figured that TO was largely a form of virtue signaling. Apparently, we were wrong.

My kid's counselor was very reassuring to our kid regarding his chances of being accepted. Looking at the Naviance map for his ED school, his stats are in the heart of a cluster of checkmarks and only one X. Despite this, we applied to 20+ schools because ED/EA rounds completely shattered our preconceived notions. Now the counselor is voicing frustration and the sinking feeling that the students haven't been given adequate guidance this year. One student with a 3.6 GPA and 1350 SAT applied to a "normal" number of schools and did not get into any of them.

We did consider the math/odds but felt confident about our kid's stats, ECs, recommendations, and essay quality. Even if he has bad luck at one, two, three, or four schools, he should not have bad luck at 10 or 20 schools. We are engineers and we understand statistics; both of us are also in administrative roles and write documents targeted toward a variety of audiences so we understand the importance of connecting with the reader. I believe we were rationally optimistic based on the then-best-available information.

I do want to congratulate all the students that got into a school that they are happy with. It's a valuable opportunity and I wish them the very best.

And???

And is right.

And by the way, if this is a public school you're talking about, all you're doing is proving our point. A 3.6 GPA is inconsistent with a 1350 SAT score.

NP, still waiting to hear how a 3.6 is inconsistent with a 1350. Should the SAT score be lower or higher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a sophomore the thing I find concerning reading all these posts is that the system seems so capricious with a hefty dose of luck involved. My kid will probably be fairly high stats and I think is going to want to ED to a school ranked around 25. That may work out or not, and we get that and that other top schools are a lottery. What freaks me out a little is the stories of kids not getting into the safeties it’s been recommended they fall in love with either because of yield protection or increases in applications. It seems like some kids can fall betwixt and between. Hopefully applying to enough schools will lessen that risk however 1) it may be hard to “fall in love” with multiple safeties and 2) it does seem like all of that is just compounding the problem with kids feeling they need to apply to 15 plus schools to spread the risk.

Another sophomore mom sweating alongside you for the same reason. It seems like things are in a spiral of ever increasing numbers of admissions, ever declining ways of showing merit, and rapidly falling odds of getting in at most schools with any level of positive reputation. As someone said earlier in the thread, I have come to regard college admissions to anywhere but the local community college as a lottery, with the odds worsening by the day. I do not look forward to the first 3 months of 2024.

Strongly suggest you open your mind to what might constitute positive reputations. Let go of admit rate as the sole arbiter and look at what kids do after, including grad school placements, etc.. There are good schools outside the NE and West coast corridors - good to find them, embrace them, in case they end up as your DC's target/safety and one of less than a handful of admits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kicking parents/ high school seniors when they are down is ugly and pathetic op.

That’s not what’s happening here. You like to comment without reading any posts in a thread? Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a sophomore the thing I find concerning reading all these posts is that the system seems so capricious with a hefty dose of luck involved. My kid will probably be fairly high stats and I think is going to want to ED to a school ranked around 25. That may work out or not, and we get that and that other top schools are a lottery. What freaks me out a little is the stories of kids not getting into the safeties it’s been recommended they fall in love with either because of yield protection or increases in applications. It seems like some kids can fall betwixt and between. Hopefully applying to enough schools will lessen that risk however 1) it may be hard to “fall in love” with multiple safeties and 2) it does seem like all of that is just compounding the problem with kids feeling they need to apply to 15 plus schools to spread the risk.

Part of the phenomenon that I think I'm seeing is that particular schools that have been safeties all of a sudden get incredibly "hot." So you may have 1/3 of the graduating class applying to the same school as a safety. At some point, there is simply a limit to how many students are going to be admitted from any one school to Pitt, or UVM, or UCSB, or UICU. The parents and the college counselor are looking at Naviance and seeing a sea of green checkmarks, but they aren't taking into account that there are literally 5X as many students applying in this cycle then 3-4 years ago. And because schools tend to get "hot" not just at one school but regionally/throughout similar school districts with similar student bodies, it becomes even harder to stand out. And so acceptances plummet.

You could kind of see this happening in real time over last summer and early fall, and you could also see the acceptances and merit aid at those schools dropping precipitously. My DC is at a private school, but just looking at Naviance, and to give one example, the number of students applying to Pitt more than tripled between 2018 and 2022, to the point where more than 1/3 of the class applied there. The number of acceptances remained about the same, but it means that it completely changed category-wise. UCSB applications more than doubled in the past five years, and UVM application numbers were also markedly up.

In trying to figure out whether a school that was previously a safety remains a safety (and a match a match, reach a reach), you need to look not just at historic admissions rates but also at sheer volume of applications and trends over time. That's the only way to assess whether the historic admissions data can be a reliable indicator of DC's chances.

FWIW, all of my kids' safeties were at small schools, but there just weren't a lot of kids from DC's school applying to them and there weren't any more this year than in past years, with our DC as often the only applicant or one of only 1-2. In our case, the historic #s were extremely predictive of admissions outcomes, although we had a couple of nice surprises from reach schools also.

Bump. Nobody wants to hear this, but it's true.

ITA. Thinking more about this, some ideas for "safety" universities that aren't as hot as Pitt, UVM, etc but which are great (and fun) schools:

Indiana--Bloomington
UMass Amherst
Delaware
Auburn

and SLACs:

Clark
Lawrence
St. Olaf
Muhlenberg
Wooster
Wheaton (MA)

IU and Auburn, especially Auburn, should not be on that list. They are no longer reliable safeties after this cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where you unaware of the significant increase in applications since COVID? Did you think TO would have no effect on the applicant pool? Did anyone (e.g., college counselor) discuss yield projection for perceived "safety" schools? Do you consider the math/odds in applying to a school that accepts less than 20% of applicants? Did you discuss any of these issues with your kids before they applied? Or is it something else?

I heard there was expected to be a huge increase in applications but I wasn't sure what that impact would be. We figured that the schools would still look at tests for those students that did submit them. I remember seeing statistics showing that for TO schools in the prior year, the acceptance rate was higher for students that did submit test scores. We guessed that the increase in applications is mainly from students who are reaching at schools that they normally would not have applied to and that the schools will still find a way to admit students according to their normal standards. In short, we figured that TO was largely a form of virtue signaling. Apparently, we were wrong.

My kid's counselor was very reassuring to our kid regarding his chances of being accepted. Looking at the Naviance map for his ED school, his stats are in the heart of a cluster of checkmarks and only one X. Despite this, we applied to 20+ schools because ED/EA rounds completely shattered our preconceived notions. Now the counselor is voicing frustration and the sinking feeling that the students haven't been given adequate guidance this year. One student with a 3.6 GPA and 1350 SAT applied to a "normal" number of schools and did not get into any of them.

We did consider the math/odds but felt confident about our kid's stats, ECs, recommendations, and essay quality. Even if he has bad luck at one, two, three, or four schools, he should not have bad luck at 10 or 20 schools. We are engineers and we understand statistics; both of us are also in administrative roles and write documents targeted toward a variety of audiences so we understand the importance of connecting with the reader. I believe we were rationally optimistic based on the then-best-available information.

I do want to congratulate all the students that got into a school that they are happy with. It's a valuable opportunity and I wish them the very best.

And???

And is right.

And by the way, if this is a public school you're talking about, all you're doing is proving our point. A 3.6 GPA is inconsistent with a 1350 SAT score.

NP, still waiting to hear how a 3.6 is inconsistent with a 1350. Should the SAT score be lower or higher?

If a kid is doing 3.6 level work, then the SAT should be higher - at least 1400, and probably 1450. That's why I asked if it's a public school. A 3.6 at a public school is not the same as a 3.6 at a private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what should we do as parents of juniors. I have a high stats junior...really am a bit flummoxed as to how to advise him.

1. If in any way possible, have your child apply ED
2. Take the most rigorous courses your child's school offers, starting in 9th/10th grade (so the path to do so actually begins in middle school)
3. Hope your child can create a theme to their applications and that this theme shows why they are applying to the schools they are applying. So, the classes they took and did well in, their extracurriculars, their essays all directly tell a story of said theme. Bonus if their teacher recommendations hopefully also touch on the same theme (this is of course impossible to know but if your child is solid the recommendations should). It is all about telling a story. And regarding extracurriculars, being the captain of a high school sports team or president of some high school club is not a way to distinguish anyone's application from the crowd
4. Encourage (strongly) that your child reframes from talking too much with their peers about all-things-college as it only creates stress all around. This will be near impossible but worth it if pulled off.
5. Make the college visits fun. They really can be fun and that will set the tone to all that follows.
Good luck

6. Focus 90 percent of your energy on safeties. Find safeties, fall in love with safeties, visit and show them lots of love so they know you are interested, apply early and be sure to give a good answer for the essay that asks "Why do you want to come here?" Do not visit top tier schools. Seriously. They know they are desired and are not tracking your interest like lower tier schools often do. Visiting only feeds your child's pipe dreams. You can visit them later if your child is admitted.

7. When determining safeties and targets look at acceptance rate differences between ED and RD and be aware of differences in acceptance rates for intended major. There was one school that dd was considering that once we learned the RD rate was 18% when overall acceptance rate was 28% (or something like that), it was clear it would be a big reach since ED was not an option for us financially.

8. See if child is willing to branch out and apply to places that maybe aren’t as popular from their HS. I think a pp was into something with the “hot” schools where you look at Naviance and the number of kids applying has taken off and the percent getting in from your school starts going lower.

Agree with #8 - DC into a much higher ranked school (which DC cared about even when we tried to de-emphasize) as they picked one that is less popular with HS classmates who are more narrowly focused by region. In ED1, other parents seemed to question. After the gauntlet of the last few months, parents compliment the strategy.