Just realized application fee alone will cost $1000+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

Ok, troll.

What were the “safeties” then? Seriously.

Please explain your interest in her “safeties”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here who is trying to understand strategy now that it's basically a lottery. Let's say my kid has high stats, but that's not a differentiator anymore. Her favorite 3 schools are T20 and have low acceptance rates. They are all "reach", right? Then, "safeties" are ones where her stats are way above, right? But aren't people saying safeties are rejecting high stats kids b/c they would like to save the spot for someone who doesn't think of them as a safety? What even is a "target", then? If stats don't get you in and stats might keep you out, how does anyone get in?

Let’s be honest. It’s a highly profitable shell game. You parents are falling for it.

[Anonymous]

When people think UVA and Northeastern are safties, they end up with community college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here who is trying to understand strategy now that it's basically a lottery. Let's say my kid has high stats, but that's not a differentiator anymore. Her favorite 3 schools are T20 and have low acceptance rates. They are all "reach", right? Then, "safeties" are ones where her stats are way above, right? But aren't people saying safeties are rejecting high stats kids b/c they would like to save the spot for someone who doesn't think of them as a safety? What even is a "target", then? If stats don't get you in and stats might keep you out, how does anyone get in?

Let’s be honest. It’s a highly profitable shell game. You parents are falling for it.

Per past posts/threads, safety schools have a generous acceptance rate (so no space limitation issues) AND the kid shows sincere/genuine interest (e.g. in person visit, virtual meeting with admissions officer, essay that shows why they're really interested in X school) to avoid yield concerns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When people think UVA and Northeastern are safties, they end up with community college.

That's why a lot of people are mad at UVA and Northeastern.

[Anonymous]

15 is a lot. Top 5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

You can email and ask, some colleges give application fee waiver to high stat kids regardless of need eligibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

NP. Some safeties waitlist or reject high stats students. This is a big concern for many parents of high stats children. I know quite a few who were rejected by UMD, their state school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

NP. Some safeties waitlist or reject high stats students. This is a big concern for many parents of high stats children. I know quite a few who were rejected by UMD, their state school.

Look at the post at 15:44. There are ways to demonstrate to a safety school that your kid really IS interested in attending without committing to anything (e.g. apply Early Action, visit, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

NP. Some safeties waitlist or reject high stats students. This is a big concern for many parents of high stats children. I know quite a few who were rejected by UMD, their state school.

NP UMD does not reject high stat kids that apply prior to 11/1. OP if you are worried about $1K in application fees- eventually you pay for college and it will be more- my incoming freshman has a 40K invoice for the fall and we need to get him a new lap top that will take rendering software (between 2000 and 2500)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

NP. Some safeties waitlist or reject high stats students. This is a big concern for many parents of high stats children. I know quite a few who were rejected by UMD, their state school.

State school does not equal safety.

UMD is not a safety. Your stats have to be above 75th percentile AND they need to admit more than 60% of applicants. Again, not a safety.

[Anonymous]

I just think people are having an incredibly hard time with the safety concept

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here who is trying to understand strategy now that it's basically a lottery. Let's say my kid has high stats, but that's not a differentiator anymore. Her favorite 3 schools are T20 and have low acceptance rates. They are all "reach", right? Then, "safeties" are ones where her stats are way above, right? But aren't people saying safeties are rejecting high stats kids b/c they would like to save the spot for someone who doesn't think of them as a safety? What even is a "target", then? If stats don't get you in and stats might keep you out, how does anyone get in?

Let’s be honest. It’s a highly profitable shell game. You parents are falling for it.

Per past posts/threads, safety schools have a generous acceptance rate (so no space limitation issues) AND the kid shows sincere/genuine interest (e.g. in person visit, virtual meeting with admissions officer, essay that shows why they're really interested in X school) to avoid yield concerns.

This, plus the kid has to really like it and be excited to attend and family has to be able to afford it. It's not a safety without any of those as well. Doesn't matter if the acceptance rate is 75%, if your kid isn't excited about it you need to search until you find some safeties that they can get excited about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 is a lot

Agreed.

Make a good list (tailored to fit), with 3 in each level of selectivity.

Glad we didn't take that advice. We'd be praying on wait lists right now.

If you were waitlisted at all three safeties, then they weren't really safeties.

NP. Some safeties waitlist or reject high stats students. This is a big concern for many parents of high stats children. I know quite a few who were rejected by UMD, their state school.

Look at the post at 15:44. There are ways to demonstrate to a safety school that your kid really IS interested in attending without committing to anything (e.g. apply Early Action, visit, etc.)

And does UMD have a 50-60%+ acceptance rate? I don't think so, so if not, it's not really a safety school for anyone.

But there are plenty of good safeties that your kid can demonstrate interest in and convince them they as a high stats kid wants to really attend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amount of work in crafting essays is going to be more than you realize! My kid applied to 11 schools and the lead up to the RD submission deadline was painful.

Applying to more schools should improve your probability of admission to at least one, as long as you’re qualified. My kid applied to 4 serious reaches (acceptance rate < 10%) and got into 1, waitlisted at 1, and rejected at 2. She got into all matches and safeties.

Calculating independent probabilities, if dc applies to 10 schools, 5 with a 5% probability of admission and 5 with a 10% probability of admission, then the probability of getting shut out is 46%. Add 2 more applications with a 10% probability of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 37%. You can use an online calculator like calculator.net to play around with the probabilities. It can help you understand that the probabilities may not be what you expect. For example, if you apply to 10 schools with a 10% probability of acceptance, your probability of getting shut out is 35%. Add 2 schools with a 75% of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 2.2%.

I am the PP above who pointed out that these are in fact independent events. However, the flaw in your approach is that you have no idea what any one persons odds of admission are at any one school - so you can't accurately calculate your chances this way and it is foolish to try. For example, your odds may be zero at all 15 schools.

You can't know the odds the way you know there are 52 cards in a deck, so this exacting method of calculation is useless. Despite that, they remain independent events. And the famous "Reach-Match-Safety" approach is essentially non-quantified game theory applied. It remains the best one I know of.

Seldom in risk assessments does anyone know the true probability! This doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful to know that 10 schools with 10 % probability does not mean a 100% chance of acceptance! Playing around with a reasonable range or probabilities can help create some reasonable expectations and some guidance in if it’s worth applying to an additional school.

I agree that calculating independent probabilities is a very good idea for people as a starting point: even well-educated folks who would not believe applying to 10 schools with a 10% chance of acceptance equals 100% seem to wrongly think it gives their kid a better than even chance of getting into at least 1. It doesn’t.

However, these independent probabilities, as a second, more intuitive step, need to be played with:

Take the “top” schools with 2-6% RD acceptance rates (RD rates are lower; don’t look at overall rates). Let’s assume your “typical” high stats kid with great curriculars who is not a recruited/semi-recruited athlete, URM, child of a long-term faculty employee, first-gen, or resident of North Dakota (the 5 huge admissions plusses; legacy only moves the needle slightly these days, and not at RD). Now take an educated guess as to the “real” probability of your child being admitted.

For this type of applicant, my educated guess is that the probability is 0. Maybe it is 1-2% for a small subset (a male humanities kid, say; but yet another male CS or female biology kid is a 0). If you, more optimistically, assume your child has a 1% admissions probability at each of these schools, 11 applications would result in a mere 10% chance of getting into 1. Far more likely, the real chance of admission is 0 at half of these schools (there is no way to know which half). Your child would then have to apply to 22 of these schools to have a 10% chance of getting into 1.

Stop doing this folks. There is a reason these schools are not timely sharing all of their admissions stats this year: they don’t want non-hooked kids, or their parents, to recognize that their RD applications are exercises in futility.

Thank you for taking the time to write this.

I once got interested in this question and did some research on Harvard admissions (Harvard is easy do because they have more public data due to the litigation). I added up all the students in each category of “hook” that were in a class and it totaled up to something like 120% of the class. Obviously, some of the students had multiple hooks, but even allowing for that, and looking at the admission rates for certain groups that were disclosed in the litigation, it’s pretty clear that the admission rate for a completely “unhooked” student is tiny.

Someone will chime in to say that their completely unhooked kid got into Harvard. Sure, it happens. But, as pp outlines above, if your kid is unhooked, the published admission rate itself is misleading, and the things that count as a “hook” are pretty much the same for every school, so applying to different schools will only marginally improve your odds. You may think the marginal improvement is worth the time and money, and that’s fine. But all anyone is saying is that, for application purposes, the number of reach schools that you apply to should not influence at all the number of safety and target schools you apply to.