WSJ: the Secrets of Elite College Admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In the middle of February, a student’s ability to pay begins to enter the admissions equation. From that moment until decisions are delivered near the end of March, Lafayette takes a much closer look at students with high financial need, a line that is recalibrated every year. In 2019, the line was drawn at $35,000, around half of the total cost of attending Lafayette for a year. To give you a sense of the task facing Lafayette’s admissions officers, consider this: Of Lafayette’s 8,500 U.S. applicants in 2018-19, about 2,200 needed more than $35,000 a year in financial aid. That was roughly the level of need for a family with two children and an annual income of up to $175,000.

As he eliminates students from the admit pool, Mr. Hyde is careful to choose applicants with varying levels of financial need. His models tell him that students who get huge financial-aid packages end up enrolling more often than those with smaller awards or no aid at all. It’s a balancing act in meeting enrollment and budget targets.

Among those who didn’t make it into Lafayette that year was an applicant from Pennsylvania who ranked fifth in his high school class of more than 600, with a 3.96 GPA and 1450 on the SAT. His financial need to attend Lafayette: $66,810 for his freshman year. Another student kept out of the admit pool was a girl from the West Coast with nine AP classes on her transcript and a 1430 on the SAT. Her financial need: $57,000. In the end, Lafayette rejected 200 students whom the admissions staff had tentatively accepted but then decided the school couldn’t afford.

got it- don't be poor

I think the message is "don't be middle class." This says the college has a higher yield from kids who get larger awards, so my guess is that, out of a theoretical 3 kids, they think they'll get a better yield out of admitting 2 full pay students and 1 full scholarship student vs. 3 students with 1/3 scholarship.

[Anonymous]

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The original readers gave him a score of 2 out of 5 in that category, observing that he wanted to major in pre-med “but we don’t see activities to support that,” one of the admissions officers said.

other than taking all available bio and chem classes, how exactly does a high school kid demonstrate a love of premed?

Hospital shadowing and research (which is a whole other issue—not really acessible for kids in rural or suburban areas if they don’t have their own cars)

Yep. One of my friends who is a doctor spent high school summers and weekends as “Candystriper.” I don’t know if they even have that program anymore, but it involved volunteering at local hospitals. They wore a striped smock to identify them as young volunteers, thus the name.

My sisters and I did the same. Ours were jumpers (similar to what a first grade Catholic
School uniform looks like) and they were pink and white. We wore white shirts. I don’t remember doing much more than delivering flowers from the gift shop.

If you want to torture yourself, you can go to Princeton’s web site. The financial aid page has a calculator where you can guesstimate your DC’s cost of attendance for the year. Spoiler alert - they think you can pay way more than you think you can for DC to be a Princeton tiger.

I ran it too. I’d consider us MC/UMC and we got $25k/yr efc.

We did too on the EFC...until we added in the equity in our house. That jumped us up another $10K per year to $35K. That is a killer.

Go with the county assessment for the home value - it’s what the government says your house is worth and it probably reduces your equity by a decent amount

I just did the Princeton calculator. Isn't the home equity of your present home excluded? It looked like they were only asking about other properties?

No, Princeton lowered the amount of home equity used in the aid formula, but did not eliminate it completely except for those earning less than $90k. For those above $90k, they reduced the contribution expected from home equity by one-half or one-quarter for all other families eligible for financial aid and increased the “asset protection allowance” for families that do not own their homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson College, Emory University and the University of Washington, aren’t exactly “elite.” They are solid, high ranking schools. Elite would be like T10.

They are elite schools. Since there are only 8 Ivies and 400,000 plus or minus students other schools have moved up. There just isn’t room in the Ivies for every qualified student.

There is no set definition for what is "elite" vs good vs very good, etc., there is little upside in debating. In my experience, an "elite" often ends with where your kid goes to school and tries to exclude anything that is perceived as lower.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 15 or "Ivy Plus" has been a thing for a while.

Ivies make 8
Stanford, Duke, MIT, Chicago, Northwestern, Cal Tech (I guess?)...Hopkins? Makes 15.

Do people just add Cornell in there just because? It hasn't been "top15" in a decade, Confused as to how Emory would be viewed differently from it or Brown the other ivy that's ranked 15. Brown could easily be out of the top 15 this year.

There are clearly some schools that are more highly regarded than at least some of the Ivy League schools. Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Caltech are examples. I hadn't heard of "Top 15" as being a thing. I hear most often Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT as a default top tier. More murky below that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only T5 are definite elites. By any measure, Emory is a certain no.

Sucks for Stanford, just missing the cut.

Stanford is in T5.

T5 = HYPMS

And based on where people actually choose to attend when admitted to multiple schools, I'd say it is top 2 and USNWR hasn't really made a dent in that. And while Princeton has been top for quite a while in USNWR, I don't think it has made much of a dent in cross-admit choices with Harvard and Stanford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

You don't have to wonder. It does, and the data is clear:

As Karen Richardson, the dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management at Tufts says, “The biggest difference between ED and [RD] students is that those who apply ED have already decided that Tufts is the place that they want to be. As the ED pool has grown and gotten stronger, it’s difficult to say ‘no’ to good students who are good fits and who have made the commitment to attend if accepted.” Richardson goes on to note that Tufts specifically does not offer Early Action, because its non-binding nature makes yield projections difficult.

In fact, at many schools, early decision applicants are accepted at rates 10-12% higher than regular decision applicants.

https://blog.collegevine.com/does-applying-early-decision-increase-my-chances/

According to Niche data, based on roughly 200,000 applications from 125,000 college students, students’ chances of getting accepted to a school are 18 percent better if they apply through early action or early decision than through regular decision.

https://www.niche.com/blog/early-admissions-path-may-increase-acceptance/

Early application is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage point increase in acceptance probability, about the same as 100 additional points on the SAT

https://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

You don't have to wonder. It does, and the data is clear:

As Karen Richardson, the dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management at Tufts says, “The biggest difference between ED and [RD] students is that those who apply ED have already decided that Tufts is the place that they want to be. As the ED pool has grown and gotten stronger, it’s difficult to say ‘no’ to good students who are good fits and who have made the commitment to attend if accepted.” Richardson goes on to note that Tufts specifically does not offer Early Action, because its non-binding nature makes yield projections difficult.

In fact, at many schools, early decision applicants are accepted at rates 10-12% higher than regular decision applicants.

https://blog.collegevine.com/does-applying-early-decision-increase-my-chances/

According to Niche data, based on roughly 200,000 applications from 125,000 college students, students’ chances of getting accepted to a school are 18 percent better if they apply through early action or early decision than through regular decision.

https://www.niche.com/blog/early-admissions-path-may-increase-acceptance/

Early application is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage point increase in acceptance probability, about the same as 100 additional points on the SAT

https://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf

The second part of the statement was "more available aid". Kids that apply ED tend to be wealthier, know that they won't need to shop financial aid, so that isn't a true statement. Not only does ED tend to increase yield for schools, it decreases the amount of aid they need to provide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

You don't have to wonder. It does, and the data is clear:

As Karen Richardson, the dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management at Tufts says, “The biggest difference between ED and [RD] students is that those who apply ED have already decided that Tufts is the place that they want to be. As the ED pool has grown and gotten stronger, it’s difficult to say ‘no’ to good students who are good fits and who have made the commitment to attend if accepted.” Richardson goes on to note that Tufts specifically does not offer Early Action, because its non-binding nature makes yield projections difficult.

In fact, at many schools, early decision applicants are accepted at rates 10-12% higher than regular decision applicants.

https://blog.collegevine.com/does-applying-early-decision-increase-my-chances/

According to Niche data, based on roughly 200,000 applications from 125,000 college students, students’ chances of getting accepted to a school are 18 percent better if they apply through early action or early decision than through regular decision.

https://www.niche.com/blog/early-admissions-path-may-increase-acceptance/

Early application is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage point increase in acceptance probability, about the same as 100 additional points on the SAT

https://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf

The second part of the statement was "more available aid". Kids that apply ED tend to be wealthier, know that they won't need to shop financial aid, so that isn't a true statement. Not only does ED tend to increase yield for schools, it decreases the amount of aid they need to provide.

This is, at least conditionally, untrue.

Schools that are need blind and meet 100% of need have the same obligations whether an ED or RD admit.

Schools that are need aware can make a decision based on that, but they have the same opportunity in the RD round. This is the vast majority of "meets need" schools. Yes, full pay students are more attractive to them in the ED round.

Every single college has an NPC that will provide the amount of aid given before you apply - so "shopping for aid" can happen before you apply. If the aid offered is different than you got from the NPC, you are released from your commitment.

Schools that do not meet need it is irrelevant. This is the vast majority of colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top 15 or "Ivy Plus" has been a thing for a while.

Ivies make 8
Stanford, Duke, MIT, Chicago, Northwestern, Cal Tech (I guess?)...Hopkins? Makes 15.

"Ivy-Plus" is not 15 schools, it's 12, quote:

“Ivy-Plus” universities are the Ivy League plus Stanford, Duke, the University of Chicago, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[Anonymous]

You are quoting whom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only T5 are definite elites. By any measure, Emory is a certain no.

Sucks for Stanford, just missing the cut.

Stanford is in T5.

T5 = HYPMS

IV = The Four Horsemen = Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

You don't have to wonder. It does, and the data is clear:

As Karen Richardson, the dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management at Tufts says, “The biggest difference between ED and [RD] students is that those who apply ED have already decided that Tufts is the place that they want to be. As the ED pool has grown and gotten stronger, it’s difficult to say ‘no’ to good students who are good fits and who have made the commitment to attend if accepted.” Richardson goes on to note that Tufts specifically does not offer Early Action, because its non-binding nature makes yield projections difficult.

In fact, at many schools, early decision applicants are accepted at rates 10-12% higher than regular decision applicants.

https://blog.collegevine.com/does-applying-early-decision-increase-my-chances/

According to Niche data, based on roughly 200,000 applications from 125,000 college students, students’ chances of getting accepted to a school are 18 percent better if they apply through early action or early decision than through regular decision.

https://www.niche.com/blog/early-admissions-path-may-increase-acceptance/

Early application is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage point increase in acceptance probability, about the same as 100 additional points on the SAT

https://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf

The second part of the statement was "more available aid". Kids that apply ED tend to be wealthier, know that they won't need to shop financial aid, so that isn't a true statement. Not only does ED tend to increase yield for schools, it decreases the amount of aid they need to provide.

This is, at least conditionally, untrue.

Schools that are need blind and meet 100% of need have the same obligations whether an ED or RD admit.

Schools that are need aware can make a decision based on that, but they have the same opportunity in the RD round. This is the vast majority of "meets need" schools. Yes, full pay students are more attractive to them in the ED round.

Every single college has an NPC that will provide the amount of aid given before you apply - so "shopping for aid" can happen before you apply. If the aid offered is different than you got from the NPC, you are released from your commitment.

Schools that do not meet need it is irrelevant. This is the vast majority of colleges.

If the average ED is wealthier and needs less aid, then it would reduce the aid burden. More money that can be used for other purchases. Many lower income families need to weigh the aid packages against each other, and you can't do this with ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if early application/decision fiats a better acceptance chance due to a lesser pool and more available aid?

You don't have to wonder. It does, and the data is clear:

As Karen Richardson, the dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management at Tufts says, “The biggest difference between ED and [RD] students is that those who apply ED have already decided that Tufts is the place that they want to be. As the ED pool has grown and gotten stronger, it’s difficult to say ‘no’ to good students who are good fits and who have made the commitment to attend if accepted.” Richardson goes on to note that Tufts specifically does not offer Early Action, because its non-binding nature makes yield projections difficult.

In fact, at many schools, early decision applicants are accepted at rates 10-12% higher than regular decision applicants.

https://blog.collegevine.com/does-applying-early-decision-increase-my-chances/

According to Niche data, based on roughly 200,000 applications from 125,000 college students, students’ chances of getting accepted to a school are 18 percent better if they apply through early action or early decision than through regular decision.

https://www.niche.com/blog/early-admissions-path-may-increase-acceptance/

Early application is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage point increase in acceptance probability, about the same as 100 additional points on the SAT

https://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf

The second part of the statement was "more available aid". Kids that apply ED tend to be wealthier, know that they won't need to shop financial aid, so that isn't a true statement. Not only does ED tend to increase yield for schools, it decreases the amount of aid they need to provide.

This is, at least conditionally, untrue.

Schools that are need blind and meet 100% of need have the same obligations whether an ED or RD admit.

Schools that are need aware can make a decision based on that, but they have the same opportunity in the RD round. This is the vast majority of "meets need" schools. Yes, full pay students are more attractive to them in the ED round.

Every single college has an NPC that will provide the amount of aid given before you apply - so "shopping for aid" can happen before you apply. If the aid offered is different than you got from the NPC, you are released from your commitment.

Schools that do not meet need it is irrelevant. This is the vast majority of colleges.

If the average ED is wealthier and needs less aid, then it would reduce the aid burden. More money that can be used for other purchases. Many lower income families need to weigh the aid packages against each other, and you can't do this with ED.

Read this from when UVA dropped ED back in 2006. (It has since reinstated.)

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/higher-education/higher-ed-watch/hooray-for-the-wahoos-virginia-drops-early-decision/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only T5 are definite elites. By any measure, Emory is a certain no.

Sucks for Stanford, just missing the cut.

Stanford is in T5.

T5 = HYPMS

IV = The Four Horsemen = Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia

Well, we will be into the apocalypse when Columbia is on equal footing with HYP.