Brown ED

[Anonymous]

Anyone have any insight on getting accepted at Brown ED? Very high stats kid at top DC private. Very involved with a few ECs. No sports. Not URM. Not legacy. Suspect recommendations will be very strong. I am trying to temper expectations, but I honestly don’t see how he could have done any better with extremely high gpa and scores. His essays are coming along fairly well and he is spending a ton of time on them. Naviance data looks encouraging, but I know that can be misleading. This process is just so awful.

[Anonymous]

There are hundreds of thousands of high stat, high GPA kids.

Schools like Brown admit single digit percentage of applicants.

Your kid should apply, but understand that there is a greater than 90% chance of being deferred or rejected.

The same "high stats" kids are applying to all of the same 30-40 schools and there are only so many seats, and the schools are also looking for a variety of elements beyond stats - first gen, URM, athletes most/all of whom have both these hooks AND the stats.

[Anonymous]

OP I think with everything else in place, it will partly come down to the "few ECs" that your kid is very involved in.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, none of the kids going to Brown this year from DC’s school are URM, recruited athletes, or legacies.

[Anonymous]

It is random at that level. Lots of kids with great stuff. Apply! See what happens but keep your expectations in check. Naviance is not useful at that level. My great stat DD was rejected RD but is very happy elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

It won't happen.

[Anonymous]

My kid was deferred ED and accepted RD. Great grades, scores, EC. No hooks. It is a complete lottery with so many applicants with similar profiles. Apply widely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any insight on getting accepted at Brown ED? Very high stats kid at top DC private. Very involved with a few ECs. No sports. Not URM. Not legacy. Suspect recommendations will be very strong. I am trying to temper expectations, but I honestly don’t see how he could have done any better with extremely high gpa and scores. His essays are coming along fairly well and he is spending a ton of time on them. Naviance data looks encouraging, but I know that can be misleading. This process is just so awful.

He could be a flawless applicant and not get in. It's just the nature of the process. Make sure he has solid backup choices that he truly likes, because from a pure odds perspective, he's likelier to go to one of those.

[Anonymous]

Tell him he's done everything he needed to do to be able to buy that lottery ticket for the price of the application fee. Say, fingers crossed they pick your ticket! Then get to work on application to schools with higher acceptance percentages.

[Anonymous]

Daughter of a family friend applied ED Brown last year. Asian, very high GPA from SF area equivalent of McLean/Langley/BCC/Whitman (10+ APs), almost perfect GPA and good extracurriculars.

She was rejected outright, not even deferred to RD consideration. She got into WashU (full ride), Amherst, Michigan (honors), UNC (honors), Davidson, Carleton, and Duke (legacy). She is now at WashU.

This shows the random nature of applying to an Ivy if you don't have any hooks. ED helps slightly. If Brown is DC's first choice and DC has the credentials, by all means go ahead and apply ED. But perhaps the ED could be put to better use for the 2nd choice school if ED will be decisive, e.g., do you use ED for a marginal benefit for #1 choice or use ED for a decisive (hopefully) benefit for the #2 choice?

If it were my kid, I would have used ED for the 2nd choice (Duke/legacy). However, our friends are doing fine with that free WashU money.

[Anonymous]

My DD loved Brown too. She’s high stats, amazing on paper, etc. has done everything she can. Except she didn’t. She could have played the recruitable athlete game and didn’t. She wasn’t born into legacy status. She isn’t URM.

After a discussion about what being a lottery school means, she’s applying ED to her second choice, where the ED bump could make the difference, and applying RD to Brown if it comes to that.

Here’s a powerful exercise. Take Brown’s class. Subtract athletes. Subtract legacies. Subtract URMs. Subtract 1st Gen/ Pell Grant. These numbers are all available. Then look at the real number of seats available based on merit.

Girls are harder admits. So take the number of female applicant left and the number of female seats based on historical data. Then calculate her chances. That new number is very sobering. And for last years splats is blow 1% for some schools Your kid will almost certainly get deferred, and even WL. And not admitted. Is she okay with that?

I’m against Lottery schools as ED IF the family becomes so focused on them that any other outcome is not good enough And they are strung along into May and a June praying for a school that was never gonna happen. Or, if it keeps a kid from applying ED to a low reach /high match school they also love.

At a minimum, have a realistic ED2 school ready to go in late September. Don’t pin everything on Brown and then scramble.

[Anonymous]

^^ sorry, just saw it was a he. Congrats, it’s now .5% higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any insight on getting accepted at Brown ED? Very high stats kid at top DC private. Very involved with a few ECs. No sports. Not URM. Not legacy. Suspect recommendations will be very strong. I am trying to temper expectations, but I honestly don’t see how he could have done any better with extremely high gpa and scores. His essays are coming along fairly well and he is spending a ton of time on them. Naviance data looks encouraging, but I know that can be misleading. This process is just so awful.

He could be a flawless applicant and not get in. It's just the nature of the process. Make sure he has solid backup choices that he truly likes, because from a pure odds perspective, he's likelier to go to one of those.

Friend's son is flawless by all means, perfect everything, reading his resume, you will think he has more than 40 hours per week. REA Standford, and the college application consult thought he is the exact type what Standford is looking for. Got rejected, not even defer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD loved Brown too. She’s high stats, amazing on paper, etc. has done everything she can. Except she didn’t. She could have played the recruitable athlete game and didn’t. She wasn’t born into legacy status. She isn’t URM.

After a discussion about what being a lottery school means, she’s applying ED to her second choice, where the ED bump could make the difference, and applying RD to Brown if it comes to that.

Here’s a powerful exercise. Take Brown’s class. Subtract athletes. Subtract legacies. Subtract URMs. Subtract 1st Gen/ Pell Grant. These numbers are all available. Then look at the real number of seats available based on merit.

Girls are harder admits. So take the number of female applicant left and the number of female seats based on historical data. Then calculate her chances. That new number is very sobering. And for last years splats is blow 1% for some schools Your kid will almost certainly get deferred, and even WL. And not admitted. Is she okay with that?

I’m against Lottery schools as ED IF the family becomes so focused on them that any other outcome is not good enough And they are strung along into May and a June praying for a school that was never gonna happen. Or, if it keeps a kid from applying ED to a low reach /high match school they also love.

At a minimum, have a realistic ED2 school ready to go in late September. Don’t pin everything on Brown and then scramble.

Does anyone do this? I can’t believe there are people applying ED to a school with an acceptance rate like Brown’s and not also working on apps for other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD loved Brown too. She’s high stats, amazing on paper, etc. has done everything she can. Except she didn’t. She could have played the recruitable athlete game and didn’t. She wasn’t born into legacy status. She isn’t URM.

After a discussion about what being a lottery school means, she’s applying ED to her second choice, where the ED bump could make the difference, and applying RD to Brown if it comes to that.

Here’s a powerful exercise. Take Brown’s class. Subtract athletes. Subtract legacies. Subtract URMs. Subtract 1st Gen/ Pell Grant. These numbers are all available. Then look at the real number of seats available based on merit.

Girls are harder admits. So take the number of female applicant left and the number of female seats based on historical data. Then calculate her chances. That new number is very sobering. And for last years splats is blow 1% for some schools Your kid will almost certainly get deferred, and even WL. And not admitted. Is she okay with that?

I’m against Lottery schools as ED IF the family becomes so focused on them that any other outcome is not good enough And they are strung along into May and a June praying for a school that was never gonna happen. Or, if it keeps a kid from applying ED to a low reach /high match school they also love.

At a minimum, have a realistic ED2 school ready to go in late September. Don’t pin everything on Brown and then scramble.

Does anyone do this? I can’t believe there are people applying ED to a school with an acceptance rate like Brown’s and not also working on apps for other schools.

Some do. But I think more believe deep down they’ll win the lottery so they have done some work, but not what they need to put their best foot forward. They have a list and have sent scores and transcripts. But, they “Why X school” supplements are crappy or just not done.

My DD is making an ED 1/ED2 decision at the same time. She has a realistic chance at ED1. But if it doesn’t work, she needs to in a place psychologically to get an ED2– in some cases 10 days later. I that means not sitting their entire morning ED1 and trying to make a good decision about going forward.