Reply to Success stories this cycle

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Success stories this cycle "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]After hearing dozens of high stats stories for last few weeks where kids are disappointed, wondering about those of you who have  happy kids.

Curious about success stories this cycle - for kids who had decent (3.8ish) stats and got into T25, and also kids who lower GPAs who far exceeded theirs (or your) expectations. Curious about the below.

- background/stats of applicant 
- what do you think made the difference?
- what admission surprised you?
- what rejection surprised you?
- what was the largest weakness in the applicant profile and how did kid overcome it?

[/quote]

Accepted into four Top 25 schools, two publics and two privates (along with a handful of schools in the 26 - 75 range, a mix of publics and privates). After preparing for a bloodbath, acceptance into two Top 15 schools surprised us the most.

DS has chosen one of the public schools, and seems to be very happy with the opportunity ahead.

The lowest of his three safety schools was the most surprising rejection - ultimately, it's challenging to overcome a pedestrian GPA when a school doesn't consider testing, essays, or recommendations. Hard to pin that one on yield protection, but maybe. Who knows? But it was a surprise, to say the least.

[u]GPA at time of submission[/u], which was the largest weakness - overcome, I'd guess, through overall rigor and grade trending:
3.72 unweighted / 3.95 UC weighted, capped / 4.13 weighted / 4.20 UC weighted / uncapped

AP classes: 8 (6 tested by May 2023, all 5s)

[u]GPA at time of mid-year update[/u]:
3.76 unweighted / 3.95 UC weighted, capped / 4.21 weighted / 4.29 UC weighted / uncapped.

AP Classes (at graduation): 14 (6 more to be tested in May 2024).

[u]Standardized testing[/u]: 1600 SAT, one admin. (along with AP test results, the tip of the spear in his applications - but not even considered by 1/3 of the schools applied to).

[u]Extracurriculars[/u]: Good ECs including mix of varsity team sports, sustained volunteerism in community, and targeted research at local university in area of interest for undergraduate and grad. study.

[u]Awards[/u]: Not really, but basic ones like NMSF, team captain, AP Scholar with Distinction, etc.

[u]Essays / PIQs[/u]: Good essays, but difficult to calibrate against others.

[u]Recommendations[/u]: Probably average, at best. DS isn't an apple polisher, so we were not expecting miracles here.

[u]Demographics[/u]: White male, full pay, no hooks, public high school in affluent coastal community.[/quote]

Forgot to mention the primary lessons learned:

1. Tend carefully to your GPA, which can have far too great of a role in college admissions these days. DS will graduate with probably 13 - 14 Bs over the course of his high school career (but none in the AP classes, thank goodness). All but one of those Bs landed within a single point of securing an A in the respective classes. All of them resulted from simply failing to turn in basic assignments. The carousel of frustration is a real downer, but you gotta play the game; and

2. Ignore anyone who tries to convince you that your kid with pedestrian grades has no shot at this school or that school. They are typically uninformed, at best.[/quote]

Wow. Such a feel good story. More of these please!!!
Congrats to him (and you!!) 
Can you share some of school names? Assume UCLA? Northwestern? Rice seems like they love this kid…[/quote]

How is this a feel good story?  The kid got a 1600 and had 14 APs!  And I have read there’s a way to slip in your scores once the application is submitted.  PP did your child do that?  Not trying to diminishing what is obviously a great outcome by what sounds like a great kid, but I don’t think it’s all that surprising of an outcome unless I’m missing something?
[/quote]

You raise great points, but I think what made it so unexpected was that we DID listen to the noise. From that noise, we DID expect a bloodbath. That's why it was surprising to us, anyway. I listed my second lesson for that reason.

And you're right, there were definitely some strong aspects to his application. The challenge was the fact that he came along either a few years too late or a few years too early because those strengths barely had space to matter. At times during this process, we started to feel that his test scores were almost transforming into a disadvantage in some ways (e.g., we grew up in a timeframe when his scores would have meant quite a lot in the admissions process, but based on everything we read from others, we began to view them as a potential distraction. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but suffice it to say that the SAT score was the subject of a few arguments in our house).

He did include the NMSF as one of the awards in the Common App and UC app, but not sure if / how much that would matter. We didn't send his SAT score or AP scores to the UC schools.

Again, understanding the odds, the outcome was surprising to us.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics