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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH worked in admin at a mid-level university for years. They focused on accepting students who were likely to enroll. Applicants with stats beyond the typical profile were unlikely to be admitted unless there was strong demonstrated interest in a specific program or aspect of the school. Yes, they tracked visits , emails and phone calls. A high stat applicant needed to be very engaged to be accepted. If you just fired off a safety application the school sees that for what it is. Everyone has enrollment to manage.

The top tier colleges are a different ballgame.[/quote]
Glad to see someone admit to this.

It's crazy to me that this is a thing.  My kid had high stats, somehow at Case Western they messed up their database so he had two accounts which I am pretty sure messed up the tracking of his interest.  We all know this process is not "fair" but penalizing kids for being "too qualified" is a real low for me. [/quote]

They are not "penalizing kids".  The entire point of the admission game from the University's perspective is to get Y students to matriculate in August.  Offering admission to "too qualified kids" who don't seem highly interested and who will most likely attend somewhere else is part of the process.  Their goal is to get students who will actually attend.  That is NOT penalizing your kid.  If your kid truly wants to attend there, rather than just saying "I got in" they would do ED1 or ED2, or switch when asked by admissions and given a FA/merit review
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No, since my kid had high stats they were weighing merit offers and honors programs.  Also demonstrating interest via visits is geared towards the wealthy.   In our case we had a family illness and death during the application during the application cycle.   [/quote]

My son's top choices had many webinars (honors college, regular admissions, specific college).  I also had him respond to prospecting e-mails sent from the schools, requesting more information.  Those are easy ways to get into a database for free.  And multiple e-mail addresses might be joined by name and street address.

His most difficult to get into school - Cornell - does not use demonstrated interest at all.  However, we found the campus visit and college-specific webinars useful for understanding what Cornell is looking for and what fields of study are relevant.[/quote]

The term "Demonstrated Interest" means something.  If a school factors in Demonstrated Interest, that means it matters to visit the school, sign up for emails, go to school info sessions, etc.  They track those things.

However, 100% of schools care about a kid that writes compelling school-specific essays that show that the kid understands Cornell and that there are compelling reasons why Cornell is uniquely suited for that kid.  Honestly, that usually entails slipping in how you have visited the campus multiple times, sat in on a class, reached out to a professor, etc. [/quote]

PP.  My son was able to write essays about things he's learned from Cornellians he knows and also, more importantly, to discuss issues happening in our town that are directly related to intended major and college.  We did visit campus but since that doesn't count as demonstrated interest it didn't seem worth bringing up.  Besides it's boring and kind of fraudulent to say there's something unique about Cornell's physical plant.  It's lovely there, but there are many other very nice looking universities.

I also personally believe it's fairly ridiculous for high school students to try to relationship-build or name check professors they absolutely want to study under or work with. I can see that occasionally happening organically or through facilitated comnections in rare circumstances.  I just don't see that happening en masse - sounds just like the next phase of the admissions arms race.  People don't even do that as much as they should when they are looking for jobs...I can't see 1,000s of students regularly doing this all throughout the Ivy League.

Likewise, the really good classes are small ones.  Random high schoolers shouldn't be roaming through that kind of class.  Big lecture halls don't tell you as much because there's usually no prof-class interaction.[/quote]

Hey, I hope this all works out for you…but you can’t dismiss things as silly or “fraudulent”.

I mean if you live in CA it means something to indicate you went out of your way to physically visit Ithaca.

If you mention specific professors and their research it shows you have spent some time getting to know the school.  If you mention specific classes by actual class name/number it shows you are actually reviewing the curriculum.

Not sure where you are from, but my kid’s HS sends many kids to Ivy schools each year, and they know kids.  Not that hard to have one take you to a class…even an upper level class.

All of the above (though not from CA) resulted in a positive outcome for my kid.  No way to know if it really mattered in the end.

However, the main point is that while Cornell doesn’t care if you open their emails or visit their website…they still pay attention when you go beyond.[/quote]

PP again.  My point is that admissions people have pretty good b.s. meters and falling in love with the looks of a campus and saying so is a logically poor reason for going there.  The point should be the fit of the academic program offered to the student.  There are many nice looking campuses in CA, for example, even if "Ithaca is Gorges".

Cornell always cared a lot about lower income students being able to attend and flourish.  It is still a state school. I hear that the kind of college visit trips that affluent parents make with their kids are not so common and that actually more kids tour schools after getting admitted. For these reasons, I doubt that the visit did much to separate your child out from any kids except maybe from the pile of plausibly interested affluent West Coasters.  That kind of trip could have easily cost $2K for two people which already tips off people about where your family fits in.  I paid more for my room at Hotel Ithaca last August than I did in Manhattan.  Kind of appalling...Ithaca used to be a lot folksier than that.

I read a lot of college counselor advice that did say to do things like listing course numbers. To go five clicks deep into a website looking for obscure references to drop to convince the college you really want to go there.  Even if you actually don't and the school is just your safety. To me that is kind of next-level admission arms race stuff.  Some kids are capable or ready for that.  But I think it would be a rarity.  Grownups can coach and elicit those behaviors but that doesn't guarantee that's what's giving the edge.  More likely to be more believable stuff scattered throughout the app, plus transcript, essay topics, letters of recommendation.

It might just be possible to find out.  Don't know about Cornell but U of M admits are able to FOIA their files.  They make videos about reading the comments on their files.  It's pretty interesting to see their reactions.  Especially when their somewhat clever/intriguing sounding ECs get called out for being b.s. as support for their majors.  They still get in, but admin officers have a decent nose for truth-stretching.

Bottom line: if anyone of modest means is reading this post, don't give up because you think you need to spend money to demonstrate interest.  Just think of cheap or free ways to do it.  If you can't travel, and you don't know anybody at the school, you could try connecting to someone through LinkedIn, have a short informational discussion with them, and then write about how much it inspired you.  You just need some proof points that don't trip the b.s. meter.[/quote]

I would never recommend talking about the aesthetic beauty…however saying something like “on my visit to Cornell i had the opportunity to tour the engineering building and the new Makerspsce and was impressed to see a group of students prototyping their product for Engineering Design”

Something relevant to your interests and hopefully part of a Why Cornell essay.

What can I say…this stuff worked for my kid.

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