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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not looking for sympathy but any insight would be appreciated. My son was told he would be a good candidate for Ivy League/Duke by his school counselor and applied ED to Duke with a 36 ACT, near-perfect GPA, all 5s and 4s on AP exams, two sport athlete and captain of one sport, student body president, editor in chief of school newspaper, head student liaison for arts nonprofit, a summer internship with a congressman, leadership volunteering position at library with book preservation and restoration experience, good awards, etc. My son had multiple people look over his essays, including the optional ones (academic experience and agreements/disagreements prompts) and he received good feedback. We figured maybe there was something else wrong with his application (maybe a recommendation letter was unexpectedly weak) or that he should’ve gone for another school he liked that would be a bit easier to be accepted like Cornell or Johns Hopkins, but over the past few days he was accepted to UNC Chapel Hill with a full scholarship, USC with scholarship pending, and UMich all out of state. He’s still disappointed about Duke but the UNC scholarship is very enticing and he’s still in the running for Duke, although we’re not sure about the chances of being accepted after a deferral. Inputs are welcome![/quote]

The simple truth is because while his accomplishments are impressive, everyone applying has equally or even more impressive credentials. [/quote]

This is not true. Very few are student body president, captain of a sport team,editor-in-chief, and a 36 ACT score. President of student body & editor-in-chief are complementary positions that make sense.

OP: The rejection is personal. Not sure why, but I suspect that something in one or more essays negatively affected admissions readers.[/quote]

There are 10,000+ student body presidents. A lot of them apply to Duke.
There are 100,000+ team captains. A lot of them apply to Duke.
There are 10,000+ editors in chiefs. A lot of them apply to Duke.

There are also an infinite number of superlative EC that your kid didn't do that other kids do. A lot of them apply to Duke.

Seriously, if you don't get it, there are hundreds of thousands of kids who have the scores and EC's to be "qualified" to go to these T20 schools. There are only so many seats. As such, there is going to be some disappointment.

[/quote]

I think that you miss the point. OP's child is not just editor-in-chief, student body president, captain of a sports team, and holding a 36 ACT score, OP's child has all four. This is a very well qualified candidate for admission to any elite college or university in the country that offers his preferred course of study.[/quote]

No, I didn't miss the point. There are hundreds of thousands of highly quailified and worthy applicants applying to these schools. 50 years ago, there were thousands of said applicants. Because GPA and SAT scores are so watered down, on paper, there are simply more applicants for the colleges to choose from. This has nothing to do with "how special" OP's kid is, because at least from my kid's high school, I could think of at least 10-15 applicants who would have just as worthy a list of ECs and activities, to go with the scores and GPA. Carry that 10-15 across all of the public, private and independent schools across the US and then add in the thousands of foreign applicants. There are only so many seats and the idea that any one applicant is entitled to a seat at any one of these schools is simply silly.[/quote]

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