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[quote=Anonymous]So what are the overall takeaways from your school? Was it really a "brutal" year as the title of the thread suggests?

At my kid's non-DC metro-area private school, it was a tough, but slightly less than brutal, year.

Early Action and Early Decision actually went pretty well. Even Round 2 ED was good, for kids that didn't get Ivy but then regrouped for a NESCAC-caliber school.

But Regular Decision, especially at the Ivies, was extremely tough, maybe the toughest ever. Kids who weren't happy after the early rounds tended up to stay unhappy with their results. The one place where results  seemed kind of positive was in that tier of non-NESCAC liberal arts schools like Kenyon and Vassar, which accepted some kids you might not have thought were going to get in.

Lots of Wait List offers - it makes me feel like colleges' yield models haven't caught up to the growing number of kids applying to a dozen-plus schools and so they put out a big Wait List to hedge against coming up short on their enrollment numbers. Though I saw a lot of kids outright refuse Wait List spots - the process starts so early now that a lot of these kids are sick of it and just want it to be over, even if it means skipping the Wait List and potentially forgoing a shot at their dream school.

Also, admissions decisions seemed very numbers-driven. As much lip service as there is about "holistic" admissions processes, there were clear lines of demarcation where kids with scores above the line got into certain scores, and kids below the line getting rejected. One school asked my kid's friend - a first-generation URM - to retake the SAT this spring to try to get his score up 30 points. At least at that school, there was clearly a target score number the Admissions Office had been told to strive for in admitting this year's class.  [/quote]

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