Applied ED. Full pay. Strong grades, scores, ECs, essays. Luck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one knows. It is a bit of a black box.

People who do and don't get into lottery schools have their theories...but I would not put much stock in them.

This. For everyone who thinks they know why their kid got in, there is another same story kid who didn't. I wish there was really a way of knowing.

There is. Your kid can FERPA their admissions file in the first year they matriculate. I believe the school the destroys the file after that first year.
In the file, they will see reader 1,2..n comments, and the committee vote. For my kid, there were a lot of codes used but you could roughly make out why (and youtube helps too)

Anonymous wrote:No one knows. It is a bit of a black box.

People who do and don't get into lottery schools have their theories...but I would not put much stock in them.

This. For everyone who thinks they know why their kid got in, there is another same story kid who didn't. I wish there was really a way of knowing.

I have no idea. If I had to guess, the two things that I can come up with are long term commitment to an EC at a high level, and being full pay.

Its hard to say as he got into some but got waitlisted at some similar level schools. On paper, genuinely ideal candidate of Ivy admissions officers, with great character, genuine extracurriculars, perfect academics etc etc. Only thing missing was sports.

A lot of luck, obviously. Her stats were solid, excellent even, but definitely not perfect. My guess without having any sort of insider information was that all the holistic admissions stuff really worked in her favor, as I looked at her application she was able to tell a pretty compelling story of herself, what motivated her, what was important to her, and demonstrate that through the activities and awards etc. Her main common app essay was a bit meandering and lyrical, not about a topic per se, but tied a lot of other things in her application together And was a delightful read I thought. From knowing the teachers who wrote her letters I also assume they were very strong.

Test optional (in 2021.)
In state.
Good GPA and long term ECs.
Having a parent who is an alum.

This is for a well regarded state school, not a lottery-level acceptance rate school.

No one knows. It is a bit of a black box.

People who do and don't get into lottery schools have their theories...but I would not put much stock in them.

Outside company reviewing/assisting with the essays.

National awards, unique ECs, great gpa/test scores, great relationships with teachers/gc, essay investment, timing of some awards (was able to contact AO with additional awards about 6 weeks after app submission). Got into 3 reach schools (T15).

We are full pay. And DD's brother attended the same college and was very successful there.

Luck.
Also, an application that really highlighted DD’s passion for an area of study, reflected in high school course choices, a HS club she started, a summer internship, and her common app essay. She applied to major in this subject area, and her enthusiasm showed, I believe.
But for a school with an acceptance rate under 10%, and great grades but test scores only in the 50th percentile for the school (she submitted anyway, because she was proud of the score), I think a lot of it was luck.

Now she’s a freshman and is loving her new school.

Top SLAC. I think what helped was SLACs look at whole picture.

Mine got into west coast reach with middle 50% stats. DCUM swore up and down DC would not get in. They did. I honestly don’t know, they were full IBDP, had crappy ECs, but outstanding essays and did a letter to the AO. The latter two must have helped given how literally average the rest of the profile was.

Thank you!