Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS applied for computer science. He did not get in to any top 50 in early action round, and I got the impression from these type of forums that regular decision was even more competitive. However, one top 40 deferral turned into an acceptance, and he was also accepted regular decision at a top 50. I would not say that I was worried at the time of the early action round, because it may not have been top 50, but he was accepted for an honors program and a respectable computer science department where he could have been happy too.

CS is a much harder major to get into than basically any other major. When people talk about admissions to a given school, the acceptance rates for different majors can be night and day.

This. Threads like this one are so misleading, even pointless. People: do some arithmetic. The demand for spots in CS across the country, in state flagships and in top privates, is insane relative to the number of spots available. What is more, top 20 schools do not want a campus full of career-oriented programmers. They want dancers, comparative literature majors, physicists, yes even gender studies majors. My son's close friend has mediocre grades, a 1550 and no ECs. Applied as a music major -- he is not that good, to be honest -- and was admitted to a number of schools (like Vanderbilt) to which he would not have had a chance in hell to be admitted in a more competitive major. Universities want to be universities, not CS coding camps.

Try to understand how a university/college works, and understand the game you are playing. Act accordingly. And no, your high stats kid does not deserve to be at Cornell or Rice. They applied in an ultracompetitive field and lost the spot to someone with a better application.

Yep because the country needs more dancers with $300k in loans

No, your child needs to interact with people that are dedicated something that feeds their soul first ( even if that is all it feeds )

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Locked out of T40 here. If I had to guess, due to the following:
- CS major
- majority student
- magnet school
- truthful ECs that were all STEM-related and did not stand out
- Common varsity sport
- wrote own essay that highlighted their personality but was not a sob story

You're revealing a lot of bias here. The real issue that there are far, far more qualified CS aspirants than there are CS slots at T40 schools. Someone didn't magically get in over your kid because they lied or told a sob story. They also likely had similar qualities but maybe had 10 higher points on a test, a slightly more inventive or well-written essay, one more award in their EC etc. It's not going to be a big difference. Just like there's not a big difference in quality of schools between the one rated 40 and the one rated 50.

UVA is known for admitting sob stories that ED. Not sure about other schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My student, 1500 SAT (first and only try), 35 ACT, 4.3 gpa, 13 APs, couple of national awards, did not get into any T40 schools (including a double legacy T20 school applied to as ED), but did get into 3 T50 schools and one T60.

Congrats to him. But I’m sorry he went through all that

+1

Same. Such BS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS applied for computer science. He did not get in to any top 50 in early action round, and I got the impression from these type of forums that regular decision was even more competitive. However, one top 40 deferral turned into an acceptance, and he was also accepted regular decision at a top 50. I would not say that I was worried at the time of the early action round, because it may not have been top 50, but he was accepted for an honors program and a respectable computer science department where he could have been happy too.

CS is a much harder major to get into than basically any other major. When people talk about admissions to a given school, the acceptance rates for different majors can be night and day.

This. Threads like this one are so misleading, even pointless. People: do some arithmetic. The demand for spots in CS across the country, in state flagships and in top privates, is insane relative to the number of spots available. What is more, top 20 schools do not want a campus full of career-oriented programmers. They want dancers, comparative literature majors, physicists, yes even gender studies majors. My son's close friend has mediocre grades, a 1550 and no ECs. Applied as a music major -- he is not that good, to be honest -- and was admitted to a number of schools (like Vanderbilt) to which he would not have had a chance in hell to be admitted in a more competitive major. Universities want to be universities, not CS coding camps.

Try to understand how a university/college works, and understand the game you are playing. Act accordingly. And no, your high stats kid does not deserve to be at Cornell or Rice. They applied in an ultracompetitive field and lost the spot to someone with a better application.

Yep because the country needs more dancers with $300k in loans

Top 40 schools generally meet full-need

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS applied for computer science. He did not get in to any top 50 in early action round, and I got the impression from these type of forums that regular decision was even more competitive. However, one top 40 deferral turned into an acceptance, and he was also accepted regular decision at a top 50. I would not say that I was worried at the time of the early action round, because it may not have been top 50, but he was accepted for an honors program and a respectable computer science department where he could have been happy too.

CS is a much harder major to get into than basically any other major. When people talk about admissions to a given school, the acceptance rates for different majors can be night and day.

This. Threads like this one are so misleading, even pointless. People: do some arithmetic. The demand for spots in CS across the country, in state flagships and in top privates, is insane relative to the number of spots available. What is more, top 20 schools do not want a campus full of career-oriented programmers. They want dancers, comparative literature majors, physicists, yes even gender studies majors. My son's close friend has mediocre grades, a 1550 and no ECs. Applied as a music major -- he is not that good, to be honest -- and was admitted to a number of schools (like Vanderbilt) to which he would not have had a chance in hell to be admitted in a more competitive major. Universities want to be universities, not CS coding camps.

Try to understand how a university/college works, and understand the game you are playing. Act accordingly. And no, your high stats kid does not deserve to be at Cornell or Rice. They applied in an ultracompetitive field and lost the spot to someone with a better application.

Yep because the country needs more dancers with $300k in loans

Anonymous wrote:Locked out of T40 here. If I had to guess, due to the following:
- CS major
- majority student
- magnet school
- truthful ECs that were all STEM-related and did not stand out
- Common varsity sport
- wrote own essay that highlighted their personality but was not a sob story

You're revealing a lot of bias here. The real issue that there are far, far more qualified CS aspirants than there are CS slots at T40 schools. Someone didn't magically get in over your kid because they lied or told a sob story. They also likely had similar qualities but maybe had 10 higher points on a test, a slightly more inventive or well-written essay, one more award in their EC etc. It's not going to be a big difference. Just like there's not a big difference in quality of schools between the one rated 40 and the one rated 50.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS applied for computer science. He did not get in to any top 50 in early action round, and I got the impression from these type of forums that regular decision was even more competitive. However, one top 40 deferral turned into an acceptance, and he was also accepted regular decision at a top 50. I would not say that I was worried at the time of the early action round, because it may not have been top 50, but he was accepted for an honors program and a respectable computer science department where he could have been happy too.

CS is a much harder major to get into than basically any other major. When people talk about admissions to a given school, the acceptance rates for different majors can be night and day.

This. Threads like this one are so misleading, even pointless. People: do some arithmetic. The demand for spots in CS across the country, in state flagships and in top privates, is insane relative to the number of spots available. What is more, top 20 schools do not want a campus full of career-oriented programmers. They want dancers, comparative literature majors, physicists, yes even gender studies majors. My son's close friend has mediocre grades, a 1550 and no ECs. Applied as a music major -- he is not that good, to be honest -- and was admitted to a number of schools (like Vanderbilt) to which he would not have had a chance in hell to be admitted in a more competitive major. Universities want to be universities, not CS coding camps.

Try to understand how a university/college works, and understand the game you are playing. Act accordingly. And no, your high stats kid does not deserve to be at Cornell or Rice. They applied in an ultracompetitive field and lost the spot to someone with a better application.

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious, based on another post that brought up the point that the posts on this board seemed to make a complete shift from "my high stats kid is getting shut out" to
"Should my kid attend Penn or Vanderbilt?" (or Tulane or Case? or...).

With all admits in, did your strong stats kid get shut out of all top 40 or top 50 colleges and universities?
I'm wondering what actually happened in the end.
I'm the parent of a junior.

One important question to ask about s choice of major.

CS is so competitive, for example, that, for most students, simply applying as a CS major or a premed is a sign of idiocy. The kid might have an an SAT score of 1580 but lacks the commonsense God gave a penguin.

The students who are born to be CS majors may have no choice; they are what they are.

But parents pushing the kids who don’t do this for fun to apply to top U.S. schools as CS majors might as well be hanging “I’m a dutiful drone” signs on the kids’ necks.

The path to success lies through figuring how to apply as a history or English major and figure out how to acquire the skills and student jobs needed to get a job with a humanities major, or how to sneak around course enrollment limits and pair the history major with a surprise second major in CS or actuarial math.

Anonymous wrote:My student, 1500 SAT (first and only try), 35 ACT, 4.3 gpa, 13 APs, couple of national awards, did not get into any T40 schools (including a double legacy T20 school applied to as ED), but did get into 3 T50 schools and one T60.

Congrats to him. But I’m sorry he went through all that

Anonymous wrote:My strong student 1560 sat, 4.6GPA, 3.9 UW, 30 college credits, top 1 percent of class, very significant ECs, had launched 4 products (we didnt help, have no idea how to do what he does), athlete, NMF was shut out of 15 schools and got into a safety. White male. No hooks. Computer Science.

Wow. Sounds like an amazing kid he’ll go far!

My student, 1500 SAT (first and only try), 35 ACT, 4.3 gpa, 13 APs, couple of national awards, did not get into any T40 schools (including a double legacy T20 school applied to as ED), but did get into 3 T50 schools and one T60.

My strong student 1560 sat, 4.6GPA, 3.9 UW, 30 college credits, top 1 percent of class, very significant ECs, had launched 4 products (we didnt help, have no idea how to do what he does), athlete, NMF was shut out of 15 schools and got into a safety. White male. No hooks. Computer Science.

Anonymous wrote:Locked out of T40 here. If I had to guess, due to the following:
- CS major
- majority student
- magnet school
- truthful ECs that were all STEM-related and did not stand out
- Common varsity sport
- wrote own essay that highlighted their personality but was not a sob story

I think people overstate writing a sob story. First, not everyone in T40 has a “sob story” so clearly that isn’t a criteria. Second, not everyone that has faced hardship chooses to write about it for their college essay. Likely to be a credit to the application they would have needed to process the situation, be willing to expose that vulnerability, write it in a way that connects to the reader and still make the case on why they would be an asset to the that college community all while being authentic and in the voice of a teenager. Not everyone with a “sob story” wants to or is prepared to do that.

I will never forget someone was going off on one of message boards about a T40 school that asked for an essay about community and said this was clearly about being URM and their kids was being set up to not get in etc. and people were like um my kid isn’t an ethnic minority and got in and wrote their essay about being in a community with other musicians and tied that back to x and someone else was like well my non-URM kid wrote about cooking and community potlucks in our small town and tied it to y.

Big 3
No T40 admits
White
3.8 unweighted
1500
Good ECs; didn’t start a non-profit etc though
Won top academic award at school for their particular area of interest (the only one they still have left)

Wasted ED/Restrictive on a top 5 in retrospect

Got a few targets outside of Top 40.

Lessons: choose ED wisely, really go deep on what a target is when making list. the ED lesson is the key one.

Regrets: kid wishes they had taken more AP tests (just to show rigor to flagships who care) and wishes they had not wasted applications on top UCs which were basically impossible for most Big 3 kids this year

Apply to more OUS schools - UK, Canada, etc. several classmates happily headed out of USA for college where no risk of gunmen on campus, no performative dance on how many non-profits my daddy started for me, and how well I can throw a ball or play water polo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, next year will bring a new level of uncertainty with the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action . Low income will likely become the new hook for maintaining diversity and who knows how that will affect upper middle class kids, but probably not for the best.

The best source for how bad this year was at your school is your own student (if they know seniors) or your college counselors.

Two-income GS-15 families in DMV are low income relative to rich Manhattan families who send their kids to private prep schools in Manhattan.

Perhaps in your kind, but low income to colleges is usually synonymous with pell eligible, which means income below $60,000.