Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a weird thread with op arguing with anyone who claims UMD as a safety. Whether op agrees or not, there are plenty of kids who are competitive for a T25 and wind up at UMD, which they considered a safety for them.

OP here. Most posts were not me. I do agree that a spot in a top20 computer science program is not a safety for anyone. It may not be a local kid's top choice or dream school but I don't think it's a safety. It's a super competitive admit. Again, I consider a "safety" to be an 80%+ chance. And if by chance a strong Blair kid does have an 80% chance of being admitted to UMD Comp Sci, 95% of regular strong students in the DMV do not have the same odds and this is a privilege unique to Blair kids.

Huh? What is magic Blair privilege? Blair magnet ids do better in apps because Blair magnet pre filters for stronger students.

+1 It's not "magic". A lot of these magnet students are just super high achieving -- grades, SAT scores, AP/IB scores, etc... For such kids, UMD is a safety, even for CS (assuming 85%+ acceptance rate for magnet students who apply to UMD for CS).

Now, for my non magnet kid, UMD will be a reach, and not for CS.

It's not magic but they have the ability to take all sorts of specialized STEM classes and the reputation of Blair and the designation of applying from a science magnet. It all helps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS had 4.0 GPA with 1590 SAT, and was accepted to an Ivy. He turned it down to attend George Mason on a full tuition+room/board scholarship because we would have to pay almost 85K per year, and we didn't receive any financial aid at the Ivy where he was accepted. Fast-forward to today, he is currently at UVA medical school.

Congrats to you and your son as being one of the few families on dcum making smart decisions.

Anonymous wrote:My DS had 4.0 GPA with 1590 SAT, and was accepted to an Ivy. He turned it down to attend George Mason on a full tuition+room/board scholarship because we would have to pay almost 85K per year, and we didn't receive any financial aid at the Ivy where he was accepted. Fast-forward to today, he is currently at UVA medical school.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes. Friend was NMSF, 1590, top 5%, tons of rigor including AP Stat and BC Calc. Applied nursing to UVA and UNC from oos. Thought scores were good enough so didn't try elsewhere. Ended up at state university but not even in nursing program.
Now....mistake was only having two reaches. And nursing makes everything unsafe.

OOS is always a crapshoot, sure, but instate, Nursing

If she's not getting into nursing instate, who is?!

Is she permanently blocked from nursing, or just has to apply after first year?

Direct entry nursing is VERY competitive. I am in another state with our flagship acceptance rate of 65% but the BSN has 6% acceptance rate. I am sure UVA nursing is even more difficult to get into. I don't know who actually get in. People on DCUM don't really talk about nursing programs.

This is really interesting to me. I thought nursing was like teaching. Isn't there a shortage of well-trained nurses? Why aren't the programs expanding?

I likewise thought the same and had my eyes opened when DC went thru the application process this past cycle. Direct admit is indeed difficult and some schools don’t even offer it.

It’s just one of the reasons DC took a direct slot at a lower-ranked school (that still has a Level 1 trauma teaching hospital on campus). While it’s “direct,” it is still dependent on a 3.0 in certain prescribed classes like chemistry and biology. Didn’t want to have to “apply” yet again next Spring.

After much conversation with family and friends who are RNs, we’re still unsure it’s worthy of a $100K+ (total) degree when, as has also been pointed out here on DCUM, that the undergrad diploma location is largely a shoulder-shrug. DC has aspirations of NP or PA so it’s as much of a “see how it goes” as the actual degree. Plus, DC worked their a$$ off to have good enough grades, scores and ECs to get enough merit to keep the cost <= any other STEM (where the “M” could mean Medical) degree that has a lot of post-grad and occupational options.

So we are their biggest cheering section, atm.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools with a reputation for yield protection are not safeties, by definition.

The problem with confusing some sort of great likelihood with a true safety here is that misleads other families into some poor kid getting shut out.

Show me a school with "yield protection" that has an acceptance rate above 50% (because a safety requires that). Most YP schools are Reaches (Think Tufts) or places like CWRU (whose acceptance rates make it a Target at best )

Pretty sure there's an entire recent thread, maybe more than one, discussing whether VT yield protects. Rate 57%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools with a reputation for yield protection are not safeties, by definition.

The problem with confusing some sort of great likelihood with a true safety here is that misleads other families into some poor kid getting shut out.

Show me a school with "yield protection" that has an acceptance rate above 50% (because a safety requires that). Most YP schools are Reaches (Think Tufts) or places like CWRU (whose acceptance rates make it a Target at best )

Schools like Tulane, American and GWU have lowered their acceptance rates below 50 through a combination of RD yield protection and extensive use of ED.

Nobody has proven that yield protection occurs anywhere.

Anonymous wrote:I know a few high stats kids who just applied to very selective colleges and our state flagship, UW Seattle, and they only got into UW. All happy and doing well. It wasn't a safety for direct admit CS (25% in-state admit rate, 2% OOS) but was for the others (55% in-state admit rate, 45% OOS).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools with a reputation for yield protection are not safeties, by definition.

The problem with confusing some sort of great likelihood with a true safety here is that misleads other families into some poor kid getting shut out.

Show me a school with "yield protection" that has an acceptance rate above 50% (because a safety requires that). Most YP schools are Reaches (Think Tufts) or places like CWRU (whose acceptance rates make it a Target at best )

Schools like Tulane, American and GWU have lowered their acceptance rates below 50 through a combination of RD yield protection and extensive use of ED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main thing I'd want to know is the number and type of schools applied to.

If you applied to one safety and 19 lottery schools and ended up at the safety, that's not unexpected. Your strategy was flawed.

If you applied to three safeties, six targets, and four reaches, and ended up at a safety... that's more interesting because your strategy wasn't obviously bad (though perhaps you misjudged the targets).

If do "right", yes you should get acceptances at 25-50% of your targets. But you must also show demonstrated interest (at all schools, but especially targets). And it must be properly defined as a "target"---including the admission rates for your major.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes. Friend was NMSF, 1590, top 5%, tons of rigor including AP Stat and BC Calc. Applied nursing to UVA and UNC from oos. Thought scores were good enough so didn't try elsewhere. Ended up at state university but not even in nursing program.
Now....mistake was only having two reaches. And nursing makes everything unsafe.

OOS is always a crapshoot, sure, but instate, Nursing

If she's not getting into nursing instate, who is?!

Is she permanently blocked from nursing, or just has to apply after first year?

She has a 4.0 in Chemistry and will either do PA or a separate nursing program or NP after graduation.

She should consider med school with a 4.0 in Chemistry. My wife had a friend who switched from Pharmacy to a med school track when he was crushing it.

Those are two very different jobs, doctor vs nurse. I don’t think someone intent on one would be happy with the other.

Just curious the thinking on applying to pricey private schools like NYU, Miami and Case (I know Case is generous with merit) for nursing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools with a reputation for yield protection are not safeties, by definition.

The problem with confusing some sort of great likelihood with a true safety here is that misleads other families into some poor kid getting shut out.

Show me a school with "yield protection" that has an acceptance rate above 50% (because a safety requires that). Most YP schools are Reaches (Think Tufts) or places like CWRU (whose acceptance rates make it a Target at best )