Anonymous wrote:Bryn Mawr for putting basically no effort into their admitted students day. It was pretty stunning, to be honest.

Ooh, my kid is going to the admitted student day tomorrow and now I’m hoping it’s not bad!

Just remember, there are thousands of kids who apply to these schools who look exactly like your kid. They literally cannot accept all of them. There are also a lot of kids that don’t look anything like your kid, yet the school believes they have something to contribute so they accept them. It’s disappointing when your child is not accepted, but that’s life. Mine was not accepted at at an in-state school that was his first choice, but he thrived at the school he ultimately selected — the ability to take what you have and do something with it is the definition of success.

Anonymous wrote:Duke. One DC attends, the other rejected, despite having good stats. I know. It happens. But I just can't be all "go blue devils" anymore.

I am with you, alum parent here. Maybe its sour grapes but suddenly the school feels overrated to me haha

Anonymous wrote:

Why is UVA giving so many declines in state. All VA schools for that matter. It wasn’t like that 10, 15 years ago.

UVA in-state feels borderline impossible from NOVA. We had heard it for all those years, but being in it is definitely discouraging - you would think the state flagship could at least give kids who achieve a certain threshold a nod, but apparently not. The 33% OOS is not helping at all, either. They've become addicted to the OOS pay.

Honestly, I found the whole process discouraging.

The state cut funding over and over so they had to rely on OOS money.

There have been efforts to change the ratio over the years, but they failed in Appropriations.

It’s also not really a flagship when it comes to size. That’s JMU, GMU, and Tech. We need to think of UVA as a large honors college.

Why is UVA giving so many declines in state. All VA schools for that matter. It wasn’t like that 10, 15 years ago.

UVA in-state feels borderline impossible from NOVA. We had heard it for all those years, but being in it is definitely discouraging - you would think the state flagship could at least give kids who achieve a certain threshold a nod, but apparently not. The 33% OOS is not helping at all, either. They've become addicted to the OOS pay.

Honestly, I found the whole process discouraging.

I have an unreasonably negative opinion of Harvard and Northwestern. The guides were dead inside. And it was like, yeah, look how you're turning out. No thanks.

Vanderbilt is getting a negative reputation for admissions. Accepting so few.

Why is UVA giving so many declines in state. All VA schools for that matter. It wasn’t like that 10, 15 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:UNC Chapel Hill for not accepting anyone OOS (I know it’s not true but it seems that way)

I know someone who got in from VERY rural Alabama and another private school admit from central Virginia. Full pay.

Both make sense checking very specific boxes

Anonymous wrote:UC seems a bit disjointed and broken right now. seems like it has good intentions but has just been derailed since the pandemic - it takes for granted the strength of its graduate schools and power of its name brand. but how durable is that with respect to the undergrad school and student experience. there are some really rough stories out there on blogs, substack, reddit.

forewarned I guess ..

Let’s see- graduate schools bring in prestige, top research, massive investment, and money.

Seems worth it.

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Anonymous wrote:Northeastern and Case Western are the worst with their yield management.

Mine was accepted at Duke, Northwestern, and Michigan -- waitlisted at Case and BU.

(not complaining! but yield optimization shouldn't exist, it really just adds to the confusion and chaos)

Waitlisting your kid is the perfect solution here. They made the correct assumption your child was highly competitive and would get into higher demand schools. They offered waitlist in the off chance your student had them as their first choice, and presumably your student would let them know that and probably had a decent chance of getting off the waitlist.

+1

This is exactly where waitlisting makes sense.

No it doesn’t. Somehow state schools are able to figure out their yield without playing games with high stats students.

Yield protection schools are a scam.

Exactly. This is textbook yield protection -- schools admitting students based on who they think will choose them instead of based on who they most would like to enroll. Creates tons of needless anxiety and chaos for everyone. It's one of the reasons "safeties" aren't as safe as they used to be.

The UCs prize GPA above all else. They’re more likely to admit a kid who gets an A in a CP class than a student who gets a B in tough AP class. I find it incomprehensible. The student with a B is leaps and bounds more academically prepared than kids in CP classes.

They don’t seem at all interested in changing the system either.

Michigan can suck it +2 ha

Penn makes strange choices year to year.

Anonymous wrote:Vanderbilt won’t seem to accept anyone from our school (well regarded private). Every year we have dozens of students accepted to multiple Ivy’s and top 10s but it’s been years since a Vanderbilt acceptance. This year our valedictorian applied ED and didn’t get in. She ended up getting into Stanford, Uchicago, Penn, Dartmouth, and Yale! But not Vanderbilt…
The college counseling department pretty much warns families not to bother with Vanderbilt since they seem to have a weird dislike of our school.

Oh, please let us know what she ends up choosing!

Brown rejected our valedictorian, actual math prodigy star student and accepted some run of the mill girl whose dad has Epstein connections.