GDS has excellent college admissions so it seems that they know what they are doing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The general recommendation by private college counselors is to apply to 6-9 universities/colleges. 2-3 reaches, 2-3 matches, 2-3 safeties.

So a max of 10 seems eminently reasonable, OP. The essays have to be really well written. Counselors seek to avoid students overextending themselves and sabotaging themselves with poor personal statements and supplemental essays.

That's outdated for very academic/selective candidates. I'm talking the 35/36 ACT, unweighted 4.0s/weighted higher, most rigorous course load, leader of a club, athlete, etc. These kids are in the top of the top 10 admissions stats for scores/SATS, but just given the sheer low level of acceptance rates (4-8% at most of the top 10s--and, let's face it, caucasians/non-legacy/nonfirst gen--that percentage is even lower) they need to cast a wider net. And I would up the meets/exceeds stat reaches and have 2 lower (lest than top 213) and only 1-2 sure bet.

So the very reason there are lower acceptance rates is because so many kids are “high stats” nowadays (thanks to grade inflation), that parental anxiety compels them to apply to more and more schools, seeing as very little differentiates the applicants. And your solution is to…cast a wider net? Do you see the problem here?

Yes. Kids that never would have dreamed of applying to an Ivy or top 10, much less top 20, because in the past they would have had to submit scores that are so far off the mark of the range the school considers are now NOT sending scores so they are applying to all of these schools in mass. That's the bigger issue. Everyone has a high gpa because of grade inflation these days. I mean our public HS had 250 valedictorians and more than 1/2 the graduating class had a 4.0. Technically, with no test score requirement they figure they can now hit up these schools and I've seen some that had abysmally low scores (friend shared) get accepted.

Anonymous wrote:OP northeastern admit rate 6.7%!!

Do you happen to know if it’s more or less difficult for graduate school? Thanks!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The general recommendation by private college counselors is to apply to 6-9 universities/colleges. 2-3 reaches, 2-3 matches, 2-3 safeties.

So a max of 10 seems eminently reasonable, OP. The essays have to be really well written. Counselors seek to avoid students overextending themselves and sabotaging themselves with poor personal statements and supplemental essays.

That's outdated for very academic/selective candidates. I'm talking the 35/36 ACT, unweighted 4.0s/weighted higher, most rigorous course load, leader of a club, athlete, etc. These kids are in the top of the top 10 admissions stats for scores/SATS, but just given the sheer low level of acceptance rates (4-8% at most of the top 10s--and, let's face it, caucasians/non-legacy/nonfirst gen--that percentage is even lower) they need to cast a wider net. And I would up the meets/exceeds stat reaches and have 2 lower (lest than top 213) and only 1-2 sure bet.

So the very reason there are lower acceptance rates is because so many kids are “high stats” nowadays (thanks to grade inflation), that parental anxiety compels them to apply to more and more schools, seeing as very little differentiates the applicants. And your solution is to…cast a wider net? Do you see the problem here?

Anonymous wrote:
The general recommendation by private college counselors is to apply to 6-9 universities/colleges. 2-3 reaches, 2-3 matches, 2-3 safeties.

So a max of 10 seems eminently reasonable, OP. The essays have to be really well written. Counselors seek to avoid students overextending themselves and sabotaging themselves with poor personal statements and supplemental essays.

That's outdated for very academic/selective candidates. I'm talking the 35/36 ACT, unweighted 4.0s/weighted higher, most rigorous course load, leader of a club, athlete, etc. These kids are in the top of the top 10 admissions stats for scores/SATS, but just given the sheer low level of acceptance rates (4-8% at most of the top 10s--and, let's face it, caucasians/non-legacy/nonfirst gen--that percentage is even lower) they need to cast a wider net. And I would up the meets/exceeds stat reaches and have 2 lower (lest than top 213) and only 1-2 sure bet.

Anonymous wrote:I understand that GDS caps at 10 colleges max to be applied to (UC's count as 1 school despite being able to apply to multiple UCs and UCAS/UK count as 1 application as well)

Capping at 10 seems not in line with the times. In theory, capping is a good idea. In practice, the world has changed - admit rates are way down (Northeastern is now 67%!) - yet GDS still caps at 10 schools. I'm not aware any NYC/SF/CHI/LA private schools cap at 10

It actually seems reasonable, if you thoughtfully and judiciously choose those ten schools, i.e., don’t apply to all the Ivies plus Stanford and MIT.

How in the world can they dictate how many schools you apply too?

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern?!?!

What the hell are we paying all this money for???

I ask myself this often.

Northeastern?!?!

What the hell are we paying all this money for???

Anonymous wrote:There’s no way they can cap something that has nothing to do with them. Other than sending transcripts the high school should really be hands off. Your kids can apply wherever they want. I do think more than 10 would be pointless, but still can’t be school regulated.

They will not send recs including counselor rec which is required everywhere. School can regulate it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the official GDS policy - I think they actually *can* enforce this by refusing to send grades and letters to more than 10 schools.

Students may apply to up to 10 schools. We communicate this policy to each college. This policy is well received because each GDS application is known to be thoughtful and well-considered.

The College Counseling Office will submit:
The School Report.
The GDS School Profile.
The Official Transcript.
Quarter/Semester grades for senior year.
Counselor Letter of recommendation.
Teacher Letters of recommendation.

The bolded is not true. Are they being lazy? cap at 10 schools is absolutely unreasonable in the current landscape.

If it is true that the Cal schools count as only 1, GDS is de facto pushing students to apply to Cal schools (so students can up their applications to 12-13). This is a perverse incentive.

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the cap to protect all the GDS students who aren't straight A students?

Each college will only admit XX number of students from a high school. It's not a hard number but it's finite.

If you let the top 20 students apply to unlimited schools (and they do and they get in) then where does the rest of the class get in?

How many straight A students are at GDS?

Isn't the cap to protect all the GDS students who aren't straight A students?

Each college will only admit XX number of students from a high school. It's not a hard number but it's finite.

If you let the top 20 students apply to unlimited schools (and they do and they get in) then where does the rest of the class get in?

Anonymous wrote:If you have bad counseling, you need to spread the applications all over the place.

But you have excellent college counseling. The kind families at public schools pay for. If you use the counselors, you’ll have the right 10 schools, ones that was actually accept your kid.

Really?

If you have bad counseling, you need to spread the applications all over the place.

But you have excellent college counseling. The kind families at public schools pay for. If you use the counselors, you’ll have the right 10 schools, ones that was actually accept your kid.