Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 23:29     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?

Now that the application cycle is over, I can see a lot of differences between IRL and DCUM.

GPA: When I first came here a year ago, I was severely depressed seeing so many 4.0 uw. IRL a 4.0 is not necessary for students from our high school to get into top colleges, not even 3.9 or 3.8. Once the GPA is within range per Naviance, it matters much less. Some 4.0s were rejected, while some lower GPAs were accepted. For some T20 even a T10 colleges, the accepted GPA range can be quite a bit lower than what DCUM would make you believe. This is for unhooked applicants.

Rigor: Rigor matters a ton at our school. Our school does not offer AP classes, but the advanced courses are definitely not easy, even just to earn a B+. Colleges recognized that during application review (signaling).

National awards: No. Definitely not necessary.


I agree with PP here but the issue is you don’t know which lower GPA on Naviance belongs to an athlete or legacy so you can’t be sure what is “within range” for your own unhooked kid.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 23:26     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:After everything I read here, I thought my 3.7/4.1/1510 FCPS kid had no chance at UMD. She got in.


Considering that SAT is the 75th percentile score, not sure what right thinking person would ever say that the student had no chance.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 23:20     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
After everything I read here, I thought my 3.7/4.1/1510 FCPS kid had no chance at UMD. She got in.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 22:58     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:3 kids from over represented city in to top choices ED, full pay but otherwise unhooked. This forum often says ED is only for athletic recruits, legacy, major donors etc, but I know so many kids in during ED rounds


I think posters mostly say this about top LACs like WASP, not all colleges
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 20:23     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
My kid went to a high performing MCPS W school with high grades (4.7 GPA) and lower-than-expected scores (1350) so went test optional. Did not get into UMD and feared not getting into other targets based on advice here.

Applied to 6 other schools and was admitted with significant merit money to all but the one she chose - an OOS public with <30% acceptance rate - much lower than UMD’s (outside of MCPS). All of her schools had 20-30% acceptance rates according to Naviance. Did not ED anywhere because DH resented the whole premise and wouldn’t allow it.

Despite comments on DCUM that she was out of her league at the selective college she chose due to her test optional admission and LDs, she’s doing great academically and in the top 20% of her STEM classes (according to grade curves).
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 18:55     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:3 kids from over represented city in to top choices ED, full pay but otherwise unhooked. This forum often says ED is only for athletic recruits, legacy, major donors etc, but I know so many kids in during ED rounds


This forum most definitely does NOT say that.

It says that if you want the preference for those things, you must apply ED.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 14:54     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the most prolific posters are those whose kids had all the high stats, but still got rejected from their top choices. The parents of kids who did well on admissions may not post as much because they do not need to vent as much.



a.k.a. miserable middle class public school striver moms


I’ve seen you post this several times already. I’ve been on this board awhile and I think it’s actually the private school parents who are unhappy with results. Sorry and I am both a public and private school mom. There’s a lot more obsessiveness over admissions among the private school crowd.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 14:52     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:GPA and rigor are high school dependent. Both matter. Rigor trumps small differences in GPA every single time. The A- or even occasional B+ in the hardest classes, at private schools that give B grades, beat the A in the easier AP or easier honors. Every time.


But you are comparing two different schools in this post. The B+ beats the A in easier classes at your private.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 14:26     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:I'll go OP. My kid had a 3.7W at FCPS. Lots of Bs all around. Had to work extremely hard for Bs and B- in Honors Humanities classes; also worked very hard for A- grades in AP math classes. Only took a total of 3 APs and 1 or 2 DE. Really nice, good kid, but definitely below average for DCUM. Got into 11 of 12 colleges including Virginia Tech and a bunch more similarly ranked schools. DCUM made me worry he had no chance at what I thought were safeties.


Thank you for sharing this!!
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 14:23     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:I think the most prolific posters are those whose kids had all the high stats, but still got rejected from their top choices. The parents of kids who did well on admissions may not post as much because they do not need to vent as much.



a.k.a. miserable middle class public school striver moms
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 13:28     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
I think the most prolific posters are those whose kids had all the high stats, but still got rejected from their top choices. The parents of kids who did well on admissions may not post as much because they do not need to vent as much.

Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 13:19     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:Specific high school context matters more than conventional DCUM wisdom.

At our small high school, the unweighted 3.9-ish crowd with high rigor got into Harvard, Yale, Stanford but the surprise for us was that our DC's friend group (3.6-3.8) got into very good schools (so-called "new Ivies" like Northwestern, Georgetown, Tufts, WashU, so-called Ivy "plus" schools like UChicago). They also did very well at NYU and USC.

DCUM conventional wisdom would not have predicted that. But DCUM wisdom is not high school specific. For our school, it was not helpful at all to read comments.



+1
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 13:09     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
GPA and rigor are high school dependent. Both matter. Rigor trumps small differences in GPA every single time. The A- or even occasional B+ in the hardest classes, at private schools that give B grades, beat the A in the easier AP or easier honors. Every time.
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 13:06     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?

Now that the application cycle is over, I can see a lot of differences between IRL and DCUM.

GPA: When I first came here a year ago, I was severely depressed seeing so many 4.0 uw. IRL a 4.0 is not necessary for students from our high school to get into top colleges, not even 3.9 or 3.8. Once the GPA is within range per Naviance, it matters much less. Some 4.0s were rejected, while some lower GPAs were accepted. For some T20 even a T10 colleges, the accepted GPA range can be quite a bit lower than what DCUM would make you believe. This is for unhooked applicants.

Rigor: Rigor matters a ton at our school. Our school does not offer AP classes, but the advanced courses are definitely not easy, even just to earn a B+. Colleges recognized that during application review (signaling).

National awards: No. Definitely not necessary.


Very true if a top private
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2026 12:52     Subject: What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?
Anonymous wrote:What was the major difference between your IRL admissions results and what others shared here on DCUM?

Now that the application cycle is over, I can see a lot of differences between IRL and DCUM.

GPA: When I first came here a year ago, I was severely depressed seeing so many 4.0 uw. IRL a 4.0 is not necessary for students from our high school to get into top colleges, not even 3.9 or 3.8. Once the GPA is within range per Naviance, it matters much less. Some 4.0s were rejected, while some lower GPAs were accepted. For some T20 even a T10 colleges, the accepted GPA range can be quite a bit lower than what DCUM would make you believe. This is for unhooked applicants.

Rigor: Rigor matters a ton at our school. Our school does not offer AP classes, but the advanced courses are definitely not easy, even just to earn a B+. Colleges recognized that during application review (signaling).

National awards: No. Definitely not necessary.