UVA is on the same level as Georgetown, Wash U, and Cornell in Maryland. Pretty prestigious.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty dismal. I saw the same thing in the Arlingotn magazine this weekend, and I was horrified. At least MoCo is similar. Does going private really help at getting into better schools?

Dismal? Not my thought at all. These schools have very low acceptance rates and certainly limit the number of kids from an area.

Anonymous wrote:What is the fascination with Indiana University? Ton of kids from MD applying with great success (81% acceptance rate).

You answered your own question. Even in my day it was known as a reliable "safety"

This is interesting. I combined the 2 lists and focused in on some of the usual suspects.

Liberal Arts Colleges: Accepts/applicants
Amherst: 12 of 67
Williams: 11 of 64
Pomona 3 of 63
Swarthmore: 11 of 97
Davidson: 11 of 43
Middlebury: 12 of 58

Wow, look at that crazy Pomona acceptance rate. Surprised to see Swarthmore with 50% more applications than just about any of its peers. Maybe kids don't want to be at a small school way out in the country, but they're willing to consider one closer to a city? Not surprised by the low application totals though - it's definitely a self-selecting group that wants a small school.

Universities: Admit/Applied
Brown: 29 of 295
Columbia: 19 of 268
Cornell: 68 of 463
Dartmouth: 13 of 163
Harvard: 16 of 277
Princeton: 21 of 307
Penn: 36 of 441
Stanford: 16 of 296
U of Chicago: 23 of 221
Yale: 30 of 296

High app totals for Penn. Maybe it's the popularity of Wharton among young men? And look at Cornell - maybe people take a shot at an Ivy acceptance by throwing in an application there? With such similar application totals, it's a little hard to escape the feeling that the same bunch of kids were applying to Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale.

What is the fascination with Indiana University? Ton of kids from MD applying with great success (81% acceptance rate).

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised by some of the acceptances. For example, for Blair, there was a high acceptance rate to Oberlin but 0 (out of 12) for Wesleyan.

Wesleyan's admit rate is 15%. Oberlin is 28% -- and was under-enrolled for SY 17-18. Not surprising they would admit more students.

I was surprised by some of the acceptances. For example, for Blair, there was a high acceptance rate to Oberlin but 0 (out of 12) for Wesleyan.

Lots of Wisconsin-Madison acceptances, good to know.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty dismal. I saw the same thing in the Arlingotn magazine this weekend, and I was horrified. At least MoCo is similar. Does going private really help at getting into better schools?

If by "better" you mean "elite," then I suppose private school families who can pay full price are at an advantage.

Many people in the DMV with high-performing kids are in the donut hole, i.e. can neither pay full price at an elite school, nor qualify for need-based FA. Those families' kids go to state publics (often on a full tuition scholarship) or they attend out of state publics or privates with merit scholarships.

Since schools that award merit scholarship money are not (by and large) elite schools that rank high (top ~25) USNWR rankings, such students do not even apply to these "better" schools, even if they are highly qualified.

Anonymous wrote:Here's the Arlington list - https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/college-admissions-a-snapshot/

Thanks for sharing this! I always knew about the Bethesda list. Never knew they had one in Arlington.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The acceptance rates are shockingly low to me. Are there no safety schools any longer? I thought many of these schools would take anybody with a pulse. I guess not.

You need to acquaint yourself with the Common Data Sets. A school that was a safety a generation ago when I went to college generally isn’t anymore.

I had the same thought. Wow.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty dismal. I saw the same thing in the Arlingotn magazine this weekend, and I was horrified. At least MoCo is similar. Does going private really help at getting into better schools?

Even if you can get into these schools, you can't pay for them if you are a middle-class family. Almost all of the most competitive ones only give need-based aid, which is generally not available to families who make $100K or more -- and Mont Co and Arlington are filled with families meeting that description.

That explains where people are applying to, and attending, as much as anything.

Anonymous wrote:South Carolina looks pretty popular. Merit money?

Yes, big time. They've joined Univ. of Alabama and maybe a few other southern schools in going hard after bright northeastern kids.

Wow, pretty dismal. I saw the same thing in the Arlingotn magazine this weekend, and I was horrified. At least MoCo is similar. Does going private really help at getting into better schools?

Here's the Arlington list - https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/college-admissions-a-snapshot/