Anonymous wrote:Demonstrating interest is exhausting. My DD needs to focus on finals, IB essay, SAT but she is supposed to also zoom into a million virtual sessions for the schools she likes? She is really interested in three school but every week they send sone new virtual session around sone seemingly random/super specific topic — how much attendance is enough???

If you visit in person, then that’s enough.

Anonymous wrote:My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

If you visit in person, then that’s enough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friends son just go stuck in waitlist hell, 1530 sat. 11 waitlists and 1 rejection. The rejection was to a safety school for him. Lucky he applied to 2 top schools in England, got in both within a week of applying. Yield protection is getting ridiculous.

11 waitlists! Seems like the safety wasn’t a safety.

The safety YIELD PROTECTED. Are you paying attention?

That is your assumption, you have no way of knowing that.

However, that's just playing Devil's advocate - it seems likely that's the case.

My advice to those applying the next cycle?

Choose some non-traditional safeties like smaller, more unknown LACS to include in your list. Think CTCLs and others that don’t have 50K apps per year.

Also, JMU may go the way of Virginia Tech next year and be unpredictable. Don’t use that as your only safety.

-signed parents of class of 2021 and 2020

Demonstrating interest is exhausting. My DD needs to focus on finals, IB essay, SAT but she is supposed to also zoom into a million virtual sessions for the schools she likes? She is really interested in three school but every week they send sone new virtual session around sone seemingly random/super specific topic — how much attendance is enough???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friends son just go stuck in waitlist hell, 1530 sat. 11 waitlists and 1 rejection. The rejection was to a safety school for him. Lucky he applied to 2 top schools in England, got in both within a week of applying. Yield protection is getting ridiculous.

11 waitlists! Seems like the safety wasn’t a safety.

The safety YIELD PROTECTED. Are you paying attention?

Or there were a lot of similarly situated candidates that ranked below their highest candidates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is good.
Students need to stop applying to 20+ schools. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Find a couple true safeties you actually would be happy at, visit them, and apply to them. Stop tossing out random apps to see who bites.

(Note, if the acceptance rate is less than 75%, it’s not a safety, no matter what your stats are)

How many colleges have a greater than 75% acceptance rate?

None you would want to attend with a 1400+ SAT.

THIS. It’s true that the answer to yield protection is not about applying to 20 schools. Equally though is not about applying to schools which are not a peer group fit for the child just because s/he has a near 100 percent chance of getting in.

Oh, please. Your kid isn’t that special. There are plenty of your child’s “peer group” at every large state university, many of which have very high admissions rates. Kids with high stats go to these colleges for many reasons — Mom and Dad are alums, it’s close to home — and most importantly — it’s cheap. Many go there because these schools have very generous merit aid for high stats kids. They almost all have “honors colleges” if you just can’t bear the thought of your precious snowflake associating with the riff riff.

And if a kid isn’t smart enough to figure out that applying to 10 schools with 5% acceptance rates does not give him/her a 50% chance of getting accepted, then they aren’t really that bright.

You miss my point. Every kid IS special. State u is the answer for some kids, for others it’s another of the 3000 colleges in the US. My point is they need to find the right one(s) for them.

No your point was that your kid was too smart to fit into State U. And PP correctly said get over yourself. My kid (who is not academically gifted) is at a lower ranked state school thriving in all ways. But she has plenty of friends there from all over the country that are brilliant. Some already doing scientific research. Another with perfect SATs and 36 AP credits from (gasp) Louisiana. There is no university where your kid cannot find his/her academic peer group. Some just have more non focused students than others.

The thing that's going to make it hard to convince "top" kids not to apply to 20 schools is the randomness. My child has three or four friends who applied to all 8 Ivy's and got into one, and not the one they would have applied to if they'd winnowed down their list. The randomness works against applying to a limited list. They're glad now that they cast a wider net, especially since they got rejected at places like Colgate while getting into Brown or Penn. I wish USNews would change its metrics to eliminate colleges' perceived need to game kids' intentions & yield protect though. Some of my child's friends were waitlisted or rejected from so-called safeties and ended up having a slew of waitlists, even though they were 1500 plus SAT, top 5% of class students. I have to believe the waitlists will move, especially if those kids show strong interest now, but there has to be a better way than dragging the whole process out so long. When my child applies, they will apply ED1 and then ED2 if ED1 doesn't work out, while also applying to a bunch of state schools with rolling admissions and more predictable results - ie nonflagship state schools and others who through research seem to do less in the way of yield protecting. If that doesn't work out, they'll apply to 20 just like the kids this year. Not how it should have to be, but it's just so unpredictable. I'm sure that people will figure out who yield protects and avoid those schools, so it could backfire on them anyway. Yeah, maybe some kids didn't have them as their first choice, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't go. I have another child who went to their 7th choice school. They were still excited to go once they got over the initial deflated feelings and disappointment, and would be the first to tell you that it worked out for the best anyway. I think it will be better this fall though, because there will be fewer deferrals to contend with, and because the class of 22 has the benefit of seeing what happened with this year's seniors. For class of 21, it felt like the rules of the game were changed in the 11th hour, and while the end results may ultimately be similar, it's been a tough and confusing process for them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is good.
Students need to stop applying to 20+ schools. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Find a couple true safeties you actually would be happy at, visit them, and apply to them. Stop tossing out random apps to see who bites.

(Note, if the acceptance rate is less than 75%, it’s not a safety, no matter what your stats are)

How many colleges have a greater than 75% acceptance rate?

None you would want to attend with a 1400+ SAT.

THIS. It’s true that the answer to yield protection is not about applying to 20 schools. Equally though is not about applying to schools which are not a peer group fit for the child just because s/he has a near 100 percent chance of getting in.

Oh, please. Your kid isn’t that special. There are plenty of your child’s “peer group” at every large state university, many of which have very high admissions rates. Kids with high stats go to these colleges for many reasons — Mom and Dad are alums, it’s close to home — and most importantly — it’s cheap. Many go there because these schools have very generous merit aid for high stats kids. They almost all have “honors colleges” if you just can’t bear the thought of your precious snowflake associating with the riff riff.

And if a kid isn’t smart enough to figure out that applying to 10 schools with 5% acceptance rates does not give him/her a 50% chance of getting accepted, then they aren’t really that bright.

You miss my point. Every kid IS special. State u is the answer for some kids, for others it’s another of the 3000 colleges in the US. My point is they need to find the right one(s) for them.

Any school with under a 50% acceptance rate isn't a safety.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friends son just go stuck in waitlist hell, 1530 sat. 11 waitlists and 1 rejection. The rejection was to a safety school for him. Lucky he applied to 2 top schools in England, got in both within a week of applying. Yield protection is getting ridiculous.

11 waitlists! Seems like the safety wasn’t a safety.

The safety YIELD PROTECTED. Are you paying attention?

How much interest did the student show in the safety? Do any tours, virtual or otherwise? Send any emails? Write a good “Why Directional U?” essay? Or did they just throw a half-hearted app across the transom at the last minute and assume the “safety” school would be grateful? “Yield protection” is just the flip side of the “the kid didn’t show any real interest in coming here” side of the coin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is good.
Students need to stop applying to 20+ schools. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Find a couple true safeties you actually would be happy at, visit them, and apply to them. Stop tossing out random apps to see who bites.

(Note, if the acceptance rate is less than 75%, it’s not a safety, no matter what your stats are)

How many colleges have a greater than 75% acceptance rate?

None you would want to attend with a 1400+ SAT.

THIS. It’s true that the answer to yield protection is not about applying to 20 schools. Equally though is not about applying to schools which are not a peer group fit for the child just because s/he has a near 100 percent chance of getting in.

Oh, please. Your kid isn’t that special. There are plenty of your child’s “peer group” at every large state university, many of which have very high admissions rates. Kids with high stats go to these colleges for many reasons — Mom and Dad are alums, it’s close to home — and most importantly — it’s cheap. Many go there because these schools have very generous merit aid for high stats kids. They almost all have “honors colleges” if you just can’t bear the thought of your precious snowflake associating with the riff riff.

And if a kid isn’t smart enough to figure out that applying to 10 schools with 5% acceptance rates does not give him/her a 50% chance of getting accepted, then they aren’t really that bright.

Shit just apply to a regional or directional state school and consider it a super safety. They don't yield protect because they don't give a damn. They know they ain't making big moves in USNWR anytime soon. At least you'll know in a worst-case scenario that you won't be relegated to community college or going to school overseas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friends son just go stuck in waitlist hell, 1530 sat. 11 waitlists and 1 rejection. The rejection was to a safety school for him. Lucky he applied to 2 top schools in England, got in both within a week of applying. Yield protection is getting ridiculous.

11 waitlists! Seems like the safety wasn’t a safety.

The safety YIELD PROTECTED. Are you paying attention?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is good.
Students need to stop applying to 20+ schools. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Find a couple true safeties you actually would be happy at, visit them, and apply to them. Stop tossing out random apps to see who bites.

(Note, if the acceptance rate is less than 75%, it’s not a safety, no matter what your stats are)

How many colleges have a greater than 75% acceptance rate?

None you would want to attend with a 1400+ SAT.

THIS. It’s true that the answer to yield protection is not about applying to 20 schools. Equally though is not about applying to schools which are not a peer group fit for the child just because s/he has a near 100 percent chance of getting in.