Anonymous wrote:Don’t trust naviance. My son with near perfect SAT score and 4.89 GPA was rejected from every single school except for his safeties.

Anonymous wrote:The person who wrote that their test score was in the 99th percentile just doesn’t get it! You are fixated on a few, known data points...when the decision to admit is much more nuanced and complex. You are probably the same parent who fixated on school rank, when your child’s college decision should take many additional factors into account.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what that interviewer was saying is that not all aspects of the application are visible to you. Race is, so you latch onto that. Easier than accepting that perhaps, when MULTIPLE factors are taken into account (including the mix of kids they want to constitute that year’s incoming class)...your DD was not in the 94th percentile. Maybe she is in the 90th, of the whole United States, which is great...but someone beat her out. It’s okay. Not abusive.

NP - actually a 34 is in the 99th percentile

Yeah, but 35 & 36 are also in the 94th percentile
But honestly many top universities have an expectation for those standardized tests - maybe 32 & up? 31 and up?
But beyond that they don’t seem to care that much - it just checks a box. What they are looking for is harder to quantify than grades and test scores.

Anonymous wrote:

We were visiting Barnard last week and that's basically what they said in the info session. They look at transcript first, then ECs and recs and test scores last. They told the parents not to make the kids take the tests a million timers to get a perfect score because it's just not that important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what that interviewer was saying is that not all aspects of the application are visible to you. Race is, so you latch onto that. Easier than accepting that perhaps, when MULTIPLE factors are taken into account (including the mix of kids they want to constitute that year’s incoming class)...your DD was not in the 94th percentile. Maybe she is in the 90th, of the whole United States, which is great...but someone beat her out. It’s okay. Not abusive.

NP - actually a 34 is in the 99th percentile

Yeah, but 35 & 36 are also in the 94th percentile
But honestly many top universities have an expectation for those standardized tests - maybe 32 & up? 31 and up?
But beyond that they don’t seem to care that much - it just checks a box. What they are looking for is harder to quantify than grades and test scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait a second, OP’s child had close to 1600 SAT and close to 4.0 unweighted gpa (and clearly a rigorous course load in weighted gpa was close to 5.0) and no one thinks it is unusual that he was rejected from UIUC?? Even with no extracurriculars he should have been a lock, come on. Frankly I am surprised he was not admitted to Carnegie Melon either, unless he applied to CS. I am sorry OP, that must be very disappointing to your son. I hope that he is happy with his admitted choice and I am sure that he will do great wherever he lands.

1520 sat, nearly 3.9 unweighted, lots of ecs, captain on sports team who were state champs, Eagle Scout - Carnegie Melon isn't even a possibility. Waitlisted @ Case Western.

It really sucks. Cmu accepted too many girls this year from what I have heard. Asian males especially had a hard time getting into top cs programs. Not sure what is expected if you are an Asian male student with rigorous courses, lots of AP’s , near perfect sat and gp and excellent ec’s. Girls and urms with way lower criteria have been admitted to top schools

Anonymous wrote:I think what that interviewer was saying is that not all aspects of the application are visible to you. Race is, so you latch onto that. Easier than accepting that perhaps, when MULTIPLE factors are taken into account (including the mix of kids they want to constitute that year’s incoming class)...your DD was not in the 94th percentile. Maybe she is in the 90th, of the whole United States, which is great...but someone beat her out. It’s okay. Not abusive.

NP - actually a 34 is in the 99th percentile

Yeah, but 35 & 36 are also in the 94th percentile
But honestly many top universities have an expectation for those standardized tests - maybe 32 & up? 31 and up?
But beyond that they don’t seem to care that much - it just checks a box. What they are looking for is harder to quantify than grades and test scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what that interviewer was saying is that not all aspects of the application are visible to you. Race is, so you latch onto that. Easier than accepting that perhaps, when MULTIPLE factors are taken into account (including the mix of kids they want to constitute that year’s incoming class)...your DD was not in the 94th percentile. Maybe she is in the 90th, of the whole United States, which is great...but someone beat her out. It’s okay. Not abusive.

NP - actually a 34 is in the 99th percentile

Yeah, but 35 & 36 are also in the 94th percentile
But honestly many top universities have an expectation for those standardized tests - maybe 32 & up? 31 and up?
But beyond that they don’t seem to care that much - it just checks a box. What they are looking for is harder to quantify than grades and test scores. [/quote]

Yes, they are looking for a hook to help their school financially, academically, athletically, musically, and most importantly to buff their stats they love to show on those student info sessions.

UMCP has a higher average GPA than Harvard? You can thank MCPS inflated grade system for that fake nonsense.

My biggest pet peeve is schools that post how many valedictorians they have. I am about to move to Oklahoma in some crap neighborhood so my kid can be the MVP there. That means more than being in the the top 5% at Thomas Jefferson? I mean what a stupid stat to post. It is comparing apples to oranges most of the time.