Our school did not have anyone accepted to Harvard for over a decade. We don’t know why that was but Dd broke that streak — not ALDC or URM. She had a balanced list but wanted to see what would happen if she applied— no stress or expectations. No one from our school has been accepted after her either. Affluent suburb with a fancy private school. If I were to speculate, I think the public school kids are compared to the private school kids. They just don’t compare — my DD certainly did not. She just lucked out!

Anonymous wrote:Our school does pretty decent but Dartmouth accepts very few students from ours. Yet every year they sent a rep in our school. Why bother?

Well, Dartmouth is usually a waste of an app for anyone that doesn't go their feeder high schools. I wish they'd break things up, and do things differently. There are a lot of students interested in Dartmouth. But they seem to be muddling along with their old-timey preferences.

Someone posted something about yield - offering acceptances but getting relatively few students to actually attend. I think that's a big reason why some high schools might be having a hard time. At our high school five years ago, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Brown would generally extend two to five acceptances or so. But when they are only yielding one student each bc the students chose HYPSM instead, those schools have effectively become impossible admits now in RD. Colleges want people that want to be there. And they seem to be taking notes. I think that applies to every school ranked 5-20. Which is why there is so much pressure to apply ED.

Our school does pretty decent but Dartmouth accepts very few students from ours. Yet every year they sent a rep in our school. Why bother?

why

Anonymous wrote:Middle class families are anything but "donut hole." In many cases, they qualify for FA covering full tuition.

When people say middle class here. They don’t mean the actual middle class.

Breaking ED agreements, a history of the college accepting students from your high school but students rejecting (low yield), poor curriculum match, competitive state are just a few major reasons why

Anonymous wrote:It's really hard to break through. For whatever reason, Vanderbilt never accepts anyone from our HS, which sends loads to Ivies including HYP every year. Rumor is a couple of kids broke ED agreements a while back and Vandy wrote us off. Who knows if it's true. But I personally know 5 uber qualified kids who tried for Vandy, including with ED, and all were rejected. No rhyme or reason.

Sidwell?

Middle class families are anything but "donut hole." In many cases, they qualify for FA covering full tuition.