The in state flagship game is truly bonkers. UMD but also UVA, VT, and many others.

I’d advise looking at highly rated OOS schools that don’t recruit heavily around here are are not in the UC system if your kid fits their CDC.

Test optional has made the entire admissions process a wild, confusing s show. It’s worse than playing the lottery, particularly if your student is trying to stay close to home and you don’t qualify for federal aid but can’t afford 90k/year, either.

Mine has fared well this cycle but we pulled a lot of common data sets and counseled DC from looking at T10 schools even though he has a 4.0 unweighted and has very few P grades from the pandemic.

Anonymous wrote:Guys - with so many applications, chances are AI screens your kids app and it’s likely not even read.

The poster above about finding a way - any way - to distinguish the applicant is right.

Weird majors /applications to under the radar programs will be more and more relevant in coming years…..and kids won’t be able to switch so they need to make that major/field of study authentic to their applications

It's not AI, its a formula, usually just GPA+SAT to calculate some amount of points. If you are >some threshold, you're in the admit pile. If you are <some threshold, you're in the deny pile. They will look at the admit pile and see what they have in terms of their target class. Then the AOs go through the ones in the middle and factor in ECs, recs, essays to compile the rest. Other factors are things like financial aid, yield algorithms. For example, race may not be a factor in admissions decisions, but a school can choose to give merit aid to individuals from certain underrepresented minorities >a lower threshold and to individuals from majority groups >a higher threshold, to maximize the incentive for underrepresented minorities to enroll.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been lurking on this board and College Confidential since DC started freshman year in the fall and I am so shocked and sad for so many of what seem to be stellar students on paper getting deferred or even outright rejected from what used to be deemed "safety' schools. I know we're in a bit of a bubble in the DC area and it can be more competitive trying to get into certain schools from certain school systems (or at least that's what I'm told) but it seems to be especially bad this year? Do you think some of it is a result of COVID with '21 and '22 students taking gap years, and will normalize over time or do you think it will only get worse?

Among people I know, the shocker is UMD. It’s foolish to think of it as a safety school so I don’t have much sympathy for those who treated it as such. However, for those who treated it as a target and were rejected while kids with equivalent stats got it, I understand the confusion and even grief.

We know very strong private school students (including urm) that were rejected from UMD as in-state applicants in '23. Our very high stats DC was accepted into a non-STEM major but just simple acceptance - not honors, not scholars.

Anonymous wrote:I have been lurking on this board and College Confidential since DC started freshman year in the fall and I am so shocked and sad for so many of what seem to be stellar students on paper getting deferred or even outright rejected from what used to be deemed "safety' schools. I know we're in a bit of a bubble in the DC area and it can be more competitive trying to get into certain schools from certain school systems (or at least that's what I'm told) but it seems to be especially bad this year? Do you think some of it is a result of COVID with '21 and '22 students taking gap years, and will normalize over time or do you think it will only get worse?

Among people I know, the shocker is UMD. It’s foolish to think of it as a safety school so I don’t have much sympathy for those who treated it as such. However, for those who treated it as a target and were rejected while kids with equivalent stats got it, I understand the confusion and even grief.

PP again: paid counselor was confident she was going to get in and didn’t even recommend to submit the Dec scores. Maybe a public vs private difference?

We got in to Boulder with a 3.6 unw from a DC public, no test score submitted bc she retook later (Dec). She worked very hard on all essays across the board. She isn’t going but we were pleased with the admit and the good option

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone knows.
Test optional policies have increased the pool of qualified applicants to the top schools by many fold.

Also, the class applying this year had Covid-era grading for 2 years of the 3 that are considered for applications. In DCPS (for instance) the lowest grade a kid could get was a B if he/she did any work. MCPS bumped all final grades up by one letter grade. Lots of stuff like this happened all around the country in giant school districts (so hundreds of thousands of students impacted).

The class of 2025 will be the first that will have all 4 years back in a classroom with normal grading scales.

Sort of. I hope colleges take into account that middle school was messed up. Ninth grade was the first time my kid had to deal with seven different teachers with seven different sets of expectations, having to move between classes, etc. At his middle school they only had two teachers (plus specials) in sixth--one for English/social studies and one for math/science, and then 7th and 8th were totally messed up because of Covid. His grades in ninth, especially the first two semesters, were not the best--and I'm sure he's not the only one, coming off of two years of virtual instruction and a very weird transition between elementary and high school.

I hope colleges really look at that grade trajectory over the course of high school and continue to factor in the effects of Covid, even though this cohort was in seats all four years of HS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I know who applied got into Boulder this year EA

That's funny because our paid counselor said very few got in. We also know tons of kids who did not.

Everyone from our kids private with above a 3.75uw got in.
Below that: deferred

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it's due to TO. We've had several years now of this. Each year, kids only submit scores preferably at greater than 50% of the range which moves the needle. Now you need higher than 1530 in many cases to submit your score. So if you have a 1490 or 1500 you don't submit. But the admissions counselor doesn't know you scored a 1500 vs the other TO kid that scored a 1200. And the 1200 kid (who may come from an inflated grade school) has more time to hone a really cool EC. So the high achieving kid that spent time studying for the SAT and getting good grades at the more competitive school is getting screwed.

So just submit the 1500. There's not that much difference between a 1500 and a 1530.

+1

2 years ago my kid submitted a 1490 for a T10, it was 25% overall for them, but the Math score was 790 and 75%. Given my kid was applying to engineering we determined we wanted the AO seeing the really high math score along with the 3.95UW GPA. Figured that actually increased our kid's chances of admission. Did it work? ED1 deferred to RD and ultimately rejected. But at least we didn't wonder, was it because we didn't submit test scores.

If you have good scores you should submit them. When it's a TO school, a 1500 is most likely not the reason your kid gets rejected---these are highly rejective schools with single digit acceptance rates, so many highly qualified kids will get rejected. But your test score, combined with everything else, might just be the thing that puts you into the accepted pile.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it's due to TO. We've had several years now of this. Each year, kids only submit scores preferably at greater than 50% of the range which moves the needle. Now you need higher than 1530 in many cases to submit your score. So if you have a 1490 or 1500 you don't submit. But the admissions counselor doesn't know you scored a 1500 vs the other TO kid that scored a 1200. And the 1200 kid (who may come from an inflated grade school) has more time to hone a really cool EC. So the high achieving kid that spent time studying for the SAT and getting good grades at the more competitive school is getting screwed.

So just submit the 1500. There's not that much difference between a 1500 and a 1530.

Yes, it's due to TO. We've had several years now of this. Each year, kids only submit scores preferably at greater than 50% of the range which moves the needle. Now you need higher than 1530 in many cases to submit your score. So if you have a 1490 or 1500 you don't submit. But the admissions counselor doesn't know you scored a 1500 vs the other TO kid that scored a 1200. And the 1200 kid (who may come from an inflated grade school) has more time to hone a really cool EC. So the high achieving kid that spent time studying for the SAT and getting good grades at the more competitive school is getting screwed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When applying to colleges and universities, applying to at least 3 safeties is the most important. If a student accurately identifies & applies to 3 safeties, then the number of apps to other schools should not be a concern.

If up to me, I would limit students to 12 applications although 10 is also a reasonable limit.

With high stats kids being yield protected from safeties, it doesn't seem like safeties exist anymore.

Your kid needs to show interest, convince the safety why they want to attend. Safeties do exist. A school with a 50-60%+ acceptance rate does not just reject all high stats applicants. But your "why School X" essay has to be meaningful, you need to show interest and contact admissions/dept chairs/etc and let them think you actually want to attend. If you do that, you will get into at least 50% of your safeties. And you should have at least 2 safeties that have 75%+ acceptance rates...those do NOT yield protect, they are going to accept your high stats kid, 99% of the time.

Disagree. Not every school has an ILY essay. We're seeing that's not the case.

So the person posting their son was rejected at Auburn for Engineering but got into Purdue. Well it looks like Auburn does have supplemental essay. So in that case, it could easily be something in the essay. Also, for engineering the acceptance rate is not 70% (dont' have the time to see what it is for auburn but it is lower than the overall school)

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I know who applied got into Boulder this year EA

That's funny because our paid counselor said very few got in. We also know tons of kids who did not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your kid needs to show interest, convince the safety why they want to attend. Safeties do exist. A school with a 50-60%+ acceptance rate does not just reject all high stats applicants. But your "why School X" essay has to be meaningful, you need to show interest and contact admissions/dept chairs/etc and let them think you actually want to attend. If you do that, you will get into at least 50% of your safeties. And you should have at least 2 safeties that have 75%+ acceptance rates...those do NOT yield protect, they are going to accept your high stats kid, 99% of the time.

My high stats kid was deferred from a state school that does not yield protect and has a a 70% acceptance rate. I don't think safeties exist anymore.

So please list the state school, your kid's stats and major. Because sure, the school may have a 70% acceptance rate overall, but if you kid wanted CS/Engineering and their acceptance rate is 20%, it is NOT a safety school, it's a reach/maybe a target for a few kids.

I highly doubt your kid was rejected from their in-state school with 70% acceptance rate if your kid's stats were 75%+ and your kid wanted to major in SS/humanities/a non-impacted or direct admit major. But if that is not true, then please provide more details.

NP- Are you always an insufferable know-it-all? Or do you just play one on DCUM?

I'd like them to list the school with a 70% acceptance rate that rejected their "high stats kid" and what major the kid applied for. Because quite frankly, schools that accept 70% of students simply do not reject many "high stats kids"---they accept them because they want them to attend and raise their statistics.
But if the kid is applying for CS/Engineering/some major that has a low acceptance rate then that more likely is the real story. So I prefer if people post the full data with their posts. Otherwise their story doesn't seem plausible.