“Amanda has two kids in college and two in high school and lives in Westport, Connecticut. She sums up this research as follows: “As a white wealthy parent of a white child, I will tell you they have no f-ing chance of getting in anywhere unless they have a legacy.” Amanda’s ex-husband works in finance, but she says there’s no “grandpa who wants to spend all their money on a building” waiting to contribute to the financial picture. Amanda’s daughter Marie attended private school, speaks Mandarin, had an unweighted GPA of 4.1, and earned a 1560 on the SAT. “Her extracurriculars would give away her identity, but they checked all the boxes,” Amanda says. Marie applied to 22 schools. “She’s brilliant, and she got in nowhere,” Amanda says. “She got into no decent school.” But of course, that’s an exaggeration; she was accepted to four of her safeties. Marie currently attends a university that did not make the U.S. News & World Report list of top-50 public schools. Amanda tells me, “She’s happy but often says, ‘Mom, I just wish I hadn’t studied. I would have gotten into the exact same schools.’” And Marie is probably right.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/college-acceptance-rates-ivy-league-schools-wealth.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has an EA acceptance to his top choice in hand, so this is pretty much anxiety and idle curiosity speaking. Since admissions can be holistic and somewhat capricious, what happens when a solid student (say, 4+ GPA and 1400+ SAT with great EC's) is shut out from everywhere they applied, even targets and safeties? I'm guessing this happens with a lot of safeties that have more of an 80% admit rate than higher. Do you know anyone this has happened to?

This is my fear for my DD who has 4 unweighted, 33 ACT, good EC's and didn't get in the ED decision.

I hear you and admit to having some kneejerk panic when my kid’s ED rejection came through. Less a week later, and the kid has EA acceptances to a safety and a target, both with really good merit. If you have a good, balanced list, your kid will not only get in somewhere but likely have options. Don’t succumb to the dark thoughts.

NP--This is one of the best responses I've seen on DCUM: helpful, reassuring and uplifting without sugarcoating. Thank you.

Aw, you’re welcome. This process is a real roller coaster! We should be kind to each other (and to ourselves).

PP here--you have it exactly right. All the best.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t get shut out of targets and safeties.

My kid had those scores and didn’t apply to any competitive schools. She aimed for merit , got lots, and took a free ride to a big state U.

Kids who are great students and don’t have a hook are going to state Us. Prestigious universities have decided our kids lives are good enough and they don’t need the benefit of a door-knocker college and there’s no feel-good reward for them.

Again, my DS was just accepted to a school with a 15% acceptance rate and deferred from one with a 71% acceptance rate (a state u). We'd considered the latter a target, and yet...

This! I think most families actually make a decent effort to find schools that truly would be a safety/likely for their child (based on common data set and other research). It's when you hear about results like PP (which is probably more common this year) that make this whole process confusing.

Anonymous wrote:You don’t get shut out of targets and safeties.

My kid had those scores and didn’t apply to any competitive schools. She aimed for merit , got lots, and took a free ride to a big state U.

Kids who are great students and don’t have a hook are going to state Us. Prestigious universities have decided our kids lives are good enough and they don’t need the benefit of a door-knocker college and there’s no feel-good reward for them.

Again, my DS was just accepted to a school with a 15% acceptance rate and deferred from one with a 71% acceptance rate (a state u). We'd considered the latter a target, and yet...

Choosing the right safety is the key and keeping a humble outlook. For both DCs, they applied to local privates that had rolling admission. Going into it, they both knew there will be a small chance they won’t be admitted at the local private if the school decides to yield-protect that year.

You don’t get shut out of targets and safeties.

My kid had those scores and didn’t apply to any competitive schools. She aimed for merit , got lots, and took a free ride to a big state U.

Kids who are great students and don’t have a hook are going to state Us. Prestigious universities have decided our kids lives are good enough and they don’t need the benefit of a door-knocker college and there’s no feel-good reward for them.

Anonymous wrote:I know a couple kids who were “shut out” but in both cases they didn’t have suitable safeties. Even with top stats no one in Virginia should consider Virginia Tech a safety.

+1 its acceptance rate is not that low but it's very unpredictable.

Some kids got burned by JMU too last year. They just started using Common App last year and it's hard to predict yield with that change, will probably still be hard to predict for a bit.

I know a couple kids who were “shut out” but in both cases they didn’t have suitable safeties. Even with top stats no one in Virginia should consider Virginia Tech a safety.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has an EA acceptance to his top choice in hand, so this is pretty much anxiety and idle curiosity speaking. Since admissions can be holistic and somewhat capricious, what happens when a solid student (say, 4+ GPA and 1400+ SAT with great EC's) is shut out from everywhere they applied, even targets and safeties? I'm guessing this happens with a lot of safeties that have more of an 80% admit rate than higher. Do you know anyone this has happened to?

This is my fear for my DD who has 4 unweighted, 33 ACT, good EC's and didn't get in the ED decision.

I hear you and admit to having some kneejerk panic when my kid’s ED rejection came through. Less a week later, and the kid has EA acceptances to a safety and a target, both with really good merit. If you have a good, balanced list, your kid will not only get in somewhere but likely have options. Don’t succumb to the dark thoughts.

NP--This is one of the best responses I've seen on DCUM: helpful, reassuring and uplifting without sugarcoating. Thank you.

Aw, you’re welcome. This process is a real roller coaster! We should be kind to each other (and to ourselves).

your safety has to have a real Why Us essay that demonstrates you've been there, you want to go there, you know the curriculum and you're excited about this and that and this other thing. Super specific and with a lot of heart, even if you have to fake it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course. There are far more well-qualified applicants than there are slots. Same for the working world, dating, et cetera.

Really? So PP's kid with 3.85 gpa and 1480 SAT was the least qualified of JMU admits? Please.

Know similar case (gpa a little higher) EA rejected Santa Clara. Ours similar stats deferred EA from similar acceptance rate school. Feels like there is a sweet spot where you rejected at top schools and yield protected out of what should be targets and safeties (especially if the ECs are decent helping the yield protectors)…

I doubt many or even any are truly shut out, as in have NO options. But I do think there are some very strong applicants who applied to an appropriate range of reach/target/likely schools who never dreamed they would only get into likelies and are (understandably, in my opionion) so disappointed in their choices that it feels like a shutout. Kids see themselves fitting into a type of school and are going to be disappointed if the only options are very different from where they they see themselves. I think this might be even more prone to happen to kids who don’t want to contort themselves (or lie, as my kid would say) to convince every school that it is their top choice. Some will call that a bad, low effort essay, but that’s not what I mean.

Anonymous wrote:Of course. There are far more well-qualified applicants than there are slots. Same for the working world, dating, et cetera.

Really? So PP's kid with 3.85 gpa and 1480 SAT was the least qualified of JMU admits? Please.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has an EA acceptance to his top choice in hand, so this is pretty much anxiety and idle curiosity speaking. Since admissions can be holistic and somewhat capricious, what happens when a solid student (say, 4+ GPA and 1400+ SAT with great EC's) is shut out from everywhere they applied, even targets and safeties? I'm guessing this happens with a lot of safeties that have more of an 80% admit rate than higher. Do you know anyone this has happened to?

If the student applies to several TRUE safeties (versus what they think should be safeties), then no, they won't get shut out.

I keep hearing this on this board, but how does one know what a TRUE safety is? My DS had a 3.85 gpa and 1480 SAT and was shut out of JMU.

Ugh awful. That is indeed a safety.

Anonymous wrote:Kids get shut out if their school doesn’t support their application like the Sidwell case from a few years back. Kid applied to 13 schools so not all Ivy. Next year she applied again and got into Penn. It happens but usually kids take a gap year or do post grad to fox the recommendation issue.

Refresh my memory on the Sidwell case?