On another note-can it help if a student takes the maximum rigor classes in their private school and takes the AP exams and gets all 5’s? My child was one of the few who took 4 AP exams and got 5’s on all in their school, where only about 1/2 of the students are even sitting for AP exams. The school no longer offers “official” AP classes which is a mistake IMO.

What AOs keep saying, but no one wants to hear, is that they aren't ranking the students and taking the "best" by any metric. They are filling departments and filling the sports teams and the bands and they cannot and don't care about assigning some precise "quality score" to each student. The AOs care about their class. They don't care about any of your specific kids.
You can't game it by min-maxing your efforts to fit their metrics, because they don't have metrics. You can only game it by being different among equivalent options (bassoon not violin) and cheating to boost your scores and lying or uying fake achievements.

It seems like the private schools should do all they can to get their students in during the ED round-and it doesn’t seem to be happening with regularity despite the detailed counselor letters and other personal info. Why is that?

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Anonymous wrote:Could you tell this year which applicants were AA or Hispanic?

Np.

Yes bc they write about it in diversity essay or in extracurriculars (black student association; students of color conference) and often mentioned as an aside in the LOR.

Troll alert. This is absolute BS. Our HS is 85% black and there is no black student association. Also, there is no point in a an "aside" mentioning what is 85% likely to be the fact.

Since most HS are not 85 percent black, given AA people make up 15 percent of our whole population within this country, I think it is safe to assume that geographic readers of a college assigned to that region knows that school is predominantly black. (Or whatever the racial group may be in that unique situation) Again, not the norm…

NP. This is interesting. My (white) kid is at a public high school in which 83% of the students are Black. Are you saying the AO is likely to assume my kid is Black?

Depending on their last name, maybe?

? most African Americans have white sounding last names because of the legacy slavery.

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Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Our private HS requires all kids to take the AP exam for their AP courses or they fail the course.

At a junior class meeting they said our HS is known as very rigorous/strong and mentioned the profile has on AP exam results for the HS that colleges see too. My son scored 5s on every single AP exam. If you look at the national pass rate or # scoring 5s for certain subjects —it’s abysmally low across the US. Talking with classmates- almost all are scoring 4s and 5s. This also speaks to school rigor, as well as standardized test scores, curriculum, rigor backed up by test results, etc.

DP, also at our school everyone take s the same level of rigor. There really are not variances save a class or two on the electives front, which really should not move the needle on level of rigor.

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Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

This often happens at private schools, especially during ED.

This is why some private schools limit applications. It prevents 2 or 3 kids from getting all the acceptances.

But with ED a stand out kid can only get one acceptance if they are taken ED…

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Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Of course it comes from that letter! It’s not innocuous.

Even if there is no ranking, they have to check whether or not the student is “one of the most exceptional they’ve ever seen in the school” or ranks somewhere else. There also our quartiles for them to check, even if no ranking exists.

All of the info you describe is in the profile sent by the high school to the college. It takes all of a few seconds for a reader to figure how estimated rank and how rigorous the academic load

Have you seen a picture of the form? There are boxes for the counselor to fill out as it relates to the candidate. Very specific boxes of where the counselor would put the candidate.
I saw it on a zoom and took pictures of it.

Our private school leaves those ranking and quartile questions blank. Big3 private

Has that hurt admissions for non-hooked kids in the last year?

Non-DC private here and ours does the same, but there is speculation that it’s hurt admissions prospects for non-hooked kids.

Note- peer private school does complete that quartile info (even tho no rank) and had a bonanza/boom of best admissions process in decades last year (including lots of TO kids)….that’s the only thing that changed.

Ours doesn't fill it out either. In some settings it really makes no sense to provide a rank. When a school is tiny, selects for achievement, counsels out anyone who is getting to many Cs or worse, and grades on a traditional curve, providing a rank makes the kids in the bottom half of the class (who would be ranked #16-30 or so), seem like academically incompetent students even when their SATs are over 1400 and they have 5s on 8+ AP exams.

Here’s interesting info (from college confidential)

If you then listen to the Yale Admissions Podcast (or read the transcripts), they make similar points. Like, here is a critical passage on activities and recommendations:

MARK: –when it comes to things like your extracurricular activities and your letters of recommendation, we use a 9-point scale. So 9 is the strongest. 1 is the weakest. In practice, we primarily use the middle of a scale. You’re almost never going to see something that isn’t a 4, 5, 6, or 7–

HANNAH: Right.

MARK: –on a printed slate, even across hundreds of applications in a typical day.

HANNAH: Yeah. So for example, when we’re rating your extracurricular accomplishments, we occasionally see some super, super extraordinary extracurricular accomplishments, like an Olympic medal.

MARK: Yeah.

HANNAH: So we reserve those top, top ratings for something like that. Most people are going to fall in that middle range.

MARK: Right. We also read some really extraordinary letters of recommendation that give some amazing details about how a student transformed a learning environment and was absolutely singular in an educator’s career, and so we’ll reserve that 8 or that 9 for that kind of letter.


They also discussed the popular “spike” theory:

Yeah, and this relates to something that we actually got a listener email about, which is– it’s a good question, is about, do you need to have a spike in your application? And this is– what’s interesting is this is not a term that I had heard before. But it sounds like it’s pretty common out there among students who are talking to each other. So, Hannah, can you like– what’s the concept of a spike?
Yeah, so the idea is that you could either be well-rounded, or you could be pointy in your activities. So if you’re well-rounded, you do a lot of different varied things. And if you’re pointy or you have a spike, then you have one thing that you’re really, really, really good at.
Yeah, and I, over the years, have gotten tons of questions from students, saying, do you prefer well-rounded students, or pointy students?
Right. Yeah.
And my answer is, yes. All kinds.
Yes.
And it’s interesting, because I know that this actually is a line that admissions officers have used over the years, where they explain that what they’re looking for is a well-rounded student body, not necessarily well-rounded students and I can understand where that’s coming from, but I think it’s much too dismissive of the well-rounded student, who maybe isn’t particularly spiky in one area. So I think people hear that and say, oh I’ve got to be spiky so that my spike is going to join all the other spikes and then together–
[Reed] Right.
We’ll be this big spiky wheel or something, I don’t know.
Yeah, like whatever you do, that’s what you should do. I mean, if you happen to be the kind of person who wants to pursue a lot of varied things, if you’re a little bit of a jack of all trades, that’s great. Do that. And if you have this one clear passion, or spike, that you’re exceptionally good at, then do that. But one is not better than the other.
And we see students go in the wrong direction both ways, right? We see students who are passionate with a capital P about something, but they think that they need to have a bunch of other stuff in their applications.
Right, yeah.
So they’re just participants and involved, but it doesn’t mean much for us. And we also see students who really would love to be pursuing really disparate interests and contributing a lot different ways. They say, oh, I’ve got to have a spike. And so I need to abandon these things that I care about to double or triple down on this one thing. And no, you don’t need to do that at all.
Don’t– just don’t make these decisions based on how it’s going to look on your resume or on your college application. Make them based on how you actually want to be spending your time.
[Reed] Yes, there is a whole spectrum of activity, from the student who does it, all the student who does one thing. And when you get to college, we are not going to expect the student who does one thing to suddenly become a jack of all trades. And we’re not going to expect the student who loves doing it all to suddenly focus in on their extracurricular activities in college. You’re eventually going to have to select a major or majors. You’re not going to have to focus down your activities to one.
Yeah.


This is all consistent with the Harvard information, and is consistent with a model where only rarely does someone get in because of an 8 or 9 scores on something.

But a combination of, say, all 6s and 7s might be rare enough to make those Yale applicants relatively strong for admission

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Anonymous wrote:Yup and it was concerning because a box could be checked and it could be subjective depending on if the counselor wanted to push a candidate or not. One was rank how a candidate is respected hey teacher? Exactly what is the criteria?

This information on counselor weight solidifies my belief on how my child was selected to Top 20 school. I believe the counselors relationship with certain colleges help them identify what those schools want in a student. So they know when a kid would be a good fit or not. Counselors see transcripts but students also have a reputation from faculty that circles back to a counselor. They know when a stand out student has the drive and passion to make a difference (not being pushed by parents planning out their academic transcript since 8th grade or kids who just check 20 boxes for the sake of putting more on paper) Counselors can make or break that admission. 100%

At most large public high schools, counselors don't have this level of relationship with colleges or with individual students. And perhaps this is one part of the reason that certain (not all) private high schools do better in admissions than publics.

But, surely colleges must know how arbitrary these checkbox decisions are. It is dumb that colleges rely on them. Perhaps for very highly selective schools, they don't care; they have so many applicants to choose from, they'll take a dumb way that's easily available.

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Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Of course it comes from that letter! It’s not innocuous.

Even if there is no ranking, they have to check whether or not the student is “one of the most exceptional they’ve ever seen in the school” or ranks somewhere else. There also our quartiles for them to check, even if no ranking exists.

All of the info you describe is in the profile sent by the high school to the college. It takes all of a few seconds for a reader to figure how estimated rank and how rigorous the academic load

Have you seen a picture of the form? There are boxes for the counselor to fill out as it relates to the candidate. Very specific boxes of where the counselor would put the candidate.
I saw it on a zoom and took pictures of it.

NP. You can find PDFs of the forms on this page:https://membersupport.commonapp.org/membersupport/s/article/Are-paper-PDF-versions-of-the-application-and-or-recommender-forms-available

Specifically, on this page it is the first link, "School Report" https://commonapp.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#d0000000eEna/a/8X0000011Ken/ll9soTdjMLh73NA1QlQ0FR4fZlDcb1LeXjVEh55XY2E

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Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Of course it comes from that letter! It’s not innocuous.

Even if there is no ranking, they have to check whether or not the student is “one of the most exceptional they’ve ever seen in the school” or ranks somewhere else. There also our quartiles for them to check, even if no ranking exists.

All of the info you describe is in the profile sent by the high school to the college. It takes all of a few seconds for a reader to figure how estimated rank and how rigorous the academic load

Have you seen a picture of the form? There are boxes for the counselor to fill out as it relates to the candidate. Very specific boxes of where the counselor would put the candidate.
I saw it on a zoom and took pictures of it.

Our private school leaves those ranking and quartile questions blank. Big3 private

Has that hurt admissions for non-hooked kids in the last year?

Non-DC private here and ours does the same, but there is speculation that it’s hurt admissions prospects for non-hooked kids.

Note- peer private school does complete that quartile info (even tho no rank) and had a bonanza/boom of best admissions process in decades last year (including lots of TO kids)….that’s the only thing that changed.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Of course it comes from that letter! It’s not innocuous.

Even if there is no ranking, they have to check whether or not the student is “one of the most exceptional they’ve ever seen in the school” or ranks somewhere else. There also our quartiles for them to check, even if no ranking exists.

All of the info you describe is in the profile sent by the high school to the college. It takes all of a few seconds for a reader to figure how estimated rank and how rigorous the academic load

Have you seen a picture of the form? There are boxes for the counselor to fill out as it relates to the candidate. Very specific boxes of where the counselor would put the candidate.
I saw it on a zoom and took pictures of it.

Our private school leaves those ranking and quartile questions blank. Big3 private

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

I suspect (have no proof) that the counselor letters provide all of the behind the scenes data, even for privates that don’t list a GPA or class rank. How else can colleges know who has the highest rigor, etc? Our school profile provides very little useful information. It has to come from somewhere!

Of course it comes from that letter! It’s not innocuous.

Even if there is no ranking, they have to check whether or not the student is “one of the most exceptional they’ve ever seen in the school” or ranks somewhere else. There also our quartiles for them to check, even if no ranking exists.

All of the info you describe is in the profile sent by the high school to the college. It takes all of a few seconds for a reader to figure how estimated rank and how rigorous the academic load

I once asked my public school's counselor what courses they look for on the transcript to check the box saying the kid took the most rigorous curriculum in the school and she gave a very specific response. So yes-- counselors do this both explicitly (a specific question in the recommendation form) and in the narrative of the letter. I won't bore you with the courses she named because they would be specific to the school, but it included several APs including one that students in our school typically take freshman year.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how does the admissions team organize the applications for review. Are all the applicants sorted first by which high school attend so that that group of applicants are considered together (assuming that the college doesn't intend to take too may students from the same high school)?

Yes

This is concerning because it allows the schools to potentially push one kid over the other.

This often happens at private schools, especially during ED.

This is why some private schools limit applications. It prevents 2 or 3 kids from getting all the acceptances.

Thank you OP for taking the time to share insight. All the best in his/hers acceptance letters and choosing the next chapter!