I don’t have a senior, but just like last year, I’m hearing that there’s a lot of wait-listing and plenty of very, very strong kids with no match or reach acceptances yet. There are a few more days left until all the decisions will be released, but what are you all seeing in your high schools? Do you notice any commonalities or trends?
Yes, I know anecdotes are not predictive, but I am curious to know if there’s some hot “new” personal quality or EC adcoms are in love with now. It seems to me that the competitive student have all the normal stat boxes well-covered (grades, rigor, test scores), as well as the leadership and academic initiative categories [starting charities, doing research, and all the stuff that used to be special but no longer is). Is there anything unique left to do that hasn’t been done already by hundreds of kids?
U-Penn admitted 3 from our high school and 2 from the high school down the street. Normally, we might have one or no Penn acceptances per school per year. This year these two high schools also had an unusually large number of applications to Penn this year, all of whom were reasonable applicants. All of the applicants applied ED All five of the admitted students are girls. One URM, two Jewish legacies, and two whose parents are immigrants from Asia. All of the male applicants (8 who I know) were denied.
An unusually large number of seniors focused on “THE ONE” university (a variety of out of state flagships or big D1 universities) after visiting a year ago during spring break, applied to “THE ONE” university EA or ED or rolling decision, and were accepted very early in their senior year. This is quite different from the years when my two oldest were applying.
This is the year U-Pitt seems to have been “discovered” at our high school. Lot of applications there, sort of out of the blue.
As usual, acceptances and denials at our state flagship, other than for the very top students (who use it as a safety) are all over the place. Very confusing for the nice, strong-but-not-spectacular kids who were denied. All of the boys who were denied at Penn will be attending our state flagship in the fall, which is the only university where they were accepted.
In a word, no. And, if there is, by the time we find out about it, the admissions arbitrage will be long gone. That’s why the “word on the street” is useless. The one data-driven trend I’ve seen that killed a lot of standard East Coast privilege farm strategy is that Michigan took about half the number of kids in EA this year that it used to. I think they’re sick of being Scarsdale’s “safety” school.
^ A different thought on the post above. I think a lot of schools that have been perceived as “safety” schools have seen marked increases in applications in the past 2 years. I wouldn’t necessarily think that the waitlisting is purely driven by yield protection but also because the schools in question are unsure of how previous metrics they used for deciding on acceptance numbers will play out in the face of the upswing in applications. It’s got to be nerve wracking on their side to see a 30% bump in applications and not know how that will play out in terms of commitments. Sometimes, I think CC overuses the “you were waitlisted because you were overqualified” statement.
^^yes and the sands shift over time. In the past 10 years there has been big shifts in where highly qualified students are enrolling and many colleges and unis are changing their business operating module to bring in $$. A safety is only a safety if you know for certain you’ll be admitted and you know you can afford it without much tuition discounting everything else is a match or a reach. A decade ago getting a $15,000 discount grant/scholly was super easy…even that is not “easy” anymore and considered a “big award.”
@posattitude - I really think we might be experiencing that for our son and I hope it doesn’t cost him too dearly. 2300 SAT, 35 ACT 4.0 GPA tons of EC. Waitlisted at Uof Chicago, rejected at Northwestern, where he is significantly above the typical admitted student, stat-wise. He has one really nice acceptance at a school where he thinks he’d be happy, but we were hoping he’d have options, and other financial packages to use as leverage. (Is there another thread I should go to to discuss this? I really would like to talk it through with others.)
@momofthreeboys, I’d say that compared to a decade ago, merit money is becoming more scarce at the top of the pyramid but more prevalent farther down, especially at less selective (but still decent) LACs and other privates. Seems like sorting is still continuing, with increased demand at the elites by the best students (not the very top, it seems, where acceptance rates have mostly stablized at most schools, but that means they’re going lower down the pyramid; NYU and Emory saw 15% increases in applicants and Oxford@Emory saw applications jump by 30%).
Not as much demand by top students for schools lower down.
Definitely seems like admits to some of the popular schools just out of top 25 is getting tougher than it was 4 to 8’years ago. More kids getting wait listed or rejected with stats that would have been admits in the past. Colleges keep reporting record numbers of applicants. Wonder about yield, however, as prices continue to climb. Many of most expensive hitting $63k next year.
Our schools experience ( large Midwest public in a pure middle class suburb with a small minority low SES population from the town next door this year was
good results from ED at the Ivys. But this was a weird year in that we had an unusual number of wealthy URM s applying with excellent stats ( eg, 3 rd in class full pay African American who was state champion in debate with 36 ACT) and several low SES URMs with really good stats ( eg Hispanic coming froM non- English speaking home, in US just a few years before HS, TOP 10 percent of class, worked plus varsity athlete 31 ACT). Plus all these students had access to excellent college counseling. ( the wealthy kids have private and our school starts working freshman year with academically talented low income kids to get ready for college applications )
Michigan has been as the kids say…cray- cray. Lower stats kids got in over much higher stat kids EA ( including my kid…by which I mean she’s a lower stat kid comparatively) kids accepted at Northwestern, USC, UC Berkley and Vanderbilt were waitlited at UMich.
also had more kids discover UPitt
great results at state flagship…almost everyone admitted who applied.
great results at Northwestern as always for us
Only a few “surprise” denials which include great high stat kid at Emory and Vandy . Both eventually got good results emory kid per admitted to Ross Vandy kid got Duke.
Especially in the last few years perhaps with the recovering economy, high school seniors are applying to more schools (particularly reach schools). Inevitably, the increased applicant pools led to lower admission rates. Moreover, the lower admission rates scared the students to apply to even more schools. This is going to be a trend for some time. For sure the % of rejection will go up but there may be more admission from the waitlist later on when the yield rate is affected.
College counselor here: a few trends we’re seeing. As mentioned above, we’re seeing “match” schools (because many of those perceived as safeties aren’t any more) waitlist exceptionally-qualified students, especially if that student did not demonstrate interest. Speaking of demonstrated interest, we’re definitely seeing students who visited, went to college rep visits and had reasonable college contact getting the nod over those (equally qualified) who didn’t show the love. Students are applying to more schools; colleges are waitlisting more students. You can only choose one college, right? Looking forward to Ivy day and seeing the choices our kids make. Very successful year for us, in that our students made choices based on fit vs. prestige, and it looks like they’ll be very happy.
Anecdotal, but my daughter was rejected at a LAC 1000 miles away from home where she visited and had what she thought was a great interview and overnight, and received an early-write acceptance from a similarly regarded LAC where she had zero contact with admissions and no visit. I’m not saying this is a trend, just that it can happen. She actually appreciated the rejection and not being wait-listed. Cut and dried, done is easier in a lot of ways.
At our school, unusually good luck with LACs so far. DK about Ivys yet. We have lots of impressive URMs, so will be interesting. Some years everybody has just gone to the strong state flagship, regardless of where they got in: it is cheaper, closer, and strong academically, so hard to pull kids out of state. We will see what the zeitgeist is this year. My son is a good example. In at a few nice LACs, but also loves the Big U. Will he be brave enough to leave?
@kollegeguy - URM is under represented minority, typically students who are african american, hispanic/latino, or native american. DS1 is Dear Son 1. You’ll see DD for dear daughter and people will number them to differentiate between their kids.