Personally I think lots of schools reject kids that they for some reason or another won’t actually attend the school. In some cases they’re terribly wrong and some cases they get it right. Unfortunately I thing the USNWR rankings have really created this problem. In any case let me point out my daughters situation
Accepted:
WashU
Case Western
Boston University
Northeastern
University of Miami
University of Florida
George Washington
Florida State
Denied:
Lehigh (Waitlisted) !!!
Northwestern
ACT 34 (one time)
GPA 4.0
WGPA 5.75 (6 for AP and AICE classes)
13 AP classes and 11 AICE classes
Major: Biomedical Engineering
top 1% of a very large HS class
We visited Lehigh all the way from Florida… She sent multiple emails to the Lehigh Florida rep updating her on her Sr. year and expressing her interest in Lehigh (I don’t think she got a reply)
Now was she serious about Lehigh. Absolutely… Had she been accepted with Merit aid she would have definitely considered Lehigh. (She got significant Aid offered by all but WashU).
Now I know gpa, scores aren’t anything but a Female Engineer from Florida is not something Lehigh is overwhelmed with. So I suspect there was something more going on here.
With all that said it worked out. WashU was her #1 and she’s so excited to be starting in a few weeks.
I guess the moral of the story is don’t assume anything and yes its possible Lehigh is very strategic in their admissions. I personally think they made a mistake because they missed on a kid that actually would have considered them. But some may say Lehigh got it perfectly right.
Good luck to all applicants and please have a broad list of schools even if you think Lehigh is a lock (it may not be)
I hope this is interesting and useful to some of you.
PS… She didn’t accept the waitlist invite
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Interesting story and a good cautionary tale. We have a friend who got into one of the most selective Ivies, one of the most selective lacs, one of the most selective OOS public’s, one of the most non Ivy selective universities, but then did not get into her safety!
All the best to your D!
At some schools – for better or worse – it may be getting to the point where admissions will question whether you are “serious” if you don’t apply via Early Decision.
The latest Common Data Set shows that Lehigh enrolled 1,234 freshman for Fall 2017. It also shows that they accepted 669 students by Early Decision. It’s possible that a small number of those ED admits (< 5%) reneged on their ED commitments, but even so, you have to figure that more than 50% of the freshman class entered via the ED route.
At Lehigh, in other words, ED is no longer just an interesting option or potential alternative. ED is the new normal. I’m sure this is the case at a growing number of other schools as well.
For Fall 2017, the ED acceptance rate was 60.0%. We can calculate the RD acceptance rate by subtracting out the ED numbers, and it comes out to 22.1%.The Fall 2018 numbers aren’t out yet, but I’ve heard that the RD rate was only about 19%.
If your daughter applied to Lehigh via ED (where the acceptance rate was probably over 50%, and where her interest would be unambiguous), then her rejection would greatly surprise me. But if she applied via RD (where the acceptance rate was apparently under 20%, and where she left the door open to other schools), then frankly I would be a lot less surprised.
Not saying that the increased emphasis on ED here is a good thing. Just pointing out that it does exist.
Congrats on your daughter’s acceptance to WUSTL.
Thank you for posting and that is interesting. Lehigh told us at the visit that over 1/2 of the class came from ED. S19 is seriously considering ED because of having a better chance at acceptance.
Congrats to your DD on WashU! Sounds like she made a great choice!!!
Over half the class was accepted ED, and how many of the remainder were deferred during ED and then still accepted? They know where they sit compared to other schools around the country, so they probably have a good handle on who is likely to accept their offer. In their book, they probably believe they made the right decision, because your daughter didn’t accept the spot on the wait list - that indicates that she had a “better offer” available. With many applicants applying so many places, they probably assume that those students who are top 1% might only have a 5% chance at each of their reaches, but have a significant of getting into at least one of them. They might be using the waitlist to catch those few that do end up rejected by all of their dream schools.
If these colleges are worried about yield why don’t they just waitlist everyone not accepted ED and then hand pick the best stat applicants who accept their waitlist. Remove RD completely. I’m being a little facetious, but it seems more and more students are getting waitlisted than ever before.
Friends kid was accepted to Harvard (attending in fall), Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Duke and several state flagships but was waitlisted to UM? Yield protection?
Thing is, you never know what the real competition is. Not just if another applies from your high shcool, but others in your area and across the country- sometimes also your hoped for major, even your pattern of activities. Or sometimes, though your hs has a good admit record, another local hs pops up with some really great kids.
Rather than assume there’s something amiss, I preferred to tell my kids that what’s in their control is to do their best, in and out of the hs and through their applicatons. The final decisions are beyond thir control, in someone else’s hands.
Best to your gaughter.
@ParentFL I believe that Lehigh actively engages in yield management. If you made it known to Lehigh that acceptance would be contingent on merit aid that could be a reason for the decline. Not many students receive merit aid and Lehigh is very unfriendly with “need” based aid. We found out the hard way. Our daughter was accepted to the Business school. We assumed incorrectly that she would receive aid in some form similar to what other private schools had offered her (and her older sister previously) $15-25K/yr. That was not the case. There was no merit aid and for need-based aid, Lehigh counts home equity as part of your ability to pay, so we ended up with zero aid for Lehigh. It is hard to rationalize a list price for tuition/fees that exceeds some of the most elite colleges in the country.
I’m not sure what created a strong infatuation with Lehigh for our daughter (which is why I periodically look for clues on this site), but fortunately she chose to pursue a Statistics/Data Science major/minor at Cal Poly - SLO for $26K/yr vs. $68K/yr at Lehigh. Even at the same price I think Cal Poly would provide a stronger education. Severe buyer’s remorse avoided at Lehigh.
@mmadnes We didn’t let them know anything about merit.
To all others:
I just want to clarify that we’re not bitter at all with Lehigh. My point of this post is just to maybe show an interesting example of how a well balanced and big enough list is important.
Lehigh actually got it 100% correct in this case.
However if Washu hadn’t come through they would certainly have been considered along with Case Western, Northeastern and BU…
Good luck to everyone and certainly try ED if you love Lehigh or show a lot of interest if you go RD.
All the best to everyone
There are a couple of schools that are known for waitlisting students who somehow telegraphed that it wasn’t a first choice. If those students decide to sccept a WL position and express strong interest at that point, they often are accepted from the WL (if the school goes to its WL that year.)
But at any selective school, there’s no such thing as a sure bet.
Remember that a lot of those 600+ ED acceptance are athletes. They not only ED, they’ve also had many discussions with coaches and administration.
Most of them aren’t. According to the US Dept. of Education athletics database, Lehigh had 624 varsity athletes in all classes (this is the unduplicated count, so students on multiple teams are only counted once). The Patriot League discourages redshirting, so let’s assume four-year athletic careers. In that case, Lehigh would need to enroll about 156 athletes every year.
https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search
If it is conservatively assumed that every single recruited athlete applies ED, then 156 athletes is still only about 23% of the 669 ED admits for Fall 2017. Realistically, the actual percentage is probably even lower than that, because there must be some athletes who are admitted RD or as transfers.
Almost 1/4 of the class is still a lot of athletes. Throw in a few legacies and children of employees and the class starts to fill up.
I think that the biomedical engineering major is flooded with girls at Lehigh. That put her at a disadvantage right from the beginning. Her stats are nice especially the number of AP classes, but lots of similar kids get denied. Lehigh isn’t a safety for anyone. Im glad she got in where she really wanted to go.