A Little Experiment - My Chances...

<p>Thanks to everyone for posting...</p>

<p>"scholarship" = at least full-tuition</p>

<ol>
<li>Marshall - accepted w/ scholarship</li>
<li>WVU - accepted w/ scholarship</li>
<li>U. Pitt. - accepted w/ scholarship</li>
<li>UNC Chapel Hill - accepted w/ scholarship</li>
<li>Wake Forest - accepted</li>
<li>Wash U. - accepted</li>
<li>Duke - rejected</li>
<li>Princeton - wait-listed</li>
<li>Harvard - wait-listed</li>
</ol>

<p>I am currently attending UNC Chapel Hill on a Chancellor's Scholarship.</p>

<p>-L.</p>

<p>L, thanks for doing this. It just goes to show how unexplainable college admissions decisions sometimes are. I'm sure you would excel at any of these schools, and hope you are happy as a clam at UNC!</p>

<p>P.S. I find it interesting that only one poster predicted you'd be rejected at Duke...and suspect that they are correct in that the reason is akin to "Tuft's Syndrome."</p>

<p>Thanks, Linda
congrats on your acceptances and for sharing. Duke surprised me, too - but I think that athletics (or lack thereof) had something to do with it.</p>

<p>Linda - </p>

<p>Congratulations on the great results! Everyone I know who attends UNC-Chapel Hill absolutely loves it. To be accepted there with a scholarship, especially from out of state, is phenomenal.</p>

<p>What is this "Tuft's Syndrome"?</p>

<p>When I applied for all of these schools, I never had a "first choice" school, but I had predicted I would end up going to WVU, until I received the scholarship notice from UNC in the mail in early April (and also did not get a scholarship from WVU I was hoping for).</p>

<p>Looking back on it, I wished I had applied to more "slight reaches" as slipper said, especially schools that were smaller in size (UNC has 15,000 some undergrads!). But I didn't, since at the time I thought I was going to WVU and wasn't really sure what kind of schools I liked in the first place (I was ambivalent as to whether I liked a small school or a large school, or one in a large city or a small, etc. And visiting them didn't seem to help either.)</p>

<p>-L.</p>

<p>I got 7 right!!!!!!!! BOOOOOO-YAAAAAAAAA!!!! haha sorry about Duke if you wanted to go there, but it just really looked like you were between a rock and a hard place, too good for Duke and not guaranteed at HP. have fun in NC!</p>

<p>Tufts syndrome</p>

<p>is where a university rejects extremely highly qualified students on the grounds that such students are bound to be accepted by more prestigious universities and would thus not enroll, lowering the university's yield and contributing to a drop in its selectivity in many rankings like US News and World Report.</p>

<p>I too am suprised as to why you did not get the big scholarship at wvu.</p>

<p>However, at the end of the day, it looks like the big "winner" was you. I hope that you are having an amazing time at CH.</p>

<p>Maybe her recs were bad or something? Or maybe it was arbitrary as some schools are. In retrospect, you could have applied to schools that are the same as Duke, like Dartmouth Penn Brown and Columbia. But UNC with a scholarship is rad too. Edit: How do you like UNC CH?</p>

<p>Her scores weren't over-the-top for Duke, since its 75th percentile for attending is at 1540, which is her score - maybe she wasn't a potential sorority girl or something.</p>

<p>Lack of leadership role in her ECs might be one of the reasons that she was not accepted by H, P, and Duke. She might be also disadvantaged for being an Asian.</p>

<p>the fact that she's Asian wouldn't have made that much of a difference... same goes for being Jewish</p>

<p>The bottom line is that today at Harvard, despite the whole "being a URM = having a hook" deal, ~30% of the student body is Jewish... I don't know about the % of Asians.</p>

<p>I think Harvard is around 20% Asian, but I could be wrong. The 30% Jewish sounds pretty high.</p>

<p>The teacher rec's from your school may not have painted a vivid enough picture of you - not all public school teachers are aware that having a little anecdote in the letter is more useful than a string of superlatives.</p>

<p>the 30% jewish is probably right. I don't about harvard but penn is 35% jewish, northwestern is 30% jewish, and washu st. louis is 40%.</p>

<p>Thanks for posting!
And congrats on getting the Chancellor's scholarship at UNC.</p>

<p>When S, a rising senior now, and I visited UNC last year, I fell absolutely in love with it. Alas, he did not. I was soooo looking forward to having an excuse to visit that lovely college town.</p>

<p>This is a perfect case of why I think people need more balanced lists. The HYPS then match/ safety list is really dangerous, I have seen it backfire countless times. I am sure the poster would have loved to at least have the opportunity of having Brown, Penn, or Dartmouth to have to choose between at this point. A few extra applications might cost a couple hundred bucks, but you get what you get paid back is priceless. Plus you also get more financial aid offers to negotiate between, another bonus.</p>

<p>LOL, I thought she got rejected from UNC, because i've heard bad things about out-of-staters applying there. Then she ends up with a scholarship! This actually brings up my hopes of going there!</p>

<p>I'm a little surprised she didn't get the WVU scholarship also, but I suspect I know what scholarship she is talking about, and it is extremely competative. I know a few people from last year who applied for it (and didn't get it.) WV is good for college admissions, probably, but bad for knowing what to look for. We don't really have any selective colleges, and not a lot of people do apply out of state.</p>