<p>GMT+7, I get it. I see where you’re coming from. Just to be clear, blame is largely upon applicants and parents here on CC, not BC. When a kid asks chance for A&E with 45 percentile SSAT score, one should not raise a false hope by replying that SSAT score is just one component of whole application package unless the kid has cured cancer, won an Olympic medal, performed a violin concerto with New York Philarmonic, or invented a Facebook. (I’m a bit exaggerating here. :))</p>
<p>I just didn’t get it because you seemed to keep emphasizing the obvious, well, to me at least. My apologies.</p>
<p>GMTPlus7, I think we agree on essentials. I would go even further, though. A candidate with a high SSAT score could apply only to the schools closest to his SSAT score, and end up without a school to attend in September. It’s not unusual.</p>
<p>To be a total nerd, it’s possible to reach a high SSAT average with other distributions, say, </p>
<p>6 x 98%ile
4 x 85%ile</p>
<p>Works out to an average of 92.8%ile. Thus, even if a school has a high SSAT average, that doesn’t mean every student need have a score at the average. </p>
<p>All schools admit a range of scores. Rather than insist on “go big or go home,” take time to find a number of schools at which your child could thrive–reach, match, and safety, just as you should when applying to colleges. To be brutal about the chances of admission, an admission rate of 14% means the school turns down 86 candidates for every 14 admitted. (Somehow saying “1 in 6” doesn’t have the same impact.)</p>
<p>This modeling assumed all schools had 15% admission rates, so in reality the chances will be somewhat higher since 15% is extreme. But if weak candidates will have lower chances and strong candidate higher chances than these numbers suggest. (I guess I’m stating the obvious.) By all means, apply to 30 schools if you can ($, time, efforts).</p>
<p>“Candidates should understand what the odds really are so they can make a strategic informed decision, i.e. apply to other schools too if the odds look slim to nil”</p>
<p>This is what I keep trying to reiterate to kids who limit themselves to applying to “top tier” schools…maybe for future admissions cycles, I should take to referring to people (when appropriate) as “second tier applicants”.</p>
<p>@GMT
The odds of admission to A&E are slim even if you DO have a 99% SSAT. This board has many such kids posting their 99% and “REJECTED” on the yearly acceptance lists. </p>
<p>It is like getting into HYP for college, kids with 800s on all SAT sections are turned down more than 60% of the time. While it helps to have stellar scores, you also need whatever that magic substance that admissions team is looking for that year. Maybe they got 50 harp players applying that year, and they need an oboe? Maybe a new football kicker? You just never know what niche they are trying to fill. And they have the applicants, and the financial aid, to pick whomever the heck they get a fancy for. DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY, it is not a reflection on your qualifications.</p>
<p>So, APPLY WIDELY even if you are a 99% SSAT scorer, have cured cancer, are a tri-varsity athlete, come from Montana, play the oboe, and speak 6 languages. Please.</p>
<p>This is the first time I’ve ever blurted out a deleted expletive while reading CC (okay - maybe not the first time)</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve been observing the transition of students for over three decades and just got called to yet another round of last minute PEA interviews after a raucous round of college ones and can tell you that in some cases a low score does not disqualify a student and in many cases those students who are accepted go on to do as well or better than some who had better scores coming in. But of course schools aren’t going to report that because it would give false hope to the vast majority of students who shouldn’t apply because they “really can’t” do the work there.</p>
<p>And how would we know that from the limited information students post here? We ask them not to do that so they won’t be identified by Adcoms who lurk (and they do.)</p>
<p>We seem to want to make “rules” here based on stats and public information without knowing the underlying rationale. Yes - of course these schools are seriously intense. But not because an average kid can’t master the work. It’s because there is ten times more of it. I do stay in touch with some of the CC students who matriculated (and no - I don’t have time for more so don’t PM me if you are a student). And they all got their butts kicked in the first semester no matter how bright they are. So yep - it’s hard. I chuckled and told them that everything they complained about I had gone through and have heard from my own child. And by second semester all who said they were frauds and failures and wanted to drop out had settled in, discovered they really liked being there and their grades rose accordingly as they learned the routine. Some had high scores, some were in the lower range.</p>
<p>So it might surprise you that in many ways the “underdogs” do better than the kids who come in with everything because they don’t enter with pride and privilege. They know going in it’s going to be a marathon.</p>
<p>But the idea that someone with an otherwise good credentials is somehow unqualified to apply to a top boarding school because of a low score is - frankly - ludicrous. Even from Exeter’s vantage point. And certainly Andover brags that on paper 25% of their population doesn’t appear as academically qualified. And while we like to “label” those kids as hooked (jocks, URM’s, legacies) that’s not always the case. Certainly the kids I asked MIT to bet on didn’t have the highest stats and blossomed once on campus…not hooked. Most where non-jock, rural, white, males.</p>
<p>So I make the point again. If you are a lousy student, struggle with math, can’t read at a post high school level. Then NO, boarding school is not for you. It’s too tough and you have too much ground to make up to be on par with entering students. If you’re a good student with a firm grasp of the material but just can’t regurgitate at the rate of one question per minute (with or without prep) on a test where even Adcoms admit the percentile ranking is now heavily influenced by students who have been coached (and before the SAT scandal – may not have been the one who took the test in the first place) then the answer about admissions is “maybe.” Human beings make admissions decisions, not widgets. And I can certainly remember having my ear chewed off by a father ticked off because MIT turned down his perfect score kid but let in quite a few who scored lower on the range. To which I answered:</p>
<p>They were more interesting, more well rounded, were confirmed to be hard workers, and frankly - follow up a few years later shows they did just fine.</p>
<p>So here’s the deal - I’m not a fan of cherry picking students - but some schools do. That’s a fact of life. Because the teacher’s perceive them as “easier” to teach and to be students that make the teachers “look good.” But you know what - for the most part - schools are screening for kids that fit - in more ways than just a number.</p>
<p>If it makes some adults feel better that the numbers are a true reflection - just remember, they’re self reported and not always what they seem. Take it for what it is worth.</p>
<p>As for Exeter - the odds for anyone applying is low. And now with common app and internet research that goes for almost all of the rest of them too.</p>
<p>So do your best - study hard - be interesting and compelling - then the rest just becomes the luck of the draw. Scores help - but they aren’t a guarantee of admissions or denials. They just are what they are.</p>
<p>P.S. For the record, most schools and colleges don’t put students through tests in which they have one minute to answer a question. So given that the population all functions in different ways even with similar IQ’s these “stupid” tests are NOT a reflection of aptitude or student functioning. Just a way to make donors and prospective families feel good.</p>
<p>So follow your heart - but choose a large range and variety. Where one school might not want you, another might rock your world. With such low odds at every school, why risk betting on a long shot even if you’re perfect on paper?</p>
<p>Love your post @Exie… I felt this thread was being very discouraging for applicants by constantly telling them not to apply even if they otherwise have good grades! Even if they don’t get it, they will have enjoyed the journey-- I sure did!!</p>
<p>@SharingGift: I’m not sure if your post was a joke or not, but you can’t use an admissions rate as a probability. Your analysis assumes that a randomly selected 15% get admitted to any of these schools, whereas it’s the 15% strongest candidates (where “strong” is defined by each school) that get admitted. A weak candidate who applies to 30 schools will get admitted to 0 of them. On the other hand, a strong candidate is unlikely to get admitted to all 30 because each defines “strong” differently.</p>
<p>I started my earlier reply in a light mood, but my analysis was rather serious. There are many folks here on CC who believe getting admitted to Andover or Exeter is a game of craps, or luck. I don’t subscribe to the “crapshoot” theory but believe in the role of merits in admission decisions. While there must be some applicants whose chances are truly crapshoots because of many other applicants with similar profiles on the borderline, but they are likely to represent a minority of admitted students (20-30%). There are many more applicants whose chances are significantly better than 15%, and tons of more applicants who have no chance at all. For the latter, it’s not even a crapshoot, but a pipe dream.</p>
<p>So I agree that the more schools an applicant applies to, the better his/her chance will be. But the number of schools one should apply to can vary significantly. My modeling showed a strong candidate would only need to apply to 4 schools to secure at least one admission (with >90% probability), whereas a poor candidate would have to apply to more than 100 schools, if this is possible at all, to go to a place like A&E.</p>
<p>Until you throw in FA, @SharingGifts. When you begin to look at those numbers, for example a strong candidate may not fare as well as you think. And we have no way to know how much better or worse it is for that student than for one from a full pay family with deep pockets. The system is not immune to the financial aspects.</p>
<p>And we’ve had CC students - well qualified with stellar stats - get waitlisted two years in a row despite casting a wide net. It’s just become that competitive if you need full or partial aid. </p>
<p>For example: Exeter’s incoming Freshman class averages 200 students. About 80% of the population are day students so now the committee will look to fill 160 boarding slots. 45% will receive full or partial aid - or 72 freshman boarders. The gender balance is 50/50 so that means approx 36 boarding girls and 36 boarding boys will get aid for freshman year. Add another 100 or so boarders for sophomore year and 18 girls and 18 boys will get aid. </p>
<p>Those aren’t good odds for boarders given an applicant pool that is almost 3,000+ and must take into account geographic diversity. i.e. if we assume no aid for International students (and we can’t assume that but I’m doing it for numbers sake) that means less than one girl and one boy per US state per year will get an acceptance letter. Frankly, if you come from outside New England and the Mid Atlantic (65% of the student body) your odds might actually improve somewhat because you lend geographic diversity. But those are still might slim odds for someone betting on Go Big or Go Home as one parent suggested.</p>
<p>Now - translate that scenario to other schools which - beyond Andover take significantly fewer students each year (in most cases - half the enrollment of PEA and PA). The numbers drop precipitously.</p>
<p>Even if we took FA out of the equation a combination of admissions at all the most popular schools combined is less than the qualified applicant pool even if no person is a duplicate on a list.</p>
<p>CC is self reporting - so the most successful students tend to report their results, skewing our perception of how the odds really work for kids in the real world.</p>
<p>This might not be the right thread to post this question, but since those of you posting here are mostly very experienced, you might have some insight into this. I was browsing through the acceptance threads from the last few years. I was struck by how often you’d see one student accepted to schools a,b and c, and rejected from e,d and f, and the next student who had the opposite results. Clearly acceptance can’t be based on some objective measure of “quality” of the student (i.e some formula of test scores + grades + special talents) - they look for personality/fit/diversity/etc. Is there more to be learned/understood from that? I know we just have to wait and see, but I will be heartbroken if my nice, bright kid, who isn’t a superstar in any one thing but really needs to get away from our tiny town, isn’t accepted anywhere, especially since we need a lot of FA and that clearly plays a big part in things. (She goes to an ordinary rural public school, didn’t have any SSAT prep class, or counselor/adviser pointing her to the right school for her - we just looked at websites of schools we’d heard of, did internet searches for ones with what she thought she wanted, and took advice from friends). Somehow she ended up applying to what we now see are the absolutely toughest to get into - Choate, SPS (because of the dance program), Taft, NMH, Concord… not that our local public high school isn’t fine, but “how can you keep them down on the farm, now that they’ve seen Paree?”</p>
<p>@jahphotogal - You’re correct that the process is not a simple objective one. At Concord (and I assume the process is similar at other schools), each application is read and evaluated by a number of people including admissions staff, faculty, and seniors. The admissions staff then discuss the applications and evaluations, whittle the pile down, and send the applications back to the committee for further reading and evaluation. The process repeats until they get down to the number they want to admit. At that point the admitted applications that are requesting FA are sent to the FA committee for evaluation for FA. Depending on the number of students requesting FA, it’s possible some will be put on the FA waiting list if there’s not enough (i.e., they will be offered admission but not FA unless some becomes available from students who decide to go elsewhere).</p>
<p>The people on the admissions committee will know that some applicants have attended private primary schools and have had the assistance of secondary school counselors at those schools and other advantages, whereas others haven’t, and they will take that into consideration. They really do want to have a diverse set of students.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate the role FA plays in admission. Consider a school with a 20 % admit rate and 35% on FA. Now also consider that about half of all families apply for FA. Say they get 1000 applications and admit 200. That’s 70 grants and 130 FP with admit rates of 14% and 26% respectively. Now consider that schools want to spread their funds around to keep their percent on FA stable. To admit a full grant may mean not admitting two half grants. </p>
<p>Every year the waitlist is full of amazing kids whose biggest blemish on their app was the need for FA. </p>
<p>Further consider that schools known for their generous FA policies get even more than half applying for FA. It seems like I remember asking Andover a few years ago and they said that they get about 2000 FA apps, about 2/3 of the total apps, yet only half the admitted kids are FA kids. So even there, for whatever reason, the less affluent have a harder time.</p>
<p>But it does happen so hope for the best and prepare for the worst, even if you have a tremendous app.</p>
<p>Hmmmm…
My daughter is a good candidate but not spectacular (I don’t think I’m being overmodest) - 84% SSAT (took it once, without any prep class), high honor roll mostly but not all A’s, good at dance, basketball and soccer but not recruitable at any, strong-but-not-prodigy musician. I don’t know how her essays compare - they seemed, well, age-appropriate to me! Also: white female from northeast.</p>
<p>So, all that + needs FA seems to = don’t get your hopes up.</p>
<p>I can point to a number of CC students who sound like your daughter who found spots. And I can tell you as an interviewer that many of those kids are actually easier to advocate for than the ones who “have it all.” So don’t worry. Be hopeful. Kids like yours stand out more often than you think. Which is why some of us try explaining that “quality” is not a test score. In some cases, those test scores are faked or the product of coaching. A lot of students who don’t look like they qualify go on to do well, and a lot of perfect score, perfect grade kids are gone by Senior year.</p>
<p>Have faith and do the best you can. You might be surprised come March 10 (or 11th, or 12th the way the letters trickle in for some).</p>
<p>Thanks for the encouragement, Exie - I hope you’re right. Like I said elsewhere, I’m really just killing time for the next 2 months - hitting refresh on this board instead of going to the gym, cooking dinner, reading a book, etc! Have a nice evening!</p>
I have modeled probability of getting admitted to at least one BS. Here it goes:</p>