<p>Our public school seems to have 3-5 attent Penn from each class, I don’t know how many were accepted, so single from each school doesn’t sound quite correct. Harvard has been more 1-2, though.</p>
<p>SJR-the one kid per school isn’t true. Top colleges often take many from both top publics and privates.</p>
<p>What is true is that when there’s a lot of kids at these schools applying, highly qualified kids who might have gotten in from a less competitive school often won’t make it in. But the mainstream kids at the prep schools would probably have been in the affluent publics with the same problem.</p>
<p>Hunt, you’re right, of course. And sending two kids to private Catholic school from K-12 wasn’t a cheap date for us. It meant sacrifices. But what you wrote is exactly what we’ve told our son. As well as, “If you went to XX High, you might be in the top 5% of your class, but scared to walk to your car in the dark after practice every night.”</p>
<p>Some years, some Ivies will only take one student from a class, but most years they take several - and some like Cornell have taken as many as 15, U Penn has taken 6, Columbia takes 3 pretty consistently.</p>
<p>I’ve seen no evidence that Tufts syndrome exists at our school. I think some kids who think they deserve to go to Ivies don’t pay enough attention to the Tufts application which has a supplement which needs to be paid proper attention.</p>
<p>Calling it Tufts syndrome, btw, dates back many years ago, when Tufts was a “safety” school for Harvard applicants. The idea was that Tufts could tell students who really wanted to go to Harvard, and so rejected them. Tufts is now not a safety school for anyone, but the name of the “syndrome” stuck.</p>
<p>It’s been a number of years since I have seen anyone make a credible accusation of Tufts Syndrome at Tufts, or really anywhere else. The phrase got coined a decade or more ago - eons in college-admission time.</p>
<p>One thing that may have led to its demise – besides being called on it: I think 10-15 years ago it was much easier for experienced admissions officers at a place like Tufts to tell who was going to get accepted at Harvard, Yale, or Brown, and who wasn’t. Sure, they made mistakes, but by and large they were probably pretty accurate in scoping out who was really a candidate to attend Tufts and who was putting in a safety application. But now, there’s almost no way they could do that with any confidence, beyond maybe a few hundred kids, most of whom aren’t applying to Tufts anyway. And if you can’t figure out which ones Harvard is going to admit, “Tufts Syndrome” would be a losing strategy for Tufts (or anyone else) to play.</p>
<p>(Cross-posted with fireandrain, obviously)</p>
<p>Tufts syndrome today may be wrapped in the form of “expressed interest”. Applicants with tippy-top stats may get turned down if they don’t visit the school, attend the local info session, or write the “optional” essay, while applicants with slightly above the norm stats may still get the nod.</p>
<p>Odd coincidence: WUSTL is an anagram of Tufts.</p>
<p>No direct interactions with Washington University in St. Louis, and I hasten to add that a few of my very good friends have gone to WUSTL. However, based on local HS outcomes, I think that WUSTL is a school where expressed interest does make a difference, as PaperChaserPop suggests. A top-caliber applicant there would probably be well advised to take the extra steps to apply for various scholarships they offer, if additional essays or other items are needed.</p>
<p>(Also, for any reader who isn’t familiar with my posts, I do know that WUSTL is not actually an anagram of Tufts.)</p>
<p>Schools list their admission criteria in section C7 of the common data sets, which should be findable by searching on their web sites.</p>
<p>If “level of interest” is listed as being considered (and there is an increasing trend for it to be among private schools), then there is the possibility of “Tufts syndrome” occurring at that school if a high stats applicant applies there as a safety without expressing additional interest in a way that the school records (e.g. scheduled visit or interview, optional application materials, etc.).</p>
<p>Public schools are much less likely to care about “level of interest” and thus would make safer safeties.</p>
<p>If a school says they care about expressed interest, and you don’t express interest, I don’t think it is a “syndrome” if they reject you.</p>
<p>I brought up the “Tufts syndrome” effect in this thread because of student #38 in the OP’s data link. SAT 2130, 3.77/4.57 uw/w, Accepted UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCI but waitlisted at Davis. It is disturbing because UC assures students that each campus evaluates applicants independently of other campuses. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which a strong applicant is accepted to the 4 most selective UC campuses but waitlisted at a less selective campus unless there is some yield management involved. I know Davis has become more selective over the years (equal to Irvine), but they shouldn’t be passing on students acceptable to the top campuses.</p>
<p>I want to know how #4 got in to USC. Before I scrolled over, I assumed a tall, slim lefty throwing smoke. But…no ECs listed, not even sports! Child whose grandpa’s name is on a building?</p>
<p>And #44 – who advised this student? Clearly delusional. Thank goodness he applied to one safety – the other schools on the list were clearly stratospheric reaches.</p>
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<p>I’d agree with you if the school actual lists this AND subjects all applicants to this, and not biased disproportionately toward high stats applicants. Btw, most schools that care about “expressed interest” only list it in the CDS as a minor factor, which leads one to think that super performance in other more important factors should outweigh poor showing in this minor factor.</p>
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<p>Just to point out a couple things I’ve pointed out before.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t try to pick apart single admissions info on here assuming everything is 100% accurate. Look at the table in its entirety for general information and trends, much as you would any aggregate voluntary information provided on the web.</p>
<p>Also, of course everyone is free to make whatever comments they like, but remember that there are actual kids associated with this data who may chance upon this thread. Also, actual counselors who will be deciding whether or not to continue making this universally available without passwords in the future.</p>
<p>I believe the counselors at this school are very good. Students and parents do not always follow counselor’s advice. Plus, these counselors are dealing with the full range of students, and lots of them. From kids accepted to every single Ivy school, to kids struggling to graduate. I know because my own kid was closer to the latter grouping.</p>
<p>momsquad, that is indeed odd about Davis. My understanding was that yield protection is pretty much something that you see in private schools, not publics, because public U admissions is primarily stat driven. Maybe there was a transcription error in putting the list together? Or, for that matter, maybe the Davis admissions people goofed. </p>
<p>Even if a school doesn’t explicitly mention “expressed interest”, there’s always the essays. When an applicant sends in something where it’s obvious they’re just phoning it in, that sends a message loud and clear to the admissions people. My favorite example was for GWU, where an outraged applicant who’d been accepted to several reaches was complaining on CC about being rejected from GWU. Heck, they even wrote about how they loved being in DC! Which, of course, the GWU admissions people know is another way for high-stats students to say “my first choice is Georgetown, but since GWU is in DC I’m using it as my safety.” :)</p>
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<p>It is possible that the student applied to the most selective division or major at Davis, but the least selective division or major at the other UCs. Or maybe withdrew the Davis application after getting in one or more of the others that s/he liked more?</p>
<p>UC Davis’ common data set, section C7, says that “level of applicant’s interest” is “not considered”.</p>
<p>^^ Some of the mystery about applying to the UCs and CalStates is that students are applying to a college and in some cases to a major. I know some students apply to different majors at different schools and some majors are much more competitive than others.</p>
<p>I’m amazed Brown didn’t accept one student out of 23</p>
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<p>We just can’t draw those kinds of conclusions without more information, which we don’t have.</p>
<p>First off, I have never heard of any CA public practicing so-called yield protection. Highly, highly doubtful that’s what happened.</p>
<p>Maybe the student never finished his/her application to UCD, so s/he was “denied” due to incompleteness? Maybe the student applied to a specific college major/department/division at UCD that was on “hold” due to budgetary cuts - or s/he was at the bottom of the pile for the X number of spaces available in that area?</p>
<p>So on and so on.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to be dense, but there was some discussion as to how this high school calculated the weighted GPA that I did not follow. All the schools I know in California assign an extra point to an AP or honors class. So a B in an honors class is worth a 4 not a 3. The kid with six class, 2 of which are APs, who gets all Bs has a 3.33. Isn’t this the same system here, or is it something different?</p>