<p>I have a friend who will obviously remain nameless, but here are his stats.
Valedictorian, 2370+ SAT (He wasn't specific), different varsity sports, and many other great extracurriculars. He only applied to UChicago and the Ivies, and he didn't get into any of them.</p>
<p>It’s shocking that so many people decide to only apply to top-tier schools that have extremely low acceptance rates. Even if I had those stats, I would have applied to some safe schools such as the UC’s. It’s even more shocking though, that even with a 2370+ SAT score, that he didn’t get into anywhere… Is he an international student with high FA need? Misdemeanor in school? I don’t know how a US citizen with those stats could not get in…unless they had a serious criminal record or absolutely horrible essays. He could always take a gap year and apply later, or go to a local cc and transfer…It’s really unfortunate though.</p>
<p>No, he’s a US Citizen and probably doesn’t have a lot of FA need.</p>
<p>I deduce the essays of someone who decides to only apply to the tops schools would be as illogical as that decision.</p>
<p>Yes. While he is my friend, he is kind of arrogant, and when I suggested safety schools, he said “I don’t do safeties.” I really hope he finds a way out of this, either through a good gap year or maybe community college. It is kind of strange to have the school Valedictorian not immediately going to an excellent college.</p>
<p>One benefit from this: your school’s guidance counselors will always have a negative example to cite with future arrogant students who are planning similar strategies. I hope your Val learns something valuable from this.</p>
<p>I know of another Valedictorian that was declined at all of her schools. Even at her LACs. She was floored along with the rest of us.</p>
<p>I think the problem is that many ( including me until I found CC) do not realize that the Ivies or the top tier schools are very hard to get into. They figure they have the grades and stats to go to any school on their list. Not knowing that these are very selective.</p>
<p>Perhaps the GCs in HS need to be educated on this topic.</p>
<p>@PERplexD: good point. I inferred that the subject of this thread, although described as “arrogant”, simply was blinded by hubris and that generalizations can be made from this situation. Certainly some kids and GCs just have bad info and can get into binds unknowingly and innocently.</p>
<p>I have to say that an “I don’t do safeties” attitude doesn’t generate much sympathy, however.</p>
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<p>He can just go to community college (his default safety), do well there, transfer to the state flagship, and complete his bachelor’s degree there.</p>
<p>I don’t believe there’s a GC out there who would advise just applying at top schools - maybe an overwhelmed one who let the kid do it because they either never came in or refused to follow GCs advice, but no GC who regularly deals with college admissions would let this happen intentionally. Even a school that ordinarily doesn’t send kids to these colleges would do that. </p>
<p>More likely it was the Lone Ranger who though he/she knew everything and had never failed at anything in their life that pulled this one off. There are still some decent college with enrollment open, particularly state schools. My advice would be to find the list and find the best affordable school immediately. And chalk this up as a big “Lesson Learned”.</p>
<p>A lot of these schools have late or rolling admissions deadlines:
<a href=“Updated list of schools with auto-admit (guaranteed admission) criteria - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html</a></p>
<p>However, someone who does not “do safeties” will probably see such schools as undesirable.</p>
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<p>Contrarily, I don’t know how any applicant nowadays wouldn’t know that no profile is a “sure bet” when applying to such competitive schools. Stories like this abound on CC (and here is another one).</p>
<p>It is possible he hoped that his salvation lay–like so many raffle tickets–in the number of applications he had in play. Applicants need to know that, while admission to a highly selective school is a somewhat serendipitous process–turning on factors both beyond your control and beyond your knowledge–it is not a random one, so relying on the mathematics of independent events is a vain hope: multiple such applications do not increase your odds of success nearly as much as you might think. Schools tend to look for the same cluster of traits and tend to favor the same kinds of applications–and exclude applications which do not feature these same traits.</p>
<p>It is supportable to speculate, however, that the same traits that caused him not to “do safeties” are the ones that weakened his application. Arrogance does not make for an attractive candidate.</p>
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My daughter will be graduating Val and she got accepted to an Ivy and to other Top 20 and Top 25 schools. She goes to a relatively high-achieving suburban SoCal Upper middle class public HS that sends kids regularly to Ivies/S/M. Yet, aside from an email from me reminding her to submit the school report/transcript to the Common app, there wasn’t really any advice/interaction from her that we received. Of course we could have asked her if we needed some. Reality is, most public HS doesn’t have the kind of GC that private schools have.</p>
<p>Guidance at our school holds a few meetings in the auditorium to give general info to all the parents about the college admissions and FA process. I haven’t met with our GC since last March or so, and that was to select senior year courses. It is possible we could have arranged to meet with her to talk about colleges, but it’s not something they routinely do, and by the time I kind of realized that no such meetings were going to happen, we had mostly figured out what we were going to do anyhow. I know one of my daughter’s friends didn’t apply EA to her first choice because she simply didn’t know that was something she could do. </p>
<p>Yeah, my senior met with his GC for the first time this past October for all of 3 minutes – can’t imagine what she wrote on his LOR!</p>
<p>At virtually any school, if you don’t seek them out, they aren’t going to help you, but there’s a big difference between not asking and getting bad advice.</p>
<p>Cosmological, maybe he has learned the difference between intelligence and wisdom.</p>
<p>…rather than applying to basically all high-level schools, they should’ve hedged their bets on schools of varying selectivity (the old reach-mid-safety maxim)…</p>
<p>I think it’s pure stupidity to not apply to at least 2-3 safeties. The Ivies and U chicago are so unreliable that you have to pretend as if you’re not getting in. </p>
<p>Your friend can still apply to Ole Miss, Hendrix, Albion, Hiram…
Among the rolling admissions/fairly highly ranked colleges, I think Penn State still accepts applications although its class is nearly full, but if he applies for DUS and for Summer session (meaning he’ll start in June - I actually think it’s cooler because you knock off 2 mandatory classes with fellow freshmen and you have the campus almost* to yourself, you get to enjoy the pool and the festivals, and when the other freshmen arrive you already know all the pracical and social basics they’re struggling with) he may have a shot especially if he’s full pay (He could make that clear…) After one semester of straight A’s he could get into Shreyer, which is one of the best honors colleges in the country, that often snatches Ivy league admits :p.</p>
<p>Alternatively, he could just take a gap year; I recommend he look into CityYear.</p>
<p>*almost, as in: 2,000 freshmen, twice that many upperclassmen, plus all the grad students, the TAs and RA’s, etc. 
So it’s far from deserted.</p>