We visited Pitt and DS will be reaching out to his admissions counselor directly. What else would be involved in “showing some love”?
An older sibling was recruited pretty heavily by MIT.
He had perfect test scores, graduated at the top of his (somewhat small) high school class, and he won first place in a major national science competition.
It was the last item that piqued their interest. This was awhile ago, but I believe they still actively recruit winners of national science prizes.
What else would be involved in “showing some love”?
“talking with enthusiasm about how he looks forward to working for a particular Prof in the CS dept, or his excitement at “specific” program that Pitt offers… etc, etc
What it means is digging into the website, doing a LOT of research and showing GENUINE interest and enthusiasm in his essay about what PITT offers.
That goes for every safety.
Its really easy to apply to a bunch of reachy- reach colleges, who dont care AT ALL how much you want to go there.
It takes a LOT more research and work to apply to safeties that DO care.
research the Common data sets to see how 'demonstrated interest” is ranked in importance by colleges.
MIT is actually more selective than it appears for men - due to the imbalance in gender application rates. Tufts is the opposite.
This is an example of what makes it hard to predict the probability of admission in a holistic environment- people tend to get “binned” by attributes, and the definition of the bins as well as the number of applicants within each bin is not visible to the applicant and can vary from year to year.
MIT UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS FALL 2016
…TOTAL…MALE…FEMALE
Number of applicants…19,020…13,131…5,889
Percent admitted…8%…6%…13%
Percent admitted who enrolled…73%…79%…68%
Tufts UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS FALL 2016
…TOTAL…MALE…FEMALE
Number of applicants…20,223…8,469…11,754
Percent admitted…14%…17%…12%
Percent admitted who enrolled…46%…47%…46%
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=mass+inst+tech&s=all&id=166683#admsns
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=tufts&s=all&id=168148#admsns
I will only suggest that you don’t rely only on Pitt as the only safety even after getting in. In case the worse happens and he only has the acceptance to Pitt and doesn’t have a choice but to go there then it’ll lessen the appeal. Assuming you apply EA to MIT which will let you apply EA to numerous other schools then if his EA round is all rejections/deferred then you can add more safeties at that time but it might put you out of the running at various large publics for merit and special programs.
DS1 graduated HS in 2011 4th in his class, and studied CS in college
Applied to MIT, Cornell, CMU SCS, RPI, Drexel, RIT, Northeastern, WPI
He was rejected by MIT, waitlisted by CMU SCS, accepted by (and attended) Cornell. Accepted everywhere else with significant merit, Honors colleges where relevant.
DS2 graduated HS in 2014, not in the top 10 in his class but still a strong GPA, and studied MechE in college
Applied to Lehigh, RPI, Rochester, Drexel, Northeastern, WPI, UVM, Waterloo
He was accepted everywhere with substantial merit everywhere except Lehigh and Waterloo (small merit but lower cost), with again honors college admits where relevant. He is attending UVM on a full tuition NMF scholarship.
Nowhere rejected them because of thinking they were too high stat to actually choose the schools, though we knew that was possible. We visited everywhere they applied except Cornell and CMU for DS1 (figuring we’d visit if he got in).
Both were NMFs and much of their merit was based on that, and they applied to those (safety) schools because of the merit opportunities. Drexel was rolling at least for DS1, and both kids had EA choices among their safety (honors/scholarship level) schools so both had early acceptances and would have added more schools if they had gotten rejected or deferred to the point where they had no acceptances after the EA round. Most of their (NMF-based) scholarships no longer exist. DS3 is also a likely NMF but doesn’t have the same NMF scholarship opportunities, but money is less tight for us now. He eliminated WPI and Rochester when we visited, and Drexel is way too pricey for what it offers without the kind of merit it used to offer (full tuition). If he doesn’t get into Pitt, he might add RPI, RIT or UMass Amherst (which DS1 didn’t like, but DS3 hasn’t visited yet). UVM is probably not a great fit.
DS3 is more interested in the “lottery” level schools, thus the large number of them on his list. We’re also in a better position to afford them (with him taking more than the standard federal loans, with the expectation of very high earning potential).
He really liked Pitt, so I don’t think that’s a major concern. if it were the only place he got into, he’d be fine with that. If he is deferred or rejected, then of course he will add more safeties. If he applies in August, they will let him know by mid- to late-September, plenty of time to add more EA safeties.
Any idea whether Cornell has gotten substantially more selective in the past 7 years? DS3 is a stronger candidate than his older brother was. (Similar stats but much better ECs)
Yep my D really liked Pitt too and eliminated a number of safeties once she was in with merit.
The acceptance rate continues to drop at Cornell year after year. I believe this year it was 10%/! Year before it 14%. They are taking more ED too so the RD rate is likely even lower. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/03/class-2022-selected-record-number-applicants
That’s kind of what I figured. But it’s hard to tell if those rates (at Cornell and elsewhere, where we see the same trends) are dropping because more (not-so-qualified) students are getting sucked into applying, or if they’re truly getting more selective. Probably some of each.
@Dolemite did your D end up attending Pitt? If so what are her thoughts now?
Cornell says more selective but that’s coming from the university. That said, when I was doing alumni interviewing, I had plenty of kids bring me a CV and every single kid was more than qualified. In the 20+ years I did interviewing, I only remember one student who clearly had no shot.
No she is at Princeton.
In my house we call losing the love for a school if it becomes your only option single-school-syndrome. It happened to my D3’s best friend - after getting rejected or waitlisted by all of her reaches and matches she only had UVM which she loved and had said throughout the process that it was one of her top choices and she preferred it to some of her matches hence only having one safety. Alas, as her friends excitedly talked about which college they would choose out of the ones that had accepted them, she began to feel resentment towards UVM and like she was being forced into it instead of choosing it. She was offered a place off the waitlist at UVA and accepted, despite saying back in February she would choose UVM over UVA.
Yeah, there’s really no way you can predict or develop expectations for admission at any of those schools. 
@mathmomvt I would caution against using college acceptance information from 2011 or even 2014. Each year seems to get more competitive. Especially if you don’t have Naviance or some way to know where kids from the HS were accepted.
I think you’re doing well to be exploring these options now. NEU used to be an “easy” school for top kids to be accepted. It’s become more popular, getting more applications and now offers first semester abroad to some students.
One friend had a kid who was happy with WPI and NEU options in January as safeties. Then March came with rejections and waitlists to highly selective programs - no acceptances. Kid was not as happy anymore and is chasing a waitlist. I’m sure they put a deposit on one but I’m not sure which.
Here’s Cornell acceptance rates: http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/tableau_visual/admissions
Note that acceptance rate to the College of Engineering in 2011 when your oldest S applied was 16% for males. In 2017, it dropped to 8% for males.
I only posted the info from 2011 and 2014 because someone asked me about it.
I think if my DS3 got rejected from all his reaches, he’s be disappointed but then happily settle into getting excited about settling into wherever he was accepted and had decided to go. But if waitlisted to one of his reaches, I could definitely see him chasing that. :-/ The waitlist is a cruel game.
For what it’s worth, Computer Science is also available at Cornell through the College of Arts and Sciences, where the admit rate for males is 16%. The program is nearly identical except that the engineers take Chem and Physics, and the A&S students have a foreign language requirement. They take all the same CS classes together. My DS didn’t even know which of his friends and classmates were engineers vs A&S.