<p>I also got rejected from almost every school i applied too (brown, columbia, darthmouth, duke, and more). i got wait listed at wake forest. I dont understand where things went wrong and i cried just a little bit but have decided that being depressed wont help so i will be going to either a cc or state school. then again i want to be a doctor soooo maybe going to a school where i can have a high gpa is good and all i need to do is make sure to have a good mcat score, ecs, and recs. besides if you are in the same position as me (wanting to be a doc) you may have been weeded out at those schools and may have had to change majors. In the end, since i do come from a low-income family, fafsa and cal grates are able to cover almost my whole tuition without even having to apply to financial aid at schools</p>
<p>I am so sorry guys! Colleges adcoms are so unpredictable that one must not take these things to heart. I got into 3 of the 5 ivy leagues I applied to, rejected by one ivy, got into Georgetown&Kenyon, and wait-listed at UChicago, Duke, and Davidson so I can’t complain but I feel your pain. Many of my friends aimed too high as well and now they are stuck at schools w/o much fin aid. </p>
<p>Just know that wherever you end up, it’s up to you to make the best of it and to enjoy it.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine how frustrated you all feel as hard as you have worked. But know that your hard work will pay off. You will get a great education and end up in place that is right for you. </p>
<p>I do think that many applicants may appear to be checking the box so to speak rather than truly learning for the joy of it and the experience. It is truly mind boggling how many exceptional, brilliant, wonderful seniors there are out there. The college bound population has grown dramatically in the last 50 years but the number of slots for freshman at the top universities has not increased much at all, making it extremely competitive.</p>
<p>The good news is that the US has an abundance of outstanding schools to which you are accepted. Make the most of the opportunity!</p>
<p>Saugus, in 2004 (latest statistics I could find quickly) there were almost 15,000 high schools in the US. That means 15,000 valedictorians. This is not counting Canada and other internationals. </p>
<p>The number of students who took the SAT last year was 1.65 million. So even if you are in the 99th percentile for your SAT scores, that is still 16,500 people like you. Add in the salutatorians and the SAT 98th percentile for a total of 30,000. Now add the others close behind in stats but who may have outstanding EC’s or other accomplishments. I am sure that would easily be 60,000 or more who would view themselves as “elite” candidates.</p>
<p>The numbers are staggering. No one should be surprised at rejections from Ivies (unless you have already won the Nobel prize) </p>
<p>Ivy applications approach 30,000 (nearly 38,000 to Cornell this year) for a few thousand places at each school.</p>
<p>Accepted: University of Pittsburgh, University of Georgia (my two safeties)
Waitlisted: Georgia Tech
Rejected: William and Mary
Deferred: University of Michigan</p>
<p>I’ve had those 2 acceptances since October and November. What I would dooooo for that feeling after getting an acceptance again!!! Augh!!!</p>
<p>
I believe the actual number of high schools including private schools is something like 35,000 … 35k vals, 35k sals, 35k class presidents, etc. The kids in this thread are amazing but most folks do not realize how many amazing kids there are … Harvard accepts something like 1500 kids a year … that’s 1 kid for every 20+ high schools. (The Ivy league in total only has something like 15,000 frosh … even if they only took vals it would be less than 1/2 of them)</p>
<p>I interviewed for Cornell for a few years and, by far, the strongest impression left from that experience was being overwhelmed by the quality of the applicants … Cornell was getting great students … but it wasn’t real tough to do … the applicant pool was absolutely amazing. As Mini likes to point out all the terrific applicants who do not get into super-reaches go somewhere else … and there are more of them than the kids that get in … “only” going to Lehigh or Villanova or etc or etc is not really a “only” experience; there will be a ton of terrific students at these schools also. </p>
<p>I’ve visited close to 50 schools with my two oldest and I was amazed to go to school after school and to have the same impression … I like this place; the students here seem happy and they LOVE their school; I can definitely see this being a great fit for a lot of students. For tippy top student who do not get into the super selective schools it’s not clear to me that being a big fish in a slightly smaller pond is necessarily a bad outcome … instead a different outcome with different pros and cons.</p>
<p>3togo presents many valid points on this “race to the top.” The top consists of many, many universities–far more than our beloved Ivies. You chart your course at a university. There is more available at any than you can ever hope to see and do. It’s like Disneyland regardless of where you are. Work to be a top student, seek out internships, live/study abroad, follow your passions. The world is at your feet.</p>
<p>When you’re talking about the top schools I think it’s smart to reverse your perspective:</p>
<p>Harvard: 94% rejected
Princeton: 92% rejected
Stanford: 93% rejected</p>
<p>At Stanford ([Applicant</a> Profile : Stanford University](<a href=“Page Not Found : Stanford University”>Page Not Found : Stanford University)) 80% of applicants are in the top 10% of their class but 93% get rejected. I suspect that most of those 93% look very similar to the 7% that do get in. </p>
<p>A strategy of “I know they’re hard to get into but what are the odds I’ll get rejected by everybody” puts on some very risky blinders to those statistics. Anyone who thinks that an education from Michigan, Rochester, Wake Forest or University of Wherever is somehow sub-standard is letting their cocktail party ego do the talking. College doesn’t make the student. The student makes themselves by exploiting the things the college offers. I’d hire the top 5% grad from William & Mary, Miami or George Washington over some self-entitled middle of the pack Ivy grad any day of the week.</p>
<p>To the students who’ve been shut-out from all their choices, you have my sympathies. Here on CC, with the increases in competition the number of these stories have climbed in recent years. The real question is what are you doing to do now? I suggest doing something interesting and worthwhile for your gap year while taking the time to open your mind to some very excellent if only slightly less name brand options for college. Your egos and self-esteem have taken a hit, but as any adult can tell you it’s not important how many times you get knocked down, it only matters how many times you get back up.</p>
<p>My S:</p>
<p>2220, 4.67, 5 BC Calc, US Govt, World History, 4 Spanish, 700+ SAT Subject, NHS + AP Scholar, All State Athlete (can play all DIII, but cannot be recruited by Ivy – all coaches would be happy to have him as walk-on), other ECs, Top 100 US News Public HS, I am Cornell Alum</p>
<p>Rejected: Penn, Brown, Princeton, Cornell (I guess I didn’t give enough money)</p>
<p>The schools want you to believe that the applicant pool is very good and it is hard to pick from so many good prospects, which is true. In fact, I am sure they shoot down some incredible applicants just so they can point to this fact. They want to have “plausible deniability”. But what they don’t want to publicize is all the admits they have that are not as strong. </p>
<p>If you want to get into an Ivy, here is what I recommend:</p>
<p>(1) go to ancestry.com and find out how you are 1/16 of any minority
(2) find a sport that noone plays and get good at it and get recruited
(3) get dual citizenship in another country
(4) spend the 2nd half of your junior year at a prep school
(5) find a “sugar daddy” who will donate a lot of money in your name
(6) get someone on the board of trustees or a congressman to call the dean
(7) play the mega-million jackpot and win; then you can buy the school
(8) win the Nobel prize (being state debate champion or SGA president don’t count)
(9) and this is not sarcastic – apply ED</p>
<p>The realilty is that #1 - 6 above are criteria that are wholly unrelated to the strength of your application, but they will give you a much, much better chance of getting in. My S knows kids in #1-6. His application was stronger than all of them. They got in, he did not. Pretty crappy if you ask me. When I asked the Cornell admissions officer he said that students are evaluated on “holistic, academic considerations”. That is BS. Everyone is outraged when a Board of Directors gives the CEO a multi-million dollar package when the company underperforms. This is no different. </p>
<p>This is a bubble, no different that the housing bubble. Some day it will burst. In the mean time, many kids who should get into these schools don’t. What a shame. I don’t know if my S was or was not good enough to get into the above schools. There could be tons of kids who were rejected that were stronger than him (and looking at this thread, it looks like there are some that are). But I do know that there are many kids that got these precious spots that don’t deserve it. What a shame.</p>
<p>^The vast majority of people with your son’s numbers (which are good, but not outstanding by, say, Harvard or Princeton’s standards) get rejected from these schools. Believe it or not, the people who get in don’t have less impressive resumes than him; any look at these universities’ common data sets will actually give you the opposite impression.</p>
<p>Also, the parent of a legacy athlete complaining about factors unrelated to academic strength influencing the admissions decisions at a school like Cornell is pretty hilarious.</p>
<p>Ghostt – Hilarious? I don’t think so. But you are a senior member of CC, so please tell me about the proof or data that you have about this. </p>
<p>All I know is what I have access to. I personally know of about 10 cases (of about the 20 total kids I can think of in my head) where kids got in because of clearly non-academic reasons. I know that this is anecdotal information, but the coincidence factor is just too high. When I attended college, there were so many prep school kids that I was surprised that JCrew did not have a store in Collegetown. Plus everyone hears about these things all the time. Look at this article:</p>
<p><a href=“Colleges Accepting More Students Who Can Pay Full Fare - The New York Times”>Colleges Accepting More Students Who Can Pay Full Fare - The New York Times;
<p>there is also another recent Times article that I cannot find that talks about how an elite Manhatten school is up in arms because their traditional admit rates to Ivy League schools was going down.</p>
<p>Am I saying that my kid deserved to get in over all the other rejected kids? Absolutely not. I have seen posts from many rejected kids who I think was more deserving than mine. </p>
<p>I would welcome any reply with data that shows that applications are based purely on student achievement and not any other factors.</p>
<p>Jonkras-
The main reason certain prep schools have high rates of admittance to top colleges and universities is the same reason Ivy League graduates enjoy a high level of success in applications to grad school. These kids have already gone through an extremely rigorous application process and have proven themselves among the best of the best high schoolers. Most likely any bright kid dropped into one of these schools for a semester of junior year would see his GPA tank. Spend a little time on the prep school admissions forums and you’ll see what I mean- 8th graders who have already spent years in club sports, racked up hundreds of hours of CS, scored in the 99th percentile on the SSAT, are taking trigonometry and are still stressing about whether they’ll get into Andover or Exeter or Groton.</p>
<p>(Yes, before anyone takes me to task, I know there are brilliant kids in public high schools just like there are brilliant kids in public state universities.)</p>
<p>Sue22 – Where’s your data? How do you prove they are more qualified? Undoubtedly many prep school kids are qualified. But not disproportionately so. And I agree with you in that they have very rigorous courses, etc. (not to mention very expensive college counseling included in the tuition). But please do not tell me they are the best of the best. I went to Cornell and saw my share of prep school screwups. The fact of the matter is that for decades these schools have had cozy relationships with the Ivies and the LACs.</p>
<p>Do prep school kids deserve to get into the better schools? Sure, some are. Maybe mroe than average. But not in the numbers they do. No way.</p>
<p>Having been a college counselor at a top prep school, I can tell you that the reason so many get in is because they are legacies, recruited athletes and URMs. Those groups are the majority getting into HYP at any prep school. And they apply ED. You are way better off if you’re a white or Asian student with average ivy stats if you come from a public school.</p>
<p>Jonkras, your DS needed to apply to Cornell ED to get the benefit of his legacy. </p>
<p>Colleges don’t claim to admit just on academic merit. They are open about constructing well rounded student bodies with many different strengths.</p>
<p>Exactly, Waverly. It’s like when you are baking. You have some really great flour, but you only need so much. Most of that flour is going to stay in the canister. You need a fair amount of sugar too, but not all you have. You are trying to make some great brownies, not provide an opportunity for every bit of flour to be in those brownies. That flour will be used in something else. And really just one egg, or teaspoon of vanilla. admissions people are focused on the brownies, and what we care about is the flour, or the sugar or the egg. It’s a totally different perspective.</p>
<p>Jonkras-I like hard numbers too, so I dug up some data. Most of the prep school info. is from Boarding School Review.</p>
<p>[43</a> Percent of 2011 College-Bound Seniors Met SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark](<a href=“News and Press Releases - Newsroom | College Board”>News and Press Releases - Newsroom | College Board)</p>
<p>The average combined SAT score for all college bound seniors taking AP and honors English courses in the US is 1663.</p>
<p>The average combined SAT score for all college bound seniors taking AP and honors math courses is 1704. The math subscores are all higher than the English subscores so superscoring would still result in an average of 1704.</p>
<p>The average for all students (not just those taking honors or AP courses) at the following prep schools are</p>
<p>Roxbury Latin 2230
Groton 2080<br>
Andover 2076
Exeter 2074</p>
<p>And before you complain that it’s all about rich white kids, the percentages of students of color and students on financial aid are…</p>
<p>RL 32 of color, 40 fin aid
Groton 32 of color 37 fin aid
Andover 40 of color 46 fin aid
Exeter 38 of color, 47 fin aid</p>
<p>I know Andover and Roxbury Latin are need blind and meet full need. Don’t know about the other two.</p>
<p>[What</a> percentage of students are on financial aid at the Phillips Academy Andover boarding school, and what is the average financial aid grant?](<a href=“http://boarding-schools.findthebest.com/q/142319/3989/What-percentage-of-students-are-on-financial-aid-at-the-Phillips-Academy-Andover-boarding-school-and-what-is-the-average-financial-aid-grant]What”>http://boarding-schools.findthebest.com/q/142319/3989/What-percentage-of-students-are-on-financial-aid-at-the-Phillips-Academy-Andover-boarding-school-and-what-is-the-average-financial-aid-grant)</p>
<p>Are there less than amazing students at prep schools? Sure. My DH knew a few people at the Harvard Business School he considered idiots. Doesn’t say much about the group as a whole.</p>
<p>Students at top prep school absolutely do benefit from better college counseling. They also tend to have families that are savvier than average about the college admissions process. Some got into top schools the way kids get into Harvard or Stanford or Cornell-they have a demonstrated talent such as athletic ability. But I stand by my assertion that for the most part these kids are a pre-screened group. They got into the top prep schools because they were amazing, smart, motivated kids. They get into top colleges in high numbers for the same reason.</p>
<p>Wow, I stepped away from this thread for about a week - I didn’t realize it would get this much attention. </p>
<p>After being able to step away from the situation and take some time to think, I realize it isn’t all bad. UNC is a great school and I think it’d be much easier to stand out at UNC than any other Ivies, and it’s definitely not as stressful.</p>
<p>To everyone who faces a similar situation as me: Don’t lose hope! I was able to go to a conference last weekend with a lot of CEO’s and Entrepreneurs. Something they all said that I took to heart was:</p>
<p>“Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as a pivot.”</p>
<p>Even though we were rejected by all these great schools, that doesn’t mean we’re failures. We’re just going in a different direction than we thought we would. It’s not a failure when we hit a brick wall - we just have to start walking in a different direction.</p>
<p>I’m hopeful about my future, and I hope that others will be too!</p>
<p>darknightx-</p>
<p>Sorry if I helped jack your thread. UNC IS a great school and I’m sure you’ll be successful there.</p>
<p>My DH, a CEO, was part of a panel addressing recent college grads and was asked about experiences that helped him get to where he was professionally. His answer? Getting fired from his first job. It helped him set off in a direction he never would have taken had he stayed where he was. Enjoy UNC!</p>
<p>I think you are all missing my point. Prep schools produce a lot of great students, and from the data mentioned above, they do very well on their SATs. What I am saying is that there are a lot of kids who get admitted to Ivies and other elite colleges that are not as strong a candidate as others who are rejected. They get in for reasons wholly unrelated to the strength of their application. A few cases-in-point:</p>
<p>(1) I am personally acquainted with a kid last year who got into one school because he was a VIP. He was rejected at the other Ivies he applied to (and he got into the most competitive school).
(2) When I was at Cornell, there were a lot of prep school kids. Many did well. But many just could not compete academically. Sorry Sue22, but that is what I experienced.
(3) Our esteemed 43rd president – George W Bush. Phillips. Yale. He is what I call a triple bagger – prep school, legacy, VIP. From Wikipedia: He characterized himself as an average student. His average during his first three years at Yale was 77 and he had a similar average under a nonnumeric rating system in his final year. “To the C students, I say, 'You too can be president of the United States,”’ Bush said at the 300th commencement of Yale University. </p>
<p>So I don’t think there is any doubt that there are shenanigans going on in the admissions process. The only question is how much of it there is. My hunch is that there is a fair amount, but no one will know unless they hack into some admissions computer system, or some admissions officer writes a tell-all book. And there is room for legitimate discussion as to what the valid criteria for admissions is.</p>
<p>jonkras,</p>
<p>Your point seems to be that “money has its privileges and always will”. Your experience and Dubya’s are decades old; is it really surprising that the system hasn’t changed? I’ve never seen a statement on any college website that promotes the idea that a given school is a strict meritocracy. The higher up the prestige food chain the more “discriminating” a school can be. </p>
<p>What bothers me about the prestige whoring that goes on is that there is some sort of belief that these ‘elite’ schools possess some “secret sauce” that no one else can get; that the mere acceptance into these schools insures lifelong success. They don’t give you a diploma and a set of keys to the back door at Fort Knox upon graduation just because you went to HYPMS. The privileged who showed up with family money will still have it at graduation. The less privileged who showed up and were driven to succeed will succeed regardless of where they go to school.</p>
<p>It’s not about the size of the dog in the fight. It’s about the size of the fight in the dog.</p>