<p>Gwen – NYU and Wesleyan do not offer EA. They have ED I and II options. Boston College has a “Restricted Early Action” program. Students who apply REA at BC agree not to apply to any other school ED.</p>
<p>Re: SUNY Geneseo, the OPs unweighted GPA was probably the wek link in the application. A 3.6 unweighted GPA is a sub A- GPA (but just a little). SUNY Geneseo’s middle 50th GPA for last year was in the 92 – 95 (high A- to low A) – range.</p>
<p>SUNY, NYU, Wesleyan applied RD. Villanova was a yes EA. Chicago (the reach), Mich and BC were all deferrals.</p>
<p>pleaseadvise, oh there’s definitely still a chance, it’s just that for some reason Michigan gets alot of applications from NY, at an admissions session this fall the admissions officer actually asked how many kids were from New York and it was really amazing how many people so the competition is steep for seats that are shared by internationals and out of state kids. Also Michigan is very GPA focussed and historically on the unweighted GPA. You are asking why so many deferrals and I was just sharing that it is not uncommon to be deferred at UofM. The probability of not being deferred would have increased if you were from Montana or Oklahoma or Wyoming or something and if the unweighted GPA would have been a couple points higher…that’s all I’m pointing out.</p>
<p>momofthree, agree w/your take, and appreciate your thoughts. nothing is to be taken for granted and the competition is indeed keen. At some schools, course rigor and class rank really do not offset a somewhat lower UW GPA in the minds of Admissions, and I realize that. But the high class rank with a 3.6 UW GPA does point to a bit of grade deflation at our H.S. Getting a straight A in an AP course is really tough to do. Getting straight A’s in all APs is nearly impossible. So a 3.6 UW GPA is something that took more work than maybe some would appreciate. There are higher UW GPAs w/a LOWER class rank, simply by virtue of having taken less demanding courses. If an unadjusted UW GPA is to be the “gold standard” or prime criterion of Admissions at any particular school, that will make it tougher to get in .</p>
<p>pleaseadvise -you keep looking for a reason as to why your child was deferred but there is no way to know, all of this is guesswork. Perhaps your kids name reminded the admin of a bully from his high school and so that’s why he looked hard for reasons to reject but in the end could only defer. Yes, it’s just that random sometimes.</p>
<p>As people have told you over and over and over and over again, deferred does not mean rejected, you may still be pleasantly surprised come March. Maybe his “why” essay was not stellar, maybe it was geographic, maybe it was a bit low for their gpa, maybe it is your FA need, who knows and, to be honest, why do you care so much? Looking backwards is not going to change anything. </p>
<p>I suggest you look forward. I can’t remember if you have a thread as to how to help change a deferred response to an acceptance but that is where your sons energy should be right now. My older daughter was admitted to Yale, Dartmouth, USC, and Skidmore among others, but waitlisted at Northwestern which was her first choice. Why? Who knows. We put our energy into convincing them that she was right for their school and vice versa. She was admitted shortly thereafter, is now a Junior, and won an award in her Freshman year that no Freshman had ever won before and no one knows she had to fight to be admitted. I’m just saying this to show that you need to move on, if you want this to happen for your son (and hopefully he wants it as badly) then move forward to make that happen.</p>
<p>Sorry to be so blunt but it is time to move on and work to make it happen.</p>
<p>I think you still have a good chance-- it’s just a long, nailbiting wait. But Villanova’s a good school so she’s got something to hold onto while she waits. From our school those stats (very similar to my D’s) would make BC and Wesleyan reaches. And Chicago and Michigan, having just started taking the Common App, are really unpredictable.</p>
<p>amtc, looking forward indeed, but also trying to glean any hints as to what might have been missing to not grant an acceptance EA, and maybe change the deferral to an acceptance. Agree that may be wasted effort and it could have been something random. The focus now is on maintaining good first semester grades, looking to any interim achievements or awards and securing an interview or two. Villanova is a wonderful school and he is honored to have been accepted there.</p>
<p>pleaseadvise: I feel your pain…and totally empathize…your above post could have been mine for my daughter back in 2008…please do not lose hope though…</p>
<p>My daughter faced the same dilemma with Umich…and her rank was recorded exactly as top 6% but with grade deflation, her UW GPA was a 3.7…deferred and then withdrew her application (but was waitlisted in April anyway…)…all honors/AP’s with a 32 ACT…</p>
<p>The following year, kids from her HS were accepted with lower rank, less honors/AP’s but higher UW GPA…ya never know…but as explained, UMich will basically lump everyone together from a particular state and take the highest UW GPA’s and defer everyone else…</p>
<p>I wouldn’t count BC out in the RD round though with her grades…especially if strong interest in attending is conveyed…</p>
<p>What are her “real” top choices btw?</p>
<p>From our NY public high school lowest GPA (weighted) getting into Michigan was 91, average was 98. Lowest SAT accepted was 1820, but average was 2090. Boston College was very similar though average SAT was 2050. Our school acceptance rate at Michigan was 54% early and 33% regular (40% overall) and for BC it was 50% early, 16% regular (23% overall). I’d have said that those schools are a match (50/50 chance), but by no means a shoe-in. I wouldn’t give up hope.</p>
<p>Sometimes admissions are pretty mysterious. I am sure many will be looking at the data from my son’s Naviance wondering how my son got accepted at U of Chicago. His stats are the ones in the “Lowest Accepted” column. I imagine that his essays and teacher recommendations made up for his less than perfect numbers, but we’ll never know for sure.</p>
<p>My older son was deferred and ultimately rejected from both his EA schools, but four years later he got a fabulous education at a lower ranked institution that was tops in his field and he has a dream job, earning more money straight out of college than I have ever earned.</p>
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<p>Mathmom and I live in parallel universes. S2 is also the abberration on Naviance at a couple of the schools where he was accepted.</p>
<p>3.6 and top 10% is noteworthy, though. Pleaseadvise, if there are any of the EAs he really wants, perhaps an additional brief essay to the adcom along with midyear updates might be useful in demonstrating continued interest. Agree that strong midyear grades are a biggie. Have heard too many adcom stories of kids they wanted to admit who had a letdown in senior year first semester grades. I’d tell your son not to give the schools a reason to reject him.</p>
<p>“From our school those stats (very similar to my D’s) would make BC and Wesleyan reaches.”</p>
<p>Same.</p>
<p>pleaseadvise,</p>
<p>have you spoken with your son’s GC? Perhaps s/he can get some additional information from the schools that can shed some light on the application.</p>
<p>I’m guessing he’ll eventually be offered admission to Geneseo. Last year good friend’s D with similiar stats and EC’s was offered Spring Admission and then offered Fall admission to Geneseo. She decided to go elsewhere however since she was left hanging for so long. In addition, she was waitlisted at 5 other schools…She pulled off a 4.0 for this Fall semester at her safety school and loves it there!</p>
<p>sybbie, thx, that is a likely next step now that the full wave of applications that have swamped the GC (i.e. many w/Jan.1 deadlines for RD) are finished. I’m not sure how proactive the GC would be, but obviously they have experience dealing w/Adcoms in a way that is not either fawning nor overbearing, but more info gathering and maybe asking what else could be done to move the deferral toward acceptance. We all know the generic tack to take in that regard, and I doubt any guidance specific to a particular student would be forthcoming. (e.g., I think U of Chicago specifically says it will not discuss reasons for an applicant’s deferral).</p>
<p>Grade deflation is an issue at our H.S. and while a 3.6 UW puts our S solidly in the Top 10% (they don’t break it down any finer than that), it is a bit of a low GPA for some of the stronger universities that may not consider class rank or course rigor as closely as they would if they were not getting 35,000-50,000 applications (I think UCLA could get as many as 75,000 this year). For example, UMich says it is holistic in its review, but one wonders how much detail they can look into w/applications having exploded since accepting the Common App. Maybe he would have been better taking 2-3 less AP courses and couple easier courses (Spanish instead of AP BIO) and getting a 3.8 UW GPA and dropping slightly below the Top 10% class rank. That is hard to know, and would be a shame if it were the case.</p>
<p>Just as likely he is really borderline at these schools and it comes down almost to a coin flip. The odds of flipping tails 3 times consecutively are not as long as it feels compared to getting 3 consecutive deferrals which stings a bit personally (if that makes any sense).</p>
<p>I agree that grade deflation can be a problem …but only with some state schools that use numeric cut-offs and large privates for puposes of admissions and merit aid…(so places like NYU and Michigan). Class rank and rigor are considered at small LACs, such as Wesleyan and Geneso (both say that Rigor is very importnat). My D has VERY similar sat stats and her GPA is ~3.7UW/ 4.3W (her class rank is within the top 3%). Grading at the high school is tough; even the Val doesn’t have a 4.0uw. The school profile that accompanies the transcript makes it all very clear. Looking at past results we see that “3.7UW” kids with 6-10 AP classes routinely get into many fine schools, including the ones your child applied to. It’s tough to wait…but your child already has a great acceptance in hand. and likley more to come.</p>
<p>Pleaseadvise…How many outstanding apps does your child have in the RD round? Assuming he/she cast a fairly wide net, there should be some good news this spring. </p>
<p>I agree with mathmom – the whole process can be a bit of a mystery, and if you allow yourself to be consumed with trying to reach that answer “why,” you’ll go crazy. Our D was in the top 25% stat wise of most all of the schools she applied to two years ago; however, the majority of the schools were highly selective. It’s easy to initially think, “Wow! My kid has a perfect 4.0 GPA, 11 APs with a score of 5 on all, incredible ECs, 2250 SAT, is full pay, etc…come April there’ll be a TON of acceptances.” The thing is, there are LOTS of “perfect” kids out there. Even the kids who might have inferior stats have something else to offer – they’re from an underrepresented part of the US, they have a talent in a particular sport or fine art, their gender is an asset to certain schools, they’re from a different socio-economic background, etc., etc., etc. There’s simply no way to make sense of some rejections or waitlists. Case in point…our D’s private prep typically sends 1-2 kids each year to this one top 20. Our D was told by her GC that she was almost certain to get accepted because her stats were superior to all of those who had gained admission in the past. She was waitlisted. Her GC was perplexed and found out that the year she applied, this particular school was trying to revamp its image; hence, affluent, high stat southern prep kids who typically faired well found themselves waitlisted or rejected. The thing is, she was wise and applied to a variety of schools and had some really great choices. She wound up choosing a selective school but not the highest ranked among her acceptances and is doing very, very well. Like mathmom’s S she went with the school she considered to be the best fit and thus far, it has paid off. </p>
<p>To those who are going through deferrals (and perhaps waitlists come spring), I can empathize (8 waitlists, 7 acceptances, 3 rejections). However, it usually always works out in the end; plus, they can always try again for grad school! ;)</p>
<p>A friend who is an admissions officer at a Boston area unversity told me that he recently received a phone call from the parent of a student deferred EA demanding to know the reason for the deferral. When no specific answer was given (it never is), the parent said something to the effect “But this was her safety school! It’s not like your university is a really good school.”</p>
<p>Parents should never call a school and ask the reason for a deferral.</p>
<p>Not surprised by the deferrals at BC, Villanova, NYU, and UMich. (Don’t know anything about Wesleyan or SUNY Geneseo.) Neither SAT score nor GPA are particularly strong. For ED, something should really stand out.</p>
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I think you’ve simply mis-judged the degree of selectivity of each of those schools. Obviously you agree Chicago is a reach & not a match – Michigan & BC each have agendas of their own that may impact who they accept, and who they accept early. </p>
<p>It sounds like your son has one very good acceptance in hand – Villanova - and a deferral is not a rejection. My d. was deferred from Chicago several years back, accepted RD – as was a classmate with a higher class rank & SAT scores – and I know of many others – we looked at the deferral as an opportunity to bolster the initial application with appropriate supplemental material. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that schools often defer because they have a concern about GPA and want to see mid-term grades. In any case, “match” is not a “safety” and I think you have to assume that your chances at getting into a “match” school are not much better than their posted admission stats. (That is, BC accepts 28% of its applicants, probably too restrictive to be a “safety” for anyone – but you’d have have to assume that that they still turn away at least half or more of their “match” students).</p>