<p>Someone earlier on this thread mentioned–A match is not a safety. I totally agree.
We spent more time selecting safeties than matches. As full pay parents, we focused on merit scholarships which meant finding true safety schools (where their academic stats were way above the 50% range) and which they would be happy to attend. While they were offered acceptances to matches and reaches, they declined them because it was their safeties that offered the best merit packages.</p>
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Hmmm. Interesting comment, because I believe the OP wrote that her son was accepted at Villanova.</p>
<p>When my son was putting together his list of schools to apply to last year he originally had BC on the list, because it appeared to be a good match. His guidance counsellor went through the list with him and told him that BC can have a “quirky” admissions policy. She suggested that if my son really wanted to go there that he show the school his interest and enthusiasm. My son, being very low on interest and enthusiam for any college applications at the time :), promptly dropped BC from his list.</p>
<p>Does your daughter also have some safeties? I am not sure I would have considered those schools matches unless the student is a recruited athlete or, in the case of BC, attends a Catholic school with a history of having kids admitted to BC with lower stats. (By that I mean that, in my experience, BC seems to prefer students from Catholic schools.)</p>
<p>Your son sounds like a great student. Bc has over 30000 application.s so its s lottery ticket unless ur school has a huge sending rate and connections help. Villanova u will have to show them the love. Umich state its all numbers probe will work out. </p>
<p>So while ur son is clearly qualified so are many others. I might che k out who has Jan 15 deadlines. And send a safety application out. Scranton fairfield penn state Delaware…</p>
<p>I didn’t think these were match schools. They mostly look like small reaches, offering reasonable chances.</p>
<p>you are correct bovertine, already accepted at Villanova. And Mister K I think you may be right. While it is a fine line between matches and small reach, I now believe that a “match” may not truly be a 50:50 possibility of acceptance, at least not at the EA level. While normally expecting a 1 in 2 shot of getting in, it may well be more like 1 in 3, or worse, if the school’s acceptance rate is 35% or lower. I think UMich may end up being as low as roughly 16,000 accepted out of some 45,000 applications or about 35% for the full class, BC’s rate will be lower than that. The first cut at the EA level may be even a little stiffer than that. That is the point I was getting at in the OP. It is really likely to get deferred EA at many schools that appear to be a match (or slight reach), in fact maybe most of the ones that you apply to EA. Our “hit” rate is one in four, maybe one in three given that U Chicago is a clear reach. In part due to the Common App, some schools are seeing application numbers 50% higher from just a few years ago.</p>
<p>just a few years ago the acceptance rate at Michigan was close to 50%. Also, although it is not broken out, acceptance as an OOS candidate is even that much tougher, i.e. at schools like Michigan, UNC, UVA. In addition to either informally or formally mandating a certain percentage of in-state acceptances, many very qualified applicants that might otherwise attend and apply to smaller private, Ivy or LAC schools are staying home and taking advantage of the lower in-state tuition during a very weak economy w/limited job prospects.</p>
<p>I think, at least with regards to pleaseadvise’s S this makes a little sense. But as far as my S the real ?? comes with his deferrals from UVM and Lewis and CLark, I think both have almost 70% acceptance rate… so it is weird to see a deferral for my S with 22200 SAT’s and 3.6 UW GPA… it seems by all measure these 2 schools would have been safeties for him. His ED CC deferral was not a shock and he is happy to have been deferred and not rejected there. He is approaching it as another look over and is treating it as such, ie, sending in another essay, rec, his first semester grades and his thesis paper he wrote at TMS. He is also up for a few schoalrships so will update them if he gets them.</p>
<p>He was also deferred at Tulane,but only applied there last minute and showed no interest, so the deferral was expected there. He still has to hear from Sewanee… another high acceptance rate school… and he above their 75% again…but is a much higher ranked school than L&C and UVM. He has acceptance to an OOS public with highest honors and top scholarship with a lower acceptance rate… especially OOS… so this is indeed an interesting process.</p>
<p>5 boys, sounds like where he was accepted already is a great alternative, especially w/a top scholarship. Not sure why you’d be too concerned about the other deferrals if the accepted school is acceptable to him and you. Of course there is a pride factor, and also it is nice to have a choice in schools (school size, closeness to home, may be factors for you, etc). But a school offering high honors, a top scholarship, and w/a lower acceptance rate (implying it should be pretty highly regarded) would be ideal for most applicants. Almost sounds like a dream school for many students and their families. Still, there seems to be something other than randomness occurring on all the deferrals, something other than one or two Adcom folks having a bad day. You may never know what the “red flag” is, but it sure seems to be there, if he ranks at or above the 75% for all those schools and the deferrals seem to be a consistent occurrence. If he were in the 25-50% range of those accepted, it might just be bad luck.</p>
<p>Pleaseadvise…I know two years ago BC told it’s prospective EA applicants that getting in during the EA round was much tougher than RD and only students with very, very solid stats should apply EA. Our D applied to BC EA that year and was accepted into their honors program; however, two boys from her private prep with 3.8+ UW, 2120+ SAT, 7+ APs, great athletes, etc. were not accepted RD. In short, BC is very hard to predict. Look back at the accepted students threads over the past 2-3 years, and you’ll see what I mean. </p>
<p>Villanova is great, and perhaps March/April will bring more good news.</p>
<p>I checked our high school naviance and U of Michigan denied and deferred 2 high stats candidate with SAT > 2200. One candidate with high SAT>2300 but lowish GPA(3.7 uw) and the other candidate has high GPA and SAT around 2200. I believe this person eventually was accepted to Columbia. The rest of the acceptances were in the band of 2000-2100 for SAT and 3.5-4.0 uw GPA.
So I think perhaps there is some truth to the fact that U of Michigan does not accept candidates who are using it as a safety(or match).</p>
<p>Yes, pleaseadvise, we are happy and grateful for his acceptance into his OOS school, as it is also top notch for his intended major. He would choose that school over UVM or L&C, so he is moving forward and getting excited about that school… although CC is still his first choice. It was more just curiosity than being upset, and the title of the thread is " Anyone getting deferred from all of their match schools"… so thought my S’s outcome might be of some interest. It shows just how unpredictable this process is… and that there are really NO match schools, and even safety schools are questionable.</p>
<p>I agree with jc40 - our sons’ private school college counselor also advised a few years ago that it is much tougher to get in to Boston College early action than regular decision, and I remember seeing statements from BC admissions to this effect as well.</p>
<p>For Michigan, for applicants from my sons’ school, GPA seemed to be incredibly important, scores less so.</p>
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But the colleges that deferred your son do not have 50% acceptance rates… so why would you have ever thought there was a 50/50 chance of acceptance?</p>
<p>I think parents simply place too much importance on SAT. If they see that the mid-50% range for accepted students is, say 620-720 on each subtest – and their kid has 700+ scores, they are thinking, “cool, my kid’s a lock”. But the college admissions staff isn’t looking at it that way – they are thinking that any kid they see with a 620 or above is a candidate for admissions… and they might see the higher end scores as a red flag that the kid is using their school as safety and unlikely to attend. In fact, one good way to gauge likelihood of attendance may well be to defer, and then wait and see if they ever hear from the kid again. </p>
<p>If colleges were constantly favoring the higher SAT applicants in their admissions decisions, you would see an upward creep in score ranges for all of the schools – but instead, the score range stays relatively steady from one year to the next. Those SAT score are a very good way of assessing whether the student has any chance of admission (though the 25% mark is NOT the lowest they will consider, obviously) – but it is NOT a good way of assessing “chances” or overall likelihood of admission.</p>
<p>Excellent point Calmom!</p>
<p>We never believed in the concept of matches. Assumed our state flagship was the safety and everything – EVERYTHING – else was a reach.</p>
<p>Selectivity is a better way to define reach. My d applied to 5 LACs. The one with the lowest SAT average (Holy Cross) has the same selectivity (35% accepted) as the one with the highest SAT average (Wellesley). All are reaches in my book…</p>
<p>5 boys, I did find your story of great interest and helpful in illuminating exactly what is happening in the deferred universe. I truly hope your S gets into his favorite college w/as much scholarship money as possible, and wish him and you the best of luck. I do think luck plays a role.</p>
<p>As to the comments re: schools reacting to being used as safeties–maybe in some cases it is quite clear if essays are generic, marred w/typos or poor grammar, if applications are submitted on the last day, etc. But most students are clearly aware that they should not take any college for granted, or evidence arrogance or nonchalance in hastily written, poorly thought out essays. If universities are simply “testing” high scoring applicants w/a deferral decision in order to see if they respond w/genuine interest, indicate that the school is their first choice alternative and will enroll if admitted, grovel at the feet of the regional representative–I feel that is wrong and unethical. Of course most deferred applicants w/2200-2300 SATs also know how that game is played and they will comply. The sad thing is that some of those applicants will really feel that way about the school and felt that way when they applied EA or ED.</p>
<p>obviously they felt that way if they applied ED.</p>