<p>My daughter and another student were denied admission (EA) to University of Notre Dame. They were the only two applicants from our large suburban Ohio school. Both are excellent students. My daughter is Senior Class President and a 3 year captain of the softball team, as well as holding many other leadership positions. She has overall good EC's, holds a part time job and has taken the maximum amount of AP and honor courses offered. The other applicant has similar leadership and EC's, they are both in the top 5% of their class, and had ACT's above 30. D's essay was excellent, as were her recs, the one from her counselor rendered a heartfelt 'best of career'. She took the rejection in stride, understanding selective admissions are a crapshoot. Her counselor, however, was not happy. Most of the kids admitted to ND from our H.S. in the past have been legacies, and have been poor representation for the school. The counselor called to ask if these two excellent applicants lacked something specific, etc. She was told by an adcom that ND had 'such great apps' this year for EA that they did not take any non-legacies with an ACT of less than a 33. I have noticed on different admission tracking websites that this is NOT true-if the posters were honest. But I guess my problem with the answer is this-ND must have missed out on so many great kids by using ACT/SAT scores as the determining criteria. In their viewbook, and more importantly in their contact with students, they implicitly state that they look at the 'whole student' and that test scores are only a part of the picture. Sounds to me like there are a lot of families throwing away an application fee to a school that actually admitted that they didn't even consider students under a certain score. Not getting into ND is really not the problem I have. D has many good options-it's that these schools aren't truthful and forthcoming with these kids. If they have a minimum score, they should, IMHO, communicate this fact, saving the student useless work and hope, and the parents fifty dollars!</p>
<p>That's quite ridiculous. You should post this on the ND forum.</p>
<p>It's just one admissions person. He might have been lying to get rid of you. And if he was he'll probably be fired after this post anyway. (Large forum, small world.)</p>
<p>Well, probably somebody isn't telling the whole truth...But, my suggestion would be to let it go. Hopefully your daughter has other good choices and from the sounds of her she will!</p>
<p>Hmmm...that seems really odd. Did your daughter show a strong catholic identity in her application? If so, in what way?</p>
<p>If not, I wonder if that could have been it...</p>
<p>^^Weenie-Oh, I really have let it go, It's really not about D not getting in. It's about how utterly ridiculous this whole process can be. When the GC said she wanted to call to find out why, it was more for the sake of the school (i.e. bad rep, maybe?), I was just disheartened to hear the answer. I would have preferred for the sake of my D and other kids something along the lines of "there were just better applicants." Period. Which I'm sure there were. The specific # being thrown out there was just disturbing, especially in light of recent leanings toward not relying so much on scores. And yes, D has other great options, she hears from her #1 choice 4/1, and we are hoping for good news. So far all of her other EA's and rolling news have been good! I just think people should know that this stuff is still happening, and if it's not, that adcoms feel quite at ease outright lying to GC's, or they're lazy. Sometimes it's important for high schools to get this information, especially those that don't send many kids to selective schools. No school should be allowed to claim that they give each app 'careful consideration' if they have a cut off number. To me that's akin to stealing! LOL</p>
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if these two excellent applicants lacked something specific, etc. She was told by an adcom that ND had 'such great apps' this year for EA that they did not take any non-legacies with an ACT of less than a 33. I have noticed on different admission tracking websites that this is NOT true-if the posters were honest. But I guess my problem with the answer is this-ND must have missed out on so many great kids by using ACT/SAT scores as the determining criteria.
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<p>You are perhaps wrong in assuming that ACT/SAT score was the 'sole' determining criterion. Let assume that the ND is honest about the non-legacy cases. From what the staff says, it seems that when all other factors were considered (="such great apps"), the lower scores hurt your D's chances. In other words, accepted students had equivalent GPA + EC + Recs together with better scores. That's how I read it. If another candidate with ACT 34 were rejected (all other stats being similar) in favor of your daughter, that candidate would think it is unfair, no?</p>
<p>^^The adcom from ND made it sound like apps w/a lower score than a 33 were not even in the running. Of course there were denials of kids w/scores higher than 33. But...at least they were given a comprehensive 'read.' Besides this seeming a little unfair, if it is true (stress IF) then ND is pretty narrow minded, as they may have passed up some fantastic kids. Also, someone earlier asked if D emphasized Catholic identity. She just presented herself as she is, a catholic public school student. Has anyone else gotten a strange or seemingly untrue reply from an adcom when their GC has inquired?</p>
<p>My guess about what happened is that the adcom said something to the effect of "we didn't accept many applicants with an SAT of less than 33." One possibility is that the guidance counselor misheard, and thought it was a blanket statement.</p>
<p>Another more likely possibility is that GC unwittingly did not give the complete picture. If somebody asks "so what happened? Why weren't the students accepted?" Answer (in frustration) "They didn't accept anyone lower than a 33!"</p>
<p>Sort of like the game Telephone, where the actual statement gets mucked up a little bit every step of the way and sooner or later the statement is unitelligible, even if every individual person is truthful in relaying what they heard.</p>
<p>Anyway, that's just my guess. But I doubt the adcom would be so blunt as to say noone less than a 33 was accepted.</p>
<p>Ridiculous. What's wrong with ND?</p>
<p>Another possibility is that the adcom didn't really know why your D got rejected and just made up some BS to the GC to drop the whole thing.</p>
<p>Notre Dame has an amazingly strong commitment to legacies. I wouldn't try to game (scratch that: understand) their process.</p>
<p>That being said, I'll add that when I take "decision calls", people (and this means parents, students, and once in a while, counselors) seem to fixate on one of the many things I talk about. I could talk about program, grades and low testing and all someone may hear is that last part. So, off they go reporting that a student with a weak program was denied because of low testing. </p>
<p>My thought: have the student call the school herself to ask about the decision and make sure she takes notes during the call.</p>
<p>Really, they said 33 and above, and even added that students were in the top 1-2% of scores. There very well may be part of the message lost in the translation, SFGiants, but the point is, true or not, the adcom was lazy at best, glib at worst, and if it is true, are we wasting our money allowing our kids to apply to schools if in actuality they have a score cut-off and don't publicize it? Is all the recent debate about the validity of test scores simply PC verbage? And if a 29 and above are considered to be in the top 5% nationally, aren't we all getting a little distracted here? Will 2 kids w/similar credentials but one has a 32 and one a 34 have similar academic success? Probably. But if the 33 ACT story is true, then kid # 32 will never know. I really think D's GC just wanted to find out what exactly it takes to get a non-legacy from our HS into ND. That can be useful info to a school whose student body is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Only a handful presently apply to top-notch highly selective schools, but that is changing as local demographics do.</p>
<p>Notre Dame thinks it's a topnotch school. Mmkay, whatever makes them feel good about themselves.</p>
<p>Dean J-thank you so much for your informed input. I don't envy being on your end of those calls. :-/
But what if the program has consisted of 11 AP's and the rest honors, with a 3.8 unweighted? Point being, the reason should just be the 'luck of the draw' if there really is nothing striking that kept the kid out. We all understand this. Or we should. This is my third (and thankfully last!) child to go through the admissions process, and the other two wound up exactly where they should have-perfect fits. We're big believers in this. I think this may be a denial reason (not a good fit) that may be difficult for people in your position to convey, as it's rather abstract. My daughter never even mentioned calling, she really just assumed that 'it didn't work out.' (After licking her wounds for a day or two...lol). I think she knows that she had a good app, that she's a good kid, and she wouldn''t want to call bc it's ok. But she is curious about why her school does not fare well at ND. It's a good school, just not a lot of kids who are anxious to leave southern Ohio! I, as a parent, hope that no school would have a score cut off. It would be a shame.</p>
<p>FWIW, I doubt Notre Dame was out to trick you or waste family's money. Schools don't know until the applications are in hand how competitive it is going to be. If they instituted a cut-off for EAs, they probably didn't know they were going to have that cut-off (or what it was going to be) until after the applications were sent--which is too late to do anyone the courtesy of telling them "don't bother."</p>
<p>You really don't know what was said in full, as DeanJ noted, nor can you accurately gauge the spin the guidance counselor may have put on it (in an attempt to soften the blow) when they informed the other family.</p>
<p>If you told me to give a list of the top schools in the midwest, Notre Dame is at the very top with Northwestern. Don't slight Notre Dame's reputation as a top notch school.</p>
<p>Hoedown-I don't think ND or any other school is "out to trick me" ...egad. You mentioned in your post the possibility that they did institute a cut off. That is the point here. Are cut offs at such a high level of scores okay? I don't believe so. It is a waste of money to apply to a school if they practice this, regardless of what the number is. If a mid 50% range is published, then students that fall within this range should have the expectation that since they applied in good faith, they will be reviewed as promised. Period. I have fairly good reason not to doubt what our GC was told. As I said earlier, she was not asked by the denied students or their families to inquire as to the reason for denial, so there would have been no reason to soften the blow. Test score cut offs are an age old dilemma...many people believe they exist in highly selective admissions, and many admissions departments deny it. I was not aware that students or their parents actually called about their decisions. But I know that sometimes GC's do it-whether on behalf of the student or because of a schools' inability to get students into a particular school. I was curious as to whether or not other people have gotten helpful answers, or as in the case of our school-a totally ridiculous one. What if there was something about a student's app that totally sank them? For $50 plus dollars, seems like when asked, an adcom could take a few minutes to answer. Of course, I'm talking GC to adcom here. I think students calling about decisions would be a terrible drain on admissions offices, but when a GC does it, even on behalf of a student, a certain amount of professional courtesy should apply.</p>
<p>Nikrud--I can sympathize with your frustration over the process. Perhaps your D just didn't strike the right note with the adcom member who read her essays or recs. Even after all the hard data of gpa, courseload, standardized tests it still boils down to deciding among equally strong candidates all with similar stats and becomes a very human decision in the end. Often, it's a wrong decision. Sometimes, it's right. It also might be that your daughter's strengths were chosen in other candidates as the school builds its community.</p>
<p>ND and BC (similar schools imho), looking at scattergrams, seem to be very concerned with meeting cutoff points despite what their adcoms and marketing material state. But even being at a median point for a school is no guarantee that one will get accepted especially with this being the peak year of the echo baby boom.</p>
<p>Good luck on your other apps. Your D will be just fine somewhere else. it all works out in the end. There are tons of great schools.</p>
<p>Do schools really put into each applicant's files the reasons that they were deferred/rejected? Do admissions officers really pull each file when asked to try to determine what happened? Particularly if they were not the officer specifically assigned to that file? Or is it more like a job interview where the headhunter calls the employer and the employer says, "We found someone more suitable for the job"? There are so many applicants that I can't imagine that the GC would have gotten any more specific an answer. </p>
<p>Or am I way off base and the more specific information is readily available?</p>