Accepted: New York University (CAS Econ), Northeastern University, Stony Brook University, Binghamton University, Villanova University
Waitlisted: Boston College (Carroll), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ross)
Rejected: Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University
Still waiting on
Princeton
Columbia
Brown
Carnegie Tepper
Georgetown
Dartmouth
To be fair, I did kinda half-*** my JHU supplement and my Cornell essays were not very great, so I was not expecting an acceptance from JHU. But regardless, I was totally rejected by Cornell ED and totally rejected by JHU. And looking at the schools I was waitlisted to, it seems like I have practically a 0% chance at any of those other schools I mentioned, besides Carnegie Tepper which I’ll likely be waitlisted at as well. I feel like all the schools Ive been accepted to so far are the only ones I’ll be accepted to. As an ORM with competitive stats, its not as if I was totally out of the running though I’m still heavily disadvantaged (my GPA is relatively low due to some average-ish early grades). When I finished my apps, at worst I thought that I would be waitlisted/rejected with a slight chance of acceptance by the Ivies, JHU and Georgetown and accepted everywhere else, but I guess I was radically inaccurate.
College admissions differ by every school, because each one of them looks for something that would benefit their institution. So while you may be rejected by Cornell, you may be admitted to Brown because Brown saw something they wanted in you while Cornell obviously didn’t.
I’m in a similar situation; rejected by both of my safeties, but accepted at a target. My stats are easily comparable to others that were accepted at schools I was rejected from. I’ll be checking this thread to see what other have to say.
@viphan Ah don’t get me wrong, NYU is definitely an excellent school and I would love to go there, but I qualify elite as around 20% acceptance rate or lower
@bopper I would love to do that but unfortunately I worked way too hard and stressed far too much to have a 25% success rate out of the schools I applied to, with 3 of the accepted schools being safeties
@topimpabutterfly On my interviews, I was told that for every student admitted, 4-5 other students could easily take his or her place, meaning there’s about a 20% of getting admitted. If you’re a qualified student and you apply to enough schools, I figure you could at least get into one, unless these schools are looking for a specific type of student.
@rustles Eh I don’t think that’s particularly true. I mean, yes, obviously a qualified student would get into at least one school that they’re applying to, but I don’t think it works that way where just because you apply to 10 elite schools, you’re even likely to get in one.
If your GPA is relatively low did you really expect to be accepted to those remaining schools? You seem to have some very good choices available. Go with a school that has shown you some love (admitted you).
@"Erin’s Dad" Yes because other parts of my app are pretty competitive and my GPA did see a good upward trend. If my GPA was 3 or 4 points higher (which it probably would be if not for freshman year) I wouldn’t be worrying in that department
Actually, @rustles has it right. Basic probability and statistics:
If you apply to 10 schools with a 10% admit rate and admissions was random, you would get in to one, on average.
Granted, admissions isn’t random, but not a big portion of the applicant pool to the elites are no-hopers (maybe a quarter?), and that’s counterbalanced by the superapplicants with big hooks (some of them multiple ones) like recruited athlete, top 10 in the US in something, major award winner, URM, scion of a bigshot legacy, etc.
So among everyone else, you really shouldn’t expect to do better than the admit rate. Cut out the no-hopers, and nearly everyone has great stats and ECs. Being competitive at a school that admits 10% means that you have low odds of being admitted (around 10%).
BTW, it’s not as if BC or UMich (for OOS) or NYU are easy to get in to.
There was a debate last week about whether Freshman grades count. Stanford does not count them, not that this helps most people. If your Junior and mid year grades were excellent I would say you had a shot
@PurpleTitan And each school looks for different types of competitive students. By applying to multiple schools, one has a better chance of being the model student a school is looking for.
I was rejected from JHU(broke my heart), but got into Vandy and Northwestern. I believe that they look at different things. You have gotten into NYU, which is considered an “elite” school. Your stats are fine, its just luck of the draw.
@AnnieBot The difference between Vander Northwestern and JHU is like 3-4% though. Those 3 schools are definitely crapshoots being that they’re in the teens for acceptance rates, but I got waitlisted by Mich Ross BC Carroll AND Carnegie Tepper all 3 of which are in the 20%'s (actually I think Ross is even in the 30s!).
@topimpabutterfly You can look at my stats, but I thought I was a perfect match for JHU’s biomedical engineering program(I have a excellent background in engineering and a major science fair award, in addition to a few olympiad awards). JHU was my first choice, and I was rejected, not even wait listed.
You probably got yield protected by Umich. Did you apply early action or regular?