“There were 2 kids from a local high school where I live that “graduated” by December of their senior year and then enrolled in USC in January (Spring Semester) to start training and practicing/playing with the football team. The kids came back to walk the formal HS graduation in June, but started USC in the Spring of their senior year to get a jump on things”
So clearly these students had already been recruited by, applied to and were accepted at USC.
Showing up for Spring football is not a way of “showing interest” in a college, as 555state inferred, since these athletes are already enrolled at USC.
This thread is veering a little bit off-topic but I’ll chime in to note that the NCAA recently added an early fall signing period for D1 football. This will ultimately allow more student-athletes to enroll early if they’ve completed the requirements for HS graduation. This has nothing to do with “showing interest” and much to do with wanting to get on the field as Freshmen…
@555state, the students who are participating in Spring football are NO longer HS students.
they have already graduated and are are enrolled college students.
your previous post said participating in Spring football was a way of showing interest.
Obviously, these newly enrolled freshman had already showed interest over a year ago prior to enrolling at USC.
@homerdog " If he had an absolute favorite by a large margin, then he would apply ED but that’s not how kids are using ED now. They are choosing the school on their list where ED gives them the best advantage."
Great point. I know several strong applicants who went with “lesser” colleges ED who knew they had a much better chance at admission (e.g. Vanderbilt, WashU) then if they applied to the ivies and other top 20 schools. They were very strategic with the use of ED to give them the best chance of admission to one of their top 3 choice colleges. For example, the one who is at Vandy had a 36 ACT and this college loves high stat applicants. Maybe she would have received an acceptance at an ivy college but she didn’t want to take the chance with Vandy with RD. For her it worked out perfectly and she is happy with her choice. I have a feeling this is common among ED applicants, foregoing the ability to go to a higher ranked/high reach college for a much better chance of acceptance at a reach/match college.
It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the phone and request an alumni interview. Even if there isn’t anyone in the area, most colleges will take your name and note that you have made the request. That said, I agree with @ucbalumnus that it would be much more direct if each college had its own application. I wonder though, if that wouldn’t also disadvantage low income students who may not have the time or resources to devote to so many different applications. A lot of kids are not only excelling in school, but working to help support the family, careing for siblings etc. I’m not sure the burden of all those separate applications would be welcome.
In the case of WUSTL, they seem to have an idea of what characteristics give them the best shot at an enrollment. Students who are outside the tight circle of acceptances should probably be aware they will need to go above and beyond to make their applications stand out. For all I know, the school may be right and all those super high stat dots represent kids who were using WUSTL as a backup. Given that all the accepted students in the past 3 years have ended up enrolling, they do seem to know what they are doing.
“Given that all the accepted students in the past 3 years have ended up enrolling, they do seem to know what they are doing.”
I’m not sure it’s working. WUSTL’s yield is around 40% and that’s because of ED, if you take the 40% of the class that comes in via ED, their actual RD yield is 7%. They or the enrollment consultants they use do not know how to select a class.
It shows that WUSTL admitted 4863 students and enrolled 1778.
It also shows that the total number of students admitted ED was 692. If you subtract those students out from the total admitted & enrolled, you are left with 1086 RD enrollments, out of a total number of 4,171 RD admits – which would be 26% yield rate – slightly more than 1:4.
In any case, @gallentjill was remarking on the Naviance data from her child’s high school, and apparently 100% of the accepted students from that school over the past 3 years have ended up enrolling … so the point is that, iwith respect to that school WUSTL appears to be making the right decision for yield. I think that the part that Jill might be missing is that role that the GC might be playing to influence these numbers — the GC may very well be flagging these apps in a positive way when sending the recs to WUSTL— either directly or indirectly letting the school know when it is a top choice for the applicant. (And if so that might account for the waitlists of the higher stat kids.).
High school gc’s do develop relationships with admission counselors for their regions at selective colleges; that is especially true for private high schools. The book The Gatekeepers delves rather deeply into that process.
@calmom - I think you’re right, I was backing out the numbers for the RD yield and somehow got 7%, but 26% is accurate and sounds more reasonable. 100% yield cannot happen I don’t think, unless the applicants on that Naviance chart applied ED, esp if it’s their top choice. 100% yield on RD even from a small sample is pretty impressive, those are Harvard/Stanford numbers.
100% yield obviously is never going to happen across the board for RD for any school – but quite possible if there is something of an arrangement between the g.c. at that particular suburban NY high school and the WUSTL admission rep for that region. In which case the Naviance data would be totally irrelevant – because it’s not a data-driven determination. If the WUSTL regional rep regularly travels to that high school for info sessions or interviews, then it may very well be that there is a fairly strong relationship established that is pretty much setting up certain kids for admission.
My kid decided to apply early to the school which if they accepted him, he would stop applying to other schools and would go there 99%. We never viewed the early application as a tactical move. For our kid and us, we did not want to find out if he would or could have gotten into any more schools after he got into his early school. The only uncertainty was whether he would take a gap year. I think it’s crazy to apply to let’s say all Ivies or all top 20 schools as ranked by some ranking service.
As for the OP’s question, I have never come across any kid who did not have a College to go to because one can always submit an application to a local community college. Frankly, from what I have seen, it’s better to go to a community college and transfer to a UC you want to go rather than go to some school you don’t want to attend. I have seen many kids start at a very low ranked local college and transfer to Berkeley, UCLA or UCSB. It’s a very doable route here in CA.