Haven’t noticed a big change OTHER than more students are submitting more applications. If they are a regular old student, they’ll get waitlisted. I’ve found that the best way to get off the wait list is to tell them you will commit on the spot if they will take you off it.
@2moretogo Exactly. There are plenty of top notch first gen and low income kids to go around. We don’t need to pretend that these top colleges are scrapping the barrel for diversity.
I also find it odd that people try to put so much ability difference between a “4.0” and a “3.7.” At that point, it’s generally just life circumstances that come into play or gasp, some different priorities. There really is no reason to think a 3.7/3.8 can’t flourish. No reason to think a kid who worked 25 hours a week at fast food isn’t as capable of a kid who spent the same time on theatre or swim or astronomy.
My D has a friend who is still waiting. It’s sad. She was was either rejected or WL every single college. Thought our in state flagship was a safety and got WL there. Obviously, she miscalculated in her apps strategy. Very good student – maybe not tippy top but very good.
My D doesn’t know what her fall back is b/c I think she’s hoping she’ll get off a WL, but looking like a gap year.
I was talking to another mom from my school about the 2 kids we know in that predicament. One got off the WL at Carnegie Mellon shortly after her good friend turned it down. Very coincidental. The other I believe is still working on it, applying to places where there are openings/rolling admissions.
Also, I found out a remarkable girl with high grades and good SATs got into Cal Berkeley, but they messed up again and too many admitted students accepted and her acceptance was rescinded. She’s going to USC instead and very happy about it.
@overbearingmom no sarcasm intended, but how could she be rescinded for no fault of her own? Is it legal? Sorry, I just never heard of this before.
I then went to look, and I see no story like that, the story I heard was that the parents were a Cal/USC and there was a bit of power struggle. That said, it happened last year at UC Irvine, so I think that’s also a reason the admit rate went down and the waitlist rates went up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/us/uc-irvine-acceptance-rejected.html
The admission rescissions would be for a reason (such as problems with final grades). Berkeley did accidentally send out a few admission emails prematurely – see http://www.dailycal.org/2018/03/29/uc-berkeley-accidentally-sends-admissions-emails-pool-applicants-final-decisions-released/ – but not clear whether these were mistakes or just students who received notices before the decisions were official.
I think that when you hear things second-hand (and third-hand by the time it ends up posted at CC) – you need to take the details with something of a grain of salt. Sometimes families choose not to share the real story. One possibility is that that the student was waitlisted or denied from Cal in the firset place; or another possibility is that the student may have been offered a spot as a spring admit to Cal but not interested in that option. I know that a couple of CC posters have reported being accepted off the Berkeley waitlist as spring admits this year – so they do have room for incoming freshmen this year in their FPF program.
Very unlikely a rescind would take place before July.
In fact I don’t think Berkeley has closed the doors on those on the waitlist.
I saw kids having a very hard time getting in everywhere this year around my area. Very sad. Many top students outright denied or WL. Very unusual year. At every school, including the ones everyone always discusses…UMichigan, UCs, USC etc. I had heard that this year’s graduating class was a baby boom year (late 1999/2000), but who knows. And I agree with whomever above was saying that UMich rejected many that were high stat kids (and I saw those kids with other great things about them - ECs, etc). Schools don’t have enough room for all the wonderful kids. Kids with hooks (URM and 1st gen especially) definitely are getting in easier to many selective schools. Nothing to debate. It is a fact. Look at the threads with the decisions - you can see where the posters put their hooks. It is very apparent. It only gets harder year after year!
Michigan has been nobody’s safety or even match for several years.
@CU123 Thomas Jefferson HS for Science & Technology is a public school with those kinds of numbers.
“3 decent students not getting ANYWHERE” :-), This is why this process is so complicated. Thanks for sharing ! Hopefully it will all work out !
@Dustyfeathers I never said that USC UCs and UMICH are safety. IMO they are reaches for everyone. You don’t have to direct me anywhere. My kid did fabulous last year and I know my next one will too. And the funny part is, my 1st one applied to a safety and that is the only one that outright rejected her! HA! And further @Dustyfeathers I never said that i knew kids not being accepted anywhere!
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
This thread is not the place to debate the role of race in admissions. There is a thread for that:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1843141-race-in-college-applications-faq-discussion-12.html#latest
Several posts edited or deleted.
CC is very useful but results threads as a representative sample of US college applicants is not part of its usefulness, IMO.
@OHMomof2 I use the results threads along with knowing of where kids get in around my surrounding hood - we have alot of high schools. That is a representative sample enough for me!
Looking at the Naviance results from our school paints an interesting picture. We are a small NY suburb; very homogenous with almost no URMs or first gen students. With some schools, you can see a clear deviding line between the accepts and rejects/waitlists. With a couple, the graph screams yield protection. The biggest example, at least from our town is Washington University in St. Louis. There is a tight circle of admits between 1450-1550 SAT and 3.9-4.2 GPA. Outside of that circle its all rejections on the lower and and waitlists on the upper end. One or two high stat waitlists could be explained by lack of interest, but there are two many of them. The highest stat kids from our school seem to have no chance.
^ screams yield protection. They are also BIG on demonstrated interest.
True, but it seems unlikely that all the high stat kids showed little interest. There are a good number of dots on that graph. WUSTL is a popular choice from our school. Not one kid above the line was admitted.
D doesn’t have any hook. I told her at the beginning of summer 2016, when she started thinking about her colleges, “prepare for the worst and hope for the best”. She did, she did multiple EAs, where she submitted by different deadlines in October. After December U Chicago EA admission, she revised her list even further. The applications, visits and the subsequent scholarship process (UNC, GT, Duke) taught her a lot, about herself and how many talented kids out there, and also allowed her to make friends with a lot of super smart and talented kids. She had some successes and some very upsetting failures. But at the end, she went to the college she meant to go and is very happy there.
Parents, please prepare for your kids expectations! They will get to SOMEWHERE if they used the Safety, Match and Reach objectively and conservatively, and they will not get into EVERYWHERE they apply!
Yes, she was waitlisted by wash U. Waitlisted by U Michigan in Dec, but admitted in Feb.