I think you all are forgetting how arbitrary the college admission process is! No matter how many numbers you crunch, it isn’t going to determine whether or not you get in. The admissions office isn’t a calculator, it’s a group of people, with opinions, mood swings, and gut reactions. Sure, they might not open your application if your GPA falls considerably outside their range, but this isn’t the case for OP. There is no formula for these things. She could be admitted because she had a great interview and a firm handshake, or denied because the people who read her application were having bad days. I know it’s not always that simple, but sometimes it is.
@hroberts17 It is arbitrary to some extent but very compartmentalized. They will review the first evaluation for balance and needs of the school and then adjust. The acceptance process is not a one phase process.
In any event, numbers are all anyone has so deisions have to made along those lines.
No one claims it has magical powers. Nearly every GC and professional counselor I have spoken to, as well as nearly every book I have read about the subject (including some very specialized and well-researched) states that with few exceptions applying ED confers statistical benefit to the applicant (admittedly less than the overall ED rate for the reasons you cite, but benefit nonetheless). I have never – not once – seen a data-driven proof of the opposite.
A fact that is well-proven by the results threads here: overall acceptance rates alone do not equal an individual’s chances of acceptance. Your numbers are may be in-the-ballpark accurate but ignore other factors such as the OPs stats and the fact she is full-pay.
And you keep mentioning geography as a disadvantage, yet we haven’t seen any evidence of that, beyond that 42% were from NE in 2015 – which might strike me as a benefit.
You might have mentioned that in your first post, along with the fact that you were presenting your perception of the overall acceptance odds for female applicants rather than a specific individual chance, which is what the OP asked for.
That is a fact no one has disputed, not even the OP.
@Postmodern,
I wrote,
Postmodern wrote:
Since you were looking for solid numbers I was just trying to point out that you wouldn’t get them without more information, e.g., the percentage of students who fall into one of the other special categories or the number of recruited athletes, not just the overall number of athletes.
I agree that applicants are more than just a collection of numbers and stats, particularly at a place like Bates. For instance, the first part of the application Bates admissions readers look at is the personal statement-before the GPA, standardized test scores, ECs or recommendation.
The information I linked to also has admitted students data, which is what I used, not enrolled data, and that was why I was confused by your post.
The only time I used an “enrolled” number was to try and estimate how many female athletes were in the class.
The blog data is just a year earlier, that’s why it is different. So we agree.
Then maybe grown-ups should be more thoughtful instead of just saying “1 in 10” to a child without consideration of the whole.
@Postmodern,
Augghhh! The link you posted was to the Bates Common Data Set, which give information on the qualifications of ENROLLED students, not admitted students. The class of incoming enrolled students is, for the reasons I’ve listed, most likely to to be a bit weaker than the larger group of admitted students.
The numbers of students who applied and were accepted are for admitted students. The SAT, % in top 10%, and GPA information are all for incoming, enrolled freshmen.
As for the 17% RD admit rate, @LacHopefulParent apparently rounded the Bates published RD acceptance rate of 17.8% down to 17% (tsk, tsk) but was otherwise probably correct.
Bates received applications from 5651 students. Of these applications 679 were ED, leaving 4972 RD applications.
The school accepted 1231 students. 311 of them were brought in ED, 11 from the waiting list.
I think it’s safe to assume that some of those who applied ED were deferred and thus ended up in the RD pile. If fewer than 200 of the 368 kids who were not accepted ED were deferred and chose to stay on the Bates list (e.g., were not accepted EA someplace more attractive) the math turns out right for a 17.8% RD acceptance rate.
5651 overall applicants-679 ED applicants + 194 returned to the RD pool = 5166.
1231 accepted overall-311 ED acceptances = 920.
920/5166 = 17.8
This does make the assumption that close to a hundred kids stayed on the waiting list. This number would be 60 students lower if we recognize that Bates didn’t know that they would be taking 11 kids off the waiting list. In that case the numbers would be
909/5106 = 17.8
All this is just a fun mental exercise for us but I hope it won’t discourage the OP from applying. Bates loves kids who love the school and can show it through their writing.
@Postmodern, I see you edited your post while I was writing so I’ll just add, the data should be from the same year. The Bates post was from the spring of 2015, after the decisions came out, but probably before the school admitted anyone from the waiting list. The CDC info is from this spring but refers to the class admitted in the spring of 2015.
I wasn’t wild about the 1 in 10 response either. I think kids deserve better, but then I’m to a big fan of “chances” threads either. I think they’re pretty useless and usually just serve to make kids overconfident or overly pessimistic. Every school is different, every kid is different, and without the full application file in front of us none of us can do better than guess. I’ve seen kids with mediocre grades and scores get into schools like Bates and flourish and kids who on paper look like they should sail in rejected outright.
This will probably be a stretch school for the OP, but then isn’t that what ED is for-applying to one’s [reasonable] dream school?
@postmodern Maybe GCs say it but numorous schools deny it in writing and a thoughtful review of the incentives of ED are clear that the schools in this bracket have no incentive other than athletic recruiting and other rare skill set recruting or special circumstance to even conduct ED.
Perhaps 10 or 15 years ago there was an advantage because so few did it but as the popularity increased the benefit went to zero. No one has ever been able to explain to me why schools that reject 75% to 95% of applicants year in and year out benefit from ED for regular students. I am a skeptic because it is fundamentally illogical.
As for this student, do your best and hopefully this discussion motivates your best essay and most engaging interview.
Sue, it has both.
C1 Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who applied
C1 Total first-time, first-year (freshman) women who applied
C1 Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who were admitted
C1 Total first-time, first-year (freshman) women who were admitted
You blog says:
“Students submitting some standardized test results 54.2%” and “Average scores for students who submitted tests:” Then it lists the scores.
“Submitting”. Not “Accepted” or “Enrolled”.
What value is that to the OP?
Your exasperation is unfounded and also a bit off-putting. Let’s just have a discussion, OK? Otherwise I prefer not to.
Just wanted to mention that OP actually has a 3.7/4.0 GPA. NOT a 3.5/4.0. Not sure if that changes anything.
Why would they say it if they didn’t believe it? There are many other incentives for all but a tiny handful of schools. Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Early-Admissions-Game-Joining-chapter/dp/0674016203 and see what you think. Yes it was written years ago but I think to dispute it you’d have to show specifically what has changed.
The reason schools say otherwise – and this is covered quite extensively in the book – is because the ED process benefits them much more than it does the student and it reflects badly on them to admit that.
I am not giving my opinion, but rather reporting what I have read. They say it protects yield, allows them to offer less financial aid, and to skim top students who don’t get to take a shot at HYPSM and the like. And they back it up with data.
If you prefer logical, rather than data-driven analysis:
Bates accepted 38% of their class in ED. Do you think the OP stands the same chance of standing out against the other 678 kids who applied ED, or against the other 5650 who applied RD?
There is no evidence I have seen of that. Can you provide some?
Since my school has a GPA scale out of 5.3, my GPA is more realistically a 3.7. 5.3 would mean all A+'s, which no one has ever gotten, while a 4.0 means all A’s, not all A+'s. so really, it should be treated as a 5 point scale, which means I would have a 3.7. I had overlooked this but someone pointed it out to me.
@Postmodern, I hate to say it but either you have a reading comprehension issue or I do.
The Common Data Set lists the application numbers for all who applied. It lists the acceptance numbers for all who applied (C1, C2, C21 for the purposes of this conversation). It lists the qualifications-average SAT or ACT (C9), high school rank (C10) and GPA (C11-Bates doesn’t give this info)-only for currently enrolled freshman. The CDS calls this the “Freshman Profile”.
http://www.bates.edu/research/files/2010/03/cds1516.pdf
The April 3rd announcement about the 2015-16 admissions results on the Bates website does not list the percentage of students who submit the SAT. That’s on the Common Data Set. The April 3rd piece gives statistics for the 932admitted students and in particular highlights the qualifications of those admitted in the RD round (17.8%/ 81%/2135/). The deadline for students to respond the Bates acceptance offer was May 1, so on April 3rd it would have been impossible to parse out the statistics of those students who would attend in the fall.
I understand you find my exasperation off-putting, but honestly this is pretty exasperating. I keep pointing out the reasons for the differences between Common Data Set result and the Bates admissions announcement results and you keep acting as if they’re the same document.
BTW, I’ve just realized I wrote CDC instead of CDS a few times. Mea culpa.
[edited to get close loop on bolding]
@Cefitz98, sorry for mucking up your thread with squabbling over stats. I really don’t chance kids but if you’d like more responses you might want to convert your GPA to a 4 point scale or a number out of 100 (e.g., 88.5 average, 91.3 average.)
Also recognize that because different schools have different grading scales stats like the ones we’re discussing are of only limited use. Do you have access to Naviance at your school?
That’s the main problem Sue. I have done no such thing. You seem to think I have, but I haven’t. I stated I misunderstood a previous post of yours because you claimed there was no information on admitted students in the CDS, just on enrolled students, and all I did was post that it was not true.
It’s easy to misunderstand people in these forums. I politely suggest you take a different and more respectful approach, at least with me. I understood it was just a typo when you wrote CDC instead of CDS, and I didn’t go AAAARGH when you said there was no data on admissions in the CDS. The fact that you are still “exasperated” – when everything should be pretty clear at this point, indicates to me that maybe we should drop it and I will wish you well.
@Sue22 yes, my school has naviance. the average accepted GPA was .01 above mine and the average accepted SAT was 95 points lower than mine. on the graph, I’m in area with mostly accepted students and one rejection. that looked promising, but I also understand that those kids could have gotten in because of another asset that I don’t have.
@cefitz98, it sounds like you’re looking at this with a level head and that Bates might be a good match/stretch for you. Just one thought-because Bates is test-optional the average SAT information is not always as useful as it would be for most schools. The low SAT kids may have been non-submitters, in which case their chances may have been predicated more heavily on the other factors such as GPA and recommendations. It’s also good that you’re paying attention to the fact that not all blips on the Naviance scattergrams are equal. There are probably a few legacies and athletes mixed in, but if you’re not seeing a lot of WL’s and rejection in your Naviance neighborhood that’s a good thing!
@Postmodern, I wish you well.
I got into Bates!
@cefitz98 congratulations! I did as well!
Congratulations to you both!