Thanks very much for any feedback on my rising senior son’s ED1 prospects at Bates and any other ideas on ED2 or his target school list below. We’re all finding the whole college process is completely overwhelming!
He loves Bates and Naviance suggests it’s a somewhere between a match and a reach, but of course on some level everything is a reach nowadays. We think he’d be better at LAC but he’s not super preppy or sporty and tends to be pretty happy in most environments. His only real deal-breaker is hot weather, so the list reflects that.
Demographics: White male US citizen, MD resident
Type of high school: Large well-regarded public HS
Other special factors: Half Middle Eastern, one parent came to US as a refugee
ACT/SAT Scores: Probably test optional. Prepping for July & Sept ACTs, but first try was too low to submit (26)
Coursework
AP Gov NSL, AP World History, AP Lang. Will take AP Lit, AP Comp Gov, AP Environment during senior year
6 years of honors Chinese (school does not offer AP Chinese)
HS offers all the usual math & science APs but we didn’t push him there bc he really struggled academically in MS. He’ll have done 4 years of honors science (bio/chem/physics) & math, final math will be Precalc.
Awards
Chinese award junior year
Extracurriculars
NHS, English Honor Society, Chinese honor society, other unexceptional school clubs
Community service via church
200+ volunteer hours at nature organization
Summer internship at environmental tech organization
Essays/LORs/Other (Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Good writer and working hard on essays, hopefully they’re strong
Hope LoRs are good, probably his best quality is being broadly well-liked
I think your list is very good and fairly accurate for the most part. I would definitely put Skidmore, BU, and GWU in the high match/low reach category rather than matches, especially given the craziness of the last two admission cycles. I also think BU, AU, and GWU seem very different from the others on the list.
My D is a 2020 Bates grad. I think your son’s odds are good. Those majors are popular at Bates and offer a lot of great classes. Was his internship paid? I’d like to see a job of some sort on his app. I like the community service and environmental stuff. Bates values those things.
He should show interest. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have Bates questions. Meanwhile, there are some very informative posts pinned in the Bates forum. This one might be useful for you: How Bates prepared my student for her future
I like the list but question IU and UCD. Same with BU. If you want small why apply big ? You skip midsize. If you want big, it should be UMD and that’s it.
His UW Gpa is a tad low for top schools but rigor is there.
Bcuz you are full pay and ED Bates is likely. #2 should not be where we think. What’s his #2. You should only apply ED if you want to go. I assume it’s Colgate. Or Hamilton. He’s got a large list. Is it really worth ED’ing when it will likely cost you thousands as the option to compare will be gone. Maybe you can afford it…but do you want to ?
Btw the fields he is pursuing are not job ready meaning grad school is likely and that means more expense. I’d rather see him go to a school with merit. I just think the cost is a lot and many won’t reap the value. Have you looked at W&L and the Johnson Scholarship ?
Yes schools on your list offer merit. However if you ED Bates that is gone !!
I assume GW and AU make the cut due to his major. AU is odd. You can be a stud and get rejected. Or below average and get in. It all comes down to demonstrating interest.
Anyway your list is fine but I would move BU, Grinnell and Oberlin up to reach. And I would get a test score if it will positively reflect. While that’s out of your control, if you can afford full pay then get him a tutor. 6 or 8 hours can work wonders. It’s a stretch to 32-33 but you never know
You have great schools on the list and he will find a home for sure!!
To seal the deal, make sure he shows interest. Here are some ways to do that:
Meet with the Bates admission person for the MD region (looks like there is an upcoming college fair in a few weeks).
If possible go visit the campus in person and register for a tour. Sign up for an interview on campus.
Register for all the social media (Instagram, FB, etc). Make sure to “like” frequently. Click on all the links in the promotional emails they will send. They will probably use tracking cookies. So create a specific account tied to college admissions purposes only.
Don’t go overboard with the demonstrated interest. I’ve seen cases where this can sometimes backfire. But small simple things can help reinforce your son’s interest.
Smaller colleges like Bates typically use the services of an enrollment management consultant. Mainly to make sure they stay on track for tuition income. They will employ some multivariate modeling to help predict whether your son will matriculate if offered a spot. Read up on this, there are ways to help tilt the model in your favor.
This is just one data point, but, given my son’s experience, I’d feel pretty positive about your son’s chances at Bates. My son got in EDII to Bates last year. (He’s taking a gap year, so he won’t be matriculating until fall of 2022, but he is super excited to be a future Bobcat.)
Here are his stats:
Unweighted GPA: 3.5; Weighted GPA: 4.0
SAT: 1520
APs: took about eight AP classes (AUSH, AP French, AP German, AP Gov, AP Euro, AP Stats,AP English Lang, AP English Lit)
Languages: took five years of French and four years of German
Attended a large public school outside of Chicago
He had good extracurriculars, plus a decent essay and (I imagine) decent but not extraordinary rec letters.
He did an admissions interview, which he thought went really well.
Your sons’ grades are much better (which is most important) and he’s otherwise somewhat similar to my kid, with the possible exception of not submitting test scores. Hard to say how much my son’s good test scores helped him at a school like Bates that has always been test optional. Overall, though, I think your son has a great shot at Bates.
I’d agree that BU, Grinnell, and Oberlin are probably reaches, not targets.
Just as an FYI - my son also got into Macalester, Early Action, so that might be a good sign for your son there as well.
There are so many examples, but here are some I am familiar with:
Dickinson College predictive analytic model overview (from 2017, don’t know if they still do this, as entire admissions dept has turned over in the last 4 years) - YouTube
The links below by @Mwfan1921 are a good start. Here is another article from the Atlantic which might be useful:
Note that the predictive models are not used solely in the RD round. They are also used during early rounds to help shape the class. Most are geared towards maximizing revenue. But they are also used for institutional priority targets as well. I wish I knew the details of what goes into these models. They are a closely guarded secret. But some of things that feed into the model are obvious: zip code, parental jobs, applying for financial aid, etc.
The variables (and their weightings) are a closely guarded secret (and different for every school), but that Dickinson presentation I linked to above shows many of their variables (but again, what they are doing today could be very different). Lots of turnover in admissions staffs as well as the consulting firms they use.
Here is another good article that explains the analytical models. This particular example is from Emory, and shows how prospective major and estimated class rank comes into play:
HS counselors provide interest ratings
Multiple visits over 500 miles
Legacy
Cost
Are you negotiating aid?
How you interact with college website
High school data
WiFi data and card swipes while in campus
I just finished listening to the video. Thanks to @Mwfan1921 for sharing. Lots of good stuff here. Here are some of my takeaways:
27:00 mins
Significant Predictor variables in Dickinson College model: ED2, ED1, 3 year enrolled, Legacy, Merit grant, Enroll likely, SAT verbal, Multiple visits, Negotiated Aid, Rating Leadership and Visit Before Applied
43:48
Model is able to predict which students (at an individual level) who are most likely/least likely to enroll. Can output a list of student IDs (and names?) to admissions.
54:25
How many variables in the model? Start off with >200 variables and then model auto mining process starts.
Like most colleges, Dickinson is heavily dependent on tuition revenue. Its not surprising they look at Yield and Total Tuition Revenue on a daily basis during admissions season. But it was surprising to hear them be so open about it. This is not the face that the admissions offices normally gives to the students. They typically portray that everyone has a chance, and that they look holistically at the applicant.
Great summary, and I agree with your conclusions. The other thing that was surprising that Dickinson does is put each app before it’s read into deciles by yield, as calculated by the predictive model. They never addressed this, but I would expect the predicted high yield apps get closer/more detailed reads than the lower yield apps…something else that students/families never hear!
This entire process is fascinating and I just realized it’s deep in a chance me thread for Bates Do you think many other schools use this kind of model, especially the part about bucketing applicants based on projected yield?
Do you think many other schools use this kind of model, especially the part about bucketing applicants based on projected yield?