Well that sucks. Guess D should have written in her extra info that she’s not applying to NU! Just kidding I guess but schools should not assume kids are applying to any particular school. If they think they are a fit for their college and would like to admit them, they should do so.
Right. I guess as long as plenty of interest has been shown to the college and fit has been determined by the app, the college will hopefully risk it and admit the student even if they have legacy status elsewhere. I still think that’s pretty unfair since an AO has zero clue about whether a student is applying or will get into or prefers the legacy school.
Sorry if I seem disagreeable, but it is the exception and not the rule. If your student showed proper interest I would have little worry about rejection because admissions thinks he will go to the school you graduated from…
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And you know what they say about opinions.
Not singling anyone out, but let me also take the time to remind everyone that College Confidential is not a debate society. State your opinion and defend once if needed, but don’t beat the dead horse. Nobody will likely do a 180 on their beliefs.
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There isn’t space for every interested kid. This is much more than interest, anyway.
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@homerdog, just don’t worry about it. Adcoms have little or no time to speculate. They’ll be looking at your D for their school. You seem to have her looking at matches and safeties. TheBowdoin/H or Williams/H examples were rather specific.
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Exactly! We agree!
We didn’t work with a college counselor for my S19, but I did spend a couple of years doing quite a bit of research to help put a reasonable list together. I still didn’t feel I could predict results of the schools with an under 20% acceptance rate (S attended a very large public high school where very few kids attend top 30 universities or LACs). I also highly doubt an experienced and well researched parent could have read his complete applications and predicted results with complete accuracy. Here are his results from reach schools:
Reject
Yale (after deferral)
CMC
Wait list
Dartmouth
Williams
Amherst
Carleton
Rice
Accept
Colgate
GT
U Richmond
Emory
Vanderbilt (under 7% RD acceptance rate)
Brown (under 5% RD acceptance rate)
Yes I would have expected some of the results, but definitely not all.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You clearly have a talented student. Brown must have been a pleasant surprise. Is that where he ultimately went?
Worked for us.
Thanks. He chose Vanderbilt and has been very happy.
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Congratulations!
I think that one of the other things that can play into this and is unknowable by us (as outsiders) every year is how an applicant’s academic interests play into this. The kid who is interested in classics, has taken AP Latin and started on Greek, might be more appealing to Harvard in a year where there hasn’t been high enrollment in that department. Bowdoin, otoh, might sense that this same kid will not be so satisfied with the options they have. I really think this is more what drives the "unexplainable " admits.
As for legacy, I think it’s more likely that a strong candidate manages to get to the top of the pile with legacy rather than gets “demoted” at a school when the kid is a legacy at another strong school.
And yes to private schools “spreading the wealth”. In DS’ class of 150, they went to 125 schools. I know that in a year when 3 got into MIT, the CC was directing other strong, but less stellar, engineering students to explore the likes of RPI, VT, CMU as well as some reaches. I don’t think any in that group even applied to MIT. And something like 80-90% of the students said they got into their top choice school, largely because the process (including CC input) shaped the list. But that takes a lot of work, and frankly, the private schools have a stronger need for this, as @Happytimes2001 explains above and @merc81 demonstrates with his Groton list.
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Concretely for us, it was entirely unpredictable. For my older daughter, she ended up at a tippy LAC and was accepted to most schools she applied, but her only rejection was from one state directional where she soared above their average stats across the board. For my younger, she was accepted into about 75% of the schools that she applied to, and she was below the academic averages for all but one. She’s a dancer though, and I think the auditions mattered more than academics for everywhere but one school (where she was waitlisted). She’s an atypical dancer too, so the whole process felt like a crapshoot.
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Prediction depends in part upon an accurate understanding of statistics.Brown never reported an acceptance rate of 5% nor Vanderbilt of 7%.
Portfolio/audition applicants are always a separate consideration.
Elena referenced those stats for the RD round only…and they are likely accurate (but I haven’t done the math).
Agree. And that is why, in some instances, people are more surprised by results than they should be.
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I’ve been surprised many, many times over the years as an alumni interviewer. But, I don’t have access to the rest of the applicant pool and have no idea how the institutional needs are going to need to be balanced year to year.
I’ve seen plenty of students rejected by Cornell and land at another Ivy. IMO, those are all students who could be successful anywhere but in that particular year, didn’t help balance the class.
IMO, parents and students can’t predict those things and that’s why students need a balanced list of schools. It’s much, much easier to predict acceptances to targets and safeties.
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@momofboiler1, are you given a completed application to include official transcript when you interview? I think I know the answer. Parents and applicants do have that and it can be helpful.
Vanderbilt lists their RD acceptance rate at Class of 2024 – Regular Decision Summary Statistics | The Vandy Admissions Blog | Vanderbilt University . It was 2907 /32376 = 9% for the class of 2024.
I am not aware of Brown listing RD acceptance rate directly. However, you can estimate it, based on CDS information For example, the CDS lists:
Overall – 38674 applied, 2733 accepted = 7% overall acceptance rate
ED – 4230 applied, 769 accepted = 18% ED acceptance rate
RD – (38674 - 4230)= 34444 applied, (2733-769)=1964 accepted = 6% RD acceptance rate
I think this comment deserves highlighting. A CC’s value is their credibility with colleges. When they send a stream of kids that “fit well” into a given college, then their credibility increases. If they send a “poor fit” then it decreases. So good CC’s are fitting kids appropriately, and can say “this kid should get into this elite school” is because they’ve built up credibility with the school.
So “top choice” school is really more “shaped top choice” - the CC has bracketed your kid into a certain range of schools, and wants you to pick from that range.
I would say that good CC’s can accurately predict where your kid will go to college, both because their job is “fitting” each kid into a college, and in part because they get to partially influence the outcome.
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