Thanks for quoting my data model:-). I am a disappointed parent with USA edu admission system. So subjective so politics so BS. We saw/heard so many good kids so disappointed no matter how good they are: GPAs, Rigor Courses; SATs. What kind of value this country is looking for? Every kid need become a club founder, president, or raise money for climate change? Look at where those HYMPS graduates eventaully landed 4 years later. Most of them went to Wall Street. In other words, most of the essays(help and change world) are BS.
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I agreeâŠso disappointing! And even being captain, endless amts of service helping the homeless, strong involvement in church along with rigor and grades doesnât help! I honestly think that what really hurt us was demographicsâŠjust didnât fit into any unique/special niche that they were trying to fill or it was the timing of when the application was reviewed in the process!
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Hah! So true. Iâve met more recent HYPS grads - all working in finance/law. If you google a few (only did this a few times), sometimes you get a link to the local newspaper saying how this student wants to change the world, be a historian. Now all in financial/legal services. Some at FAANGs. In my day, you just had to be a good student.
Iâve also talked to a few âinternationalâ students, e.g. US citizens living abroad and some of the hooks seem ripe for a âVarsity Bluesâ operation.
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Well, I donât want to out anyone but now that Iâve surveyed the scene - doing the local community involvement stuff is kinda baseline today. Doesnât show leadership unless you get recognition.
Now if you got together a group of kids and founded a brand new initiative to help the homeless, that is something else.
Or maybe if you found your own church catering to a previously marginalized group, that too. I canât remember where I read this (too many reddits) but there is a Catholic kid going to HYPS who says that his avowed mission is to major in religion, and become a priest (chastity/poverty/all that good stuff) and to be sent wherever he can preach to the groups in greatest need.
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Fascinating! This may not apply to fixed-Freshman-campus colleges( Duke, Vandy, others), who had to significantly limit the 2021s admitted due to gap-year 2020s already having a spot in 2021, but were back to normal accepted numbers for 2022(and should have normalish WL movement if typical yield % appliesâwhich is a separate issue and is too early to tell). I agree that your analysis explains the 2022 situation at many, many colleges!
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Agree that the system is broken and/or not doing justice to the students. The number of applicants is making it difficult. But not a consolation for my D22 who is very passionate about helping the physically disabled not getting into biomedical eng. at her top 2 colleges whereas a fellow student in her school with less stats and ECs getting in for the same major in these 2 schools. The only difference i can think of is that the other kid was able to intern at her dadâs office (a known medical devices company). The kid is doing biomedical eng. because it is cool and has no passion like what my D22 has. It seems unfair, but i canât find a solution where an AO would be able to figure out the difference between these 2 kids (in many cases essays do not really reflect the differences). In hindsight, I should have prepared my D22 for rejections, but i was very hopeful like her with per perfect GPA, great SAT score (NMF), ECs with multiple leadership positions (multiple firsts at her school).
My advice for current & future HS seniors (and their parents): Do your best and be mentally prepared to see rejects/waitlists even though you may be well qualified. Like anything else in Life, college admission decisions are not fair (in fact far from it). Hardwork during HS may not yield the results expected in the admission process, but does help in college (based on feedback from my S19 who is a Junior) with being better prepared.
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If your D is truly passionate, then not getting in to biomedical engineering shouldnât stop her for ten seconds. There are MANY routes into this field- there are people today creating new robotic limbs for paraplegics who majored in chemical engineering, Computer science, plain vanilla biology and chemistry, mechanical engineering and more.
It is not true that you need a narrow, specialized major for this field and in fact- being trained as a scientist first is likely advantageous because the state of play is changing so rapidly.
Does it help your D to have decided that a classmate only got in because of an internship? Does it help your D to complain that itâs not fair?
Help your D become her best self by doubling down on her passion- which she can do at at 100 colleges, and does not need a specialized degree.
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Agree with this 100%. 30 years ago there was no biomedical engineering program.
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I just met a young guy working for a device company. Second stage startup, really cool product, getting tons of interest on both the medical side and the investor community.
His degree is in- drum roll- math. Boring, plain vanilla math. Apparently his modeling skills (give him a scenario and heâll figure out a way to represent it numerically) is highly valuable, because testing every single possiblity (whether in a lab or later, on real people in a clinical trial) is HUGELY expensive. Does the device work as expected when the person is not the â5"9 180 lb. maleâ but is a 4â1" 100 lb woman? Whatâs the failure rate if the gizmo gets wet (rain, walking down the street if a sprinkler is going, splashed by a puddle). How many manufacturing defects will be caught and pulled on the line vs. once itâs in a surgeon or doctors office vs. actually implanted in a human? And how can the defect rate get moved so that close to 100% gets identified early on?
The work sounds really cool! And I have no idea if his university offered biomedical engineering, but he sure didnât study it and is STILL making huge contributions to the lives of the disabled!
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Lets move back to college waitlists please.
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In 1984 I applied to 2 schools, and typed the essays the day they had to be postmarked. Got into both and didnât think twice. My kid applied to over 10, got in to 5. but waitlisted at all the UCâs. When she went into to her high school office to get a copy of her transcript, the secretary looked at it and said âHow the f*** did you not get in to those schools?â Sheâs got a level head and will be fine wherever she ends up, but itâs not a normal year, even for this era.
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Did you daughter hear back from all her waitlists? Would she decide to attend one of them if it came through? Has she committed anywhere? It sounds like she got into some amazing schools to study engineering, congrats! Itâs too bad that she didnât get into her 2 favorite places, but she has some seriously awesome programs that have offered her spots. Itâs always a bit of a lottery when applying to top programs. And it is true that she can take many paths to reaching her career goals: BME is not the only way. I hope that she can get super excited about one of them, and that any waitlist possibilities get resolved quickly.
It will be interesting to see how the WLâs move these next two weeks â when I think the bulk of the WL offers are made every year, at least from my reading of various forums. People invest time, housing contracts, get roommates, submit medical records etc⊠and my feeling is that if the schools wait too long into the summer, they have less of a chance of grabbing those WL kids away from the school they committed to. Have you seen movement at any of the schools your D22 is waiting for?
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Wesleyan started taking off the waitlist already?
Well⊠35 years ago I was a freshman in engineering and half my friends were Biomedical Engineering majors, so I think they would beg to differ. 
But back to waitlists - I think it is insane this year and last year. Was it always like this? I really kind of think no. With schools waitlisting 1000 (Yale), 2000, 4000 (Vanderbilt?), 5000, 9000 (did I hear Emory had over 9000? I know somebody did) applicants, you have to wonder, did they just kind of throw in the towel on reviewing applications? âOk this batch met our minimum standards, if our yield isnât high enough weâll come back and actually read the essays and review these onesâŠâ. Because honestly I donât know how else you can explain waitlisting thousands of applicants for a class size of 1000-2000 when you already accepted 2000, knowing that at most schools maybe a handful have an actual shot of getting in. If you are accepting 2-4% of your applicant pool and waitlisting 10-20% of your applicant pool thatâs just wrong.
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Maybe because this year had record breaking applications, the amount of people put on waitlists is higher because there were so many more qualified applicants to put on them.
I agree that it is wrong to put so many people on the waitlists over previous years when the class size remains the same. It only serves the school while the student is strung along.
My D22 was just admitted to Amherst off WL.
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Iâm not at all questioning qualifications and maybe that is all they are doing- is waitlisting everybody they feel is academically qualified- but they still have an idea of where people are above and beyond their academic qualifications- with their holistic review- in that mass of 1000-10000 waitlists, even though most schools do not rank the waitlist.
So even though of the 80,000 applicants they may have accepted 2000 and feel another 8000 are academically qualified, so they offer them a spot on the waitlist - realistically 7500 of that 8000 have no chance and the remaining 500 have very little chance. 
I guess maybe it is partly for the soft rejection- because honestly I think waitlist does feel a lot better to most people than no.
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Wow, congratulations! How much time does she have to decide? Just remembered that Dâs friend declined Amherst this weekend, hmmm⊠
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