Colleges that fit the student versus colleges that see the student as a fit

How often is it the case that, within similar levels of prestige / selectivity and cost, that the set of colleges that fit a particular student and the set of colleges that see that student as a fit are largely disjoint?

For example, lots of pre-meds think of JHU as a fit for them and their goals, but JHU admissions probably finds non-pre-med applicants aiming for majors not popular with pre-meds to be more of a fit for them, since they do have a wide range of other departments and probably cannot handle a class of 100% pre-meds mostly in the usual popular-for-pre-med majors.

Similarly, MIT is probably flooded with prospective CS major applicants, but a prospective humanities major applicant with similar academic and extracurricular strength could be of more interest to admissions readers there.

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I do not know how common it is but I am looking forward to see what others think!

“MIT is probably flooded with prospective CS major applicants, but a prospective humanities major applicant with similar academic and extracurricular strength could be of more interest”

This happened to D21! Humanities major, put it on the PSAT etc as area of interest, started getting mail from them after 10th gr psat and more after 11th grade psat (both were 99th %ile) and at least one brochure mentioned non-stem majors at MIT. Never went on MIT website, had no interest. Passed the brochures on to little sis, D23, who began to love MIT , in part from the quirky brochures. She has always loved math and science, and signed herself up for information and their e newsletter. She scored even higher on the 10th gr Psat than sister and yet no other brochures came in from MIT until recently . Maybe because she was already on the list? Who knows but D21 definitely got humanities-focused mail.

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I agree. Anecdotally Yale is a tiny bit easier admit for stem and engineering kids as tippy top choose other Ivies or MIT. And my d got into Georgetown as a physics kid, beating out many debate team champions and junior politicos from her school with better stats.

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Even for schools that don’t technically admit by major, they still ask for a student’s intended major. To your point about JHU, I have to believe that no school wants to fill 90% of their class with pre-meds.

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Wesleyan gets a lot of attention bc of its famous stage and film alum. But, what it really is looking for are STEM majors.

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Would it be fair to say that students applying to areas that a college is not known for are seen as a better fit for a college (assuming, of course, that the applicant’s profile seems appropriate for the less in-demand major)? So perhaps humanities majors at U. Penn or social science majors at Carnegie Mellon?

With respect to finding the right fit, perhaps a student who expresses a love of the outdoors and hiking/outward bound type activities who decides to apply to HYP & Columbia is declined, but would have had much better odds at Dartmouth, Cornell, Williams, or Middlebury? Or someone writing about how they love their racially and nationally diverse community back home, but then apply to a small college that would not fit that description?

Isn’t this obvious for the highly selective/rejective colleges, where most applicants, who see the colleges as good “fits”, are rejected because the colleges don’t see them as “fits”?

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Such a student may prefer not to apply to a college with a low diversity student body, but those colleges may believe that they have a marketing problem and therefore try to get any students who are underrepresented to attend in order to make the marketing problem less of a problem (e.g. WLU). Of course, a student who likes a diverse community is not necessarily part of an underrepresented group at the college, but if they are, the college could see them as an attractive applicant, admit, or matriculant.

A related phenomenon observed on these forums is that of Asian students being less willing to apply to some LACs where Asian students are relatively underrepresented.

I’m not sure that’s true. Say that 50 applicants applied to a highly rejective school. 40 of them were qualified to be successful there. 25 of them were a good fit, but there is only room for 10. There could be 15 students who were qualified and a good fit, but still not make it. If the school is looking for a student from Wyoming and has 5 quality applicants from there that are a good fit, they may only accept their favorite 2 or 3, and then applicants 4 and 5 are just out of luck, even if they were a good fit.

In reading the responses of Asian students on this board, my impression is not that students are less willing to apply to schools where they are underrepresented because they would be underrepresented, but because those colleges don’t have the same level of prestige as the colleges for which they are gunning.

And yes, I was thinking of a non-URM when I described the student who loved their ethnically rich home community.

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Applicant 4 or 5 clearly isn’t a good enough fit for the college. Their rejections aren’t random. The college sets the standard of what a good fit is.

I define ‘fit’ differently. I think ‘fit’ is an alignment of interests, preferences, abilities, academic priorities, environment, culture, etc. And I think it makes more sense to consider fit from the student’s point of view than from the college’s. i.e. how does College A fit student’s desires rather than vice versa.

So in @AustenNut 's example and every time a college takes the most-qualified, or most ‘exceptional’ candidates, it is not saying the rejected ones didn’t fit, it’s just that there was someone ‘better’ from a pool of candidates who would fit and who were capable. College may accept a 1520 SAT over a 1480 SAT, or a full pay over a FA-needed student. Are you going to tell the rejected student they wouldn’t ‘fit in’ because they were too poor or only had a 1480?

I also somewhat reject the notion that colleges judge ‘fit’ when making admissions decisions. I think they are deciding based on accomplishment and other demonstrated talents, etc. Don’t ‘artsy’ colleges welcome STEM majors? Even liberal-reputation campuses accept conservative-leaning candidates in order to form a diverse and balanced class.

If I’m wrong, please cite an example where an admissions office will reject a candidate because ‘they wouldn’t fit in here.’

Of course, I concede that specialized colleges (military academies, all-women’s, religious) have special criteria, and colleges not offering a major the student wants may reject on something akin to ‘fit.’ But I think these are rare because students are generally smart enough to self select.

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All selective colleges have their own criteria. Some applicants are better “fits” than others, from the colleges’ perspectives. Each of these colleges has its own goal, and is constrained by its own resources. None of them wants to admit too many applicants in any one bucket, but every one of them wants to fill each one of these buckets, whether these buckets are interests, genders, geographies, or something else.

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Colleges spend a lot of time reading “why us?” essays to not care about fit.

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While artsy students may prefer artsy colleges, those artsy colleges do not want a class of 100% arts students, so applicants interested in underrepresented majors at the college (like STEM majors in your example) are better fits from the college’s point of view and therefore may be easier admits than artsy students with similarly strong college admission credentials.

Of course, the reverse may the case at STEM-heavy colleges with few arts majors.

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Colleges that need students fit them, colleges that have an abundance of applicants look for a student that fits. It’s not that complicated IMO.

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