<p>Ettish, looking at class rank isn't dumb. Some schools weight grades, others don't. Of schools that weight, there are 137 different weighting systems...or might as well be. Class rank tells how you did against your competition. Throw in the relative strength of the high school and it gives adcoms a pretty good idea of your performance. A 3.96 in a school that doesn't weight can be much better than a 4.4 in school that does.</p>
<p>Miramontedad, I think you are mistaken. We don't see the kind of SAT numbers that are talked about on the CC boards at my daughter's public, west coast high school - but there's a kid going to Yale this year - same kid was rejected from UCLA, where raw stats probably would have carried more weight. I think its a combination - grades, class rank, scores -- SATs probably are not as important for a kid who is at the top of the class as for a kid who is not. </p>
<p>I don't think you should rule anything out, but I do agree with TheDad that the most competitive colleges place a very high value on class rank. From a well regarded, feeder school it may be very "safe" to be top 10% ... but you have to keep in mind that if your daughter is top 8% and there are 10 other kids from her high school also applying to Columbia, all with grades and rank higher than hers, she isn't going to be able to coast by them on high SAT scores alone. There has to be something to make her stand out. It is not luck, and while it may seem like a crapshoot from the applicant's perspective, from the ad coms perspective it is not. </p>
<p>That's why this discussion of stats can be so misleading. It isn't the numbers, it is the whole picture the student presents - the college's sense of that kid as a person. The colleges want very highly motivated kids with extremely strong demonstrated academic abilities who will also fill an important niche in their school. So ideally the kid needs to have the grades plus some sort of strong talent or ability or focused interest that essentially tells the ad com what sort of role they can expect this kid to play at their college. And it is entirely unpredictable, because it also depends on who they've already admitted. </p>
<p>I have to say - and this is not to be harsh, just truthful- that your list of your daughter's stats and EC's didn't "sell" her as a potential Columbia admit on this thread -- it came across as rather "ordinary high achiever" as opposed to "star quality". My daughter has a performing arts background, so I know that "star quality" is not always the person with the most talent, but it is the person who is most able to project themselves. I would suggest that you make sure that your daughter has a reality check - NOT from these boards (which are full of well-intentioned but often misinformed and inaccurate advice) - but from reading books about the admission process, or getting a valid third-party opinion from someone with experience. I know you are proud of your daughter and want the best for her, but my sons stats from a public Cailfornia high school were somewhat better than hers, 5 years ago - and after reading Michele Hernandez' "A is For Admission" he realized that he would be throwing our money away on an Ivy app. </p>
<p>That isn't to say that your daughter can't get into Columbia -- just that she doesn't stand a chance UNLESS she recognizes the intensity of the competition and develops an application strategy tailored to getting in. The plus factor for her is that if Columbia really is her dream school - the one school she wants above all others -- then if she can convey that she at least steps ahead of all the kids who think of Columbia as their fourth choice after Harvard, Princeton & Yale. But she definitely has to work hard at it.</p>
<p>No matter how much we intellectualize the admissions process or try to quantify it, that "star quality" is very often solely in the eyes of the admissions officer.</p>
<p>My older "star" D was rejected by Harvard, Columbia, UPenn and Georgetown. But Yale, reading the IDENTICAL Common Application sent to the others, saw something they liked and accepted her. </p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, her class rank was 29/813.</p>
<p>WaH, 29/813 is very good. Top 5 percent, almost top 3 percent.</p>
<p>MiramonteDad, I think an important thing to do would be for you to go to the Columbia fora and look at the profiles of the students accepted and rejected for the last three years. Check the Old Board as well as this one.</p>
<p>corharcol,</p>
<p>FYI here is where I got my info... could be incorrect info, I suppose:</p>
<p>wishingandhoping - if your daughter put in identical common apps to Harvard, Columbia, UPenn, Georgetown & Yale -- perhaps that was her problem. Good thing that she hit the target with Yale... but Harvard is nothing like Yale - what would resonate with them would be something entirely different. The same is true of any other college on the list. </p>
<p>I personally am not going to spend $60 or $75 or whatever colleges are charging these days for application fees unless my daughter is willing to take the time to research the college she is applying to and tailor the application to the college. If she can't tell me what it is that specifically appeals to her about that particular college which sets it apart from others, and what she thinks that college would probably be looking for in a student ... then I'll save my money. </p>
<p>I'm glad your daughter got into Yale, and I'll bet that when it comes down to it, Yale was the best fit. You are right that Yale saw something the others didn't see -- because that is what the process is all about. It is not uniform - it is not every college applying the same set of standards or having the same set of needs. </p>
<p>I think the common app is great in terms of saving time retyping all that boring demographic and statisticical information - so by all means students should use it. But when it comes to essays or personal statements, I think that, at least for very competitive admissions, it should be tailored to each college. One basic essay can be tweaked to serve for more than one college, but I think ideally the student should have 2 or 3 essays to work with. My son got by with a single essay, but he was applying to a set of schools that were all very similar.</p>
<p>One of the nice things about the parents forum is that it hasn't usually gotten into that painful "what are my chances" trap in discussing specific schools. What I think most of us come away with is the realization that we and our children are not alone in the college application process, and the knowledge that almost everything that happens has happened before--both good and bad. This thread is good because it reminds newcomers to the process how very unpredictable admission to the very top colleges can be. But that's it. It's so hard to say what line in what essay will strike a certain admissions officer a certain way, or what skill will strike a chord, or even whether a given adcomm remembers a visit to a specific school or region kindly and is therefore prepared to be a strong advocate for a given student or group of students. Almost anything--again, good or bad-- can happen once an applicant is at a certain level of achievement. </p>
<p>These parent threads at their best can point out helpful strategies, provide the occasional flash of humor, and provide comfort and advice when things are complicated or threaten not to work out. At their worst, which does seem to show up once in a while, they show traces of the competitiveness and and oneupsmanship that we usually decry.</p>
<p>As far as the financial costs of multiple college applciations, the fees may be comfortable for some families and burdensome to others, but in cases of real need I believe most colleges waive the app fees. The real cost of applying to colleges is the time involved and the emotional investment--the challenge of finding the right balance between realistic aspiration and unrealistic dreaming, and putting together a list that allows for both high hopes and real choices. </p>
<p>Incidentally, calmom, I think even for students using the common app (and even in the last year or two increasing numbers of schools now only use the common app) there is still room to tailor the application to the specific school becuase the supplement is likely to require at least one and sometims multiple essays in addition to the "master" common app essay.</p>
<p>My imprresssion is she meant an application showcasing the identical kid, not literally an identical app. It couldn't have been; Columbia, at least, does not accept the Common Application.</p>