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For instance, is her biggest EC her strong skill on the oboe - but the school already has a half-dozen oboe players?
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<p>Oh, as if that could ever happen! :D</p>
<p>Yes, I would say she is more "un" social than anti. No, she is not involved in student government or anything along those lines. We have encouraged her to find what she enjoys and take it as far as she would like. She tends to migrate towards those things that may seem individualistic. I think this tendency stems from way back. She has never been the type to need lots of social interaction, and engages in things she enjoys for their own sake, not for the social side. Do you think this could be the reason she was deferred?</p>
<p>Have you checked the transcript for mistakes? Does the school in question have another candidate with a similar name? Could the wrong testing information have been included with her file? Was the GPA figured correctly and recorded correctly on the transcript? Ditto the class rank? Sometimes mistakes are made... If not this, read the "andison" thread from two years ago....</p>
<p>Who knows! I can only speak from what I've read for some of the top schools: they seem to want kids who do everything....sports, academics, leadership, arts, volunteerism, and a passion about something. It's a very tough time, and the top tier schools have so many students from which to choose.</p>
<p>I don't think being more of an introvert is the reason she was deferred. It's human nature to want a 'cause and effect' relationship for the important events in our lives-it gives us the comforting illusion of control. (If I just do x, then I can ensure y happends). So when a perfect candidate gets rejected from a top school, we have a hard time with the idea that that there were too many perfect candidates, and the school made choices that aren't as finely calibrated as we'd like to imagine they are. I have seen so many posts where parents speculate if it was this factor or that which resulted in their child being rejected or deferred. The answer is probably that there was no real reason-which is why they will get in somewhere else that is just as good.</p>
<p>You can also ask the school guidance counselor to check all of the information for accuracy. My kids' GCs (who quite frankly were not all that wonderful) DID call colleges on their behalfs when information seemed to be missing. Ask the GC if they would make a call on your daughter's behalf.</p>
<p>I will double-check her transcript. My daughter was mailed a copy of it and I think it was right. (Our school doesn't use class rank, her counselor indicates a decile on his form. She is in Cum Laude which is the top 5%, and, extrapolating from her GPA, she is most likely in the top 2% of her class, according to her counselor.) </p>
<p>Oh, one other thing. Her counselor said, "No one from our high school has been denied from (the colleges to which she applied) with your GPA," so he thinks she eventually will be admitted. I am not so confident!</p>
<p>I suppose we are grasping at straws, trying to make sense of things. I have faith that it will all work out in the end. She is a great kid who gives 100% at whatever she does. I expect college will be no different.</p>
<p>Thank you all very much for your thoughts. My mind is eased that there probably isn't anything too sinister in her rec letters!</p>
<p>I have spoken to her guidance counselor and he assures me everything was fine with her application. The college counselor called one college on my daughter's behalf but wasn't given any helpful information.</p>
<p>May I ask if the schools were super-duper-top-tier schools for which every application is a crapshoot?</p>
<p>^^
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My daughter has been (in essence) deferred by two of her target schools, and one of her safeties.
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10 characters</p>
<p>I think sometime one has to show the love to a safety. This could be one reason for your daughter to be deferred at a safety.</p>
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That just means she has waived the right to demand that the colleges show her the letters; it would still be perfectly acceptable for teachers to show her the letters and for her to ask at this point if she (not you) is concerned about it. (If she isn't, then a request coming from mom would seem overbearing). </p>
<p>But there's not much to do about it at this point, anyway -- and if anything it would fuel more speculation. My d. had a teacher who she adored but who always seemed (to me) to be rather aloof towards her - he wrote a positive letter but it was from reading his letter as well as his marks on the rec form that I realized that he was not all that fond of her and why. In my d's case, reading through the lines at the positive adjectives he chose ("assertive" "ambitious") - I realized that he probably was put off by her and thought she was too pushy and cocky. He was more of a laid back, take-it-easy kind of guy, so there might have been a personality conflict there... or perhaps I am mistaken. I was also irked because he referred to her as "very bright" and of course that is one of those damn-with-faint-praise kind of comments. (My son's teachers had described him as "brilliant", which of course is better than "bright".)</p>
<p>However... even at the time I realized that the same factors which that teacher found annoying in my d. would be viewed positively at the large urban colleges my d was applying to -- all places where independence & assertiveness are essential to survival. So to the extent that college ad coms are reading for information rather than accolades, truth-telling might be the best approach if the student is a good fit for the target college.</p>
<p>No, not super-duper top-tier. Nothing like Ivy or Stanford or CalTech. She applied to selective schools she felt matched her temperament and credentials. Her test scores were all above the 25-75% range of previously accepted students.</p>
<p>My husband thinks the fact that we applied for financial aid might be pushing her into the "maybe" category.</p>
<p>To calmom: Oh, no, my daughter would never ask to see her letters. She would feel that was questioning her teachers' faith in her, and she holds them in far too great esteem for that. Folly of youth? Perhaps, but I respect her wishes.</p>
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Exactly the point I'm trying to make -- it is the anecdotal descriptions that stand out.</p>
<p>I loved reading my son's recs because even though 2 teachers had quite different takes on him, it was so clear they were talking about the same person and his personality truly emerged. </p>
<p>With my d., the teacher who wrote the seminal letter was someone who my d. had clashed with regularly in class -- so it was something of a surprise. It turns out from the letter that the reason for conflict was that my d. was constantly pushing the class discussion to a higher level and craving more challenge from the curriculum... or at least that is what the rec. letter says. (I suppose an equally truthful, negative letter could have been written: "This kid never shuts up. She wants the first and last word on everything, and she's always showing off by using big words that the rest of the kids don't understand. I'm glad I don't have to teach her anymore, because she was always embarrassing me when she knew more about current events than I did.") </p>
<p>Which all brings me to one final point: I know I am a lone voice in the wilderness on this, but I really am opposed to the idea of waiving one's right to see the letters. My kids teachers were happy to show them the letters, and I know for a fact that my d. did not check the waiver box. I know all the reasons that have been reiterated as to why those letters should be confidential... but in the end I think that there is too much that can go wrong. One advantage that my d. had was the ability to choose the "best 2 out of 3" when submitting letters, and it wasn't always the same set. For example, she had one college that really wanted the rec from the science teacher, but he was the one who had written the generic praise letter. He probably had a higher opinion of my daughter than the teacher who was put off by her assertive and outspoken nature -- but at least the teacher who might not have been all that comfortable with her provided the kind of detail to flesh out an application.</p>
<p>Again: there's no point in second guessing after all the paperwork is in -- and seeing the letters won't necessarily stop the angst. But at least you aren't left with any known unknowns (to quote Donald Rumsfeld). </p>
<p>One more thing: the same teacher who was over the top in her praise also insisted upon formatting each letter separately to name the specific college -- which is how Boston University learned that my d. would have been a perfect match for Boston *College<a href="where%20she%20didn't%20apply">/I</a>. Guess who got waitlisted from BU?</p>
<p>je ne sais, did your daughter's counselor read the letters? Surely he could give you an indication of a problem hidden between the lines? </p>
<p>As part of turning deferrals to acceptances, it's quite standard to send an additional recommendation. I'd let the counselor help you on selecting the right person for this.</p>
<p>Also, did she submit a music supplement showcasing her ability on French horn. Even if she doesn't intend to major in music this is a good idea at selective schools. If she didn't do this, she should do it now.</p>
<p>Dean J, Yes, Williams still accepts peer recommendations (which can be written by family members), but they are optional. I think it's a wonderful way to add color to a student's personality or character, and I'm always surprised that a lot of applicants who post on this board choose not to submit.</p>
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My husband thinks the fact that we applied for financial aid might be pushing her into the "maybe" category.
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Unfortunately, that is an all-too-real factor among colleges that are selective but not well-endowed enough to be need-blind in admissions. They will take a wait-and-see approach (hence the deferral) and make sure their financial aid dollars go to the students who make the final cut after they have been able to evaluate the entire admissions pool. That doesn't mean that you should expect rejection -- its just that they are probably reluctant to commit financial aid dollars in the early action / early evaluation round unless the student offers something they strongly want to attract. Also, if the schools do not promise to meet full need, they will also make a "ranking" decision later on that will effect the size of the financial aid package -- you may find your d. gets with moderate aid that still leaves a substantial gap to be filled by parent or student loans. A college with limited aid dollars to dispense really can't make those decisions without having a good sense of who else needs the money and how they compare to your daughter. Of course, you may also be pleasantly surprised at the end with more aid than you expect -- your d. could still end up looking good by comparison to other applicants. </p>
<p>(With regard to my post #34 above, the financial aid part of the equation is the most likely reason my d. was waitlisted at BU while accepted at much more selective, but need-blind, schools. A waitlist is one way that a school can separate the payers from the non-payers)</p>
<p>jen-,</p>
<p>My daughter recently went thru the same thing, but a denial which took us off guard, as lower(much lower ranked boys) got acceptances. I think, and JMO that many colleges/universities have ultimate goals for each class. I suppose one could call it social engineering of sorts. After my daughters denial, I spent some time looking at different schools websites, their strategic enrollment info(not easily found by the way) but obtainable if one looks deep enough, the reasons maybe in that information. I do believe very academically strong girls are at a disadvantage up against boys who may have promise but have yet to show it, they will take the boy since they probably have 3 girls to every one boy. Financial requirements I seriously do believe they play a part. I found this website for enrollment management, just enlarge the cartoon captions on the demographics of the guarenteed type of applicant to different area schools. the cast the net far away from your norm is probably a safe strategy these days. Be the teva wearing blue haired beatnik in a NE LAC and the preppy abercrombie in the midwest. </p>
<p>I think University of Chicago is a "top tier" school and a very difficult school to get into....you may be underestimating the difficulty. Maybe two or three years ago it wasn't as hard, but now it is more like Brown or Dartmouth were a few years ago.</p>
<p>I think the admit rate for UC is still a lot higher than Brown and Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Yes, but it's still low...and by all counts should be lower this year. It's a really tough market.</p>