<p>My daughter was deferred ED at a school that every GC thought she would get in. I then no longer trusted their judgement and asked my daughter to add a few more matches. Her GC told her she could add more schools over the holiday break, even though it would have passed the Jan 1 deadline.</p>
<p>I think the OP is saying yesterday was the last day her daughter could add to the list for RD in time for the school to send out her packet.</p>
<p>Oldfort, I realize the OP's D's HS may not be willing to mail out packets to colleges if the deadline for her requests is past. I'm just discussing the issues in terms of benefitting anyone who may be reading this thread with regard to their own college admissions process.</p>
<p>Back to the issue of the safety-- Does anyone know what percent of kids attend a college they have never visited? I would imagine it is a reasonable number. Cerainly many internationals attend a school they have never laid eyeballs on. If the OP's dau likes CofC because someone else thiks its "cool" and if perchance it becomes the only school she gets into, I suspect she'll like it just fine (it is a cute campus). Under these circumstances,though, I'd think at this point she should not visit it, in the off chance she doesnt like it, and it's too late to search out another safety.</p>
<p>I prefer to have two safeties on a list (whether they are visited or not) because should none of the reaches or match schools come through, the child is left with options and doesn't have to go to ONE school by DEFAULT. If they haven't visited the safeties, that is even more reason to have two options in the mix.</p>
<p>One more reason....unless a school accepts 100% of the applicants, even though a school appears to be a sure bet, ya just never know. Also, for top students, their safety schools tend to still be somewhat selective schools (this was the case for my oldest daughter) and while they seem like sure bets, it is not guaranteed and thus she had two safeties that were still selective but in a "safe" range for her profile.</p>
<p>I agree with you, Soozievt. It really makes thing feel better when you have some choice at the end of the process. This time around, we did not have to categorize the schools into reach, safety, match bins, because my son had several schools that he really liked that were safety/match in selectivity. We just added other schools for some more options as he didn't know what he wanted and for chances for merit money. We used EA/rolling as the true safety litmus test for all of our kids. Doing that, my oldest only had reaches that he applied to for RD, my 2nd one had to regroup and pick some more schools, and the third one experimented with some unusual choices and merit money.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, I like the EA-as-litmus-test approach, too. S1 had a list of nine schools on his list. Applied to three schools EA and to the flagship priority for scholarship consideration by November 1st. All three were very selective schools (one was his top choice), and the flagship was the admissions/financial safety/merit $$ opportunity. The plan was to re-evaluate and adjust as need be when EA results came in. He dropped three and added one based on EA. In retrospect, he says he should have dropped/withdrawn five apps last December and applied only to his #2 choice in RD.</p>
<p>EA was a great way for S1 (a very strong applicant with relatively low grades given everything else on his app) to assess how he'd do in the applicant pool. We plan to use the same approach for S2 (two of his top choices do EA, but are reaches) and try to find some target/merit schools that do EA/rolling as well.</p>
<p>I talked about this in another discussion, but it bears repeating. Honors programs at State schools are full of kids who could have gone to much more selective schools. D loves the program, the honors dorm and her dorm mates. They are a VERY interesting group of kids. AND, having just taken the money out of the bank for spring semester, it feels very good that we won't be in debt.</p>
<p>Even better, these are unpretentious kids who have the self confidence to know that they don't have to go to an Ivy to be successful.</p>
<p>I do want to point out that schools that were a match for my D and she was accepted to, there were also students in her school who had higher scores and GPA and they were not accepted. You never know what a school is looking for and if they accept less than 50% of their applicants, you have to treat that school at a reach. That is how my D approached things.</p>
<p>When my D was in this situation, she loved the schools that were matches and reaches and was not as happy with her safeties, we took a last minute road trip and visited only safeties. She found two schools that she could have been happy with. Ultimately, she was accepted to her first choice school and is very happy there but it is a school that no one in our area has heard of. I can't tell you how many times people are suprised where she is going and have no idea of the school even though it is relativity selective. I think that in my area people are very caught up in schools that they and all of their neighbors have heard of and those are the ones that they apply to.</p>
<p>soozevt, I also think that school admissions are more select that when you first D applied. My D has a friend who's sister is your D's age. Both girls have very similar stats and their interests and strengths are pretty similar. The oldest did much better than the girl who is 5 years younger. They both got into great schools, the oldest just had more choices that the younger. I've found that kids at the top of the class are getting into great schools, they just have less choices and applied to more schools than kids 5 and 6 years ago did.</p>
<p>I really liked our GC and I think that he was very knowledgable but I also feel that college admissions have changed a lot in the past couple of years. I think that he is suprised that schools that kids would have been accepted into 5 years ago are being waitlisted or denied. There was a school that routinely accepts 5 to 7 kids a year, last year 1 was accepted. It was a school that he thought would be a safety, high match for my D. She didn't end up applying so we'll never know but there were some very upset parents who I am sure had the same advice that we were given. For that reason, I think that scattergrams and previous admittances are not always correct for this year.</p>
<p>Wasn't there someone last year who didn't get into UMD-College Park, despite scores that suggested it should have been a safety for her?</p>
<p>Deb, my third son is in the same situation as your D. He goes to a school that is virtually unknown here, though it is selective. Folks are astounded that he turned down an ivy league school to go there. </p>
<p>S could have been done with the whole process by Christmas, as he was accepted to a number of schools by then, including his first choice school. It was good that he did apply to some other selective schools RD, because he was able to use the merit money offers from one of them and the lower sticker price to bring up the amount offered by his college of choice.</p>
<p>Something I noticed last year was that the girls were particularly hard hit when it came to acceptances to a lot of the schools with 40% or so accept rates. My son's close friend did well at some colleges where his sister who was a better academic candidate was waitlisted. Two highly qualified young ladies I know were not accepted to Vassar and Skidmore.</p>
<p>
if they accept less than 50% of their applicants, you have to treat that school [as] a reach
While I subscribe to a relatively conservative/cautious viewpoint on college admissions, it's stretching to say that any school with <50% acceptance rates is a REACH. For top-profile students, a 40-50% school might well be a low match or even a safety.</p>
<p>^^As long as the school is not prone to the so-called "Tufts syndrome" (I learned the term from D).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wasn't there someone last year who didn't get into UMD-College Park, despite scores that suggested it should have been a safety for her?
[/quote]
Yes, there was. I recall that the mother was very surprised and disappointed, because on paper, her daughter looked like a strong candidate.</p>
<p>(BTW Cindy, I got the USTA bump-up! :D )</p>
<p>Keilexandra, I agree with your post #411.</p>
<p>And yes, there was someone on CC last year who thought their child met all the criteria for UMD and did not get in (in state).</p>
<p>Keilexandra and soozievt about post #411. I didn't put the phrasing right. I meant that for my D, she treated any school that accepted less than 50% as a reach. I'm fighting a mean cold today, I went back and reread my post and it's full of spelling mistakes maybe I should lay off the cold medicine! </p>
<p>I do want to say that my D who had similar scores to the OP was accepted to her first choice and the val was waitlisted. The val is now very happy at an ivy league school. My D is an engineering major which she felt would be a bit of a hook.</p>
<p>CBK's D was the one with the seemimgly out of line UMDCP rejection last year.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/459721-another-head-scratching-rejection.html?highlight=maryland%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/459721-another-head-scratching-rejection.html?highlight=maryland</a></p>
<p>I remember reading that thread, and thinking that there was something screwy about it, because the ultimate result required both the high school GC and UMD to act very unreasonably. In any case, it didn't really appear to be a case of a kid with good stats being inexplicably rejected by a capricious college; it appeard to be a kid whose application was messed up in some way.</p>
<p>I just looked at that thread. It appears to me that Hunt is right. There were errors made in that application. The GC may have given the young lady someone else's rec and due to error the app did not get out in a timely manner. </p>
<p>However, yes, it is possible to get turned down from state flagship schools with excellent stats. If you are applying to a program or for a major that has limits in the number of kids it accepts, you are out of luck if your app is late. I know a number of excellent kids who were not accepted to some state unis who did not get all their info to the admissions office in a timely fashion or were just late in getting that app out. Sometimes it was because that college was an afterthought. Sometimes it was because they just didn't give that school enough attention because of focus on other schools. My son's friend did not get into Binghamton this year. He should have been accepted with his stats but he was late in getting materials to the school and I suspect he did not get everything there. They just reject everyone who has an incomplete file after a certain point. </p>
<p>However, there are headscratching rejections and waitlists each year. I've seen them.</p>
<p>OregonianMom, Congratulations!!! No bump for me, but that's cool.</p>
<p>Well, what's done is done. I still say she's a strong candidate for UMD. As for the possibility of a headscratching rejection . . . Just because some people get hit by buses when they cross the street doesn't mean I shouldn't cross the street, right?</p>
<p>I think she is fine for UMD and it is a fine school. You have a number of other MD state schools as well for safeties. I don't think it is such an earth shattering thing if she decides to reapply the following year anyways. With my first two, I thought it would be a disaster, but since then I have seen some very good outcomes when kids take that pause.</p>