Thank you for posting this. We are in a similar situation trying to determine rigor level. Coming from a highly ranked & competitive private with great historical placements (top half of class accepted to T40 schools typically) that does not offer APs and are very restrictive on honors placements. Daughter has taken about half of the offered honors classes and will be in all “advanced” classes senior year. They grade on the 1-100 scale and do not have class rank and don’t publicly release deciles.
@TonyGrace We have a good idea where she compares to her classmates but we are wondering how the perception of “not most rigorous” will impact her at top schools. My D24 is an outlier student in that she has a 36 ACT with a 94/95 average but is not in the top quintile of her class. Her pin on the college software stand out alone in top middle right of the axis. Our million dollar questions is will high (but not highest) rigor in a top Private prevent her from Ivy or T20. Nothing we can do about the past course selection but if we had another child we would have pushed harder for earlier access to Honors classes as others have done. The school intentionally limits # of Honors classes unless you fight for them.
Are you saying she has less rigor than her classmates? One would presume the access to H classes is the same for all the students. Will her CC check the “most rigorous” box on her form?
If you are asking if it’s a deal breaker, the answer is no. There are always kids like you describe who get into T20s at our school. Almost exclusively ED though, and I am pretty sure with stellar recommendations. The other thing I’ve noticed is most of the time it’s the “oh yeah, I can totally see them there” kids. In other words, I think there is a better chance at schools you truly love vs the ones that are “also highly ranked.”
In your shoes I’d ED to dream school and have a ED2 ready to go (and safeties you would actually attend, blah, blah, blah).
There’s no way to know nor can anyone truly answer you with certainty but the private school GC is likely best to do so… My daughter’s valedictorian had rigor (10 or 11 APs I presume), a 4.0 with 4.6 weighted, 36 ACT and was rejected at all 16 of the top 20 colleges she applied…in at NYU full pay and attends UT Knoxville.
If your child wasn’t ready for harder courses, you were wise not to push.
Take your shots for the top but have a balanced list and you’ll be fine. Frankly, they and not the school will likely make their long term success.
You can’t change the past and no one can tell you how it will end up - but generally for the top colleges they want rigor. The max ? Not necessarily - my kid didn’t have AP science other than environmental, took Calc AB and the school offered BC…mine took electives of interest instead of academic classes her last year - cooking and entrepreneurship and got into very good schools like W&L as an elite or near elite LAC and solid state schools like Florida ,UGA, UMD - with Honors at UGA. Not elite but not easy admits.
There’s no way to know but you can’t change the past and if your student was challenged then you handled it right.
Ensure to have that balanced list and things will end up where they do.
@TonyGrace and @tsbna44 That is helpful. I am trying to help her find the right school to ED and maximize chances like Wash U and BC. Based on SCIOR she is very highly likely at Lehigh, W&M and Lafayette so those are great options. Yale and Brown are dream schools but I feel like REA there is a waste and going ED at Wash U or BC provides for much higher probability. She really loves Yale and Brown isn’t worth wasting ED on as we are coming to the realization that while are grades and rigor are excellent, they are not necessarily Ivy in this environment. Has a great holistic package with EC and leadership but probably not enough. Getting in ED and having to withdraw app at Yale is a great consolation.
I would be really curious to see the essays, recs and ECs for the Val at UT. While we see many high stat kids get rejections, there is something there that doesn’t add up there.
Personally I disagree. It’s hard so say without the whole picture (but even then). If she has a great holistic package + good grades + high test scores I would call her reasonably competitive. Could get in. Could not. No surprise either way, but ED is not about gaming the system and is still her best shot. IF it truly is her first choice. Particularly if she already likes an ED2 school.
The trick is to accept that you have to go through with that ED2 in the event of a deferrals.
This is what I told my daughter - if you don’t do this, will you always wonder what if? And that whatever decision she made she had to move on and have no regrets.
I am pretty positive they were all excellent. And although this was not played up, they have faced some very real medical challenges their entire life.
The CCs take was:
did not meet institutional priorities making it harder to get into an Ivy (all parties involved accept that is just reality and could have gone either way)
did not get into the next tear bc of yield protection (mostly WL but may of these did not move).
I have seen this happen more than once in the last couple of years.
Agreed. There are, by my rough estimate, 12-15K kids who get a 36 or the SAT equivalent, each year. Narrow it down more for the # who get that PLUS a uw4.0 in a rigorous schedule on ~10-11 APs.
I’m not saying such a kid is a shoo-in at Harvard, but to go 0 for 16 on top 20s?
If each school in the top 20 matriculates ~1800 kids, on average, there’s ~36K slots in those top 20s. And not every kid with OP’s stats matriculates to such schools (some go to state flagship or whatever for cost, family/legacy, distance, sports, general preference, etc.).
So yeah, color me surprised and a bit skeptical about this claim, barring something significant that’s not discussed/known by the OP.
@TonyGrace She can not be convinced to not REA at Yale and I commend her for that and will EA at other great schools like UVA and W&M. If needed we will decide where she loves more between WASH U and BC. We just saw Lehgh and we all really liked what they have to offer so that should be a very reasonable RD choice with demonstrated interest and potential Merit Aid. Double edge sword is that I will be happy when this stress is over but that will also mean my one and only is that much closer to leaving. Makes it a bit harder to live in the moment and enjoy her lasts with us.
It is interesting to me that many of the “Next Teir” schools do not consider demonstrated interest yet they yield protect. BC for one is a school that does not take in to account demonstrated interest with a wink and a nod. They seem to be accepting more high stat kids and relish in the role of being a “T20” safety. Institutional priorities are very important there.
I wouldn’t waste ED on Brown but for a different reason - Brown’s own words. But if she really wanted Brown, then ED’ing elsewhere would be wrong because you should only ED to a top choice. Too many just want to ED because you should and try to maximize their chance even if it’s not their top school. And I"m not sure how getting into a school in a binding way that isn’t truly the one you most want to attend can be a good thing.
It is true though that some of the top schools are enrolling half or more of their classes via ED - so I get that part.
From Brown:
Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.
btw - not sure if Gtown is on your list but they have EA that is restrictive - and they say similar to Brown.
I will tell you when my son applied and that’s 2019 so a ways ago - WUSTL had the hard ED sell…I mean big time hard. Others have said they didn’t quite get the same pressure. And then several schools we applied to kept asking us to change from RD to ED…so that part comes too.
I hope your kids finds a great school for them - one you consider elite or otherwise. They can have a great experience either way.
My daughter is further narrowed down by being in that category and being an institutional priority as an URM but we are not expecting that to help much in this tough environment. But at the end of the day I am very confident that my D will get in to a great school that is right for her and will thrive. These are certainly excellent worries to fret over and we are fortunate to have a great kid.
Thanks for the info. She will not ED at Brown for those reasons you listed, her school has not had a good track record the last few years and she likes Yale(REA choice) better. My wife and I suspect that WASH U will rise more to the top once we visit(we all loved the video and her school has a great track record there) and she will likely ED2 there assuming denied at yale. The tricky part comes if she gets deferred at yale. Georgetown is not in the list because it is 20 miles from home. It would be a top top choice if we weren’t from the area. I grew up a huge GU fan btw as several of my HS classmates played hoops there in the early 90s.
My daughter’s words. Then in December she realized her reason for not applying was not a good reason (I refrained from “I told you so”). She is happily living 3 miles from home. Different school, but we are glad she realized she was forcing another school (any school) to the top.
Have you asked the counselor what they think about your D’s chances? Not taking the top rigor depends, but it seems she has taken half of the honors offered to her yet had a 36 and high grades: that may be an issue at the most-competitive ivy-plus types, possibly further down.
Examples just as a general idea(HS has about 30-35% matriculate at T30uni/top15LAC, 5-6% to ivy/top10):
-skipping 2 of the generally known hardest 4 classes, even if one is 1-2 ranked in class, has not led to an unhooked kid gettingninto ivy/top10, even ED, in the 6 years of data I have, despite the vast majority of kids with that rank applying.
-kids in the bottom half the the top decile or even just outside the top10% ,but took all the hard courses get in to top10s over higher ranked kids who took only some.
-the average course rigor, what the middle of the grade does, which happens to be about half honors/ AP available and usually includes 0-1 of the hardest four APs, even if the kid is in the top quintile(not rare), can lead to not getting into the state flagship or any T30, but occasionally one does.
-kids ranked lower than top quintile with higher rigor (ie almost all the honors/harder AP, but not very top rigor) get into the flagship and T30s.
I sincerely hope the counselor can help her with a good strategy!
@TonyGrace that is funny and good for you. I don’t think we will be that lucky but who knows. She is also not interested in a school requiring a plane ride even though she loves USC when we were out in CA.
@Alqbamine32 that is a fair question to ask and the honest answer is I don’t know. We initally tried to bump her to advanced math at her request for 8th grade(daughter had an A in 7th grade) but we were advised against it by Math dept head and we were told that going against the school recommendations was begging for trouble. We were also told that she would still terminate at calc and it would not put her at a disadvantage. We fell we have not gotten the best guidance because my daughter has not been viewed as “elite” and we are not one of the wealthy forceful families. We tried to manage stress and work load at what is considered an elite school and we did not push advanced classes because the school seemed to be moving away from APs. We did not even know that there was a most rigorous designation until a few months ago. Had we known we would have likely had her add the extras as she actually has her highest grades in her two honors classes (History and Chem). The school is also inconsistent in that it states that they do not recommend honors in 9th yet some families push for 2. The norm would be 1 in 9th, 2 in 10th and 3 in 11th but certain family have pushed to load up 3 per year or so.