Our offer from Case Western was generous enough that we are going to give it a visit. I know it’s very good academically, but the location isn’t the best and I have heard that it lags a little bit socially so we’ll see what my son says after we visit.
Very interesting to learn that not everyone received a fee waiver.
@Winky1 I wonder if Case wanted to up the number of applicants but now are good with the level so are not giving everyone a fee waiver now.
Could be @bopper . They are definitely upping their admissions approach. Good for them, I just hope my D gets in.
Schools that give away their applications for free in order to generate numbers struggle with determining who will actually attend. Did that star student only apply because it was free? They can’t tell. So they have started charging most people and then strategically sprinkling free admission offers where they need to amongst the financially needy, and amongst areas and races where their applicant pool has been traditionally low. But a free app is not to be confused with having an admissions advantage, as quite a few have found out.
While we have demonstrated need, we make a nice living, so not destitute. Furthermore, our school has approximately 30-35 applicants to CWRU every year with about half accepted. And believe me, it’s not a poor district at all. Many make tons more than us. So I don’t think we fit your description at all @EDHDAD . And my D never thought the waiver meant acceptance, AND, she’s loved Case regardless, not because of the waiver! And we are Caucasian 
@Winky1 I should have added “Your mileage may vary”" as a disclaimer to my statement. I did not mean to offend you. I wasn’t talking specifically about Case Western(or you) and the demographics I used were just examples. I am sure with any example I provide somebody could give anecdotal evidence of the contrary.
Just some anecdotal scoop: My son talked to HS GC today, and it seems like with this season, there are a lot of kids are being deferred in EA rounds. He is talking not just w/ CWRU (but also w/UMich, UVA, UNC, BC, CMU, NYU…) According to the GC, the % defer from CWR this yr is significantly higher than any year before. Typically, there are about 25 kids from son’s HS applying to CWR and this year, the # should be around 30. About 2/3 rd of those are thru EA, and typically 1/3 to 1/2 of those applying EA will get accepted, and with the HS specific overall acceptance rate near 40% (a typical applicant will rank top 10%, GPA at 3.7s uw and 4.0+ w, SAT 1450+). This year, however, the EA acceptance rate is the lowest on record, slightly less than 30%. GC suggested maybe there is a sharp increasing in the number of applications, or schools in general getting more difficult to get in. The GC said he doesn’t believe in any significant surge in the actual headcount of students ready for college, but rather everyone is putting in 13-15 applications this year. We push our son to apply for 9 schools and we are the slackers. His classmates sent in 13 applications on average, and these are very high stats kids (mostly top 3 to 7%). Even a couple years back, I would say this same group of kids would get into CMU, UChicago, UMich, UVA etc like “near cakewalks”. Now, I know a couple of them have nothing but acceptance from the far lower ranking state U and get defer left and right from the more highly ranked schools. It is a tough season out there this year, and is particularly true for students w/o any demographic, social economic hooks. Keep the hopes up and wish everyone the best in this difficult journey.
@mickey2dad, you got me wondering, so I checked Naviance. This year, 30 kids have applied from my D’s high school, and it shows that only 4 have been accepted so far. The average SAT score out of 1600 for accepted kids on the scattergram is 1407, and weighted gpa average is 4.87. Last year, 39 kids applied, and 16 were accepted. In 2016, 30 applied and 16 were accepted. Now, my D has a 1500 SAT and a 5.0 weighted gpa. She’s way high on the scattergram and was deferred. Oh well. She followed up with a LOI, did the email update, applied to 4 scholarships since the deferral. Before the deferral, she went to an info. session/tour and also went to an open house. Went back a 3rd time in Nov. for an optional interview with an admissions counselor which went great according to my D. I was with the counselor and my D for an additional 15 minutes after the interview to talk, as that is how CWRU does it. The counselor was great, informative and professional. She was delighted my D had already been to campus and had sat in on a Genetics class and loved the urban campus. I really can’t think of 1 thing my D could’ve done differently with this school. It is out of her hands, and as you can tell, I am just amazed she was not accepted. I do still hope she gets in - I am not so bitter that I would tell her to remove it from her list.
@Winky1 I honestly think your D will be accepted at the end. There isn’t anything that jumps out to me as a negative, IMO. But I am not the AO. The whole college admissions process been an unpredictable one for our family. Our 1st application was with the eldest D six plus years ago. Finally, we are done with it with the youngest son this year. What I can say is there were periods we were downright disappointed, like a defer/then WL by UMich for our second daughter or downright scared when our son got a reject from a school ranked below 70 in USNWR. I can’t even suggest I know how the process works and what the AOs are looking. It seems so random and with the increasing in # of applications I see every year, in the same bunch of schools, all going to similar majors, I can only say for certain the process will get even more competitive and uncertain. My S’s HS GC told the general class in juniors and sophs now that do not rely on Naviance’s chart as some of the data is 5 years old, and for many competitive schools, the scattergram presented a too optimistic picture. I can truly understand how you feel. My son’s best friend is currently being deferred by practically all the top schools he applied. He is such a nice kid and he did better than my son’s GPA and with similar SAT (1530), and yet he is now depressed thinking he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere decent. I don’t think this case is alone, and all he can do is to wait. It is a difficulty process and will come to an end by end of March for most people. I wish there is a more transparent process and treat kids with equity across the board. But it is what it is… nothing much anyone can do other than wait for the final outcome. Best of luck to your D, I really think she will get in based on the stats and the amount of additional work put in for the application overall.
Thanks @Mickey2Dad . My D is waiting too, but has an exciting acceptance in Pitt. I am thinking that the choice of major is now making a bigger mark at some schools than in the past. CWRU might be one of them. My D can’t major in Neuroscience at Case, so she selected Biology over the Cognitive Science major. There are lots of fun things she can focus on within the Biology major, so she was totally fine with it. But, if Case is now more sensitive to having lots of pre-meds and engineers, she may have gotten caught in some sort of situation there unbeknownst to her.
@Winky1 yeah, I feel the same way. The selection of major may have an impact on the outcome of EAs. A school probably doesn’t want to have all premeds, and all BMEs. BME is a really popular major among the high stats kids I know and a good % of them are being deferred. Pre-med, Pre-health majors for CWRU probably will be more selective in the coming years IMO. With the new health campus + two major hospitals right around the area, it would be crazy for CWRU not leveraging all these and set itself apart further as a premier choice for premeds. One thing nice about CWRU is the one school admission policy. While I hate to say this, but it is true it is a loophole future applicants can use as long as their overall high school profile fit. I can easily see a candidate to put down a generally related major instead of joining the crowds over BME, Biology-Premed etc. and get in thru EA/ED rounds. Our S got into Pitt as well, it is a very good school w/ biology-health majors. But right now, unless something’s changed significantly, we are down to UMich and CWRU for our son to make the final call some time in late March/April.
My D is was informed that she’s been granted an interview for the Guaranteed Acceptance Program for the Physician Assist Program at Pitt, so she’s looking forward to that. Best of luck to your son.
How does one check Naviance? I thought it was only available to GCs.
Our school makes it available to every student and parent starting in 9th grade @Brownsl .
@winky1 Thanks. I will check with my son’s school.
@Brownsl: At our school, Naviance is made available to parents through the guidance counseling department; you get your own password, etc., that is related to your child. I would contact your child’s guidance counselor first with an inquiry.
If you are not familiar with Naviance, the scattergram function can be very useful: these are plots of GPA vs. test score, and show data for the past 5 years for each college/university to which students in the school have applied; it gives the GPA and test score for admitted, rejected, and deferred/waitlisted applicants. The data are self-reported, so sometimes there is underreporting for schools.
Also, you can see the admissions history over the most recent 3 cycles of applicants to each school: how many applied, how many were accepted, and how many matriculated.
Not helpful for us. My son is at that right top corner. Doesn’t mean he will get into a highly selective school.
@ambkeegan: I have found it useful for trends regarding how competitive a student may be for admission at a given school, compared with fellow students; and perhaps competitiveness for merit scholarships at a given school. For specific individuals, it may not be an accurate predictor of EA or ED admission; I had that same issue with my high stats older child a couple of years ago, who was deferred at a couple of schools where other classmates were admitted with lower stats. In those cases, it was most likely a situation where these schools (e.g., Davidson) locked up a lot of their entering freshman class via ED, which was not an option for us. That is something that was not apparent from the scattergrams, but it involved knowledge of how the particular schools operated their admissions process.
The fact that your son is in the upper right-hand corner of the scattergram also doesn’t mean that he won’t get into a highly selective school. Looking at some of the historical Naviance data for our high school, It seems that this year more colleges and universities have been using deferral – “weaponizing” it, in a sense – as a tool to protect yield. The gamesmanship can be very frustrating.
Naviance does have useful information to glean; but you have to know its limitations.
I was referring to more highly selective schools than CW