<p>SBMom - Good Lord! I didn't need to read that story a couple of days before ED decisions are coming! I hope the child applied EA to Harvard or that the acceptance came fairly soon in April, getting 9 denials would kill anybody!</p>
<p>Tell me about it! </p>
<p>The incredible part is that 9 colleges would actually ding someone who was good enough for Harvard. </p>
<p>That certainly motivated me to help my D find major matches and good safetys!</p>
<p>Larry Summers, president of Harvard, described those accepted at Harvard as--extremely bright, very passionate about something and lucky. That pretty much describes how our house experienced highly selective college admissions last year. We bought a number of lottery tickets and won on some, lost on others.</p>
<p>Our son was accepted at a couple of schools that surprised me, especially when we know that the children of friends - who were excellent students with higher GPAs were rejected. In one case, I think the difference was athletics. He's NOT a superstar, but they probably needed to fill a team. I think his essays helped. And also geography may have worked in his favor - we're from the midwest, applied mostly to schools in the east. All in all, he did much better than his guidance counselor predicted.</p>
<p>I've seen a number of surprises as well. Lately.. just in the last year or so, I am a bit suspicious that certain schools, particularly private schools or schools with a lot of kids applying to the most selective schools, all of which have counselors with pipelines to the colleges are leaking info to admissions. I used to regularly see kids from such schools get accepted to an embarrassment of riches. The same kid would get HYP acceptances and scoop up most of the other ivies and little ivies as well. I am not seeing that these days. I had one case where I know that happened--the counselor indicated that a top candidate for selective colleges did not have a particular school on the top of her list, and girl did not get into that college when other kids who did not have as wonderful a resume did get in. The school in that case pretty much admitted their part inthe the decision with an assurance that if she really wanted to go there, they could get her in. It was a bitter pill, because merit aid at that school is given only if the student is accepted early, and she was deferred, then waitlisted.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with the "pipeline" theory. We're from a small public - not a well-known private or elite highschool by any means. Even there, however, we had a similar experience with financial aid. Two of the schools to which my son applied and was admitted, suddenly stopped sending any info. He failed to return some information to one, and instead of verifying with my son, this college contacted his HS counselor to see if he were still interested in them. The HS counselor must have told them no, so they took my son off their list. </p>
<p>At the time, that was true. My son had decided on another school which gave him a great scholarship early. However, it was still early in the admissions process (long before May 1), and even before all the financial aid packages were sent. Ultimately things changed over the remaining time left, and my son ended up choosing another school completely. </p>
<p>To be fair, I'm not sure if the guidance counselor talked with my son about it first or not. And, ultimately, I don't think my son would have picked this particular school, so on the positive side, they could offer any merit aid to another student. But,I was a little surprised and concerned that the counselor ultimately was the one who talked to the college admissions, and that "they" determined my son was no longer interested. I would have hoped it would be a decision made with family input, especially since financial packages were not yet finalized.</p>
<p>hmmmmmmmm</p>
<p>So the current high school asking the kid what is his top choice means something fishy as he has refused to name any school top choice as all are favorable and are reach. We have to think about it .....</p>
<p>Excellent points about the pipelines. Remember, too, that it can be a two way street. I believe this is especially true for schools where there is a smaller student:guidance counselor ratio AND a good relationship with certain colleges. By two way steet, I mean that the GC can give feedback the student about how they might proceed with their apps based on feedback from their top choice school. If a GC tells a student that they might want to "hold off" on working on more apps until the ED comes in, that's a pretty good sign that the news will be good (IF this GC is very well versed in the process). The trick is that you have to know your GC well enough to know how to interpret their hints when they give them. I do believe that many "pipelined" GCs know the decision before it comes out....and in some cases they know WELL before (such as for students who are strong enough to be admitted prior to committee)</p>
<p>Regarding whether some students are admitted into schools whose level of difficulty may be higher than what they were prepared for, there are academic reaches and financial reaches. It is possible that the academic reaches are more generous with financial aid and therefore more attractive from that point of view. Schools that are less of a reach and where students would be more likely to find themselves at the top or at least in the middle rather than at the bottom, may be less affordable.<br>
That really complicates the picture, since so often, deficient academic preparation is highly correlated with lower SES. Thus, to respond to Strick's query (on a totally unscientific basis), while it might be better for a student to attend a lower tier school where s/he might excel, financially, it may be less possible.</p>
<p>Not necessarily, Chinaman, because the school's intent may be to do something positive to help admission if the student can identify a first choice. Does your son go to an elite prep school? Isn't it a school like the one Jamimom is discussing a post or 2 up? The pressures at these schools are very different than what our kids are going through, although we've gotten a little taste of it.
Which is worse - students getting accepted only to the schools they want to attend, or a few students getting accepted to all the Ivies (but can only actually attend one) while 10 other kids who otherwise would have been accepted to an Ivy from the school end up going somewhere else or each elite college just randomly picking a couple of students from the high school and nobody's happy?</p>
<p>Of course the best scenario is none of these - the GC should work each student (and particularly the strongest students, because my guess is that at these schools, legacies,athletes and URMs aside, the choices of the strongest students have big impacts on the choices of the lower half of the upper decile) to determine what type of school really fits, and apply to a range of those schools - would everybody come out happy? No probably not, but probably the largest number would be pleased, and it would be the fairest.</p>
<p>If I was an adcom, I think I would look at the elite prep schools as a place where "a lot of the work has been done for me" - these kids are pre-screened and pre-pared. If they have high GPAs and high accomplishments in ECs, that really does mean something because of the track record of the high school, I don't even have to look at SATs or APs or the essay, I know they can do the work. I just have to worry about yield - did they apply to every single Ivy and selective LAC, or does this person actually want to come to my school - and "diversity" - I could accept every senior in Andover's senior class, and be assured they would probably be successful at my school, I just don't want to take them all, how do I reconcile those things.</p>
<p>However, these is the real world we are living in - honesty is always the best policy, but honesty in negotiations doesn't mean that you begin by telling the other party everything about your position. There's nothing wrong with "this is my first choice, but I have to compare aid packages" or " I have several top picks academically, but the FA package has to play an important role in my final decision" or as my DD did when asked "there are 4 schools that are all great!"</p>
<p>Boy, the GCs at my D's school are worthless. I can't imagine her getting any of the shepherding that is mentioned above. Kids from vast public HSs don't get any personal attention from the GC and nobody is calling the GC. (I had my D make several appointments in Sept. & Oct. so at least the GC would know her name & connect a face prior top writing his evaluation!)</p>
<p>Cagel:</p>
<p>If anyone of the elite school offers a full financial aid similar to the all elite prep schools offered, my kid and I will jump to the offer. If I have the $$$$$$, my kid probably will not be applying to many schools if admission decision comes early. I rather see no EA/ED at all and apply to all the school one think they like and take the best fin aid offer. Yes I do not want my kids to take anybody's chances away from any school be it IVY or any other college. The most unfortunate part is we have play this game in order to attract the best fin aid offer. Personally I will forget HYPSM if the best financial aid offer comes from UPenn or Duke or Amhrest or similar school. </p>
<p>Yes kid has told the school by applying early to single choice but we still need to compare the best finacial aid among all the school. WE have never hide this fact from any adcom or anyone. That is why I did send my all financial data in summer, to all the colleges before even sending the application package. If school did not offer us any assurance, my kid even did not apply thier.</p>
<p>Your situation illustrates the honesty I'm talking about. YOU can't control what the GC says or implies, but you seem to have made it clear that financial aid is the most important consideration. I would hope that that would translate into the GC understanding that there is no preference, these folks need to get the best package they can get for their son.</p>
<p>I believe my D got accepted into a REACH school for her...CMU. (I hope she does not read this as I have never told her what I thought!) I breathe a sign of relief daily knowing that she was accepted there. All the others were rejections and onewait list. How did she get in? First of all, and probably foremost. was that she's a grl and I think they lower their standards to round out the class with girls. She did NOT apply early though. She had an interesting award "GIRL SCOUT" GOLD award that demonstrated she was willing to volunteer and did so for many,many years...since 2nd grade. She also attended Manhattan School of Music PREP for many many years...since 4th grade and also did the CTY Johns Hopkins Summer program for three summers. While her final SAT scores left her in the bottom 25% of admitted students for Mellon College of Science, she has always expressed an interest in the sciences and did so at CTY for her summers. In addition, she had alot of support from her teachers who wrote some outstanding rec letters...one of which was unsolicited as she singlehandedly ran a pie bake sale in her Senior Year to raise money for a foreign exchange club so that other students could share the experience that she had in Australia the summer before. So, I do think those things did it for her.....oh...and she also ranked 6th in the class and had a 3.9 GPA. I guess that helped as well. I guess you can say she's a plugger. I think some colleges look for pluggers...it rounds out the student body....they tend to be more visible on campus, more involved, and perhaps less studious...let's hope she can maintain acceptable grades. We shall see!</p>
<p>sgiovinc1, great post. This is just what I was wondering. Dedication and plugging away resulting in an admission with below median scores. Any others?</p>
<p>The Girl Scout Gold Award is a serious award, up there with Eagle Scout. Colleges know that.</p>
<p>One of my kids was accepted Early at a HYPS several years ago. He was #1 in the class,newspaper editor, musician, Governor's School participant, and involved in many academic clubs. That year two other of our students were accepted Early to the same school but they had other hooks -- #2 in the class was an athlete and the third was a champion debater. My second is a college junior and was accepted to film school which was a reach as he slacked off part of high school; we were very nervous about his being accepted. He attended a summer film program at this school so his passion for film and this school were very strong and came through loud and clear in the application. He tolerates the liberal arts courses he takes for distribution requirements but simply loves working all night in the film lab and on students' film projects.</p>