<p>I don’t know about “bored with,” but I do think it’s possible a kid could get rejected for some capricious reason, or because of a misreading of something in an essay. We’ve discussed here before (somewhere) an NPR story about admissions at some selective school (Wesleyan?) in which the admissions committee rejected a kid in part because his essay said that he’d never really been interested in any subject until he discovered music. They wanted kids who were interested in lots of topics. I thought that was an awful lot of weight to put on a statement by a 17-year-old–an identical kid with just a bit better adult review of his essay might have said, “I’m fascinated by many topics, but I found my greatest passion when I discovered music.” The possibility of that kind of thing affecting decisions is what makes me think that everybody needs a plan B (and C), even if you think you are an automatic admit somewhere.</p>
<p>S’s school had 27 apply and 5 got in to H this year, a public school in MA. I think all of them are so similar in a way that the few others who are in the applicant pool who didn’t get in are not. They are all well rounded, was in the top 10%. Students who got rejected on the other hand have stellar academic reconds (more if not less)as compared to the accpeted students have but are not well rounded as they are. Similar case from where I work.</p>
<p>Hunt, Ime, there is solid effort not to “misunderstand.” An understanding these are kids. Unfortunately, some kids make some odd or unformed or uninformed perspective very obvious. It’s not as simple as any one media report that they liked or didn’t some chicken nuggets essay. Many kids are used to hs teachers using their knowledge of the kid or their confidence in him, to interpret (what I call “Oh, I know Bobby doesn’t really want to kill his brother; he’s just trying some humor.”) Adcoms don’t have that perspective. And, it’s your college app. Why tell them you are bored with other subjects?</p>
<p>One more thing, there is a generel consciousness that it is hard to get ito H and M if they are in a neighboring district in and around Boston-generally strong applicant pool and geographical diversity…</p>
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Maybe because some well-meaning person told him his essay should demonstrate his “passion.”</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that the process, while somewhat predictable across a lot of applicants, can still be capricious. It could be that the admissions person reading your application was bullied by a person named O’Malley. If that’s your name, he might dislike you, even if unconsciously. So have a backup plan.</p>
<p>Agree with everything Hunt says (as usual).</p>
<p>When my mother was on a medical school admissions committee, she used to say your result might turn on a reader’s digestive condition on the morning he reads your file. So don’t count on anything.</p>
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BLS is truly an exception in that it’s very much like a feeder school of Harvard. For students in most other high schools, even the strongest shouldn’t target one college, or <em>think</em> in terms of one’s chance of getting in Harvard. Instead one should evaluate their chances of getting in at least one of a group of colleges with similar selectivity. Even if you are an expert shooter, you want to have 5 bullets instead of 1 and consider it success if you get one of the super-hard-to-get moving targets. Of course, if you are less than an expert shooter, 5 or more chances won’t help you by much. You should still give it a try but you’d better choose an easier to get target as well.</p>
<p>We tell kids all the time not to test their college app readers. If they don’t get it, they don’t get it. In short, “that says something.” I read an extremely gross essay this season- awful. Unlike the real world, I couldn’t change the channel. But the kid made a point and, as we consider the whole, what he did write was part of showing his perspective, which was, in the end, balanced and effective. All the reviewers thought he accomplished his purpose. Personal feelings come into play, of course. But it is possible to distance yourself- it is critical to.</p>
<p>We all have particulars we like- but this isn’t about “me,” it’s about the needs of the U, the standards they hope to maintain. And how the kid presents his “whole.” If they can’t, considering the vast number of qualified kids who do, well…</p>
<p>If you can’t, the issue may- or may not- be resolved by having a B or C choice. Unless the alternatives have considerably lower expectations and competition.</p>
<p>I’d like to ask about a hypothetical situation: Suppose that an applicant is generally in the range that admission to H, Y, or P is a realistic possibility: e.g., unweighted GPA close to or at 4.0, multiple AP courses, multiple 5’s, SAT I of 2300+, SAT II of 2300+ for 3 exams, strong EC’s with some significant accomplishments (e.g., state-level recognition, but not national-level). Suppose also that the applicant writes a good essay, but it’s not a Pulitzer-Prize-winning essay. The student’s recommendations are enthusiastic. No hooks, no legacy. So the student might get in. Yet the student’s application is not in the knock-your-socks off category.</p>
<p>Are there any advantages for such a student in applying SCEA to a particular one of H, Y, or P?
Are there any patterns of strength that would make admission at a particular one of H, Y, or P more probable?</p>
<p>I am interested in the split of opinion on these questions. I think that if the student is essentially equally interested in P and another school in the same general category, it might be advisable to apply SCEA to P, because interest specifically matters to them. I think that a STEM applicant might have slightly better odds at Y. Of course, if this causes a pile-up of applicants at P or Y, it could shift the odds.</p>
<p>There is another point of view that says that there is truly no advantage in applying SCEA–the somewhat higher raw odds of admission merely reflect the strength of the SCEA pools.</p>
<p>There is another point of view that says that H, Y, and P are sufficiently different from each other that an applicant would fit best at one of them, over the others, and could determine that by fall of the senior year.</p>
<p>There is another point of view that would suggest that the student instead select a really good university with raw odds of admission that are about 3 times higher, skip most of the drama and madness, and never look back.</p>
<p>I have not included M, S, or C (any of the C’s) in the list, for different reasons. I suspect that a student for whom Caltech is the best choice probably knows that by fall of senior year. I personally would <em>not</em> advise an applicant (as above) in the “quite-strong-but-not-knock-your-socks-off” category to apply SCEA to Stanford, having watched their admissions pattern over the years.</p>
<p>I’d say – sure, why not? But don’t get so hung up on HYP that you act as though there are really meaningful differences between them and other “really good universities with raw odds of admission that are about 3 times higher.” BTW, applying to places with 15-20% admission ratesisn’t really “skipping” any drama or madness, IMO. Either way – you’ve got to just gird yourself that nothing is a sure bet.</p>
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<p>I don’t think any one of us, individually, can observe enough students to draw too many conclusions. I think this is like the elephant here - we all can see / feel only a limited area. What any one of us – mostly upper middle class, observing kids in “good” public or private schools – see isn’t really the full picture that the adcoms see and deal with.</p>
<p>The optimal set of schools one applies to depends not only your chance of getting in to each school but the correlation of the schools’ decisions. If you would be happy to attend Harvard or Yale but prefer Yale, the value of applying to Harvard decreases with the correlation of Harvard and Yale decisions. In the extreme case where the correlation is 100% (you are either accepted or rejected by both), you should not apply to Harvard even if you have a decent shot of getting in. I don’t know if data exists to make useful estimates of admissions decisions correlations.</p>
<p>The justice department pretty much eliminated Harvard and Yale’s ability to collude on their admissions practices, so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the Adcom’s at H and Y do not have “correlated” decisions, except that both are drawing from the same pool of talented kids. The decisions themselves are statistically independent, even though we all know kids who were accepted to both and denied at both. The presence of those kids in the sample does not mean the decisions are correlated.</p>
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<p>Moreover, these are – wait for it – PEOPLE making these decisions, not robots. So it’s pretty much a “duh” that a kid could be interesting to H but not to Y or vice versa. Or (gasp) if you did it all over again and H re-did their admissions de novo, the kid wouldn’t get in. There is simply too much attempt on these boards to try to winnow human things down to predictable factors in a Sheldon-Cooper-ish attempt to predict the future.</p>
<p>I think some of these questions are worthwhile, because there are probably quite a few families on CC thinking about things like this. To respond to some of QM’s points:
I think the only advantage would be if the student has a strong preference for one of them–if he gets in, he’s done. I haven’t seen much evidence that it helps in admission, but it might.
Other than living near one of them, or legacy, I can’t really think what it would be.
I don’t believe either of these things would make a significant difference at these schools. Their applicant pools are just too similar.
I think this is probably true, except possibly for legacies.
I agree with this, and if a student is a strong candidate for these schools, a visit might help. They do have a different vibe, and there are some programmatic differences, too.
Well, I think this can be really good advice for the early phase–if you have an acceptance in hand from a good school, it has to reduce the drama and madness of the RD phase.</p>
<p>On behalf of the Sheldon Coopers of the world, I have the sneaking suspicion that your last remark is pejorative, Pizzagirl (#umbrage).</p>
<p>Not relevant to us, but do you think that if a legacy student does not apply SCEA at the legacy school, it reduces the RD chances there?</p>
<p>Also, re Pizzagirl’s post #190–I think PG’s family did skip out on the madness, although perhaps not on most of the drama.</p>
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This is what the lore declares at some selective schools. Whether it’s really true, who knows? This is the kind of thing the school is not going to tell anybody.</p>
<p>As Hunt pointed out, these schools have very similar applicant pools. And because they all want to build well-balanced classes, they won’t just accept one type of students. There might be some subtle differences in their understanding of “well-balanced” but the impact to individual applicants would be even more minimal. That said, within one high school if there are many students admitted to these colleges, you may see some pattern over years, mainly because by law they can’t “collaborate” but they don’t want to “fight over” the same students from the same school either. Over time, they might be able to figure out the “type” of students other schools may have a better change yielding. So SCEA may be an effective way of showing true interest to one of them.</p>