After getting rejected at JHU and Northwestern, do these decisions affect my chances at similar acceptance rate institutions like Cornell and Dartmouth? As in is it fair to say that if I didn’t get in JHU and Northwestern I wont get into Dartmouth and Cornell? or those colleges different enough were it is still a toss-up?
Hi, I too am currently a senior and also got rejected from Swarthmore, JHU and NU. How does this affect my chances of getting into Berkeley and ivies like Columbia, Penn and Brown? I thought I was a competitive applicant (34 ACT and 3.89 uw GPA and an IB diploma candidate) but it looks like the competition at my school and the 3 Bs I got first semester of senior year may be harming me more than I thought. I am really feeling anxious now for the rest of my college results.
Each college reviews applications independently. However if there are concrete reasons why those schools rejected you (ex. lower than average GPA, standardized tests) then those same factors will be present in the review of your applications by other competitive schools.
@optimisticlol we have ironically similar stats. I too have a 34 ACT and similar situation with 2 B’s in senior year. My GPA is weird so idk how I compare that way cause my school has a college grading system. Berkeley should be fine I got in regents so you should get in regular
No, there’s no effect.
@optimisticlol I can’t believe our stats are so similar! I also have 34 ACT, got rejected from JHU and NU, waiting on Berkeley, Columbia, Brown, and Penn, 3 B’s first semester senior year, AND 3.89 uw GPA. Wish you the best 
No. My son got into Stanford, CalTech and UVa but got rejected from NU. You’ll get into a school that fits you. Good luck
Link may give you help in an area in need of improvement, and increase your chance of successful applications: https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/affect-effect/
@nugraddad
The OP used the correct word. Affect is a verb; effect is a noun.
@ANormalSeniorGuy
One college decision won’t directly affect another, but there might be something in your file that may lead to a similar result (such as low GPA or test scores). You should keep a positive mindset as you’ll get accepted where it is the best fit.
What @happy1 said. Also, these are all effectively lottery schools, with admit rates maybe in the low teens. They’re a crapshoot regardless, and your stats, while good, don’t make you exceptional for their applicant pool. So really there’s no way to tell. Hopefully you’ve each applied broadly enough that you’ll have good options regardless. (I see Berkeley in the mix for OP, yes? Nice option to have!)
@Meganerd2012 - I do not want to derail the OP. However, the OP did not use the correct word in the title. Please view: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/affect-vs-effect/
BTW - If there are any other comments about my post, or effect vs affect, PLEASE PM me - so we do NOT derail the OP! Thanks.
@porcupine98 That is great advice! I was accepted early to Berkeley and have gotten a regents interview, but i have had a recent string of bad luck with college acceptances of the privates. You can see into my profile that I have done a chance thread and so you can see my stats there for better reference, it is mostly the same. Do you think there is an idea of a student better for Public applications vs. Private applications? As a majority of my public schools accepted me but so far a majority of my private schools rejected me.
No, college decisions will not have an impact on others in the future.
good luck
There is no such thing as a student better for a public school than a private school. As noted elsewhere, all of the schools you have mentioned are super competitive so no matter how good your application is, you can’t bank on an acceptance. I’m glad you have Berkeley acceptance in hand already so really any other acceptances should be considered a bonus.
Well, some admissions processes are more “holistic” than others, so it’s possible that an application with strong stats and not-as-strong ECs (or vice versa) might generally fare better in one quest than another, but I’m not saying that’s the case for you. Sometimes it’s just luck of the draw.
And I promise you won’t even care about this a few months from now. You’re going to be off an a new adventure. It’s all good. Congratulations!
No school decision affects any other school’s decision. To the extent that acceptance to (or rejection at) X can have a predictive effect on acceptance/rejection at Y (I guess this might be called predicting cross-admits, or cross-rejections, or cross-waitlists?), well, that’s another question, and one probably for a statistician. In the absence of that objective data, I would say no. All decisions will be in soon enough, but I understand the stress and the grasping for any kind of data while waiting.
I owe @ANormalSeniorGuy an apology for my original comment on this thread. Not for the content, but for the timing of my comment within the application process - and now I realize what @redpoodles meant with their “wrong time” and “WRONG TIME” comment, thanks to a couple of explanatory back-channel PMs from @menloparkmom.
I regret not realizing where kids are in the application cycle. My last kid to apply RD was in 2004, my youngest applied ED in 2012, so I have not been focused on the application cycle. I regret not realizing that kids are just now waiting for results - not putting in other applications, and I regret not realizing that before I posted my comment. So even though my original comment was well intentioned and not snark, I apologize @ANormalSeniorGuy for any angst that I may have caused or exacerbated, and hopefully stupidity as opposed to meanness as a cause makes you feel a little bit better.
Please make any comments via PM so that we do not again hijack the original thread.