<p>2 Years ago:</p>
<p>Rejected: Air Force Academy</p>
<p>Accepted: Naval Academy, Princeton</p>
<p>A couple of years ago my child was accepted to the honors program at U of Connecticut and the University of Chicago, her first choice, but waitlisted at George Washington University.</p>
<p>The core issue here is that the LAC's and the Top 50 National Universities are hyper about fit (essay), and the State schools often cannot afford to take more than 5 minutes with an application (essay of minor importance).</p>
<p>The top State schools, with their 30,000 (most) - 60,000 (UCLA) applications, don't have the luxury of the additional time needed evaluate the personal essays, whereas Top 50 private schools most definitely do.</p>
<p>Two significant differences between CA Publics and privates:
- In CA, freshman year grades are not computed for GPA in admissions decision at the nine UCs. An applicant might have all Bs freshman year, then click in sophomore year and junior year with 3.9 unweighted. Their UC GPA will be 3.9 uw, their private school (counts all three years) gpa will be more like 3.6 uw, a world of difference.<br>
- UC admissions are mandated by Prop. 209 to be race blind (but not "environment" blind). So an URM might be admitted to a top 20 school but rejected at Berkeley, UCLA, and even the mid-tier UCs like Irvine and Davis. Tough to get into any UC other than Riverside or Merced with less than a 3.8 unweighted.</p>
<p>Across the country though, I'll wager that the essay accounts for most unexplained outcomes.</p>
<p>I know one person who got into Harvard and Williams College but was rejected from Tufts (WUSTL syndrome?).</p>
<p>Dunninla thisis not the first time I have heard this, that sometimes with the privates that the essay can be the tipping factor, where in a state school,that would never happen. I hope that is the case, as my son's essay I believe was outstanding, and could possibly make up for some of the academic blemishes in his ninth grade year.</p>
<p>Just to chime in on the UF vs BC debate - UF's admission rate may be 48%, but it's at 5% if you're from out of state. What's BCs out of state admission rate?</p>
<p>BC is a private school. In-state residency has nothing to do with admissions, unless they want to diversify student body which is another totally different issue.</p>
<p>Well then, a 5% admissions rate certainly trumps a 28% rate. It is unlikely that the fellow who was accepted into BC would have been accepted to UF.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that he would want to go to UF in the first place.</p>
<p>Well, by his reasoning a more selective admission rate indicated the superior school, so perhaps he might. Btw, St Johns College with a 80% admission rate produces many more PhDs than BC which appears no where on the undergrad PhD productivity lists </p>
<p>Neither does Harvard. Are you saying that Harvard=UF? no.</p>
<p>I was talking about St John's College being a superior school with a very high 80% admission rate as measured by PhD productivity - neither Harvard, BC or UF appear on the top ten lists.</p>
<p>How does PhD production equal superior school? That school caters to a specific crowd whose passion lies in academia. MCPHS has extremely high number of students joining the healthcare industry, does that mean its education is highly value for those who want to be doctor trumping schools like John Hopkins? I love St. John (considered applying at one point) but comparing to St. John to conventional universities and colleges is like comparing chicken and with duck. If I want to study finance, St. John wouldn't even be in the ball park.</p>
<p>Also:
"Well then, a 5% admissions rate certainly trumps a 28% rate. It is unlikely that the fellow who was accepted into BC would have been accepted to UF."</p>
<p>This is an uninformed statement. Chicago has some very high admission rate, but its student quality is vastly superior to schools who share similar number. Admission percentage does not tell you how selective that school is. The SAT/ACT numbers are what give you the relative academic caliber and competitiveness of the school, and NOT admission number. A student who scores 29 on the ACT range (75th percentile for UF making it his match/safety) would consider BC (28-32) as a match/reach. Furthermore, you might forgetting the Florida law that mandates state schools to admit more local student than outer-state students. Their justification is simple: what Floridians would want to subsidize outer-state students inexpensive college education? Florida is in the process of amending its Constitution to limit property tax. Public schools and universities will be strapped for cash. I suspect more outer-state students will be admitted and to give a cash boost. No doubt UF will be an elite public institution of the future giving Michigan, UVA, and UCs a run for their money, but at the moment it's still rising.</p>
<p>sorry but speaking in terms of academics and reputation, bc>uf. the rankings too speak for themselves.</p>
<p>Well, it's funny you put it that way - that a school that caters to people with a passion for academia who can succeed at a PhD level would not be a superior school by that definition. I can't think of a better definition frankly. </p>
<p>And, why would a school that has a good finance program be a better school than St John's, except for in the area of finance? What is impressive about st John's is their high acceptance rate coupled with the amount of PhDs they produce - top 10 in Humanities, Foreign Languages, Political Science, Math & Computer Sciences, Area & Ethnic Studies, Linguistics and English Literature. </p>
<p>I believe this is a much better judge of a school's superority to educate and inspire their students than a selective admissions rate.</p>
<p>the title of this thread just irks me...what does "superior" mean? When phrases like that are used, it upsets me....You couldn't have paid my D enough money to go to a school with "tech" in their title...no matter how "superior" they were to some</p>
<p>Rankings are suspect themselves, and again, St John's is a great example. USNWR rates St Johns as a third tier school. If you wanted to go to grad school in any of the areas I've listed above, St John's would be a pretty good bet - certainly much better than BC.</p>
<p>Btw, the reason they dropped from first tier to third tier is believed to be the fact that they won't cooperate with USWNR regarding their requests for infomation.</p>
<p>Superior in what regard? Every school's primary mission is to education. Education is a tool to serve the students. What the students do what the tool is up to the individual. There is no doubt St. John's equips its students with ability to perform extremely well in PhD programs. But not all (I doubt that it's even 5%) students attend college with the intention of getting a PhD. I'm majoring in philosophy and appreciate the great range a humanity education can bring. But I wouldn't call my education as superior to someone who wants to go to college to further ambition different from my own. St. John's students' ambition is to further the knowledge of mankind, and that is admirable, but it doesn't make their education "superior" to an individual who wants to go to WPI to study engineering and end the our dependency on fossil fuels.</p>
<p>"why would a school that has a good finance program be a better school than St John's, except for in the area of finance?"</p>
<p>Let me switch the question around, ""why would a school that has a good liberal art program be a better school than a school that offers business programs, except for in the area of liberal art?"</p>
<p>P.S. MattsMomFL, why do you have a need to put down BC? Did your child get rejected or something?</p>
<p>"If you wanted to go to grad school in any of the areas I've listed above, St John's would be a pretty good bet - certainly much better than BC."
This is uninformed statement at its worst. First, what make you assumed BC student who want pursue PhD are any worse off than a student from St.John's. Where's the evidence for this? Second, not all BC students WANT to pursue graduate study in the Humanity. If there was a survey that proclaimed 95% of BC students want to pursue grad study in humanities, but only a fifth could get in, then you would have a case. But what you are saying really does not exist. If you want to criticize BC, please do, but do it objectively. I'm a BC student and we are not perfect, but at least I didn't portray other schools in negative light unless there are empirical data to support. And frankly, I don't want to portray any school in negative light unless it's down right fraudulent. All schools have strength and weakness, it's not appropriate to deal only with the negatives while neglecting the positives. And even when dealing with the negatives, they have to be objectively valid, and not what we think (or wish to be) true.</p>
<p>MattsMom, the reason why St John's is so highly regarded in terms of PhD production is a reflection of its students wishes, not a reflection of the school's ability to send kids to grad school. If a kid from BC with similar grades and work/internship experience as a kid from St. John's applied to a physics PhD, he would have just as good a shot, if not better. What we are discussing here, is an undergraduates school's selectivity, and in this case UF against BC. The fact that UF has a much lower acceptance rate for out of staters only supports the evidence that the UF system caters to its state's citizens. Test score ranges and acceptance rates point to BC as the much more selective schools, as do rankings consistently every year. To discuss the ability of test scores as a gauge of a student body's "relative intelligence" is a totally different story, as is the accuracy of college rankings.</p>