I’ve heard rumors that Lehigh tends to reject overqualified candidates who apply RD and are well above the average SAT and GPA requirements, as admissions officers tend to think that these students are using Lehigh as a safety. For example, a year ago, one student from my school got into 7/8 Ivy Leagues but was rejected from Lehigh, another girl got into Cornell and was still rejected. I’ve heard many more stories.
Do you think this has any validity? Is there a way of getting around it?
They do reject overqualified candidates who do not show interest. Be sure that you visit campus, or attend if an admissions officer visits your school.
They know from experience that students that didn’t do those things are not really going to attend, so there is no reason to accept them.
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That is true for most colleges in the 20-60 range of USNews rankings. Colleges are good at sniffing out those using them as safeties.
But for the record, I doubt they are "overqualified ". They may be in the top 25% stats wise which is only that, not too qualified for the school. They also may not be bringing anything other than stats to a school that values community.
But yes, as mentioned above, they also want to know you are genuinely interested, and if they sense your application is not serious (as in, only if my top 15 schools fall through ), you may be rejected.
It is commonly suspected that this practice exists. It looks better for schools to have a lower acceptance rate. And if you want to minimize the number of acceptances, there is no point in “wasting” acceptances on applicants that seem unlikely to attend.
But nobody outside of the admissions offices knows for sure. No school is going to publicly announce: “Why yes, we routinely reject super-qualified applicants in order to minimize our acceptance rate”.
If this practice exists, then the only defense is to show interest. The ultimate way to show interest is to apply ED. You can’t use a school as a safety if you commit to attending via the ED process.
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Short answer is, yes. Common practice in college admissions… as TomSrOfBoston said… especially among 20-60 schools who have to protect their brand. But, don’t blame them, blame US News and World Reports Rankings… and all of those of you who worship at that altar.
If you have superior stats, top 5% of admitted students, then showing interest is a must.
I visited campus, went to an open house and sat in on classes, and went to an on-campus interview. Do you think this is enough? Or should I try to go again or maybe send my admissions officer an email? @TomSrOfBoston
That seems to show sufficient interest.
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There was a sad case a couple years ago here on the Lehigh CC site. A boy with excellent grades and scores did not get accepted because there were no documented visits… The sad part was he was visiting - staying overnight many weekends with his buddy from home that already went to Lehigh. He had never bothered to register for a visit with the admissions office or mention in his essays he was visiting the campus regularly. I believe there is a question about why do you want to go to Lehigh. I would have thought the student would have mentioned his best friend was already attending and he was staying on campus regularly and Lehigh was his top choice - which all came out on CC after he was rejected.
I have friend’s who have their children apply to 15 - 20 schools. Of course, they haven’t visited most of the schools. And one friend sent her son to a wonderful private school without visiting. He transferred out after the first semester because he didn’t feel like he fit in.
On their website they release statistics on percentage of students accepted based on test scores.
Last year, Lehigh accepted a higher percentage of students who scored between 1400-1490 than in the 1500-1600 range on the SAT. To some extent, I think this indicates that they’re purposefully rejecting qualified students.
@AnthonyZ ,
That is a pretty interesting link you have provided. Thanks!
Ok, here is my opinion of the admissions. (Keep in mind I am just a mom of a Lehigh grad.) Since Lehigh is a smaller school the admissions officers goal is obviously not to just stack the school with the highest test scores. They are creating a little “eco-system” for the class of 2021. They have a whole variety of goals they want to meet to keep the school “in balance”. And no one really knows what they are exactly what they are but you can do some basic guessing and here are list of some of my guesses and in no way by order of importance!!! There is only a certain number of spots available for each major, each college. So then they have goals trying to get a wide variety of kids from around the country and the world. Then they want to have it balanced by gender. Then they need their athletes to fill the NCAA football and basketball teams and of course all the others - some of these athletes might have lower tests scores than someone applying solely on their academic strength to become say, an engineer. Recruited athletes may be applying ED and are given scholarships. So recruiting athletes can muddy up the statistics when you have such a small pool of admissions. And the school needs students to play in the marching band, work of the school newspaper, yearbook and a whole host of very necessary activities that keep the school an interesting place to be.
So smaller schools actually need to look at more than a students ACT or SAT score when admitting them. And from your thread is is apparent Lehigh looks beyond just your test score. When dealing with a smaller pool of applicants they have the time to look over your application and see you as a person and what additional skills and talents you can bring to Lehigh. I think that is a good thing Lehigh values more than your test score!
Here is a link that is featured at the top of Lehigh’s CC page. It is an old thread but a good one.
Thoughts of “Chances”
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/lehigh-university/763789-thoughts-on-chances.html#latest
Anthony, Best of luck to you in your college search! Keep us posted of your progress!
@AnthonyZ Lehigh is denying acceptance to highly qualified students who were using Lehigh as a safety school and likely showed no interest.
@TomSrOfBoston to what extent does one need to show interest? Under references in the common app I listed an admissions visit, the names of 4 students, the name of 1 professor, and a sporting event. I’m guessing that is showing a true interest in Lehigh?
Did you officially register for campus visit?
In my case, they do tend to reject “overqualified” students. I was top 5% in my class with a SAT of 2030. Visited and toured the campus twice, and in the end, got waitlisted. I was then rejected at the end. I tried to show more interest in the waitlist period by touring it again and sent them other supplemental material, but this didn’t help. It was a shame because I did really want to go, but I decided to go to Drexel instead and have no regrets. Go Dragons!
Not sure whether the opinion of Lehigh rejecting overqualified applicants is correct. I know of an applicant with near perfect SAT, 14 APs, straight As with solid leadership positions with no documented visits being admitted to IBE honors program, which targets incoming freshmen class size of 50. Extremely selective program.
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@AnthonyZ That’s a possible interpretation, but there is another one that should be considered.
The acceptance rates shown on the linked page are actually very close:
32.1 % SAT 1500 - 1600 or ACT 34-36
32.6 % SAT 1400 - 1490 or ACT 32-33
So it’s true that the acceptance rate is slightly higher for those with lower scores, and this does seem counter-intuitive. But it may not be a straightforward comparison. Note that Lehigh (like many schools) makes heavy use of ED; the same page shows that Lehigh actually filled a majority of the class (52%) by ED. And the CDS shows that the ED acceptance rate was 59.9%. By subtracting out the ED numbers, we can infer that the RD acceptance rate was much lower, at only 22.1%. So differences in the ratios of ED vs. RD applicants could have big effects on the overall acceptance rate.
It wouldn’t surprise me if applicants with 32-33 ACT are more uncertain about their chances at Lehigh, and are therefore more likely to apply via ED. If so, then their overall acceptance rate would be inflated by the high ED rate.
Conversely, it wouldn’t surprise me if applicants with 34+ ACT are more likely to take their ED shots at higher-ranked schools, meaning that they are more likely to apply to Lehigh via RD. If so, then their overall acceptance rate would be deflated by the lower RD rate.
So the posted data aren’t definitive. We would need a further breakdown, showing not just acceptance rate by test scores, but with separate ED and RD rates. To my knowledge, such data are not publicly available.
Alum here. Lehigh’s a solid “above average largely because wealthy” school. Well-prepped students, some of them really bright, most of them pretty ordinary kids with serious bucks behind them. It’s never been a place of intellectual ferment, exactly. The culture’s changing but still quite bro-centered – but these are bros who’ll do well. I used to call it Captain of Industry school, though that might be a bit of a reach. Lieutenant of Industry school is probably more like it. You’ll still have a nice house when you’re 45.
The main thing I’d worry about now if I were applying to Lehigh is the alumni network, which used to be great because it was thousands and thousands of essentially the same guy. So if you were that guy, you were in, you had friends. Lehigh didn’t start letting women in till 1972, and when I was there in the 80s there were only about a dozen or so students of color. Women were still only about 1/3 of the undergrads. It’s taken about 40 years for something like gender parity to emerge in numbers and…almost in the culture. It’s still very “lib arts are for girls and suck; life is money.” Anyway - the alumni are a thing to consider, because part of what you’re buying with your insanely large investment is access to that network. And the great majority are right-leaning/libertarian white men, with the racism and misogyny much more pronounced as you trend older.
I think that in, say, 25-30 years, the picture will be different. But for now, if you’re thinking ahead to how the alumni network would benefit you, I’d suggest…actually, if you’re looking at private schools, look at the board of trustees. That will tell you something about who and what are really running the show there. But also take a look at the student-body composition in 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970. This will tell you something about who’s there to help you after you graduate, and whether they’re really likely to give you in particular a hand.
*used to be great = used to be great if you were that standard guy. Definitely not great for anyone else.