<p>I know schools like WashU are known for waitlisting/rejecting overqualified applicants who do not show demonstrated interest in order to increase their yield rate to help their ranking. Am I just bitter from being waitlisted, or is there any truth to my hypothesis that Northwestern chooses not to accept overqualified applicants to protect their yield rate and ranking?</p>
<p>In my own case I feel like I was a victim, having been accepted by UChicago (and received a LL from Duke) - both of which are generally regarded as more competitive. Furthermore on the results threads, I saw students who were rejected from Duke ED or Waitlisted/Rejected by Chicago were accepted by Northwestern (congratulations to those who did, don't mean to sound spiteful) while I saw some Chicago Acceptees rejected by NU. I wouldn't normally be worried as I already have good options, but with March 29th decisions coming soon, I'm not sure what to think.</p>
<p>What do you guys think or what have you heard about this matter?</p>
<p>I don’t know - I was one of the people who got waitlisted at UChicago but got into Northwestern (you can check another post for my stats, I don’t think I was overqualified for either school IMO)</p>
<p>I really don’t think you should be worrying though if you already got into UChicago and Duke. Those are really awesome schools.</p>
<p>It certainly happens; just as with all aspects of the college admissions process, we can’t really be certain about anything… I feel your pain though- I was waitlisted also, and I’m not sure what that says about my prospects for the 29th…</p>
<p>Just for some reference stats- 2400 SAT (1 sitting); 3x800 SAT-IIs, 4.0 GPA unweighted, 2 varsity sports, and loads of extracurriculars/volunteering/leadership. I was pretty surprised to see “We are unable to offer you a place in the freshman class at Northwestern”</p>
<p>I may be iffy on one of the recommendation letters I sent to Northwestern; I didn’t send the same to every school… If that’s the issue though, then I may not be getting into very many of the schools I will be hearing back from on the 29th…</p>
<p>If you feel you didn’t demonstrate interest I’m guessing that may have had an impact. Obviously plenty of people with perfect stats are admitted, so I suspect being too qualified is not the issue. Schools on NUs level could fill their entire class with near-perfect stats, but they look at more than that to build a class.</p>
<p>Best of luck!! You have obviously worked hard and will land in a great place… hopefully NU!</p>
<p>I was waitlisted however I think this is because I applied for HPME and didn’t get in (though I was invited to an interview). Last year, nearly all HPME applicants who didn’t get into the program were waitlisted from NU, probably because admissions assumes that’s the main reason we want to come- mostly true, in my case. I plan to give up my spot on the waitlist and hopefully someone who really wanted to attend can get in :)</p>
<p>This comes up with just about every school. I am shocked at who was not accepted at Lehigh and Colorado COllege, just to name a few. My nephew last year was WL at Gettysburg and Fordham, got into more select schools. Any time you focus on a relatively select school you can come up with a number of these situations. It is possible that all of these schools do this, but every admissions person and person who worked in admissions but doesn’t any more denies that overqualification is an issue. They all say it is an intense search for the absolute best candidates and they cannot get them if they start speculating that those candidates might go elsewhere.</p>
<p>The other evidence that is against all of this, is that every year there are a number of kids at my kids’ schools that get into all of their schools, from NW, to WUSL to TUfts, to HPY. If those school didn’t think those kids were overqualified, they’d be out of their minds and in every situation, their "safety’ school KNEW they were applying to HPY. My friend’s son at the Dartmouth interview told the interviewer he was already accepted to Harvard early (back 10 years or so) and still was accepted by D and a number of other schools AFTER his Harvard acceptance.</p>
<p>i got waitlisted at both wash u st louis and northwestern. such results are making me confused, to say the least. i didn’t demonstrate any interest in wash u but i did visit NU campus (i do like NU a lot even though it’s not my top choice).
oh well. hopefully the “overqualify” theory is right. or rather, this whole process is all just random…</p>
<p>Chicago, Duke, and NU are all very competitive schools with less than 20% acceptance rates. Since admissions officers across these schools look for different qualities in applicants, don’t have the same viewpoints, and don’t necessarily see the same information for each applicant, it makes total sense that some students are going to be accepted by Chicago and rejected by NU, even if the former is a bit more selective overall.</p>
<p>However, no one really knows what’s happening in admissions offices. Yield protection could be occurring, but then again, maybe it’s not. In my opinion, at the level of NU, it’s probably not occurring that much. They do take applicant interest into account, which in a way is yield protection, but every school does that, including Harvard. If you want to attend other institutions more than NU, that might have been reflected in your essays, which is why you got rejected.</p>
<p>NU’s real yield protection lies in its ED policy. Lately, NU has been accepting many more students each year with ED, artificially increasing yield and decreasing their admit rate. This also has the side effect of making the RD admission rate abnormally low.</p>
<p>I actually think it does. I received likely letters from Yale and three other Ivies, but just got rejected from Northwestern…(confused sigh)…and I’m pretty sure I showed genuine interest in my application.</p>
<p>Yeah, honestly I don’t think “Tufts Syndrome” is very prominent in schools other than the obvious ones. I mean sure it’s bound to happen at least somewhat in most schools, but I really don’t think Northwestern is a school which would reject students because they are “overqualified.” No student is overqualified for any of the top schools and anyone who thinks they are really needs to take it down a notch. Several students were accepted to NU and waitlisted at UChicago and several were accepted to UChicago and waitlisted to NU. It all depends on what the school is looking for.</p>
<p>This once again proves that numbers are not everything! Schools have different personalities and are looking for different types of students. It always amazes me that a student feels U Chicago and NU are both the right places for him/her. They are so different in so many ways. It’s like kids who apply to Princeton and Brown - both Ivy League schools and both such different schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think they discriminate necessarily – I also received a Yale/Columbia likely and I got in. I never visited Northwestern nor had an interview, so I could only demonstrate interest in my Northwestern supplement. It just goes to show how difficult it is to read into college admissions…there just doesn’t seem to be much rhyme and reason to it all.</p>
<p>Likewise, the main similarity among Northwestern, UC and Wash U is the region. If you want a good fit for your four year stay, especially if you are qualified academically for any of these schools, then apply more broadly - nationally - and you will receive more acceptances to highly ranked schools.</p>
<p>It is a process and incredibly difficult for any 18 year old and/or his parent to figure out. But if you can at least visit the school, or call the schools (some of these schools get over 200 calls a day. Don’t be intimidated!!) and show more interest in your essays, then you will probably be in a better position to make the final cut.</p>
<p>I got into NU, but rejected from UCLA too. My numbers (GPA and SAT scores) were pretty average compared to a lot of people on here, but it goes to show that other factors (personality, interest in the university) count for something as well.</p>
<p>I think it just depends on what a school looks for. I feel like NU looks for a little more laid back students and focus a lot more on ECs and demonstrated interest, while UChicago focuses a lot more on academics because they want to make sure the people they accept can handle UChicago’s curriculum and such. Thus, you get people accepted into generally more competitive schools (based on statistics), yet rejected from slightly less competitive ones. Remember, these schools want to only accept students that they believe will fit, enjoy the University, and drive their retention rate up.</p>