<p>The premise to this thread is false – there is no such thing as an over-qualified student for NU. </p>
<p>It is fair to say that they take a holistic approach to admission, so that Grades/SAT-ACT is not the only factor. It’s even fairer to say that no one knows exactly what they do. But thousands of students with 1500+ CR+M get rejected every year.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, different schools don’t necessarily evaluate the same candidates the same way.</p>
<p>I think when the OP says “over-qualified” he means students who are more likely to be accepted to higher tier schools like hypsm, columbia, etc. And on this thread we’ve already seen multiple cases of that. Northwestern wants to accept those who are most likely to go there (to increase yield/ranking) in the same way WUSTL does, and so they may in fact reject “over qualified” kids who they know wont go there. Some may call this “good fit.” On a separate note comparing academics between duke and northwestern is unfair because duke takes in a lot more athletes than northwestern which brings down the average. But in general, duke has similar if not better academic reputation and objectively higher selectivity. That is why it is surprising for so many duke ed rejects to gain admission to northwestern. However, I might just be sour grapes because im in same position as op.</p>
<p>^“Objectively more selective” On what metric? You just said they have lower scores.</p>
<p>Duke has 26 athletic teams compared to NU’s 19. Duke also has about 6000 more undergrads. So the numbers being roughly the same balances out- “substantially more athletes” is misleading both because as a proportion NU admits MORE, and because NU’s academic standards for athletes are actually substantially higher than Duke’s.</p>
<p>I’m glad to see so many people on here are upset about their decisions (in that they card about NU), but the desire to denigrate that which rejected you is a childish impulse and is hurtful to those who are excited about their admissions.</p>
<p>Guys, we need a reality check here. This is Northwestern. I will repeat it again. This. Is. Northwestern. I agree that it is no HYPSM. But it isn’t a slouch either. In fact, it’s comparable to the lower ranked ivies. Any university that has an admission rate below 20% (I think for the class of 2016 it is ~14%) does not reject overqualified applicants. They’re simply looking for people that will fit in. I consider myself an “overqualified” applicant (it’s such an ambiguous term anyways. What criterion constitutes overqualified?) with a likely from Stanford and offers from the London School of Economics and UCL. I got accepted.</p>
<p>The only advice I would give is to listen to your OWN advice. You consider yourself “overqualified” right? Then by the merits of your own criterion you believe yourself to be able to gain an admittance into a top college. Believe in what you say and don’t level the blame at any institution. It doesn’t do any of us good.</p>
<p>This year several schools increased ED acceptances, lowered RD acceptances and increased their wait lists. It is very obvious they are jockeying for position on the next US News ranking. WashU & NU have actively tried to increase the number of applicants. I am sure they can pick an equally qualified pool of students from 25K applicants as 32K. All those extra app fees results in a revenue source for the schools.</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>I was accepted by both WUSTL and NU.</p>
<p>After some posts there about WUSTL waitlisting overqualified students I went to the Class of 2015 admissions result thread. And I checked where those people waitlisted ended up.</p>
<p>I found that while there was some WASHU waitlisted candidates who ended up at higher ranked schools, many others ended at lower ranked schools.</p>
<p>If you are concerned about NU my suggestion is to go to the NU 2015 decisions thread and look where those people who are admitted/rejected ended up.</p>
<p>Lastly, I concur that because admissions are so competitive, there is a degree of randomness. So say how many people with 2300+ SAT, 3.9+ GPA, some leadership position and some volunteer ECs from state X is NU supposed to accept?</p>
<p>Also, looking at some of the posts, it seems to me that many people do the same plain vanilla ECs: violine/piano, member of the schools’ X, Y, and Z club (which half of your class is half a member, BTW), one travel outside the U.S. for 15 days… On the other hand, some other people have more distinct ECs: actually lived/went to school outside the U.S. for a number of years, built airplane models since they were 12, play harp and speak Lemerig, instead of participating in the schools’ Anthropology club they volunteered at the local museum for 4 year… You get the idea.</p>
<p>Two weeks before decisions came out, the NU admissions officer for my region called the counselors at my school and asked if NU was the top choice of the three most qualified people in the class. For one, it was. For the other two, it was an ivy safety. Our results? One accept; two waitlists. Normally, I’m not one to cry tufts’ syndrome, but in this case I do think it is occurring.</p>
<p>NU’s new President Shapiro has made clear his interest to change two things about admissions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Increase diversity at NU, something that is successfully reflected in the past 2 years’ admissions stats</li>
<li>Increase the percentage of EDers, seeking to fill NU with as many enthusiastic “NU is my first choice” kids as possible.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Look at the respondents on the stats thread. One 34 ACT rejected followed by another 34 or 35 ACT accepted. One 2380 SAT accepted followed by a 2200, 2250 SAT rejected.</p>
<p>This is not yield protection, this is about trying to optimize diversity on campus and establish as “thrilled to be here” a group of freshman as possible.</p>
<p>With median enrolled SAT scores likely over 1470 this year, and considering “carve-outs” for recruited athletes and special talents (theater, music, etc.) I unfortunately doubt anyone can predict an acceptance to NU as “likely” any longer. Any ordinary, just plain great academic candidate, may need to “show the love” for the school by applying ED or, if RD, going above and beyond, to prove NU is not just sitting there, one of many, on some list of 20 applications.</p>
<p>I am not so sure Tufts Syndrome is actually at play here. Having watched American Idol for a number of years and the reaction I have seen from kids (that generally think they are Gods gift to the Music Industry) being eliminated at some point or the other, my sense is that we have an “American Idol Syndrome” going on more so than Tufts Syndrome.</p>
<p>Please, I am not being harsh on you kids. some including my D have been Wait listed and or outright Rejected from schools that are just a bit beyond her reach and it is normal to think one is “over qualified”. </p>
<p>The AdCom at Yale said it best, “We get 30,000 applicants and we offer admissions to 2000. Now if I took out the 2000 and went back to the 28,000 applications and pulled another 2000 to admit, we would have just as good a class” </p>
<p>It all depends on how much they like your Essay and EC and they think you will be a good fit at the School. That part makes things look random and sure enough they are.</p>
<p>I think the process is really random. Schools look for different things and since it’s not the same group of admission officers, they don’t always pick the same people. I was accepted to MIT but then waitlisted by UCLA and rejected by Northwestern. I doubt the problem was overqualification, but simply because the AOs made different choices. Congrats to everyone!</p>
<p>Can I just say - I think the process is INCREDIBLY random to make generalizations such as this. Please don’t waste your time on this. You can be rejected to every school in the world, and then get into Yale or Princeton. I mean, you just DON’T KNOW how the random person reading your application will react to it! Maybe they read an AMAZING applicant’s right before, so yours is not as impressive - or the opposite case is true. Or maybe they’re in an amazing mood, or maybe they don’t like when students show egos, I don’t know. Please don’t take it to heart. These decisions have no bearing on Ivy League decisions. @dblazer, You’ve clearly gotten acceptances from amazing schools already, so just know that you ARE in fact good enough. I mean, no one can get into EVERY single school they apply to, after all.</p>
<p>In my opinion once you meet the standards a university determines are necessary to be successful academically at their school the selection process becomes much more subjective. Any of the schools mentioned are going to have many more qualified applicants than they do positions. However, most of those qualified applicants have applied at numerous schools for whom they are equally qualified. I don’t believe anyone can be over qualified for NW, WashU, HYP etc. The schools just have do decide quite subjectively which students fit their school best and who might be likely to attend. My guess is that they use similar standards as the students that apply. The universities have the greater challenge as they have to choose from among students who will apply at a number of schools but will only choose one. You get to apply to as many schools as you wish yet and get to choose from the multiple schools who WILL accept you.</p>
<p>You can’t be overqualified for NU if you’re applying there.</p>
<p>Maybe the arrogance of thinking you are overqualified for a university as prestigious as Northwestern shows through on your applications and THAT’S why you didn’t get in.</p>
<p>ivvcsf - I absolutely agree with your line of thinking. Once a student’s stats meet with University’s expectation, then innumerable SUBJECTIVE variables come into play in the admission process and these subjective factors make the game unpredictable and elusive for students and parents as well.</p>
<p>snipersas,</p>
<p>Any school doing what you said is just opening itself for potential lawsuit and no school counselor would be stupid enough to tell schools that they are safeties on behalf of applicants. People here are not stupid. If you are gonna lie, tell a better one.</p>
<p>Sam Lee; </p>
<p>While I understand you feel the need to defend Northwestern’s reputation here, the fact is that NW has been traditionally used as a safety for students targeting the ivies. Furthermore, that the school tracks all forms of demonstrated interest - from calls to campus visits - is well established. Since Northwestern traditionally has a much lower yield (around 30%, if I remember right) then what top schools pull; it’s reasonable to believe that they are attempting to improve those numbers through yield protection - if not, why would questions about the exact dates and nature of various forms of contact be on the application? </p>
<p>Given that yield protection exists, the second question is whether or not counselor contact is used in that determination. School counselors often have close relationships with admissions officers at universities they deal with regularly. In the example I provided above, around 4 students were typically admitted to NW each year, but the yield rate was nearly always very low - unless a recruited athlete was in the class, 25% was typical and 0% not uncommon because the others ended up at ivies. If a counselor knows that future admits are dependent upon providing accurate information to the university, why wouldn’t they work to maintain their relationship? No harm occurred in this case. The two that were waitlisted had already received likely letters from higher ranked schools and had no intention of enrolling at NW even if accepted. The counselor knew this, so there was no harm in helping Northwestern out with improving yield.</p>
<p>In this case, neither student had objective credentials sufficiently unimpeachable to guarantee they were overqualified for NW, but the fact that both received likelies from higher ranked schools implies that was the case.</p>
<p>So in other words, you have no logical argument to rebut the evidence I have provided, other then that I was admitted to UChicago and therefore must be trolling?</p>
<p>@snipersas -</p>
<p>I think you said you’ve been admitted to UChicago - congratulations!</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, it is “NU” and not “NW”, and we know many kids who were admitted to Ivies and denied at NU, and several who we know personally were admitted both to several Ivies AND to NU but chose NU as it is a much stronger school in D’s subject area, so I assure you that at least in some subject areas NU is most certainly NOT considered “a safety for Ivies.”</p>