Thanks @PNWedwonk - that’s great to know!
My random thoughts on some of the opinions expressed here:
- Who cares why the TO schools are TO? The only relevance I see to that line of inquiry is whether the TO spots are reserved for special admits - hooked, or otherwise. No doubt the NESCAC uses it for athletes, but I don't think exclusively. But if your score is below the 50th percentile and the school is TO, I would not blink about not sending it in.
- Every bit of research I've ever read suggests that one should not get hung up on test scores as a proxy for preparedness. That same research indicates, as I recall, the very strong correlation between rigor of HS curriculum and success in college. It's even more important than GPA. That's why, I suspect, that some schools indicate rigor as #1 on their admission factors list, and GPA as #2. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all schools are different, you can't know for sure if High School X really is as rigorous as Prep School Y. Whatever. Hair splitting. The ad coms can figure it out with enough precision that it is the main thing for many of them. Tests are great tools for schools like Cal, which have to wade through 100,000 applications because all some kid with a 2.4. and no rigor aiming for UC Santa Cruz has to do is click another box on the UC app and, boom: he's applying to Berkeley and UCLA too. Hey, why not? The worst they can do is say no.
- I don't have a dog in this fight. Two of my three kids are great test takers. One of them owes his admission to Middlebury for it (he transferred to Pomona). The third, my oldest, is not a great test taker, so there is a disconnect between his IB curriculum and grades and his score. He has hammered it academically at Midd while being a full-time varsity athlete. His ACT score would have suggested to someone that he'd struggle. He hasn't.
- There comes a point of diminishing returns on re-takes. It is one of the unfortunate by-products of the system that a kid will spend so much time and energy trying to gain a few points on these tests. That time could have bee spent on so many more worthwhile endeavors, but for the significance for admissions.
- Adding another new-comer to the TO list of terrific schools: Wesleyan. There is a lot right about that place in my estimation. I have no idea if TO is mostly for special admits or not, but again, the mid-point ACT/SAT score is pretty high, so it makes sense to not submit.
- Not all ad coms are US News whores. I know some personally.
- I know with certainty that the top UCs do not routinely reject perfect scores/grades/transcripts. In fact, if you apply to Cal with a perfect or near perfect SAT or ACT and have a respectable transcript with straight As, I think your odds of getting in are pretty high. There is a lot of hyperbole on CC about admissions difficulty, and that just contributes to it. In fact, they admit kids with stats well short of perfection routinely and on a daily basis. My partner's daughter, who has been on an IEP plan for years because of ADD, had several C grades on her transcript, did not take anything close to a full rigor course load, and took the ACT four times to get to a 29, and is a freshman at USC Film School right now. If you ask the typical person with an opinion, they'd tell you she had zero chance to get in, and yet, there she is in the flesh. I think a lot of schools contribute to their own urban legends and myths. There was a mom on here who used to posit that the only kids who really belonged at, and could be admitted to, Harvard, were geniuses with 140+ IQs who had started companies and/or had written their own code or who had meaningful participation in ground breaking scientific research, etc. etc. It's just such BS that I can't believe it passes for information here.
Yes, but where people get misled is thinking that top-end SAT or ACT scores will be enough to compensate for somewhat lower grades / GPA when applying to UCs. Since UCs tend to weight grades / GPA much more heavily, it is the test-score-heavy applicants that are most likely to be disappointed.
Indeed, the 3.80-4.19 UC-weighted-capped GPA range (which tends to correspond to an unweighted 3.4-3.8 GPA range for students taking significant honors and AP courses) may be the “mid-tier UC disappointment range”, since 2015 frosh admission rates for UCSB, UCD, and UCI were only around the 50% range. Some students in that GPA range with very high SAT or ACT scores throught of those campuses as “safeties”, but were disappointed by rejections (particularly if they applied to competitive majors like engineering majors).
@ucbalumnus , conceded. I’m just pushing back on this notion that Berkeley and UCLA are as hard to get into as Columbia. They are not.
In fact, a general trend that I’ve seen among my kids’ three peer groups is this: the very good student with very good grades, very good rigor and very good test scores who rationally apply to schools such as Columbia, Dartmouth, Amherst, Bowdoin, Yale, Stanford and Chicago routinelyl do not gain admission to those schools and routinely do get into one of Cal or UCLA. It’s very common in my experience to see that. Good enough for Berkeley does not automatically mean good enough for the Ivy League. On the other hand, very rarely have I seen a kid get into an Ivy and not Berkeley, but the other way around happens quite commonly.
The truth is, those low teen % rates for admission to Berkeley and UCLA is almost entirely a function of a massively inflated denominator. If the UCs made kids apply to these schools independently, and not by just checking a box, the number would change dramatically IMO.
You are generally correct, except for perhaps some specific majors (e.g. UCB EECS).
If you look at UC admission rates by HS GPA (UC-weighted-capped, which is typically 0.3 to 0.4 higher than unweighted for students who took substantial honors and AP courses), you can see that applicants with top-end HS GPAs have a decent chance of admission to UCB and UCLA (though choice of division or major matters), but admission rates fall considerably at lower GPAs: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19940645/#Comment_19940645 .
Admission rates without any context of the strength of applicant pool that the admission rate is for are not especially useful in comparing selectivity across different schools.
“The truth is, those low teen % rates for admission to Berkeley and UCLA is almost entirely a function of a massively inflated denominator. If the UCs made kids apply to these schools independently, and not by just checking a box, the number would change dramatically IMO.”
This is something most parents on CC don’t understand IMO given what I read.
Even the Ivies spend ridiculous amounts of money attracting kids who have absolutely no chance of getting in to apply, simply to reject them, inflate the denominator, and make the selectivity look extreme. Frankly, of the 35000 kids who applied to Harvard, perhaps 30000 had not a chance, and the remaining 5000 had a pretty good chance. The student distribution, in other words, had a fat tail, heavily skewed towards kids who just don’t make the cut.
Yet there they are, pawn sacrifices to make the overall admittance rate look tiny. Meanwhile, the remaining 5000 kids probably had a 40-50% chance, and will end up at a top-10 school somewhere. However, one or two of these 5000 kids will not make into any top-10 schools, and they will forever be shown on College Confidential as an example of how Harvard admission is a complete lottery, where even the best don’t stand a chance.
Which is not true, of course. Most students have nearly 0% odds, a few students have 50%+ odds. That’s the nature of the beast.
@socalmom007 One thing I haven’t seen brought up in this discussion, is another factor especially for LAC admissions is showing interest and at a lot of them, interviewing. I think especially if your D is going to not send scores, do make sure she is diligent in making sure the schools she applies to know very well that she is interested by whatever means they suggest. (This is something I’ve come to learn as my own D is interested in several LACs - she is submitting scores, but even so, those smaller schools do seem to care significantly about the interest factor.)
Bryn Mawr is strong for both mathematics and dance and I believe Dickinson and Bates would also be nice options. Also, what about Skidmore, or maybe Muhlenberg? My D is looking at a few of these schools as well. We’re actually visiting Bryn Mawr on Monday. 
@1Wife1Kid , while I agree it’s generally an issue, I think the UCs are special in this regard. What, close to 25% of teh US population is there … and state residents would be stupid to overlook the UCs. So they have that built in bulk of applicants. Then add to that the sun factor and all those kids in the north and midwest who dream of being in California, and it’s no wonder that comparable schools, like Michigan and UVa, get a fraction of the applications Cal and UCLA get. But there are plenty of unqualified kids who are in those numbers.
I think the Ivies are different. First of all, you don’t have that mass of people heading to UC Santa Cruz checking a box and also applying to Dartmouth. Separate app, separate effort, and, I think the really low level people who nonetheless apply to UCLA either don’t know about Brown, or perceive the Ivy League as too expensive and too elite. I think, yeah, there are a bunch of kids entirely waisting time and money applying to Harvard, but I don’t think it’s a significant % of the total. Most people, even really clueless people, know that it’s exceedingly hard to get in.
Is Chicago’s embarrassing marketing effort resulting in droves of kids applying who have no earthly chance or business being there? Yes, I’m sure. But it’s not like the crown jewels in the UC system. If a great public U is what you want, I counsel people all the time to look Early Action at Michigan. It’s a fantastic school, has massive amounts of great program choices, great atmosphere, etc., BUT, because it’s in Michigan and the midwest, they don’t have near the number of kids applying as Berkeley, and while Cal might edge Michigan out by a smidge overall, they are clearly peer schools.
Which takes to the selective LACs. You have to give them credit: nobody rolls the dice on Williams or Amherst or Bowdoin or Wesleyan or Bates or Claremont. 95% of the dice rollers have never heard of those schools, and the 5% who have don’t want to go there anyway.
“Admission rates without any context of the strength of applicant pool that the admission rate is for are not especially useful in comparing selectivity across different schools.”
Oh come on. No, I haven’t examined the pool statistically. Neither have you I suspect. The point is pretty simple though: the UCs make it very easy to apply to all of them. In Washington, for example, kids who don’t have good grades generally don’t bother apply to UW because (1) the application is the most giant pain in the a$$ you will find anywhere and (2) they know they’re not getting in because Washington is number-you-out school. They don’t care about rigor or anything else but GPA. Any counselor here worth their salt will tell you: want guaranteed admission to Washington? Don’t do rigor, and have a 3.8 or better GPA and you’re in. And that’s generally true.
Like I said before, I know tons of people who were accepted at Berkeley and UCLA who got skunked at elite LACs, all Ivies and Georgetown. I know very few, if any, who were admitted to any of those types of schools who did not make it in to Cal or Michigan. It’s simply true. Cal’s 17% admission rate is terribly misleading.
Don’t get me wrong man. It’s a FANTASTIC institution of higher learning. They discovered, what, 19 of the elements on the periodic table? Seriously Berkeley is the sh*t.
But it’s not nearly as competitive for admission as (1) people say and (2) as an Ivy League school or comparable.
@thermom , great post and recommendation. totally agree. our view, rejected by the cynics, is that if you have a school of 3k or less in your sights, it only makes sense for you to try and get that school to know you and to have in you file that you’ve visited and made the effort.
we, too, have BMC in our sights, and we’ve been there twice, and D is interviewing with the traveling rep here in Seattle on 10/17.
I never wrote that it was. See reply #104. It looks like you believe that I claimed something that I did not claim.
As I wrote in reply #104, admission rates without any context of the strength of applicant pool that the admission rate is for are not especially useful in comparing selectivity across different schools. There is no real disagreement here – why do you think that there is?
Indeed, admission rate alone for any school can be terribly misleading. Alice Lloyd College has a 5% admission rate according to http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate , but most would not see it as a selectivity-peer of HYPSM.
You’re so right @thermom ! My daughter has an alumni interview with Bryn Mawr in two weeks!
@1Wife1Kid , If you have any data on that I would like to see it, because nearly every elite adcom I have heard speak on the subject states the opposite – that they could make a class from the applicants many times over.
The Brown admission stats I learned about here show that the CC dogma that you can’t predict elite admissions on stats is true:
https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts
Looking at those stats, who are the 14% of students who had “a pretty good chance” and the 86% who “perhaps had not a chance”?
If you have data or testimony I will certainly read it, thanks.
I think Test Optional is only a sound strategy if the other parts of the application (gpa, rigor in particular) put the student in the upper quartile of applicants and test scores would bring that down. Or basically, that the kid is lopsided., a messy scattergram. I have a mid to low stats kid (by CC standards) and while 5 of his schools are Test Optional, I don’t see any benefit (other than saving $12-24 bucks a pop) to not sending the scores. In his case (the aforementioned “mid-tier UC disappointment range”, I love that description even if we aren’t in CA), withholding the scores, as unexciting as they are, only weakens his app.
Ithaca is interesting (and on his list). They do not report GPA as part of their common data set. As a mid stats kid, their ACT scores are all we have to go on to try and guess where he lands and not sending just didn’t seem worth the risk both for merit and admission. Sure, we have Naviance but 3 kids from a school in WA who have applied over 3 years isn’t much data to go on, which is true for the bulk of his list (2 with zero applicants, 3 with 3 or less) If there was more data, I might be more comfortable with TO for this student but with what we have to work with, I am not.
Some of the schools do require extra writing to go Test Optional (or zee mee or the like), others ask for nothing “extra”. But for those that do, that extra content needs to be rock solid and depending on the student, it could be riskier than not sending scores.
I completely agree with @thermom and @MiddleburyDad2 that interest is key at these small LAC’s, many of whom are test optional.
I agree @eandesmom , I think for our daughter her scores definitely bring down her application, unless she can significantly raise them at her next ACT. She will have over a 4.0 by applications, 4.1 by the time she graduates, 18 semesters of AP and honors courses and 6 college classes under her belt, great EC’s. She has definetly gone after rigor in her high school schedule.
@socalmom007 my S17 has similar rigor at 18 semesters of honors/AP and 2 college classes, strong EC’s as well. But the GPA isn’t high enough to offset the ACT score to support not sending it. 3.45 UW, we don’t weight but I’d estimate it at about a 3.7 and a 3.8 on the UC system. To me, it “matches” that 3.45, unfortunately, and he will not retest (ADHD, really terrible test taker).
In your case it makes a ton of sense.
@eandesmom don’t underestimate the variable of rigor. I know several ad come personally (side note: academia admin is a haven for burnt out lawyers) and the tell me it’s big.
^ “ad coms”.
@MiddleburyDad2 that’s pretty hysterical on academia admin as a haven for burnt out lawyers. I know many of the latter, perhaps I will suggest it as a career path!
I don’t want to underestimate rigor, but I don’t want to overstate it either. It is a bit unclear at present whether my S will get the “most demanding” or the “very demanding” box checked. Technically he could have made it more rigorous. I would say there are 3 cases where he could have taken a more demanding option, 1 each year for 10-12. (Regular Bio instead of Honors, US History instead of APUSH and then Theater Tech instead of an extra AP elective or 4th year of FL).
However, it’s in the context of the overall school and the kids take at our HS, and hopefully the GC looks at in the context of “like students” (aka music as that takes up a lot of slots) and it’s very possible he will get “most”. I suspect he is on the bubble. Non music kids could take 1 more AP Junior and Senior year. There is no way my child could have. In general he has been on the highest tracks possible.
But, since I don’t really know, I don’t want to count on it at all. I definitely hope that is the case though!
@MiddleburyDad2 You said:" Like I said before, I know tons of people who were accepted at Berkeley and UCLA who got skunked at elite LACs, all Ivies and Georgetown. I know very few, if any, who were admitted to any of those types of schools who did not make it in to Cal or Michigan. It’s simply true. Cal’s 17% admission rate is terribly misleading."
That’s an interesting take, but I’m not sure I agree. The big difference between Cal and other elite schools is that Cal cares more about your grades than test scores or anything else. If you are the very, very top of your class at whatever high school you attend, you probably will get into Cal, even if your school is a bad school in rural Bakersfield where half the students are still learning English and the school has never graduated anyone with a super-high SAT score. They want to see actual achievement and effort, not potential as reflected by test scores.
My kids go to an elite prep school where students regularly get into places like Georgetown and don’t get into Berkeley. It happens every single year.
Look at this chart. It shows that 98% of incoming Berkeley students were in the top 10% of their high school class. 98 freaking percent! The other 2 percent are presumably athletic recruits.
At Georgetown, only 92% are in the top 10 percent of their high school class. That is a huge difference. I did a little checking, and I couldn’t find any other school even close to 98%. Dartmouth, for example - 93%. Williams - 92%. Wash U - 92%.