<p>I just phoned the admissions office and was told the ED decisions would be posted to the website at "around midnight" tonight. The envelopes are going out in today's mail.</p>
<p>Patience!</p>
<p>Yes, when I called admissions yesterday, they also told me that ED 1 decisions would be posted “after midnight” tonight.</p>
<p>hey that waiting is tough. We went through this in the pre-email posting era. I don’t what I’ve prefer but I guess this definitely gets you the information sooner and when you are sitting down…good luck to all.</p>
<p>Looks like its gonna be a LOOONG night.
haha its 2 hours later down here in texas.
I wonder why they made it post at that time…?</p>
<p>Check your email!</p>
<p>any one hear yet</p>
<p>Didn’t have to wait until midnight, got an email at like, 5:30 PM</p>
<p>I got accepted! 
Who else got in?</p>
<p>D got in! She received the email at 5:39 pm (is that EST or local, I’m not sure) last night - we didn’t even think to look at her email, we were so focused on the webadvisor. So thanks for the heads up! SOOOO EXCITED - Whitman is SO awesome! Have a great break everyone who got in and best of luck to the rest!</p>
<p>My son did not receive an email, but he did log on to the website and found he was denied admission. I’m surprised he wasn’t at least deferred, because he’s currently enrolled in AP courses in which he has A’s. We assume it was the low unweighted GPA, because his recommendations were strong, and his standardized test scores are at the very top of Whitman’s range. </p>
<p>But I’m also surprised he didn’t at least get a sort of condolence email. To have no word at all and just log on and see “Denied admission” was a shock. I wish Whitman had done it differently. After all the heavy recruitment at the beginning, it was handled very coldly.</p>
<p>Congratulations to those who got in!</p>
<p>CalAlum, you’ve had some very nice posts, and I’m sorry your son didn’t get in. And ouch for how they did it–I hate to hear that as we love the school. Admissions can be a mystery sometimes, yet I thought he would get in–or at a minimum deferred, especially since he applied ED. condolences.</p>
<p>I’m sorry about that Cal_Alum,</p>
<p>I’m guessing Whitman will send a letter/package that will be far more polite in that regard, maybe even offer deferment. That’s probably why they don’t publicize their website that much, because I don’t think it has any functions other than to say if you got in or not.</p>
<p>^^Thank you for the thoughtful posts. My son has decided to wait for the letter, and then if it is a rejection, to simply craft a note asking if it would be possible to have some brief feedback to strengthen his application as he now begins applying to the other schools on his list. There may be no response, especially if everyone in admissions is really busy, but it’s worth asking the question, because it would be good to know exactly what tripped him up.</p>
<p>All the best, everyone.</p>
<p>You, or his college counselor at school can also call Whitman. My husband called the head of admissions of a school one of my kids got deferred from ED and got a very substantive response.</p>
<p>I’m sorry CalAlum, I can imagine the disappointment. The only thought I had if our D hadn’t been accepted to Whitman was that anyone who can see the value in a school like Whitman has got to be a discerning, independent-thinking, well-rounded, intellectually curious person. People like that have a way of finding places and paths in life that move them towards their goals, and I’m sure your S is one of them. Best of luck to you both!</p>
<p>I second the notion of emailing or calling the admissions office. I had an excellent experience talking with them about my D’s status last year and how they made their decisions.</p>
<p>Philip Petrone, Whitmans admissions director for California, very kindly took the time to call my son and discuss his application. My son was relieved to have the conversation, because when he saw he was denied admission, he feared that there was some sort of red flag in his application. We parents were not part of that conversation, because weve always believed the child should own the entire application process. But my son talked with us afterwards.</p>
<p>My son learned that his letters, essays, and overall application are fine, but his unweighted GPA is simply too low for Whitman. To me, the information about the unweighted GPA was a bit surprising. He had brought his resume with him to the interview on campus in August. The admissions officer looked over the resume and saw the GPA but did not raise it as a concern. This is why he was surprised to have been rejected rather than deferred. Petrone told our son, Your GPA is below our applicant pool.</p>
<p>The teachers at my sons high school believed Whitman was a good match for him. The University of California tracks statistics on enrollments, achievements, and U.C. persistence of all California high schools ([University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/reports/schoolreports/default.aspx]University”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/reports/schoolreports/default.aspx)), and the data show that students admitted from his school have a much higher GPA at the university than students from the average California high school. The school is a nationally-recognized powerhouse. The University system admits the top 10% of California high-school students, but in 2008, the UC admitted 30% of the senior class of my sons school. Im pointing this out because a B+ GPA at this school, in a program with as many honors and AP classes as possible, is good enough for Berkeley. </p>
<p>Perhaps Whitmans admissions criteria for unweighted GPA explains something we saw a couple of months ago at this website: <a href="http://www.college.%5B/url%5D">www.college.</a>. My sons combined reading and math SAT scores: 1450; ACT composite: 32; GPA weighted according to UC criteria: 4.16. After entering all his information, the site reported his chances as follows:</p>
<pre><code> Chances of admission to Whitman: 0%
Chances of admission to Grinnell: 72%
Chances of admission to Emory: 51%
Chances of admission to Berkeley: 32%
Chances of admission to Claremont McKenna: 30%
Chances of admission to MIT: 6% (we did this one out of curiosity because this is where his sister attends!)
</code></pre>
<p>I do think that if Whitman would like to admit more students with great college potential who are male, it might be worthwhile to re-evaluate the admission criteria regarding GPA. But I also recognize that each school is perfectly within its rights to define its own admissions criteria. Were just happy to learn there are no red flags in our sons application, because we do think he has relatively good chances at colleges and universities that are familiar with his high school.</p>
<p>This is a long post, but I took the trouble because I thought this information might be useful to other prospective students. </p>
<p>My son is fine and is now working on his other applications!</p>
<p>These are such interesting stats from a specific case…and help give a view into the mysteries of the admission process. How intriguing that Grinnell (which in many places is “ranked” higher than Whitman) would be at the other end of the bell curve re the GPA. I bet they rank test scores much higher. And there will be kids that were rejected by Grinnell that will wind up at Whitman. Each chooses a mix based on something they feel works for predicting success in their setting. But it is a mystery at times. Your son will have a range of excellent choices and it is great that he has dived into the other apps. I guess lots of great kids got disappointed by a lot of great places this year–and they will probably all be quite happy in April.</p>
<p>CalAlum, don’t know if you’re still checking this thread, but have you taken a look at your high school profile? That’s pretty much the only way colleges can interpret all the different grading systems. In your case, the profile should include a detailed comparative grading scale so they can see where his grades fit into the context of such a rigorous school. I noticed that my kids’ hs profile was alarmingly deficient and with the blessing of the hs counselor redid ours. It was a huge job, and I’m not suggesting such an undertaking, but it’s a crucial piece of the puzzle to be aware of.</p>
<p>CalAlum,</p>
<p>Do you know what your son’s GPA was on a 4.0 scale?</p>
<p>@Wrist, that’s a good suggestion, but it’s too late to re-do the school profile report. I just took a look at it, and it provides very little information at all. </p>
<p>@JustinNate, his GPA is 3.44 unweighted, or 3.5 unweighted if p.e. courses are included. But the high school does not include pe courses in its reporting of the unweighted gpa. The school doesn’t rank students either.</p>
<p>I think I’ll ask my son to think about crafting a letter to address his gpa head on. One of his teachers told him not to do this because “it will just bring attention to your unweighted gpa”, but I think some colleges are going to wonder, and saying nothing doesn’t help. He can give some information about his school and explain his academic load in context; he can provide his school counselor’s contact information, because she can back up everything if the college takes the time to call.</p>