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<p>You don’t have to be Asian to be turned away from these schools with perfect scores.</p>
<p>The essay is the best way for me to explain my younger son’s admission to Chicago. I know they thought his “Why Chicago” essay was funny because they referred to it in their holiday card to him. His main Chicago style essay, also showed a quirky sense of humor and a willingness not to play it safe. (A deliberate strategy on his part at a couple of his reach schools.) At some schools being very, very good at one thing will act as a hook as long as the other numbers are good too. If admissions were really predictable none of us would be hanging around CC. As it is, we can only speculate as to what was the critical factor. My younger son might have benefited from a Calmom style hook - he was a white boy who got interested in origami and took that interest and did a few things with it that might have made admissions folks think “Ah the boy who wrote the funny alternative history of the US and likes to play with origami” or “the boy who isn’t afraid to admit he’s recycling an essay and likes to play with origami” or the boy who took his interest in origami and spent a summer teaching it to seniors and sold origami earrings at a local gallery. And not having seen every piece of the package who knows. </p>
<p>For my older son:
Scores: stellar SAT (except for writing which didn’t count that year), stellar subject tests, stellar APs
Grades and rank: absolutely good enough
Essays: good for an engineer, but marginal otherwise
Teacher recommendations: I’m sure they were good, but he was not a sociable kid
Outside recommendations: Outstanding
GC recommendation: his GC loved him, but didn’t actually know him</p>
<p>Younger son:
Scores:great verbal score, probably good enough, but under 700 math score, 3 over 700 subject tests (but a lousy Math 2 score that some schools saw), stellar APs
Grades and rank: rank was good (thank you orchestra), GPA not so much
Essays: very good, I think, funny and quirky
Teacher recommendations: Fantastic one from math teacher, and I’m pretty sure as good a one from the history teacher
Outside recommendations: none
GC recommendation: his GC didn’t actually know him, but I have to think she must have written a very good letter for him</p>
<p>Older son did a little less well than he hoped, younger son did a little better than expected. Which makes me think the soft and invisible parts of the process count for more than one might think.</p>
<p>I know unhooked Asians and white students with great scores and grades who get in everywhere and others who don’t. Big deal. I know what the weakness were to both my kids applications and didn’t expect either to get accepted everywhere, though I am still mad at Marilee Jones. ;)</p>
<p>A Yale admissions officer said to our school at one of the sessions “SAT scores count for less than you fear, and more than we like to admit.” Make of that what you will. :D</p>
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<p>/remember</p>
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<p>Really? Really? Really?</p>
<p>The strategy at my school is to try and get 750+ for all areas and usually 780+ in SAT2s (depending on the curve). That way, if you get rejected, it won’t be because of your stats, the thing which is probably easiest to control- grades can have tons of factors: terrible teacher, one messed up test etc. </p>
<p>I’ve noticed that all my friends that go to elite schools didn’t spend a disproportionate amount of time studying. I’m sure they hit the books, but probably not from 13! They spend time on ECs and fun. I know 1 girl who is 5-6 years older than me- she’s at a BS/MD program at a really good med school and I’m pretty sure her mom prepared her for admissions starting middle school. She’s the exception though, not the norm.
I have noticed that kids who have ok ECs tend to spend more time on scores so they have a better shot at merit scholarships.</p>
<p>My coworker’s kid (Asian 2nd gen) got into an Ivy for science this fall. He was prepped from middle school. Science fairs, olympiads, EC’s galore, blah, blah, and the always popular Uncle Turbo piece of advise, “find an easy small town high school where you’re pretty much guaranteed to finish ranked #1”… Spent all his time prepping for the SAT and working on his EC’s. Graduating class of a couple hundred at best. Several of my coworkers’ kids have done the exact same thing and several (Asian and non Asian) have gotten into the Ivies.</p>
<p>Contrast that with the kids in my high school, graduation class in the four figures, brutal competition (nice to get a 93 in an AP class only to find out THAT was the class average :)) and at the end of the day, out of said four figures’ worth of kids, 1 Ivy and maybe a total of 10 kids (under 1%) going to the CC top 10 schools. Several HUNDREDS go to the state flagship every year…</p>
<p>^ It’s surprising to me that such a competitive school would have such a dearth of “top college” admittances. Wouldn’t Ivies and other similar schools recognize the depth of the student body there and take more students from there? Unless it’s because the work is so much that kids have no time for ECs. I think in such schools, there should be no rank because it merely encourages students to spend 100% of their time on academics instead of exploring ECs among other things, which certainly play a big role in the development of an individual.</p>
<p>My old school did not rank but that’s because a lot of kids graduate with UW 4.0s (well deserved, too!) and to rank would be just ridiculous/ depress an already competitive student body and everything that makes this school so great would fall apart. Lots of top school acceptances this way, too!</p>
<p>There are 30,000 hs in the country, ecouter … And how many slots at top schools? I think it’s arrogant to think that a given high school “should” have multiple Ivy acceptances or something is wrong.</p>
<p>Our HS student newspaper publishes where everyone is going at the end of the year. I’ve followed it for 7-8 years and it seems we were sending a few more kids per year to the top 20 schools in the past, maybe 20 including US Armed Forces academies, and more to the 2.5/25/25000 privates (2.5 GPA, 25 ACT, 25000 tuition and you’re in :)). Last few years when the financial crisis happened, nearly everyone went in state (with 75% going to the state flagships), lots of kids choosing community college instead of the 2.5/25/25000 privates, and only about 10 top 20’s and academies. A good number of athletic scholarships since our HS has serious athletics. </p>
<p>Financials, rather than raw ability to get in, seemed to be the reason. I know several kids that were literally ‘wasted’ with their achievements on the state flagships but did not even consider applying to better schools, preferring a full ride IS rather than full pay to half pay at a top 20 school. </p>
<p>The sheer number of people going to the state flagships every year has resulted in some ‘flight’ to OOS’s, fueled by surrounding states offering good money. DD1 is attending the state flagship a few hours away and we reliably send 10-12 kids a year there (not 500) and most get some $.</p>
<p>The take-away message I hear is not that every one of the most selective schools has the same bright line. It is only that, if your stats are in the lower 25th, or even in the middle 50, you do need to offer something exceptional to move your application toward the top of the pile at these schools. This is a hard thing to plan, arrange or incentivize. If it’s not an accident of birth (URM or legacy status), then look for something that comes from the heart. So, your kid’s time might be better spent having fun in a garage band than warming a chair at Key Club meetings or prepping for an extra 20 points on the SAT. </p>
<p>It’s unlikely that, if only you apply to enough of these schools, the cumulative odds will carry you over the line somewhere by virtue of a lucky-shot essay to compensate for 25th percentile stats and less-than-exceptional ECs. It’s a rare parent who can say, “My kid with 620/580/730 got into Chicago & comparable schools” (@ #30). An exceptional essay may catch an adcom’s eye in these cases, but chances are, it wasn’t entirely a lucky shot. It showed qualities that also were manifest in the LORs or other parts of the application, too.</p>
<p>The truly fortunate thing is that there are so many other good schools with decent aid where a “Magic 700s” standard isn’t even in question. Anyone on the cusp of Ivy admissions has many other, more realistic options (state flagships, “Colleges That Change Lives”, Jesuit schools, etc.).</p>
<p>turbo - do you follow the actual admissions or only the final schools? I have seen people go to schools based on various needs - combined programs, money, interest and so on.</p>
<p>One gave up Columbia to go to a combined BS/MD program
One gave up Harvard to do BS/MD elsewhere
One gave up Brown, Northwestern, Notre Dame to go to a school in state because all these schools were full pay.
One gave up a 5C school to go to some school offering a program the kid was interested in.</p>
<p>All of them this year.</p>
<p>Post 53 is such obvious common sense, and yet so much energy is expended to try to find some magic formula by people on cc who should know better.</p>
<p>Kelowna,</p>
<p>The norm these days is to take the SAT at least twice and sometimes three or four times. No stigma. The colleges love this because with super scoring they can report higher scores and still often take the most interesting students. </p>
<p>Great your child did so well on verbal (only about 8K get 800 on verbal each year; this is quite an achievement, especially on the first try). Nevertheless, if your child is shooting for MIT or Cal Tech or Ivy, I would retake to bolster the math score. 730 is great in all worlds except that of the top colleges. In that rarefied air, they see lots of those and want 750 plus for unhooked students. </p>
<p>Do not always believe what admissions counselors say re the 2360/3.5 v. 3.9/2060. AC’s want applicants and there are lots more of the latter than the former and so why discourage them. </p>
<p>In my view, most colleges do not value the hard working student as much as the super smart student who does not need to spend all the time studying and can free up for activities or research. Also, the low gpa is easier to cover up than the low SAT score (ie at top colleges almost everyone is in at least top 10% and so one outlier does not mess things up too much; in contrast, colleges agonize over the interesting 2150 kid and taking a 2360 helps make it possible for some of those 2150s). Of course, at the very top schools they want it all and the 2360/3.5 is often out of luck too.</p>
<p>The list comes out in the May of the senior year, by which time acceptances have been sent and everyone is out looking for Twin XL’s. The HS also throws in a party for scholarship kids, and there they list ALL amounts and schools offered so we get a better idea of who got how much for where.</p>
<p>Out of the 10 or so top school kids, 2 are in the Ivies, another 2-3 in the east coast tops, another 2-3 west coast tops, and 1-2 in the academies. You also don’t see a lot of the more specialized type top schools like Georgetown, John Hopkins, and the such, and astonishingly few kids for top 20 or 30 even science or engineering programs (GA Techs, VA Tech, Cal Tech, and the like). We do have a couple pretty good engineering schools here but for crying out loud, nobody seems to be applying to or getting into top 20 public OOS’s (except a couple kids with (I kid you not) cheerleading scholarships). This has been consistent for the last few years. </p>
<p>Funding is the best reason here as I said. Consider the kid of a coworker that was accepted with perfect SAT or ACT to an Ivy for pre-med type studies and half ride. He turned it down for full ride incl. dorm to the state flagship. Same kid ended up scoring a near perfect MCAT score a few years later… So it’s not like we don’t have the smart kids, it’s that they don’t want the extra expense of an Ivy education. I was talking to the kid’s father (he came to ask if mid 40’s MCAT score was good - no joke) and I gave him the list of schools I would think he should apply - I have a feeling he’ll be headed once again to the state flagship, again, for money reasons.</p>
<p>There’s a message in there somewhere…</p>
<p>“The norm these days is to take the SAT at least twice and sometimes three or four times. No stigma. The colleges love this because with super scoring they can report higher scores and still often take the most interesting students”</p>
<p>I think that a lot of overwrought parents like to believe both that “it’s the norm” and " there’s no stigma". But I think both are false, and adcoms want interesting people, not people who obsessively retake standardized tests.</p>
<p>Edit: Perhaps that came out wrong. In any event, I think when you have such a crazy competitive high school, adding rank on top of everything doesn’t help and causes anxiety over grades and leaves students with less time to explore ECs that are enriching.</p>
<p>Also, texaspg makes a good point. Money is a big deal.</p>
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<p>Agreed. The problem with the hard-working kid is that he might be at his very limit squeaking out A’s in his classes and prepping like crazy until he gets an elite-acceptable SAT or ACT score. Stick him in harder classes with super-smart peers and he might just burn out trying to keep up.</p>
<p>However, if one demands lots of ECs and community service work in addition to top grades and test scores, one almost completely eliminates the hard-worker pushing his limits. Those that remain must clearly not invest a lot of time in their studies because there are only so many hours in a day.</p>
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<p>The 2400/4.0 student is often out of luck, too. Brown’s admission’s page shows that they only accept about one-quarter of their valedictorian applicants and only slightly more (28%) of their ACT 36 scorers.</p>
<p>"
The 2400/4.0 student is often out of luck, too. Brown’s admission’s page shows that they only accept about one-quarter of their valedictorian applicants and only slightly more (28%) of their ACT 36 scorers.
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<p>The 2400/4.0 kid is only “out of luck” if he defines success in just a handful of schools.</p>
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<p>Those of us who are regulars on CC know that one also needs multiple leadership roles in ECs and community service to compete effectively. We also know to ladder our applications with a range of selective schools beyond the HYPSM. I am grateful to CC for having made me aware of this situation before it was too late to do something about it.</p>
<p>But students, teachers and guidance counselors at many of the nation’s 30,000 non-Ivy-feeder-schools are not so well informed. It’s really not that obvious: A #1 rank with a perfect SAT or ACT and, say, president of French Club, sounds like it should be equivalent of four aces in a hand of poker. When you’re playing poker, you tend to go “all in” on such a hand, not expecting your competition to be holding a royal flush!</p>
<p>Loremipsum - has your son started school after the gap year?</p>
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<p>Yes, he’s taking classes at Brown, happily ignoring his advisors’ recommendation by taking four advanced calculation-intensive math/physics/CS classes plus an optional fifth history class – mainly because he couldn’t decide which one to give up (3 of the classes have two-semester sequences, one is rarely taught and the last is a prerequisite bottleneck). The homework is exactly to his liking: 8-10 hard problems a week per class that really test a deep understanding of the material with no fluff busywork.</p>