<p>@bookworm, I should have known how selective SCS was when my son applied, but didn’t. He absolutely refused to apply to any other part of CMU. (When at the convocation for SCS they had the kids who’d been rejected by MIT raise their hands, and it was 3/4 of the class, I fully appreciated the level of selectivity - the point being that being at your second or third or possibly fourth choice is not the end of the world.) At that point he applied to CMU had an early acceptance to RPI, with a merit scholarship in hand, so I figured if that was his choice so be it. I actually think I was much more upset about his pile of rejections than he was! I would never argue that all schools are the same, but I think we often think there is a lot more difference between #1 and #30 than their really is, especially if you dig down into the departments your kid is interested in.</p>
<p>I have a 2012 child who had slightly better scores than the OP’s son (obviously there is no real difference when you almost hit 2400), was class president, etc. and had the same approximate outcome. It was disappointing, the schools did not go to their wait lists that year, but there were several great options. My student truly believes it worked out for the best and is blissfully happy, as is most often the case!</p>
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<p>I think one thing that a lot of high-achieviers share is resiliency. The ability to “carry on” will serve him well. </p>
<p>*“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” * Helen Keller </p>
<p>"To me, there is a huge difference between Vanderbilt and Stanford. "</p>
<p>HUGE? Two schools in the top 20 have HUGE differences? That’s just patently ridiculous. My guess is that you just don’t actually know people who have gone to Vanderbilt, because you’re regional in your thinking and experience base. </p>
<p>And stop with the strawman. Being frustrated with people who think that there are “huge differences” between two schools that are in the top 20 in the country or who think that the Ivies have magic dust that other top schools don’t have is not the same thing as saying “all schools are the same, Ivies, comm college, whatever.” Of course there are differences. But there are shades and gradations of differences. If comm college is black and Harvard is white, then Vanderbilt is a barely-discernible-from-white shade of cream. </p>
<p>I remember feeling my son’s disappointment when he was waitlisted at three schools he “thought” were his dream schools. But he quickly decided to love the place that loved him the most and therefore declined to accept waitlist spots. </p>
<p>Fast-forward a year and he is happier than he’s ever been, and thriving at an amazing school. Neither he nor his family could imagine him being elsewhere for college. </p>
<p>Interestingly, my daughter is now considering her college acceptances and trying to decide where to enroll. She actually got into her two “reach” schools, but is seriously considering going to one of her “likelies” because she feels the environment will be more welcoming and collaborative, and she thinks she’d be better off as a “Big Fish in a Little Pond” as opposed to a “Little Fish in a Big Pond”. </p>
<p>The fish/pond reference may be intuitive, but for those interested I highly recommend reading Chapter 3 of Malcom Gladwell’s David and Goliath. It gives a refreshing perspective on the whole race to push students into the most competitive and selective school at which they are accepted. </p>
<p>OP it’s ok and you’re better venting here than in front of your son. As parents we naturally feel the sting of our children’s disappointment. Keep telling him how proud you are of what he’s done and enthusiastically support his final decision. Wonderful things will happen - I promise! </p>
<p>Oh PLEASE. This OP’s kid was NOT shut out. He got accepted to several excellent colleges. Time for the whole family to put those other schools behind him and figure out which top 30 school he will attend.</p>
<p>Give me a break.</p>
<p>Good grief I wish I’d proofread my post a bit. I do know the difference between their and there! And the and that…</p>
<p><… you may not realize there will be many people on here who will try to convince you that all schools are created equal…They know nothing about your child’s interests… they will react poorly to any indication from you… ></p>
<p>Wow, no cook. Do you have an axe to grind or what? I have a very different viewpoint than you. I see the majority of senior members trying do cleanup this time of year and help people whose kids truly WERE shut out and have no place to put down a deposit. I see them advising people who don’t know how to work a waitlist. So, they came onto the thread expecting to help, but it was a false alarm. This particular student has options.</p>
<p>And I do empathize with anyone who got a door slammed in their face, even when they do have other options. It does hurt, OP. Good luck in your future decision with your son.</p>
<p>There are at least 30 schools in the top ten. More like 50. And OP’s son was accepted at several of them.</p>
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This may be trivial to the point you are trying to make, but there’s some misinformation here. Someone turning down a spot at a school doesn’t translate to a spot to be taken up from the waitlist pool. The WL won’t open up unless the school over-estimates the yield rate (although it could be done ‘intentionally’ sometimes). </p>
<p>I stand corrected and now have more information about Ivy admissions than I did before. I didn’t realize that they over admitted. It would be a mess if everyone showed up, but I know they have been doing this for years and know the yield.
The point I was trying to make is that I feel that some of the anger about this student’s acceptance to all the Ivy’s is the result of the approach the journalists took in telling his story, not the student. </p>
<p>It is odd that he applied to all eight, though. Dartmouth and Columbia? These schools are so different that it sure looks like he’s harvesting acceptances. I’ll take bets that he picks Harvard.</p>
<p>Or . . . doing what all these other kids seem to be doing and trying to increase the odds of being accepted to even one. How is he “harvesting” and these other kids who have applied to a disparate collection of uber selective schools are just trying to increase their odds or capitalize on all their hard work?</p>
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<p>Vanderbilt and Stanford have identical average SAT scores (1550 75th percentile M+CR).
Vanderbilt has a higher 4 year graduation rate (87% v. 80%)
Vanderbilt has smaller average class sizes (9.1% v. 13.1% of classes with 50 or more students.)
Vanderbilt has lower average debt at graduation (~$17K v. ~$19K), though both claim to cover 100% of demonstrated need.
Nashville arguably is a much more interesting city than Palo Alto, although of course that is a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>Stanford’s application volume is driven up (and its admit rate driven down) by the fact that its closest competitors, among private research universities, are at least 2000 miles away. Most students attend college within a few hundred miles from home. Within a few hundred miles of Nashville, Vanderbilt faces competition from WashU, UChicago, Duke, and Notre Dame. Nevertheless, Vanderbilt gets about 80% as many applications as Stanford (and manages to admit an equally high-scoring class).</p>
<p>Stanford may indeed be a stronger research university than Vanderbilt (with more top 10 departments as measured by faculty publication and citation volume). That does not necessarily translate to a huge difference in the quality of the typical undergraduate classroom experience. </p>
<p>no comment</p>
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<p>I wondered the same thing. It’s interesting (but not surprising) how much resentment is directed at this one kid. By all accounts he was COMPLETELY qualified for admission at any of the schools that accepted him. Having said that, I think applying to all eight Ivies + Stanford seems over the top…no matter who is doing it.</p>
<p>On some thread recently, a student posted that his/her sibling applied to 26 colleges. And it’s not unusual for posters to mention their kids having applied to 10 or more colleges. So I guess applying to the magic 8 and getting in is harvesting when it’s one type of student, but ok if it’s one of the CC golden children, in fact,even a good idea. Got it. </p>
<p>Commanderz,
S’s dream school was Princeton, his granfather’s university. He was rejected, so I understand the disappointment you feel. I had made him apply to Vanderbilt, which is only 2 hours from our home, as a match/safety. Yes, it was almost a safety in 2002 with acceptance rates of 40% in A&S and almost 50% in Engineering (his initial choice). My, how things have changed! It’s not that the quality of education has changed, but that the whole recipe of college admissions has changed in the last twelve years. Vandy now takes the Common App, their SEC sports performance has put them on more people’s radar, and, maybe most importantly, they are now a no loans school. </p>
<p>If your son hasn’t visited, I would encourage him to do so this month. Nashville is a vibrant community with so much to offer. The college has so much going on that I have been constantly jealous through the years of the opportunities my children have had for special speakers, performances, etc. I’ve spent lots of time in Nashville over the last 12 years since S returned for law school in 2008 and now D is currently living in Nashville and working on a masters degree part-time at Vandy.</p>
<p>To get a sense of Nashville’s current vibe, read this Time magazine article:</p>
<p><a href=“Where to go in Nashville: | Time”>http://time.com/13819/the-souths-red-hot-town/</a></p>
<p>To get a sense of what Vanderbilt graduates accomplish, read about the Founders Medal recipients who are recognized each year. My personal favorite was a young man who was a graduate of both the divinity school and the medical school in 2009 and hearing about his volunteer health care work in the poverty stricken areas of Nashville. It made me feel much better about sitting in the overheated gym where D’s graduation was held due to thunderstorms. The article for that year seems to have been displaced by a site upgrade, but here’s the one about last year’s winners:
<a href=“Vanderbilt honors top graduates during Commencement | Vanderbilt University”>http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/05/founders-medalists-commencement-2012/</a></p>
<p>Vanderbilt has a strong tradition of community service. This description comes from the profile of one of D’s suite mates on the VU site:</p>
<p>By the time she had received her second Vanderbilt degree in August 2007, a Master’s of Public Policy in Education Policy, she had worked in Washington, D.C., West Africa, Dubai, and a high poverty neighborhood in Nashville.</p>
<p>A born organizer, Stacy helped organize the Education Without Borders conference in Dubai in 2006 and used her Vanderbilt connections to invite Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus to give the keynote speech. She started Synergy College Prep, a program which assists high-risk high school youth in Nashville with the college application process, in her freshman year.</p>
<p>As an Ingram Scholar, she was able to attend a wide variety of cultural events in Nashville and participated in Scholars seminars. Several of her summer internships were spent in Washington, D.C. working in the areas of social entrepreneurship, AIDS community action, and education.</p>
<p>I understand the need to lick your wounds when you see your child experience disappointment, but he has some wonderful choices and I’m sure with his past performance that he will excel at whichever college he chooses. Good luck to him!</p>
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<p>This is a good outcome. Awesome, in fact, because he got admitted to the two premier public universities on the East Coast, and he had to be out-of-state for at least one of them. It is fearsomely difficult to get into either UNC or UVA from out of state. </p>
<p>^This year especially for UNC; 17% admit rate for OOS. Vandy most impressive also. </p>