<p>TheThrill: Her daughter was waitlisted for the same reason anyone else would have been waitlisted–she was quite clearly qualified to attend Georgetown and other highly selective colleges and universities, and indeed may well be offered a place in the class of 2014 depending on how many accepted students do not matriculate and who said students are, but Georgetown simply cannot take everyone who applies nor even everyone is qualified. At schools with 18-20% acceptance rates, such as Georgetown, you can find an ultra-qualified applicant (you may have to look outside of College Confidential) who was rejected or waitlisted for every one who was accepted. That’s why we all encourage students to apply to a number of schools at every selectivity level (reach/match/safety), so that at the end of the process, they hopefully have some options in each bracket. Considering TheThrill’s daughter’s incredible qualifications and fantastic extracurricular accomplishments, I am positive that she has many choices.</p>
<p>Reading through this forum, it disturbs me how many people underestimate Georgetown. It may not be a member of the Ivy League (which may have more to do with the school’s historical religious affiliation than the caliber of its academics), but claims that posters have made the Northwestern, WashU, Cornell, et. al. are all significantly more prestigious and full of more intelligent students than Georgetown are baseless. The DC location and unique character of the campus community draw some of our nation’s brightest high school seniors every year, including a handful who were accepted at Ivies and other “higher-ranked” schools. Recent and not-so-recent Georgetown alums with whom I am acquainted are in positions of great prestige throughout the world, both in the public and private sector. I even know many Georgetown grads–including SFS students and American Studies and English majors–headed for Wall Street jobs in investment banking and consulting. To hear CC posters tell it, Georgetown students would never be selected for those jobs as long as there are HYP and Wharton grads applying. </p>
<p>The school’s USNWR ranking is misleadingly low because of the size of the endowment, which is admittedly pathetically small. However, only having about $900 mil in the bank doesn’t appear to have stopped the university from undertaking ambitious construction projects, hiring superstar faculty, or giving out financial aid to those most in need. Where it really becomes an issue is that the university cannot be as generous as HYP et al with financial aid for middle-class families and has yet to eliminate loans from its financial aid packages. However, the university is working to increase the size of the endowment, and I am not sure that you can necessarily argue that the size of the endowment is impacting the prestige of the school or the quality of the teaching and learning that goes on there.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate, at 19%, is about the same as Cornell, Penn up until this year, and most of the top liberal arts colleges. Additionally, it’s important to remember that the applicant pool at Georgetown is extremely self-selecting, since the school is not on the Common App and requires students to apply into one of 4 schools. Taking this self-selection into account really places the school’s acceptance rate this year on par with Penn, Duke, Chicago, and not that far off from Brown, Columbia, and Dartmouth.</p>