<p>The author intermixes the word ‘good’ with liberal sprinkles of ‘elite’ and ‘top’ and frequent name drops-Harvard, Stanford to muddy the waters of what schools he is talking about.
“They don’t, however, represent the true odds of a well-qualified student’s being admitted to a top school”
“It turns out that four out of five well-qualified students who apply to elite schools are accepted by at least one.”</p>
<p>His premise is that students are unduly and unnecessarily worried about their ability to get into the colleges they are targeting, making them out to be clueless and so here rides the better informed author to straighten matters out. That is what is most annoying. Most of these students/families have a pretty good notion of chances. The actual large scale ignorance that he could more usefully spend his time addressing is regarding the financial aspects of college attendance.</p>
<p>My S has already been accepted to at least one school on that list, UW-Madison. There was zero anxiety applying there. It is a safety, albeit a very possible choice. We knew he was basically an a-admit. The school doesn’t have actual guidelines for that, but in-state kids at least have a good idea of chances. We also know beyond doubt that S’s stats and this dumb article notwithstanding, the really top schools would be a crapshoot. The author has set up a straw man if you read closely enough to push past the thicket of top-Harvard-Stanford-elite to see that he is really saying “Don’t be worried about getting into schools like UW-Madison.” Well, duhhh.</p>
<p>And this, not just misleading, patently false, assuming his audience is American students, as others have noted:
“the slots themselves aren’t becoming more scarce”
Internationals are taking more of those slots, for one thing. </p>
<p>We aren’t targeting those schools, but if we were I think Hunt is correct that more than 3 reaches is prudent. A dozen would be about right for my kid- fine stats w. ordinary ECs like varsity athletics. Families who do that aren’t giving in to mindless mass frenzy. It’s good hard calculation of how to allocate resources if you want to be sure of admission in the stratosphere.</p>
<p>"Indeed, I think if a kid with the stats to make HYP plausible doesn’t get in to any highly selective school, then it’s because the list wasn’t well-constructed. If you apply to HYP and the University of Maryland, you may very well end up at Maryland–but you might have been able to go to Cornell, or Tufts, or Hopkins, or Georgetown.</p>
<p>Of course, some of these types of students may think that Maryland, Cornell, Tufts, Hopkins, and Georgetown are “beneath” them."</p>
<p>Yes, but then those people are idiots of the first degree if they think Cornell, Tufts, JHU and GU are “beneath” them, aren’t they? I tend not to respect opinions that are clearly stupid. </p>
<p>D has 36 ACT, 3.8 GPA, weighted 4.4 with four AP 5s and six more this year. ECs are solid. We sat down and worked through how many colleges made sense. We can pay full cost but anything we save goes to grad school. She applied to 20 colleges. Seven are reach and six offer honors college and merit aid. Given the current environment that’s what you have to do today. Perhaps the low admission rates are truly driven by marginal students applying to schools where they have no chance. If you are wrong and your child is left with limited options what do you tell them? </p>
<p>There are those who think that it’s not worth the extra money to go to Cornell, Tufts, Hopkins, or Georgetown instead of Maryland, but it would have been worth the extra money to go to HYP. I’m not one of them (you may know that I’m a Cornell graduate and the parent of a Cornell graduate). But there are people who think this way, and they may have a point.</p>
<p>" do think it is much more true than many people realize that it’s not as difficult as it may seem for highly qualified students to get into at least one highly selective college. I’ve spent (or wasted) a lot of time perusing the results threads for HYP here on CC, and it’s my observation that the vast majority of rejected students obtain admission to highly selective schools. While this is a self-selected group, obviously, this is also my observation from “real life” at a high school with a lot of high-stats kids. Indeed, I think if a kid with the stats to make HYP plausible doesn’t get in to any highly selective school, then it’s because the list wasn’t well-constructed."</p>
<p>^ This. If they don’t get into HYPSM they get into UofC, NU, Colgate, Midd, Vandy, Duke, JHU, etc., etc., etc. I see it on this board and I see it in my school district. </p>
<p>I know quite a few families whose child applied to the tippy top 4 and one of their in-state privates and their in-state flagship public.</p>
<p>Our child applied to a grand total of one tippy top national research university, almost all tippy top LACs, an in-state private university, and the flagship public university (which was his safety because that public college almost only looked at applicant’s stats if the stats is high enough, not so much at their ECs), if we only talk about the completed applications here. This was many years ago though. We did not know CC back then (at least not until our child had almost finished all the applications), otherwise we might not choose to do this. Knowing too much about college applications as discussed on CC could make us overly paranoid.</p>
<p>Well, its somewhat surprising to see that not only are the families searching for merit aid casting that wide net, even those who can full pay are in the same boat to get their kids into the schools of their choosing even though they are academically matched. Says alot about the system. Worse than that though is that most of those top 20 northeast LACs are 100% need met and even if D gets accepted (and my best is she will at at least half of them) we can’t afford them ~ their idea of need and ours are two distinctly different things. I only say this because I guess I was feeling like a lost soul here in the college search only to find out that things aren’t that much different or “greener” on the other side. </p>
<p>I would say that a 99th percentile kid with some ECs and really puts thought in to their essays is quite unlikely to be shutout of all Ivies/Ivy-equivalents/near-Ivies if they use the right application strategy and, most importantly, <em>can</em>afford<em>to</em>be<em>full</em>pay<em>anywhere</em>.</p>
<p>I just don’t see a kid with a 1490 M+CR SAT, 3.9 GPA, and decent ECs who worked on their essays being shutout of all of Cal/UMich/UVa/ND/Georgetown/Cornell/Vassar/Reed/Oberlin/Tufts (if they can not afford to be full-pay, their options may shorten a lot).</p>
<p>Furthermore, some schools are easier to get in to as a transfer than if you apply straight out of HS. Cornell, UVa, and W&M have guaranteed admissions if you hit a certain GPA at their partner CC’s. UNC is easier to get in as a tranfer than out of HS if you are OOS. Evidently that’s also true for UMich (and MI CC’s). Probably UT-Austin as well. Take a gap year, and you could try for Columbia GS (which is much easier to enter than the other 2 undergrad colleges of Columbia).</p>
<p>We need some of these ‘top’ students to correctly interpret the fuzzy statistics. This article seemed to be nothing more than a puff piece for Parchment, which doesn’t provide an accurate sample. So everyone can go back to worrying about their kids’ chances!</p>
<p>The problem, to me, is the title of this thread. Words like “good” and “hard” are very subjective. To those rejected to the schools they consider good, there would be disagreement about this. </p>
<p>Marian is quite right that some families make the decision that if a kid can’t get into HYP, then they might as well go to a good state flagship (especially if the cost will be much, much less). This may indeed be an entirely rational decision–but I still think if that kid was plausible for HYP, but just didn’t choose to apply to more highly selective schools, it’s not really sensible to think of him as having been “shut out.”</p>
<p>I see it this way. Of 35000 apps to H, if only roughly 2000 get in, there’s your 5.x%. But I think good 50% of the applicants aren’t truly qualified, are dreamers, just hitting the Send button because they can and folks told them, you won’t know unless you try. </p>
<p>So the truly qualified kid is really evaluated in a pool of 17000. Forgetting early admits, athletes, intls, and etc, his real-er chances are closer to 11%. This applies to the tippy tops kids are drawn to in masses. Some lower ranked schools just don’t get the overwhelming numbers of long shots.</p>
<p>But you have to have a good sense of what that top college is really looking for. It doesn’t matter if the Val, high stats kid, with lots of whatever activities, isn’t presenting an app the college finds interesting or compelling.</p>
<p>Based on ime, I think half the “truly qualified” come closer to more fully holistically matching what the school wants. Ie, they are the real contenders. Now the compelling candidate would be one of 8500. His “chance” is almost 1 in 4.</p>
<p>Of course, geo diversity, major, etc, play a role. And I know this notion has a goofy aspect. But it’s one way we looked at colleges for D1- first, find where you are probably “truly qualified.” And that’s an S-load more than looking at stats of matriculated kids. It requires a holistic approach of your own.</p>
<p>Your math is as good as the person who wrote the op-ed.</p>
<p>1) You eliminate half of the 35K right of the bat with no reason. You basically start with a number of top .5% . </p>
<p>2) You forget early admits, athletes, … those are the admittance, not rejections. If you forget them, the remaining number of admits drops lower than 2K which makes the rate goes down, not up.</p>
<p>3) You use the statement “It doesn’t matter if the Val, high stats kid, with lots of whatever activities, isn’t presenting an app the college finds interesting or compelling.” to eliminate some of the 35K.</p>
<p>The trouble is if you really want to go beyond the 1% stat range then your original number is no longer 35K . It includes kids that do not have the stats but have other qualications. So the applicant pool is bigger not smaller.</p>
<p>4) Despite that, using your fanstatical number, you say the “truly qualified” still fails 3/4 times?
Getting in to a “good” college is indeed as hard as it seems, isn’t it ?</p>
<p>They are saying it’s easier for the top 10 percent to get into elite colleges and I could buy that. What they aren’t talking about is how difficult it can be for students to get into the top 10 percent now. 20+years ago when I graduated high school, there were only 3 AP classes offered. I was in the top 10 percent with more B’s on my report cards than A’s. I got no rejections from even elite schools. To be in the top 10 percent now, it can take 4 years of total perfection. Instead of taking 3 AP’s they are taking 9. They are prepping for years for these tests. There is little forgiveness for a kid who missteps even a tiny bit. So sure, the top 10 percent are doing as well getting into college as they always have but that top 10 percent itself looks a lot different than it used to.</p>