Great Minds Need Not Apply

<p>Tuft's Syndrome--the tendency of a school to wait-list and reject its overqualified applicants--is real. I know this because in addition to earning an acceptance from Princeton, I was praised by another Ivy League for being among the top 86 of their 36,000 applicants. But Kenyon and Grinnell both wait-listed me.</p>

<p>Use this information however you like. Here are my personal recommendations:</p>

<ol>
<li>Don't apply ED unless you are 100.00% sure you want to go to Grinnell.</li>
<li>Don't visit to show interest if you live more than 100 miles from campus. There are other ways to demonstrate interest, and this one is neither cost effective nor time effective. Do visit if you want to know more about what makes Grinnell extraordinary, but this can wait until after decisions come out in April.</li>
<li>Do write letters of interest to the admissions office. You must go beyond simply submitting your Common App.</li>
<li>Don't even apply to Grinnell if your test scores are in the top 1% of the nation (33+ ACT, 2300+ SAT).</li>
</ol>

<p>I'm sure number 4 will spark some controversy, and even I would have argued against it a year ago. Sadly, I now understand it to be true. Having a 32 on the ACT puts you on the 75th percentile of Grinnell's class, and anything above it is a red flag that you are overqualified.</p>

<p>Make no mistake, I think that Grinnell is lovely. If your ACT score falls in the range between 28 and 32, Grinnell might be the perfect place for you. In this case, go for it! That they reject their top applicants is dreadfully unfortunate, but it should not take away from the greatness of what is otherwise an ideal college. Tips 1, 2, and especially 3 above are intended to encourage, not discourage, applying to Grinnell.</p>

<p>By the way, I have no doubt that the students here who fall in that 28-32 range do have great minds. The title was sensationalist. It holds true only for an exceptionally qualified few, but it's important that those people see this thread. It saves them from being a pawn in Grinnell's selectivity game. The information here should be understood a valuable counterweight to this forum's buzz about the apparent difficulty in admissions.</p>

<p>Stay frosty guys! I know you're stressed now, but everything will fall into place for you this next year. I promise.</p>

<p>I think your points are helpful, but I disagree with your point no. 4. My D, who had a 34 ACT and was a NMF, just graduated from Grinnell, which was a really great fit for her. Unlike the OP, she wasn’t strong enough for the ivy league. While she did visit the school, I think that interviewing with the Grinnell representative who visited her high school was more helpful in showing her interest. Another way that a top-scoring student can show their interest is by taking advantage of the two “shout outs” to colleges which College Board offers for NMSFs. It’s a nice way of letting the schools know that they are one of your top choices without committing to ED. My D got into both schools that she notified were her top two choices, even though one was a real reach for her.</p>

<p>My son scored a 35 on the ACT and was accepted to Grinnell.</p>

<p>My guess is that Grinnell has been overwhelmed by the people from outside the region who, over the past 5-8 years or so, have heard of its legendary endowment and generosity with financial aid. I was astonished on our tour how many families there were from the east and west coasts. A decade ago I don’t think that would have been the case.</p>

<p>I think you forgot that 25% of the students have scores above the 32 ACT range…. so clearly the school is accepting students with high test scores (and there are plenty of us with first hand knowledge of enrolled students with scores in the 99+ percentile). Grinnell does a holistic review and fit is important, as is creating a class of diversity and a variety of factors are taken into account for that. There are plenty of people with perfect stats who are rejected from the Ivies, too. They can’t take them all. </p>

<p>There’s nothing new here about schools protecting their yield – i wouldn’t extrapolate from your experience to say that they reject all the highest qualified candidates, but perhaps they sniffed out something with you that told them either you weren’t a fit or you weren’t really that interested in the school as a top choice. </p>

<p>Schools manage yield – they need to admit students who are likely to attend. High stats kids who don’t demonstrate interest, contact admissions rep, interview, write essays focusing on “why x school” which reflect an appreciation and understanding of what makes that school special – those students are going to be seen as using schools like Kenyon, Grinnell, Oberlin as safeties and those schools know it. Unless a student demonstrates they are genuinely interested in attending, why would a school use a slot for someone who will almost certainly turn them down? </p>

<p>I see that you visited, but did you interview? They do encourage them (and state that on their website), and again, these small schools want to know that students are interested and a good fit. They are creating a community and not just a data bank of stats. They say that the interviews are optional, but encourage them and they are evaluative – and I suspect they mean in terms of personal fit, not paper stats.</p>

<p>They offer off-campus alumni interviews, and even if one can’t be scheduled on Grinnell’s end (as was the case with my son when he applied), then at least a prospective student has shown that they are genuinely interested in the school and taking that extra step to promote their application.</p>

<p>I know of a 2350/800/800/800 student accepted this year as well. I think it is really presumptuous of you to take your own case and then make up rules for other people based on it, I think this post is a real disservice.</p>

<p>I’m usually not negative in my responses but my gut tells me the original poster’s arrogance isn’t a good match for Grinnell anyway, and so maybe it’s a good thing that he or she wasn’t accepted. From the mother of a high achieving Grinnell student who had the “stats” for ivy’s but little interest, and who is very happy at Grinnell.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for all your responses. I see that I am not entirely correct and that students with very high scores do get into Grinnell. If it really is your top pick and you can show that to them, go for it. What we all agree on in this forum is that Grinnell is an amazing school.</p>

<p>To address the buzz surrounding my arrogance, know that I try to be humble and feel unworthy to be on the path that I am on. I did not deserve to rise from poverty to Princeton, but I ran into lots of luck and extraordinary souls at many turns in my life. I was fortunate to have a loving extended family took me in when I needed to escape domestic abuse, and I’m painfully aware that many others do not have those same opportunities.</p>

<p>What I’m trying to do now is help other students, particularly those who come from backgrounds like mine and whose only resources are forums like these. I could only apply to a limited number of schools with the money I had saved up personally, and even with Grinnell’s free application, I had to spend money sending my test scores and applying for financial aid. I thought this money was well spent because I had worked hard my entire life to prepare myself for this moment when I would apply to schools offering world-class educations.</p>

<p>I did all I knew to do at the time. No alumni were in my area, so I didn’t interview. Grinnell didn’t give the option of writing a supplementary essay, so I didn’t write one. I trusted they would understand my passion, the obstacles I had overcome, and the sincerity of the work I had done. I can understand that posters here feel that my “arrogance isn’t a good match for Grinnell,” but I promise that my essay about an inspirational moment in my 250th hour of service to special needs children would not have struck anyone as arrogant.</p>

<p>What quality I lacked–that ineffable attribute that makes student a good fit–I really can’t say. I considered myself to be the image of the slightly quirky Grinnell student, and I really would have been happy there. I can be happy anywhere I can find people like me. Having received two wait-list letters from the two least selective colleges I applied to after a slew of unexpected acceptances from far more selective schools, I am suspicious that this talk of “fit” is an excuse to reject the hardest working applicants and drive down acceptance rates. I could be wrong, and I often am. But I hope you can understand why I feel this way, and that my post is an honest attempt to help other students so that they do not use up their valuable resources only to be used as a tool in a game.</p>

<p>I can see that my frank recommendations have understandably ruffled feathers, and although it hurts that I am being judged here in perhaps the same way Grinnell judged me, I cannot blame anyone for their defense of a remarkable school. I will do my best to avoid posting here again because it’s clear to me that I am not providing the help that I intended. I do want students reading this thread to take my story into account, but also consider the counterexamples to my advice that the wonderful volunteer writers on this forum have provided. A full picture is the best way to learn how to achieve what all of us here want for you, to go to the best college for you and lead the happiest life.</p>

<p>Take care everyone, best wishes to you all and to your families.</p>

<p>Sorry you weren’t accepted, but glad you have such great options, OP. Best wishes!</p>

<p>I agree with your point #1, but that is true for any school. I don’t necessarily buy the other three. And honestly… if you had expressed interest while on the wait list and told them you were their first choice, you still might have gotten in. But every college wants decent yield – they want to accept students who will attend. </p>

<p>Regarding visiting, it is very difficult to fit in many visits in April. Students are in school, they likely have multiple schools to visit, ECs are in full swing, tickets are more expensive on short notice, and parents may be too busy to do a lot of visits. If you are genuinely interested, go visit earlier.</p>

<p>I don’t necessarily believe a "letter of interest’ goes very far. Emails with legitimate questions to admissions can help. If you visit and sit in on a class, meet a professor, or email with a professor about their research, mention it in an essay if you can (not sure if Grinnell has a “Why Grinnell” essay, but that can be a make or break essay for students they are not sure will accept. Generic essay will likely send you to the waitlist.</p>

<p>Regarding don’t apply advice… sounds like sour grapes to me. For a kid that they genuinely believe is deeply interested in Grinnell with those statistics, I think they will accept you.</p>

<p>Oh… and if calling yourself a “great mind’ in your thread title is any indication, possibly more than a whiff of arrogance did come through on your application or via some avenue. Maybe they called your GC to see if you were serious… stuff like that does happen. One of my kids had a 2380 SAT superscore/Subject test Math II 800/Subject test Lit 800, and a 35 ACT (ACT taken without any prep). That does not mean she is a “great mind” – maybe, but there are some years to go before that is proven out. 18 year olds who think they are 'great minds”… mostly aren’t.</p>

<p>I am posting again to iterate that I made this thread to give back to the CC community. I was active on these forums a year ago (under another username), and the warmhearted parents here steered me to many of the colleges I applied to. Having emerged from that process, I came to give advice that can hopefully help someone who is now in the shoes I was in a year ago.</p>

<p>I know that all the responses on this thread have been well-meaning, but many have been very judgmental. This is not the atmosphere I had grown to expect from CC, and I am ready to admit that I may very well have done something wrong to have caused such an uproar. But I have a strong suspicion that the culture here oppresses any criticism of colleges, and my original post was lightly critical.</p>

<p>I say “lightly critical” because even though I advised a tiny fraction of students–one percent of the nation–not to apply to Grinnell, three of my four points were meant to encourage applications. I said that “Grinnell is lovely,” and told readers that it might be “the perfect place” for some of them. The theory that I am suffering from “sour grapes” is wholly contradicted by my praise for Grinnell College, and those who accuse me of it may be letting their prejudice toward critics cloud out their ability to see the amicable intentions behind my post.</p>

<p>That I have been painted as flawed while Grinnell has gotten off scot-free perplexes me. Maybe others don’t see it this way, but I find it downright immoral to draw kids in with a lure of selectivity, let those kids spend their money applying and visiting, and reject those on top because that way they can cast a more selective lure to next year’s applicants. It’s a cycle where children are a means to the college’s end of rising in the rankings, and I do not think kids’ hopes should be gamed for any institution’s benefit.</p>

<p>These conclusions are not based on my experience alone. Tuft’s Syndrome is an observable and replicable phenomenon widely acknowledged here on CC. Yet even though its existence is undeniable, its reach is suppressed because students like me who speak about it from personal experience are censured for their apparent arrogance. At some point, however, the student is not arrogant; he or she is simply pointing out a real and observable effect.</p>

<p>It’s an effect that genuinely harms children. My best friend is too submissive to talk about it, but he was a victim and a big part of the reason I have posted here. He was co-valedictorian at my school and scored a 34 on the ACT. His application funds were severely limited, so he could not apply to more than six schools. Lamentably, two of these six schools, Grinnell and Kenyon, did not accept him in spite of the fact–no, because of the fact–that he was significantly beyond their 75th percentile of admitted students.</p>

<p>Maybe it’s not nearly as ruinous for wealthy families (though I believe strongly that no child should be taken advantage of in this way). For families in poverty, however, it’s absolutely harmful. We don’t have the money to hire a college counselor who will tell us what hoops we must jump through to show interest, and we can hardly afford for two of our shots at college to be wasted like this. Sometimes we’re beating the odds simply by going to college in the first place.</p>

<p>Had my friend known that Grinnell and Kenyon would throw his application in their furnace to stoke their selectivity flame, he could have applied to two other schools, where he could possibly have been accepted on a better aid package than he’s getting at his college now. That would have been a huge relief on him and his family, who have had to take on debt. And had I known that Grinnell and Kenyon would do the same to me, I could have saved the $700 I spent traveling to Kenyon for an interview and put it toward, I don’t know, rent. (I do have to pay our rent from time to time, and that money would have gotten us through a couple months.)</p>

<p>That the members of this forum defend these devastating practices is deplorable, and the fact that they sling mud at anyone who dares to criticize them is even worse. I sincerely hope that these are isolated cases of a few good souls having bad days. I would really like to think that we as a community have children’s best interest in mind. Even if that doesn’t include protecting these kids from colleges who will take advantage of them (and I think it should), it most certainly includes treating those brave enough to share their story and give help with civility and respect. I can acknowledge when I’ve done something wrong, and that is why I apologized and gave context in my last post on this thread. Bu I have not been arrogant or sour in trying to help impoverished high school students, and those who think otherwise are making sweeping generalizations about a teenager based on their narrow judgments of me.</p>

<p>Sometimes my word choice on this thread has been poor. I should have been clearer, @intparent, that the title was click bait. I did not mean to apply the “great mind” title to myself any more than I meant to deny it from others. Instead I meant to get eyeballs on this thread because that is necessary if I am to help anyone, and helping people has been my goal from the start. For my poor word choice, I am sorry, and I am sorry for any offense students took to those poorly chosen words.</p>

<p>I am not sorry, however, for advising students on avoiding yield protection at Grinnell. As a person who is more interested in helping children than helping colleges to the detriment of children, I am happy to stand my ground here. Especially if application funds are limited for you, be aware that Grinnell habitually denies admittance to applicants who exceed the normal qualifications for entry. If you still choose to apply, great. You were informed and that’s what matters.</p>

<p>Again, good luck to all the students applying this year. I have faith in you.</p>

<p>This is a bit off topic, but someone above wrote that “My guess is that Grinnell has been overwhelmed by the people from outside the region who, over the past 5-8 years or so, have heard of its legendary endowment and generosity with financial aid. I was astonished on our tour how many families there were from the east and west coasts. A decade ago I don’t think that would have been the case.”</p>

<p>As a Grinnell grad from 20 years ago, I can confirm that even back then, students from Iowa accounted for much less than 15% of the total student body. Most came from Chicago and the coasts, and there was a strong percentage of international students. More than half of the student body studied abroad during their 4 years at Grinnell, which is still the case.</p>

<p>When I attended, it was actually a much more recognized name on the coasts than in the Midwest!</p>

<p>You guys are NOT victims. The use of that term in this situation is ridiculous. </p>

<p>Thousands of students apply to colleges like Princeton who have no chance of admission, and those colleges happily accept the application fees and continue to encourage as many applicants as they can while knowing only a tiny fraction will be admitted. Grinnell is no better or worse than any of them. Let me ask you… WAS Grinnell your safety? Colleges aren’t stupid, they can tell. As far as I can determine, a Grinnell acceptance would have only been to stroke your ego,and it is not a place you actually ever thought you would attend once you had your test scores in hand and could see what your choices were. And Grinnell could see it, too.</p>

<p>As far as titles that are “click bait”, you got what you deserved when you use that title. You are now saying you didn’t mean that YOU were a great mind. Sorry… I think you did mean it, and now realize how it sounds.</p>

<p>I have no vested interest in pushing Grinnell as a college (one of my kids visited and decided not to apply, and I thought that was the appropriate decision on her part). I have given plenty of criticism of many colleges out here. But you are criticizing a college for doing their best to manage their yield, and you just want the acceptance letter so you can say you were accepted everywhere. </p>

<p>By they way… my kid who had 2380 superscored SAT, 800 Math II, 800 Lit was accepted at Kenyon last year. I think you just don’t like that somehow these college picked up that you were unlikely to attend, and gave admissions offers to students they thought were excited about Grinnell and had a strong interest in attending.</p>

<p>My daughter was mailed an application form by Harvard. We had never contacted the school nor thought about the Ivies. And yet when this arrived, we were tempted even though my D did not have a snowball’s chance in **** of getting in even though she had 99+%ile SAT scores. </p>

<p>All the schools play this game.</p>

<p>It is very clear when you look at the results on any of these college sub forums that it is a crap shoot and you have kids with lower stats getting in an Ivy, for example, while someone with higher stats didn’t. You’re not the first to be perplexed and a bit angry about not getting in to a school for which you were highly qualified. And none of us can say why Person A got in but Person B didn’t. Every one of these colleges is building a class of people representing different backgrounds, experiences and contributions on campus. </p>

<p>For you, it may be that Grinnell and Kenyon sensed that you weren’t going to come if accepted, or that there was something about you that just didn’t feel like a fit. You may very well have presented a whiff of arrogance, which you say you did not intend here, but perhaps came through in your essays. I don’t know. I am just guessing. </p>

<p>Or, it may have been that they had others with a similar background that were of greater interest to them and they could only offer admission to X numbers of applicants with a certain profile. Again I’m just guessing.</p>

<p>Do you have any sense of how these admission reviews go? From what I understand, admissions reps present files of candidates that they have pre-screened and are strong enough to make it to committee. It’s at that point where the different variables come into play. And whether it’s Harvard or whether it’s Grinnell then you have human beings (the full Admissions Committee) discussing the full portfolio of each candidate and voting on which pile to put them in accept, waitlist or deny.</p>

<p>Frankly, I think that by coming on here and suggesting that people with high stats don’t apply to wonderful schools like Grinnell and Kenyon is doing a disservice. Everyone knows about the Ivies. Fewer people know about these small schools that are such gems and have made a huge difference in the lives of so many young people.</p>

<p>I disagree with the opinion that students, especially poor students, are not victims when they are lured to shell out money by colleges who know they won’t accept them. In @intparent’s inverted example, where students without proper qualifications apply to Princeton, these students at least have access to information that will tell them they are not qualified. Princeton releases statistics each year on the percentage of applicants it accepts from different test score ranges, and a student with a low score can see that he doesn’t have a chance. There’s never any deception on Princeton’s part. But when a school encourages high-achieving students to apply, then rejects the students who exceed the normal benchmarks, that college is engaged in willful deception.</p>

<p>It’s a deception that really hurts children and their families. Those from wealthy or even middle-class backgrounds may have trouble understanding that, but for some families every dollar matters. Last year, CC users told me that I needed to visit Kenyon if I wanted to get accepted, so I visited. I was extremely interested because my favorite contemporary author is an alumnus. To top it off, I fell in love with the campus, interviewed, submitted my application and separate applications for scholarships, created content for the optional online portfolio–everything I possibly could to convey my sincere enthusiasm. But they still quarantined me to the wait-list. No amount of interest was enough; they never expected to accept me. If I had acted uninterested, that might have been okay. But the $700 I spent traveling to Kenyon meant I was very interested, because money is tight for us. That money could have bought us a place to stay for a month (shortly after the visit we had to move in with relatives for a time to get back on our feet), or I could have, like, paid Mom’s medical bills. I can hardly articulate how much $700 means to our family.</p>

<p>Users on CC had told me I should invest that money in a visit, that with my stats I would get accepted if my interest was clear. I spent that money thinking it was an investment in my future, but when decisions came out I had nothing to show for it. If we had been financially well-off, then yeah, $700, whatever. But we weren’t well off. It was a real blow to our financial security.</p>

<p>My family and I made it through okay, but I’m sure there have been others who weren’t quite as lucky. I included a cautionary warning in my original post so that other students don’t fall victim to this admissions ploy. Yes, I AM using the word victim, and I think that’s appropriate when a child is conned into spending hundreds of dollars by a college who knows the whole time that the most qualified students will be rejected.</p>

<p>The real disservice on this forum is the intolerance toward people who acknowledge this con. I advised only one percent of the nation not to apply to Grinnell and Kenyon. Like @SDonCC, I recognize that these two schools are wonderful gems that do make a difference in the lives of young people. I made this clear in my first post when I encouraged students with scores in the middle 50% of Grinnell’s class to apply. Those who attend will surely find that Grinnell is an extraordinary place. However, those with excessive qualifications ARE habitually rejected, that’s the simple truth of it. I am trying to help the relatively small number of affected students understand this, so they don’t put their financial security at risk like I did.</p>

<p>To answer some questions that have been asked of me, no, Grinnell and Kenyon were not my safety schools. My safety was my state flagship. I really never expected to get into Ivy League schools. That just doesn’t happen around here. My county graduates some 450 high schoolers a year, but not one of them in the last twenty years had attended an Ivy for their undergraduate education. When I applied to Grinnell and Kenyon, I thought they were good fits for me academically and atmospherically.</p>

<p>I simply could not afford to spend money on these schools “only to stroke my ego.” I was interested in every single school I applied to, and even some like Hamilton that I chose not apply to in the end. I really do understand why some posters think I am simply bitter at my rejections, but this is not the case. I was rejected outright at two schools that I did not have infallible qualifications for, and a third LAC, Swarthmore, wait-listed me as well. But I am not denouncing Swarthmore. A significant portion of their class does have scores on the ninety-ninth percentile, so all well qualified students have hope. That doesn’t seem to be quite the case for Grinnell, however, which is why I cautioned one percent of students on applying. Please keep in mind that the body of students I encouraged to apply to Grinnell is seven or eight times greater than the body of students I have cautioned.</p>

<p>That posters here believe that I “got what I deserved”–that any child deserves this sort of judgment and name-calling when they were simply trying to help other students–disappoints me. To iterate, I noted in the original post that “the title was sensationalist,” and I have since apologized for the title altogether. I honestly did not mean to apply any title to myself, but even if you want to believe that I did mean to, I do not understand why I would deserve this level of animosity. The human brain is the most complex wonder in the known universe, and in that respect every human being has a great mind. That’s why I said in my original post that the students in the 28-32 ACT range–Grinnell students–do have great minds, because all children’s minds are wondrous and beautiful.</p>

<p>To sum up, I understand that yield protection is practiced widely, but that doesn’t make it right. Taking money from children who have good reason to believe they’ve accomplished what they need to get into your school, then rejecting them for your institution’s gain, is ethically questionable at best. I have come on here acknowledging this phenomenon and sharing my story of how my family and my friend were hurt by it. Civil discussion on the merits of yield protection and friendly counterexamples to my advice are welcome. Why so many posters have bypassed productive discussion and resorted to accusations and name-calling, I cannot say.</p>

<p>If Princeton can reject students with perfect test scores and great grades and E Cs then why can’t Grinnell and Kenyon do so as well? </p>

<p>Not sure how many times you need to hete that a) all of these highly selective schools don’t simply take every high stat kid that applies and b) that they do accept students with top scores even if you did not happen to be one of them</p>

<p>Schools like Grinnell and Kenyon may not give the odds of test scores and acceptance for this reason: they want to encourage students with a range of talents and abilities to apply and send a clear message that the students at their schools are more than the sum of their scores. They truly do a holistic review. </p>

<p>Btw, just because people are challenging your assertions doesn’t mean they are attacking you personally. </p>

<p>You got a lot of waitlists… based on that, I am betting your “why college X” essays weren’t strong. My kid with high stats who was accepted to Kenyon also got into Swat. They didn’t just waitlist you for high stats, I am guessing. My guess is that they could tell from your app that they weren’t your top choice. Also, schools sometimes call GCs to get a feeling for how serious a student is. You have have no way of knowing if your GC screwed you somehow via answering questions from the college or in your GC rec somehow, implying that you were destined for an Ivy or something.</p>

<p>You keep blaming the college… but there certainly could be other reasons for your waitlist. And again… you didn’t WANT to go there (did you call and ask to get off the waitlist, tell them they are your first choice)? Nope… They left the door open a crack, and you didn’t follow up. </p>

<p>You also call it deceptive for colleges to solicit students and then reject them. But until they have the full portfolio in hand and review and discuss in committee they don’t know who they are going to admit. Again are you saying that only certain schools can solicit and reject high scoring applicants?</p>

<p>Insofar as why you were wait listed, people here can only guess that it was a perceived question of interest but that’s only a guess. Wouldn’t we all like to be a fly on the wall in those Admission Committee meetings!</p>