<p>performoers mom-</p>
<p>i cant. too much identifying info.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your niece’s story doesn’t surprise me at all (she got into some of the top schools in the land but not all). It is very easy for me to see how many superstars are rejected! There are more superstars than slots available and so when the school has an acceptance rate in the single digits, they are having to reject students who are every bit as qualified as those they accepted (not all the rejected students fit this statement but many do, including your niece). It is statistically rare that a top student will get into every single college they apply to with such low acceptance rates. Not only are there too many qualified students for one single top college, but there are institutional needs to balance the class with many diverse types of students. An applicant can’t control that factor. I* don’t blame the colleges for not wanting all one type of student. When all things are fairly equal academically speaking (and I don’t see 100 points on the SAT being meaningful in terms of a difference between students), the school will seek other qualities and a variety of types to make up their class. </p>
<p>When my kids received a rejection, they never asked “why?” They knew the statistical odds at highly selective schools or performing arts programs and while confident in their qualifications, they knew that some schools would not come through and not because they were not good enough but simply that the school can’t take all those who are qualified. They were realistic and had no sour grapes. It is very common for someone to get into Harvard and get rejected at Princeton and vice versa. The college who didn’t take them didn’t “wrong” them in any way. NO need to ask why did that happen. It happened due to statistical odds. </p>
<p>By the way, D1 was deferred EA and eventually rejected in RD at Yale. Didn’t get upset. Knew this process was very chancy odds due to the acceptance rate and not due to whether or not she had what it took to get in. D2 applied to tippy top BFA in musical theater programs (which involves an audition to be accepted) and all her schools had acceptance rates of approximately 5% give or take a few percentage points in either direction at each school. She was lucky to get into a majority of them, but for example, was rejected at UMichigan’s BFA in MT (one of the MT “Ivies”). We don’t ask why. </p>
<p>I advise many students in college admissions. Some of these students are top academic students applying to elite colleges (like my D1 did) and some are applying to top performing arts college programs (like my D2 did). When I get a highly qualified applicant, I can feel somewhat assured that they will get into some schools (and not be shut out) but can’t say for sure which schools will take them given the odds. But typically top students (or top artistic talent) will not be shut out of selective colleges. That is a realistic view. No top student who is rejected from Harvard should be scratching their head and asking why not? (not to mention, claiming there was something unfair about it)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I go to a top-25 school, and have many friends at HYPSM, and there is absolutely no shortage of middle-class white kids at our schools. (Unless by middle-class you are excluding the upper-middle class. In which case I would agree. But I don’t think this is relevant when we’re discussing a school where multiple people get into HYPSM.)</p>
<p>Performersmom - Unless this happened 5-6 years ago, it sounds like your niece was turned down by Yale. I find it a bit surprising since Yale recruited several award winning people in sciences last year.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1133012-dispel-idea-top-science-students-dont-come-yale.html?highlight=yale[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1133012-dispel-idea-top-science-students-dont-come-yale.html?highlight=yale</a></p>
<p>I cross posted with Hunt’s post #400, and had not seen it (cause my D called me 
in the middle of my posting) but we are saying the same thing.</p>
<p>S- why do you think I was saying it was “unfair”?
I meant that it did not make sense, which is different. Natural to try to understand what is happening in more detail. Intellectual curiosity was the result. My purpose is same on a thread like this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>performersmom: As Hunt points out, the story you cite is quite common and is entirely a function of the low acceptance rates and subjective nature of college admissions. Perhaps the admissions committee of her favorite school simply had too many other applications like your niece’s that year, perhaps some of those were even more compelling than your niece. Perhaps they saw some warning signs in her essay, or in a letter of recommendation (possibly even the one from the professor in that ivy), perhaps they misunderstood a letter of recommendation. Perhaps the admissions committee made a mistake. It is not an exact science. But your niece did the right thing- she did not assume that the college where she thought she was the ‘best fit’ would take her. She applied to the other top schools and sure enough, she got into some of them.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any more to it- I don’t think you can call that a surprise, and I don’t think there is anything more to understand.</p>
<p>I have never understood the inordinate emphasis on National Merit status. Kids get a lot of attention for having done well on just one test! Because it’s the preliminary test, and not the regular SAT that one needs for college admissions, many kids in ordinary towns with ordinary schools (not the hyper competitive places some of us come from) simply don’t take it because they don’t have to. Some don’t take it because their parents don’t want to spend the money for an optional test. Furthermore, I think some people incorrectly assume that it’s a better measure of innate ability than the SAT, because people don’t prep for it. Well, plenty of people do prep for it. </p>
<p>Also, receiving a NM scholarship is not a reliable indicator of who the brightest kids are. S was a NMF and very bright, but got no scholarship money since he was going to attend an Ivy. The non-Ivy schools that accepted him did not offer money for NM finalists either. Two other kids we know were only commended students (and one of them defninitely wasn’t as smart as he is), and yet both to them got nice corporate scholarships.</p>
<p>On another thread, somebody said the reason some of these schools reject super-qualfied applicants may be that “they’re just not that into you.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First, I didn’t mean to imply that YOU thought it was unfair. I was saying that a lot of this thread comes across as there is something unfair about hooked students, not that you implied that.</p>
<p>But to YOUR point that “it did not make sense” (referring to your niece getting into two of HYP and not the other)…I don’t agree at all. It make perfect sense and is a very realistic outcome. I don’t think there is anything to understand in terms of why one of these three schools rejected your niece. I doubt she was rejected due to “not being good enough.” Her outcome was VERY realistic and PREDICTABLE. It is very very common for tippy top students to get into some, but not all, of their highly selective schools. Where a question would arise is if your niece had been totally shut out of very selective colleges (and she wasn’t). Then, you might be justified in asking why and thinking it did not make sense. But given the very very low acceptance rates, it is impossible for a school like Harvard to take each student they would really really like to take. There doesn’t have to be a reason to reject your niece. She likely was in consideration. When push comes to shove and they have to whittle down the very best applicants on the pile, some could come off the pile merely due to geographical location or some other thing beyond the student’s control and qualifications. Maybe they need more classics majors or more dancers or whatever. At that point in the process when they have a narrowed down pile of highly qualified applicants, they can pick and choose to create a nice mix for the class. Kids who come off the pile are as qualified as kids who stayed on it at that point. Harvard will tell you that they could fill the class at least twice and get a class as good as the one they accepted. </p>
<p>The odds as they are, it makes sense that your niece got into most of her schools but not all (same thing happened to my own kids). Had someone like your niece who is very qualified been totally shut out, then it would be justified to ask why and wonder as it would not make as much sense. But getting into most but not all? That is very realistic, predictable and makes sense and I can’t think of what to not understand about it at that point. What do you expect at a school like Harvard who has too many applicants like your niece to do? They cannot take them all. There doesn’t have to be a reason to not take someone.</p>
<p>Private universities are private, and can do as they please.</p>
<p>But, and this is a big BUT: there are a lot of public monies going into these bastions of inherited privilege.</p>
<p>It’s time to get off the romance of the ‘Royal Wedding’ and the rest of the pageantry. Every seat denied to hard working brilliant students in order to admit the child of legacy, is another nail in the un-American housing these universities have built.</p>
<p>All institutions that practice legacy admissions should be cut off from any and all public funding, be they research grants or even aid to deserving students. While some may decry this will hurt the disadvantaged students in such imperial institutions, in the long run it would bring the universities into the main stream of what the U.S.A. was founded for: a nation where the individual who is meritorious tromps one who was born to ‘the right’ mommy or daddy. Universities who resist this change in policy will quickly watch the average SAT scores and other measures of the entering freshmen class drop into the mediocre range, as the class fills with children of ‘the right families.’ </p>
<p>If you think I this isn’t so, just try it, HYPS.</p>
<p>You could also ask why did your niece apply to more than 3 or so colleges? I imagine a big reason was as qualified as she was (and she was it seems), she knew that admissions at the most selective colleges is an iffy proposition for any student, even the tippy top students, due to the low acceptance rates. She could not count on a particular school (of this type) to come through. What she could realistically hope for was to get into some. If she was such a shoe-in, she could have applied to just 2 or 3 colleges, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This statement is offensive to the hard working brilliant students who are admitted to highly selective colleges who happen to also be legacies.</p>
<p>Also, if these legacies (or other hooked students) are “less qualified” than your unhooked “hard working brilliant students,” how come the profile of the entering class at schools like Harvard is extremely strong? The stats of the admitted class are very high. Legacies (and other hooked students) are among the strong statistics of the entering class.</p>
<p>sooz-very tricky with those numbers. Hope you didn’t mean to give the impression that 95% of the kids attending Harvard were in the top 10% of their class. Fact is if you look at USNews when they report % in top 10 at many of the elite colleges they will note that fewer than 50% of “admitted” kids are from schools that report school rank. (which represents most private schools and magnet schools that don’t rank because colleges don’t want them to rank). Ofcourse the private schools will tell you they don’t rank for other reasons but thats all apart of the game.</p>
<p>
To add to this, when you get to the final winnowing, I suspect that the specific adcoms who review the applications go with their guts to some extent and push for the students they liked the most. This could be for very subjective reasons, like some phrase in the essay that they particularly liked (or didn’t like). When you reach that stage of the process, it doesn’t have too much to do with fairness. It really is more like deciding which cool guy to go to the prom with.</p>
<p>D was deferred and then rejected at two of the HYP. Perfect GPA, SATIIs, ACT, double digit APs, stellar recs, state level athlete (but not a recruit), other meaningful ECS, co-val at amazing and large school, etc. As I am alum of one of the places, I got an e-mail saying D “just missed” and that there were “institutional priorities” she did not meet. She is an upper middle class white kid that wants to study poli sci. Yield might be 7% overall, but for an upper middle class white girl that wants to study poli sci, it’s significanlty worse. It’s like getting up to bat with two strikes. I realize the kids who did get in were also qualified (not enough spots) and who knows what else was in the files, but very hard for D who worked incredibly hard so that she would be qualified. She will go to another fine school and, hopefully, look back without disappointment.</p>
<p>
If this is happening, how much of a “tip” are legacies really receiving?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>sm74, if you reread my post, I wrote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As you can see, 75% of those who applied to Harvard did submit a class rank. So, that is a significant percentage. Of those who did submit a class rank, the vast majority of accepted students fell into the top 10% of their HS class. Not to mention that the overall stats of the entire freshmen class in other areas like test scores, is also very high. </p>
<p>But even for many schools that do not report class rank, their school profile documents have percentile ranges for GPA in the class (I know this because due to my job as a college counselor, I view many school profiles when I am evaluating students) and so an adcom can get a rough idea of which decile the student falls into at that HS based on his/her GPA. So, even for those not reporting rank, there is a way to tell in many cases. Further, at a school like Exeter that doesn’t report rank, an elite college is willing to go down further in the class beyond top 10% because the class at such a prep school is very concentrated in top qualified kids. Taking a kid from the top 25% at Exeter might be equivalent to taking a kid from the top 5% at some other HS.</p>
<p>205MOM- you have an axe to grind- which is your prerogative- but your facts are wrong.</p>
<p>I interviewed for my alma mater (Brown) for many years, and tracked the progress of “my kids” throughout the interview season and did not see a single legacy get preferential admissions. Several had “the goods” and were denied; a couple were clearly below the bar and were denied; the few who were admitted were superstars by any measure. Now that my classmates have kids applying to college, we joke that legacy status without an Oscar, Tony, or Senate Seat, is meaningless. (I guess a seat in the House-- being more plentiful- is less prestigious).</p>
<p>I also take exception to your comment that a kid with Legacy status was born to the “right” parents. Although none of my own biological children chose to apply to their parents colleges, H is first generation college and I am first generation American. Our kids had the advantage of educated parents growing up, but are hardly the scions of some dynasty, being one generation removed from refugees.</p>
<p>You might want to study the higher education systems of most countries in Europe or Asia before you decide that our institutions are “Un-American”. Do you want your kid tracked into a vocational program at age 12 because he was distracted or had a cold the day of the exam? Do you want your D with ADD (but otherwise off the charts brilliant) stuck in a post- high school program learning to decorate cakes since you live in a country where there is no remediation for gifted but LD kids? Would you want your childrens fate decided pre-adolescence, in a country where their entire professional lives revolve around college entrance exams? I have cousins outside the US who would move heaven and earth to get their kids educated in the US. We have thousands of colleges and universities where a kid can get a bachelor’s degree and then go on for graduate school or other professional certification. They have a handful of universities-- your kid is either in or out based on test scores-- if your kid is in, then you hit the lottery. And if your kid is like tens of thousands and does not get admitted to one of this handful- well, good luck in the military or learning to style hair. These kids are not the bottom of the barrel academically- these are the kids who populate hundreds of degree granting institutions in the US and go on to become doctors and nurses and pharmacists and engineers and entrepreneurs creating jobs.</p>
<p>But you are entitled to your opinion- check your facts first.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How will you strip away all of the circumstances of their existence the “meritorious” applicants got as a result of their mommy or daddy in order to make it fair? Those kids didn’t choose or pay for their high school, geographical location, piano lessons, tennis lessons, SAT prep, quiet room to study in, socio-economic status, race or gender - mom and dad were responsible for those.</p>