Heartbroken

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m just looking at Naviance and was too lazy to check the admittance rates, but in the SAT/GPA range of my kid there were a dozen acceptances, a couple of waitlists and nor rejections. My son was an A+ student, 2270 SAT1, all 800s on SAT2s, 9 APs all 5’s. He was rejected by MIT, Caltech, Stanford and waitlisted by Harvey Mudd. Got into Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, RPI and WPI. A match/target is not a safety. It’s still not a guarantee. I’d say for a student like my kid if he had wanted to write those Chicago essays, he’d have had a decent chance. It wasn’t a fit for him however. His big plus and his big minus was that he is a computer nerd through and through. His school EC’s were typical and minimal (Science Olympiad and Academic Team). We thought his computer related activities were strong, but they were hard for us to judge. No one at his school was in his league, but I am well aware that out in the rest of the world there are lots of kids like him. I’m just saying there ARE matches out there. His admissions results weren’t particularly surprising to us. I considered Stanford highly unlikely (they don’t accept any of our top students ever), MIT, Caltech I figured about a 1 in 4 chance, Harvey Mudd I didn’t know enough about, I figured a better than 50% chance at both Harvard (legacy and good admittance statistics from our school) and CMU, and 100% safe at RPI and WPI. Despite knowing the odds I didn’t feel any better about all those rejections though.</p>

<p>I’m having a harder time predicting odds for my younger son. He’s a B+ student, a 5 on an AP taken as a sophomre (but a B+ in that course), likely to have excellent scores. Lots of schools are going to have to be reaches because of the grades, and most of the matches from the GPA point of view will be safeties because of the scores. At least that’s what Naviance is telling me.</p>

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<p>Modadunn#78: Good post. I agree with much of what you say. C.C. is a fabulous resource but the conventional wisdom here is a bit too focused on emphasizing safeties and on ‘how hard it is to get into college’. IMHO people should not be discouraged from applying to colleges where they are reasonably competitive, even if the odds are very low.</p>

<p>The acceptance rate for Harvard may be 6% of all applicants this year, but the acceptance rate is 0% of all non-applicants.</p>

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<p>From post #32

Only because those kids have an unreasonably high opinion of themselves and an unreasonably low opinion of the many excellent colleges that would welcome them and their hight stats with open arms. </p>

<p>Those very high stat kids are in an excellent position to attract a lot of merit money, so the lack of a strong in-state public options should not be a deterrent.</p>

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<p>I don’t see that the emphasis by CC posters on safeties necessarily precludes applications to reach schools. Actually, the existence of a true safety gives a kid the freedom to apply to all the super selective schools on the planet by giving him a safety net underneath.</p>

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<p>Good one, hyeonjlee!!!</p>

<p>An ‘anti-hook’!</p>

<p>But there should be better word for this. Any suggestions? Maybe ‘poke’? Or ‘buzz’? Or ‘sting’ (alluding to WASP and related anti-hooks)?</p>

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<p>To MathMom (5 posts above this), and her quote “A match/target is not a safety.” I totally agree.</p>

<p>Kids have to be realistic and see that just because a kid meets a published profile doesn’t mean they’ll get accepted because there were probably 5 or 6 kids with the same profile who were rejected from the same college who had the same profile as the kid that is accepted.</p>

<p>I am in between college searches this year as I have a son in college and a daughter who is a junior in high school. I am using the CC forum to get smarter for when my daughter applies as my son was rejected from 6 of his 7 top schools and only accepted at two of his safety schools. Fortunately, the only match/reach school that accepted him was Harvard (and he is not a legacy!) but he came close to being a UMass student which is a good school but would have been a disappointment to him.</p>

<p>Our second college search for my daughter needs to be a little more realistic and thought out.</p>

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<p>High aspirations are great, high expectations are not. Keep your kids’ feet on the ground. The top 15 or so schools are reaches for EVERYONE. There are more than twice as many vals in the US than freshmen Ivy spots.</p>

<p>Safety-high probablility of acceptance
Match-reasonable possibility of acceptance
Reach-high probablity of denial</p>

<p>All kids should have aim to have 2 safety admissions so they have a choice in the end. Second tier school does not necessarily mean second rate. Too often we see lists that are top heavy and have State U tacked on as the easy safety without much thought to fit. Of course these kids will be disappointed if that’s where they end up. These are bright kids with great researching abilities. Put those abilities to work to find safety schools with programs that fit your needs. They are out there, keep an open mind.</p>

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<p>To the OP, I am sorry to hear about your son’s and your situation. I have a couple of comments:</p>

<p>First, I think a gap year could be an extremely positive experience. My son is on a gap year (although he didn’t apply to schools last fall) and is just hearing from school’s now. But, it is useful for maturation and to complete things left undone in HS. My son had different reasons than most – he had health problems last year that limited the time he had to work and had surgery this fall, is dyslexic and is working on improving his reading fluency before he goes to college, and is trying to complete a novel before he goes. But, my HS sophomore daughter is eager for a gap year as well. She’s not the intensely disciplined kid my son can be and is much more socially driven and she will need and want some kind of organized program. But HS and the chase for the elusive college acceptance can leave lots of kids burnt out and a year off would help. If your son did well senior year, he will also look better to schools. Done right, a gap year could be a real growth experience for your son.</p>

<p>Second, your son’s OK grades don’t match high standardized test scores. Top schools will likely read this as a problem of character – he doesn’t apply himself enough. It could be something else, though. Is there some sort of learning difficulty or a really heavy investment in extra-curriculars? Do you have an explanation for the gap? If the cause is attitude, then starting somewhere less challenging with a need to prove himself or a gap year that helps him start applying himself might send the right message to the kinds of colleges he wants to attend.</p>

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<p>I had the same question as Consolation. If the kid is strong in grades, SATs, ECs, took challenging curriculum (i.e., did everything that CC would advise), what is a reach, what is a match, what is a safety? </p>

<p>I found that reading the various threads on CC provided an eye-opening sense that all could go awry with reasonably high probability. My son’s college counselor helped make a list of 8 reaches, 8 probables and 8 safeties. I looked closely at the Naviance data, but did not find her list or Naviance that helpful. For the safeties, schools had not rejected a kid from his school with my son’s stats in the last 3 to 5 years. But, that was true with the probables as well and even three of the reaches. And, our school would not tell us (and the individual counselor didn’t know) which of the admittees were legacies, athletes, URMs, or otherwise hooked, which made me less reliant on the Naviance data. Plus, I though my son’s special circumstances (serious LDs, partial homeschooling) would incline some schools against him (“overachiever who can’t handle our workload”) and others toward him (“has done an impressive job of overcoming adversity”). </p>

<p>It was clear to me from the Naviance data that HYP, Amherst and Brown were reaches, and P and H might be a little higher probability than the data suggest. But, what’s the border from reach to probable/match? You can’t even tell after the fact – whether you got in or not doesn’t tell you whether any particular school was lower or higher probability than you thought. I suppose if you applied to 5 matches and got in to none or one, you’d have to say that as a set, this was not a set of matches.</p>

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<p>One big problem is that the safety/match/reach changes from year to year, depending on the number of students who are applying to colleges. I believe that this year is going to be a year with a tremendous number of students applying to college. Because of that I would think that one must recenter downwards what a safety/match/reach school is. How many times have you seen that parents say that they couldn’t get into their college because the competition has gotten so much stiffer. </p>

<p>Also, more students are applying to lower tiered schools because of the financial situation. Where their college fund might cover a private school, it may only cover an instate public school. Also, I think that the number of foreign students is on the rise. The whole process is very fluid from year to year. While previous years numbers can be helpful, I don’t think that they are necessarily accurate for subsequent years.</p>

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<p>Wow! I wasn’t able to check yesterday and am fascinated by where my post has gone! We went hiking in the mountains yesterday–absolutely the best solution to disappointment as it turned out.</p>

<p>First, I wasn’t as clear as I might have been. Son is OK with safety, indeed has begun to work up some enthusiasm over the weekend, but was smashed by the across-the-board rejection, especially with classmates posting multiple acceptances at ivies and top-tier LAC’s on Facebook. (At one point, my easy-going friends-with-everyone child looked up from his computer and sadly said “D---- posts that she has been accepted at every ivey, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Georgetown. If she were within reach, I would slap her for being so smug!”) He expected some rejection–he just didn’t expect complete rejection from match/reaches. </p>

<p>For those who asked, he is an A- student at a prestigious private day school, with a record of heavy course load in difficult subjects. No class rankings done, but A’s are not easily given. We will be full pay. He applied to no ivies, only second-tier schools, some more, some less, selective. We expected (had been warned) that the less-than-perfect grade thing, especially contrasted with super test scores, could be a red flag for him but expected that some school would take a chance since he has a very interesting mix of ec’s–international activities and leadership with scouts, varsity sports, model UN, robotics–and comes across well in person–we thought all his interviews went very well. Still, nada. I guess we are the flip side of those who got lucky with schools they thought were reaches.</p>

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<p>reading all these post about matches, reaches, and safeties, etc, one thing I regret is not having encouraged my son to apply to Stanford RD after he got Chicago EA. our thinking at the time was “if HYP-wharton-columbia all reject him, the likelihood of stanford accepting him is close to zero”. </p>

<p>Well, our thinking would have been correct, if there were a high correlation among the chances of getting accepted by them.</p>

<p>Now that I know within top 5-10 category with extremely low acceptance rate, candidates with near perfect stat have a near random chance, I would have to say the odds are, the more you apply, the more likely that you will get into one of them.</p>

<p>I used to think that the parents who encourage their kids to apply to more than, say, 10 schools are suffering from OCD. They may still be suffering from OCD :slight_smile: but I think their strategy has a merit. </p>

<p>Oddly enough, I started to read posts on CC after my son got EA - mostly to research more about Chicago and college scene to “build up” that school in my son’s mind in case he gets rejected by all of the RD schools so that he would have a softer landing. Happily, the more I read about Chicago, the more I like it and I truly think it’s a perfect school for him. Now, if any of the RD schools accepts him, I may have to “undo” the magic spell I cast on my son, but that would be a happy problem to have! </p>

<p>That said, I do wish I knew then what I know now. With my S2, I would encourage him to cast his net as realistically wide as he can. It does not hurt.</p>

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<p>BY the, way, I salute to all the engaged parents on this board. You have no idea collectively how much you taught me during last few months. No college guidance book would have this much useful information. I was a complete moron regarding college things when my S1 started to apply to schools. Now, with my S2 (a sophomore), I feel ready. The other day, I went to S2’s school to attend an orientation session for college bound kids, and I could tell where the GCs were giving misleading information that did not reflect latest trends and changes. Isn’t that amazing? There is hope yet for this tardy parent for the next child…</p>

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<p>Someone is messin’ with your son’s head, CAS. The Ivies don’t even announce their decisions until Tuesday, 3/31. </p>

<p>Glad your hike helped clear your heads.</p>

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<p>What do you mean by a “second-tier” school?</p>

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<p>OP, I’m sorry. He has plenty of company. My daughter had a friend last year who was only admitted to one safety-- and she didn’t even want to go to it. She applied to a school where her parents and all siblings were alum-- rejected. She applied to a school where her grandfather had helped build a wing-- rejected. And, yes, her stats were in range and she was full IB. The girl took a gap year and is now more enthusiastic about attending her safety but I personally think she may have been better off re-applying to better matches during this gap year and it may be something your son wants to consider with those excellent stats. </p>

<p>Our guidance department stresses building from the bottom up but I have found that some of the advice given is off. Guidance counselors are sometimes caught in the status quo of their school-- and don’t properly factor in hooks or factors such as out-of-school ecs, needing aid, background for the specific major, musical talent, etc.</p>

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<p>“he is an A- student at a prestigious private day school, with a record of heavy course load in difficult subjects. We expected (had been warned) that the less-than-perfect grade thing, especially contrasted with super test scores, could be a red flag for him”</p>

<p>Since when is getting A- less that perfect? Boy, what has the world come to!</p>

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<p>OP- to go back to your original question-- since your son seems ready to move on to the excitment phase, my only suggestion is to go there with him. The faster you all start to celebrate the next new phase in his life, the less relevant those rejections start to become.</p>

<p>Hyeonjlee- although the chances of admission may not be correlated, the chance of rejection is indeed correlated. An essay which your kid thinks sounds sophisticated and smart may come off as smarmy and self-congratulatory. A teachers recommendation that your kid is the hardest working student in the class and always concerned with his academic standing is not the high praise you may think it is- it can be admissions code-speak for “this kid is a grade grubber par excellence”. Your GC’s comment on the report that “Joey was a frequent visitor to the GC’s office for the last four years since his desire to attend Harvard was known to all of his teachers and the guidance counselors” is going to show up in every single application- Harvard, JHU, U Va, Haverford-- etc. And some of those Adcom’s may not feel like accepting the kid who feels destined to go to Harvard on the day the application gets read. And a mistake or ambiguous entry on the transcript can be fatal (“Law and Society” in some HS would be the Lite version of a civics class taken by the non-college bound; in others, it would be a college level poli sci class).</p>

<p>So any error in the application to Yale gets passed on to the application to Cornell gets passed on to the application to Northwestern. So don’t assume that because Yale is a super reach and Cornell is a reach and Northwestern is a reachy-match that your kid will get into 1, 2 or 3 of these schools. It is easy to get into zero. And if your kid takes that same application and spreads it across the top 15 ranked schools- you can still come up with zero.</p>

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<p>Yes. Some of the UCs that were traditionally safeties at D1’s school are very, very tough this year. Schools like Davis and Irvine are getting hit by a perfect storm of circumstances: large number of high school seniors, depleted family coffers driving more students towards their in-state public options and a state budget in crisis with less money for colleges (=fewer spots for incoming freshmen). As the coup de grace, from another thread (2009?) I learned that Irvine and Davis are now giving a bump to ELC applicants. </p>

<p>D1’s a sophomore, and we’d started scouting safeties for her last year. It’s like trying to hit a moving target.</p>

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<p>I should have added that the picture is complicated to an extreme degree when there is need for really significant FA. </p>

<p>For us, OOS costs at flagship honors colleges running $30K with little or no FA available for OOS kids would have been out of the question. $20-30K combined merit aid and need aid leaving us with $20-30K or more to pay at “safe” privates would have been out of the question. Especially now that tapping home equity is not an option. He really needed to get into a deep-pockets, “means it when they say meets need” school. Luckily, he got into several.</p>

<p>BTW, I have to say that the Andison story terrified me last year, and had a lot to do with why S applied to 12 schools, and why I drove myself crazy looking for a safety he would agree to apply to. The irony was that his safety actually gave him the least money. We would have been up the proverbial creek had he been forced to go there.</p>

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<p>blossom, </p>

<p>You raise a good point, and your observation is a very helpful tip, and should be a warning and an alert to candidates to make sure that there is no critical error (a really debilitating one that would stand out like a sore thumb for all adcoms in all schools). </p>

<p>However, barring those critical errors, there is a valid statement to be made about getting an admission from highly selective colleges being a crap shoot among highly qualified applications - and this was the theme of the majority of the posts on this thread, and rightfully so. There are plenty of stories of getting rejected by XXX and accepted by YYY. So, assuming that there is no debilitating error/defect in the whole application package, there is a good merit for casting the net really wide - within a realistic range. </p>

<p>Everyone has his/her best strategy. we are all sharing our personal success/regret stories to learn from each other’s experience.</p>