<p>You can always look for reasons, but it seems that sometimes it is just bad luck. I am sure that your son was qualified for the schools he applied to, and could have been accepted - all these schools can accept 2-3 entering classes of equal quality, and no one could tell the difference, and they readily admit that. </p>
<p>Most probably, your son will be happy at the school he ends up attending. But if not, he can transfer after the first year, as long as he earns top grades. Not needing fin aid will make transferring easier for him if he decides to go that route.</p>
<p>jeli25–you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why your S didn’t even get a deferral from Georgetown on the early round. As mathmom suggests, unless there is something incorrect with your S’s application, I’d let it go.</p>
<p>We had the same kind of experience with D1 years ago. She was rejected from Y with an EA pplication that we thought at least merited a deferral to the RD round. She sent the same application to H. </p>
<p>When she got the rejection, she re-examined the application, tried to figure what was “wrong” with it, tuned up the essays and sent out RD applications.</p>
<p>She was accepted to H with the SAME application that she sent to Y that merited an outright rejection! There wasn’t anything wrong with her application; it just wasn’t what Y was looking for.</p>
<p>She’s been thinking about her own application season 5 years ago, since her sister is a high school senior this year. She made the comment last night that the EA rejection has faded into insignificance in her life. Her memories of that time start with the excitement that she felt on that first acceptance to one of her top choice schools.</p>
<p>Much as an EA or ED rejection hurts now, it does fade as our kids move on with their destiny.</p>
<p>Let’s be realistic: it’s particularly easy to move on from a rejection by Yale when one is subsequently accepted by Harvard. :)</p>
<p>Jeli, my S was rejected by Georgetown but accepted by more selective schools. We decided that it probably had something to do with the essay in which he addressed the idea of religion substituting for free will! Seriously, admissions are nothing if not idiosyncratic. Your S certainly sounds as if he “should” have been admitted to Gtown. My S didn’t care, because he was accepted at places her preferred. If that is not the case with your S, there is nothing to be lost in asking his GC to make a call. Mistakes have been known to happen. A friend of mine found out when she was applying to a medical residency program that her HS transcript contained major errors that significantly reduced her GPA, turning As into Cs, apparently the result of an error in translating numeric grades at a famous science magnet HS to letter grades at a suburban HS in another state. It explained her rather puzzling college acceptance results more than a decade earlier!</p>
<p>One possibility are mid to large sized state universities that have reasonable acceptance criteria for out of state students AND have an HONORS College within the university. University of Missouri-Columbia has such an honors college (since 1958) and acceptance is based predominantly on the stats for the admitted student. Another such school is UT-Austin. Perhaps there are more out there.</p>
<p>UT Austin (especially if the 10 percent rule isn’t changed) isn’t a safety for any out of staters. They are down to about 4 percent out of state and that is shrinking. If the top ten percent rule isn’t changed, the President of UT is claiming that within a couple of years 100 percent of the freshman class will be top 10 percent students from Texas high schools and that is all. (In fact, he says that they may not be able to have football very soon. Of course, now the state legislature is seriously considering changing the law! Gotta have football.)</p>
<p>^^ Usually, yes. The only exceptions I can think of are schools like the SUNYs, which are rumored to be nicer to OOSers because they want to build a national profile.</p>
<p>A large school, filled with Texans, and he claims no one would want to play football if the school didn’t recruit academically unqualified players? I find this hard to believe. In fact, I find it impossible to believe. Perhaps he meant to say they couldn’t have winning football.</p>
<p>There are probably lots of gifted football kids who are academically qualified to go to UT-Austin, but who are not in the top 10% of the class at their high school and thus wouldn’t make it into the UT-Austin of the future.</p>
<p>Didn’t the legislature change the 10% rule so that it only applied to a certain percentage of the incoming class?</p>
<p>Thanks, ellenemope and Consolation for your support! On a happier note, my son got accepted at Wake Forest today , so at least he has two acceptances to choose from! I think we will still have the GC call to find out what he lacked in the Georgetown app, just out of curiosity. Amazing that it took until med school for your friend to find errors in the high school transcript! Good luck to all of you and your kids!</p>
<p>I would be surprised if you hear anything other than the usual–“We had so many qualified applicants this year, which made it so hard to choose blah-blah-blah.” I’d feel differently about calling if your kid were put on the waitlist and still really wanted to go. Then I’d have the GC call. But after a rejection? Naah…if you could move on, it will help your kid move on.</p>
<p>No problem with calling and asking. Just don’t dwell on it if you get the “usual”. One thing I have noticed in the Midwest is that if you live in the Chicago area, getting into Northwestern, Wash U, Notre Dame can be as difficult as getting into the most selective schools. Such schools want geographic diversity and they get enough applications from their region that they could fill their classes with just those kids if they did not give points for coming from other areas. I personally know several kids who did not get into those schools that are going to ivies. </p>
<p>The same exists here on the east coast for some schools. 9 kids from S’s school are at Holy Cross, and even more at BC. Doubt if any are getting any merit money. Why should they pay for another Catholic boy from NY when they are lined up to pay full price? I have seen kids get turned down from such schools and get into more selective schools that are out of area. </p>
<p>I have heard that CMU sorts their apps in two piles: PA and other states. It is not easy to get into CMU from the greater Pittsburgh area. From underrepresented areas, they are a bit more generous in offering admissions.</p>
<p>Yes, downtoearth, it is good to have support. Hard to sometimes discuss with parents in the same high school, when kids with lower gpa & less awards, ECs (or slightly higher gpa with an easier courseload) get into schools your child is waitlisted/rejected from. </p>
<p>Yesterday was tough, getting rejected at Yale and Princeton. But we are getting over it and accepting the good choices we have. Most important is that he takes advantage of the opportunities. Cptofthehouse, I think the local factor played into the rejection from Georgetown. I am also beginning to think that putting a less conventional major on the app than biomedical sciences would have helped…but that’s water under the bridge. I just want S to be enthusiastic about his choice (and I think that will be U.Va.) and know that we support him.</p>
<p>The Senate passed a law limited the top 10% rule to 60% but the House, where the bill is now, wants it down to 50%.</p>
<p>The projection is that the Fall 2009 freshman class will be 85% top 10% admits. Texas A & M is up to 50% but I’ve not heard complaining about that.</p>
<p>They’ve been debating this issue for years but this time it’s different because they brought up the UT football team. That’s how you get stuff done here in the Lone Star state.</p>
Seriously, admissions are nothing if not idiosyncratic. Your S certainly sounds as if he “should” have been admitted to Gtown. My S didn’t care, because he was accepted at places her preferred. If that is not the case with your S, there is nothing to be lost in asking his GC to make a call. Mistakes have been known to happen. A friend of mine found out when she was applying to a medical residency program that her HS transcript contained major errors that significantly reduced her GPA, turning As into Cs, apparently the result of an error in translating numeric grades at a famous science magnet HS to letter grades at a suburban HS in another state. It explained her rather puzzling college acceptance results more than a decade earlier!</p>
, so at least he has two acceptances to choose from! I think we will still have the GC call to find out what he lacked in the Georgetown app, just out of curiosity. Amazing that it took until med school for your friend to find errors in the high school transcript! Good luck to all of you and your kids!</p>