<p>Back to the OP:</p>
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<p>Sometimes you and Amy may be privy to a lot of information that the admission officials don’t know. Sometimes admission officials make foolish decisions based on poor judgement. Sometimes an applicant stretches the truth in their application and gets away with it.</p>
<p>I was probably one of the kids who was the object of that question at my HS because I was regarded as a class clown and several teachers made no secret about how poorly I was doing in their classes. No one was more surprised or shocked about this or the fact I made it to my third year at my LAC at the time than one HS teacher with whom I had a serious personality conflict and wrote me off as someone “who wouldn’t last a semester in college”. </p>
<p>Then again, it was delayed because I was part of a group of friends whose reply to any inquiries about where we’re going to college was “to go off to California to be a beach bum”. Whether we were actually going off to HYPSMC schools or our local public colleges, that’s the stock answer we’d give…and we enjoyed the puzzled/irritated looks/responses we got back.</p>
<p>It’s really all so random when you boil it down. That’s what I took away from the admissions process back in 2010.</p>
<p>When my D was a sophomore at the Ivy league university she squeaked into off the waiting list, she told the story of riding the train and overhearing admissions reps from her college talking about the EA acceptances and how upsetting it was. One of the reps was literally teary-eyed over the process because so many kids deserved to get in but won’t because there are only so many spaces (beds).</p>
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<p>Well, that could be interpreted as heading to UC Santa Barbara:
[UC</a> Santa Barbara Our Campus](<a href=“http://www.ucsb.edu/campus/]UC”>http://www.ucsb.edu/campus/)</p>
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<p>That interpretation would only work if we had said “going to California to be aswinging and asurfin’”. :D</p>
<p>That would have provoked laughter from HS classmates and much “arunnin’ for the hills” by the students from UC Santa Barbara in absolute horror :D</p>
<p>[Dick</a> Dale - Medley: Surfin’ & Swingin’ / Misirlou / Wedge - Live on TV! - 1963 - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8CnurLcxRY]Dick”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8CnurLcxRY)</p>
<p>*“10% of the class is announced at the end of the year awards banquet. AP scholars, etc. are announced annually, obviously the NMSF and finalists are announced. The top 10 is also announced at the end of the year”</p>
<p>Yes. But that doesn’t mean you have to pay attention and memorize it all, any more that you’d memorize who the quarterback or senior class president was. These names are just names to me – why would I retain that info? *</p>
<p>There are plenty of communities where those are not just names, though. They’re “Martha’s kid, who plays first chair oboe” and “the boy Amy’s best friend dated in ninth grade”.</p>
<p>Mrscollege,</p>
<p>That is heartening to know that some admissions officers show such compassion and dedication about their decisions. I would imagine it is a very difficult job.</p>
<p>The question Sally asked (in the event it got lost somewhere) What is YOUR Monday-morning theories on the odd outcomes where someone was admitted and another senior from the same school was not?</p>
<p>The responses here vary, some showing total arrogance, some showing total ignorance.</p>
<p>A few have pretty much hit the nail on the head that kids are doing major stuff under the radar that many of their peers are unaware of. Some may have an impeccable academic records others may not. Last time, I checked, some colleges have communicated they are holistic, some can be numbers only. </p>
<p>If we do not want our kids to be apart of the holistic process, then perhaps we should not have our kids apply to such schools. </p>
<p>As Sally pointed out in her op “ we aren’t privy to what admission officials see–and talk about–behind closed doors”</p>
<p>As such, we can Monday Morning quarterback until Thy Kingdom Come. The adcoms will continue to choose who they believe are the best addition to their class, whether they wear veneer or have no teeth and there is NOTHING any of us can do about it.</p>
<p>And…….the answer to why that Kid got in…well</p>
<p>because the COLLEGE WANTED him… simple.</p>
<p>Great post #168, learninginprog.
Don’t they, though? We can’t know everything there is to know about any given applicant, and we can’t know why one applicant is accepted and another isn’t. I certainly wouldn’t put much faith in the high school gossip machine about SAT scores, letters of recommendation, ECs, personal character/behavior and family finances. Yet every year parents are certain that someone else got in unfairly at the expense of their own superbly qualified child.</p>
<p>@karen </p>
<p>Royalty, eh? Why, thank you. :D</p>
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<p>My personal theories:</p>
<p>One wrote a great essay that showcased their personality; one didn’t.</p>
<p>One had a hook. My D was homeschooled. I didn’t think anything of it while she was applying, but looking back, I believe it gave her an additional edge.</p>
<p>The student’s ECs were more about focusing on their personal interests than being “well-rounded.”</p>
<p>Someone made a great point about LORs. That’s the great unknown, isn’t it? While a teacher may love you, you have no idea how they get that across on paper.</p>
<p>And lastly, sometimes the decisions just don’t make sense, no matter what you might know about the applicant.</p>
<p>I’m kinda the other way around. With a 3.73 GPA, a 34 ACT, all honors and AP classes, and presidencies in two clubs, I got deferred at Michigan EA.</p>
<p>LOCs are the big mystery. Out of two kids only one saw one letter - I didn’t see any. But I think my younger son may well have had more interesting letters. The one he saw was from a math teacher. I thought he was crazy to ask him, since he’d never been that strong at math (or at least at arithmetic), but he adored the teacher, and the teacher was super articulate funny etc. (which I did know from Meet the Teacher Night). The teacher couldn’t have written IMO a better letter. His other letter - from a very logical choice - APUSH teacher - asked for so much info - I figured he’d write a good letter. He asked for copies of their favorite research paper, what they planned to study in college, a paragraph about their favorite text book, a reminder of what AP score they ended up getting and a couple of other things that I can’t remember. I imagine that the recommendations said more than “Mathson2 was a pleasure to have in class.”</p>
<p>could,nt have said it better. Sometimes it is so silly that some of these students as well as theeir parents apply to 20+ schools and brag about how many they were accepted to. I laugh because their parents just shelled out thousands for nothing Glad my D is happy with her results even though she applied to 4 schools and does’nt go crazy with them.</p>
<p>I’d like to address the issue of whether it’s parents’ or kids’ “business” to want to know where others are applying, what their qualifications are, etc. I think it can be. Here’s an example from earlier in the thread:
Another example: at my kids’ school, a public magnet, many kids are looking at the same highly selective schools. It can be very useful to know what others are thinking, especially as you are deciding where to apply early. Are you going to apply early to a school where a classmate who is similar to you, but a legacy, is going to apply early? No matter how many times we hear that colleges don’t compare students from the same school, observations don’t seem to support that claim. And on the perhaps more positive side, if you get into a school EA, you might be encouraged to drop some of your RD apps if you know that friends of yours are trying to get into those schools. (Failure of one kid to do this resulted in significant criticism at my kids’ school–this kid even picked up a competitive scholarship at a school he had no intention of attending–and it doesn’t get re-awarded if the winner doesn’t take it.)</p>
<p>A truism for the topic: If you didn’t see the score report or hear it straight from the school, you don’t know the scores. If you didn’t see the transcript, you don’t know the grades. Even if you’ve been friends for 50 years…you can’t believe everything you hear.</p>
<p>Hanna, so true. And the number of kids supposedly WLed exceeds the wait lists each year. Many schools want to see the letters of acceptance, WL from the colleges because they have found that they cannot go by what anyone says.</p>
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<p>That pretty much nails it–</p>
<ul>
<li>standardized test superiority unknown to other students</li>
<li>great essay</li>
<li>great letter of rec</li>
</ul>
<p>Add to this one other… URM status possibly unknown to other students</p>
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My thought as well, but in the opposite direction. As an employer, I would take the really smart hard worker over the truly brilliant “unknown work ethic” for any position other than pure research. I suspect some professional school admissions committees would agree. I haven’t looked at stats, but my gut tells me that the % of truly brilliant people who are high achievers in life (academia, government, non-profit, business, parents) is lower than those that are not. I say this because the necessary skills developed through struggle (perseverance, doggedness, recovery from setback, etc. ) are likely weakly developed, as the truly brilliant have never struggled academically. Just my prejudice, I suppose. If true, this would surprise many.</p>
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Not me. The point is really that the “kids that study and study and study to get better grades” aren’t smart in the same way the “truly smart kids” are. They aren’t innovative. They memorize and regurgitate. And I think SteveMA is exactly right that the kids in the high school know the difference. Note: there may be some “truly smart” kids who study and study and study, even if they don’t really need to, because somebody makes them do so. The kids in the high school know all about that, too.</p>