<p>I've been thinking alot about this as the acceptances and rejections have rolled in both at my school and on these boards. Though people often claim it is "random", it seems as though crafting an application with a certain angle will lead to an acceptance. It just isn't enough anymore to be valedictorian with 800s a plenty.</p>
<p>What would you say your kid did to get in to his or her first choice? Whether it be this year or in years past, was there one thing that stuck out that might have made the adcom say yes?</p>
<p>I think it could be an interesting thread....I like to hear of the different "types" and how they are recieved by different schools.</p>
<p>(excuse the title, i used the masculine form for easy reading purposes)</p>
<p>Ilcapo, I cannot answer why my D got in where she did. While I do NOT think the process is totally random, I think there comes a point where elements of chance enter into it. I think once it is narrowed down to very attractive and highly qualified candidates, there are still too many in that pile and at THAT point, there is a picking and choosing of building a diverse class and there is not a lot you can do if you don't fit some slot in that group which has some "chance" to it. How else can you explain when a kid with excellent qualifications get into elite college X but not elite college Y......some of that is precisely an example of how at some point, there is a random lottery nature based on fitting a slot or need in the class, as they want a wide variety of "types". </p>
<p>So, how can someone claim that my kid did a, b and c to get into first choice but by the same token that same kid did not get into his second choice but is still the same kid. I mean right on this forum are kids who got rejected at Yale but were in at Harvard or rejected at Brown but are in at Yale. So, on one hand you have a kid rejected at Yale, in at Brown and the next kid got into Brown but not Yale and you can only ask, who the hell knows why. You see what I mean? The kid did whatever he/she did to get into one of those but it did not work on the other school and some other kid got the opposite results. </p>
<p>I do not think my D crafted an "angle" as you put it. She showed who she was and I guess whoever she is, was what they wanted. She put much effort into the application. She did all she could in her life to date to excel and explore what she likes to do and then showed those things on the application. I don't think there was some magic answer. </p>
<p>I guess I really couldn't say unless I repeated the process a few years in a row to see if he got the same result. </p>
<p>Things that helped "within" our control....unique essays, consistency in test scores/grades, passion for one particular EC that complemented his academic field of interest.</p>
<p>Things that helped "outside" of our control....geographic diversity, gender, and probably a lot of other things that we don't even recognize.</p>
<p>The adcom gods at CAL smiled down on my son's app and accepted him. He was a statistical long shot. I'd like to think that striving for being well-rounded and following only the activities he was really interested in helped (since of course those were my suggestions).</p>
<p>I agree with others. We don't know. It would be arrogrant for us to think we know what got them in. In my son's case, his application had a definite "theme", which had to help. Also, his background is really unique (would make for very interesting 3am dorm room discussion).....so I think that helped quite a bit. Other than that, who knows. I have no idea.</p>
<p>I think people need to just be themselves, present that as well as they can, and have faith they they will end up at an appropriate school, even if not at the school(s) they originally hoped for. The material you have to work with is already in place long before you apply to colleges. It isn't a matter of finding the right "packaging" in order to be successful. The elements of success are already there, or they are not. It is impossible for someone already in the process to try to reproduce a path that worked for someone else. For instance, my son got into his top choice because he had an obvious passion and aptitude for math at an early age, spent many years developing it, and had national honors and high level college courses during his high school years. That doesn't help anyone else at all. They could only follow that route by turning the clock back to early childhood, and even then only if they had the same talents and interests my son has. But everyone has things about themselves which are valuable and worthwhile that they can show to colleges. And there are plenty of colleges to go around for everyone to end up someplace where they can be challenged, happy, and grow intellectually.</p>
<p>'I think people need to just be themselves, present that as well as they can, and have faith they they will end up at an appropriate school, even if not at the school(s) they originally hoped for"</p>
<p>Texas,</p>
<p>Did you hear my talk track all of the way from Queens as I told my daughter those exact same things, in addition to the following, if you DON'T apply you have a 100% chance of NOT getting in. What's the worse that could happen, you get rejected, you move on. They don't make you come back to the school to stone you.</p>
<p>The sad thing is I think that too many young people are getting caught up in the concept that there is some magic formula that if you do a, b, and c, clickk you heels 3 times and do the hokey pokey then you will be admitted to (_________, name your poison) and it leads to people becoming obsessed with looking for ways to game or one up the system. As you already know, students with a string of 800 # who are #1 in their class with a weighted GPA of 1 million get rejected. What worked for you really is not going to work for the next person (so forget about bottling that formula and getting rich, because it makes you no expert)</p>
<p>What worked for the class of 08, is not going to be the same for the class of 09, because you must remember that the schools are looking to buld a community and the institutional mission changes year over year. Some applicants are always going to fall in the the bandstand 'I like the beat and it's easy to dance to pile" and there will never be a shortage. Others may have the luck of the draw where the school is looking to strenghten it's widget's deparment and those who are interested in building widgets are in demand.</p>
<p>In my daughter's case all she could do was her best work, show her best self, and say a prayer that at the end of it all she will end up where she needs to be. So far it seems to be working for her.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, my D hadn't even heard of her top choice until we mentioned it a year ago. Once we visited the campus last spring, though, she fell in love with it. Fortunately, she had worked hard through both elementary and high school and had the academic credentials to qualify for admission. Still, we knew that applying ED would still be a crap shoot, but she said she was so passionate about the school during her interview. She also displayed a lot of interest in a meeting with a dean and sitting in on a dance class.</p>
<p>I share sybbie719's philosophy--if you apply, all they can say is "no," but if you don't apply, you'll never know. All in all, I think it still comes down to a crap shoot.</p>
<p>Ilcapo, the answer differs for my two. For my son, the answer may seem perverse: he didn't have a first choice when he applied. He had a half-dozen of so schools that seemed plausible to him but that differed in location, size, and difficulty of admissions. He was admitted to 6 schools, and THEN he made his choice from among those, partly with the help of accepted student visits. He chose Chicago over Williams, Carleton, UMich, Reed, and Michigan State.</p>
<p>For my daughter, I think she had a clear first choice but there were perhaps a couple of others that would have suited her interests, among the 5 that she applied to. She was admitted to all, but readily chose RISD over CMU, MICA, KC Art Institute, & Savannah College of Art and Design.</p>
<p>If there is a "lesson" here it's that it may be safer and better psychologically if a kid doesn't get overcommitted to a single school to which s/he may not be admitted. Of course, the ED/EA mania the last 10 years or so has forced kids in just the opposite direction: find your one true love -- at age 17 or 18 -- for which you are willing and ready to forsake all others if you are accepted. Neither of my kids bought into that (and we as parents did nothing to encourage it).</p>
<p>The pattern I think I have seen, at least with the Ivies, is that scores and grades alone will not guarantee entrance. We talked to S's headmaster freshman year and told him: S is capable of straight A's and perfect SAT's, but not if he is giving 100% to the sport. Should we give up the sport or should we settle for lesser grades and scores? Headmaster did not blink. Said stay with the sport, at all cost. This was the headmaster of the school, telling us that if something had to give, it should be the grades and test scores.</p>
<p>S still ended up with a 3.9 (unweighted, I think is the way I'm supposed to say that) and is highly regarded as one of the brightest and most original thinkers in his class. I believe his 800 on the Verbal portion of the SAT at first sitting helped as well, since that is less common for boys than girls. Two of his essays were astonishingly good. One was publishable, imo, but then, I'm his mom...</p>
<p>But in the end, his being a recruited athlete had to have been what set him apart. I would love to think the adcoms saw how special S was by reading his essays and the recommendations (which I know were also stellar), but realistically, I believe recruitment was important.</p>
<p>In my opinion with so many kids with high grades, test scores, multiple unbelievable ec's, I believe the essays and recs make the difference; they are the only subjectives which can sort out all these wonderful kids. Your child can control his essays to some degree, but letters of rec are out of his hands. After my first child got into one of the elite IVys, I asked the admissions officer why he was selected. After hemming and hawing about the holistic approach and his great grades, boards, and ec's, she finally said that she could tell that he teachers truly loved him, (and that his essays were written by a kid, not an adult). For my next child, because they attend a big public high school where the teachers are not prompted on how to write letters, I photocopied one of my older son's letters of rec and had him give it to the teachers that he asked for letters. I think it helped them see what a good letter is like, and now, yesterday, he was accepted early admission to his prestigious ivy of his dreams.
So, unless you go to a private school that knows how to do it, help your kids' teachers out. (as long as they are not insulted. but if they are, then they must not have the relationship with your child that you would hope for)</p>
<p>There was a story in a Tuft's mailing about a parent sneaking up to a rep and whispering, something like Don't get me wrong I am so happy Johnny was accepted but there were many students we know with higher grades and higher SAT scores that were rejected. How did he get in. The rep explained that there was something they were drawn to in the essence of their child, their dreams, their passions their personality that shone through. This is paraphrased but the same with my S there were kids were higher SAT scores scores in the 1500's that were rejected. That is why stats alone do not tell the whole story.That is why students need to apply to their reach schools.</p>
<p>What worked for the class of 08, is not going to be the same for the class of 09, because you must remember that the schools are looking to buld a community and the institutional mission changes year over year. <</p>
<br>
<p>I'm going to take a slightly contararian stance. It is arrogant to suppose you can explain why a particular candidate was admitted to a particular selective school, but I'm sure we each have suspicions about what was strong in our kids' applications, and what was weaker.
I quoted Sybbie as a caveat about what I'm going to say next - I think though that if you read the threads carefully, and thoughtfully, and make some big assumptions, like for example that kids posting on CC are mostly telling the truth, and that they are representative of a population that has really thought about what to put into their applications, some legit conclusions can be drawn.</p>
<p>1) HIghly competitve LACs - AWS and their buddies are looking for people who truly love the school, know why they want to go, express that in an application in at least a basic form and apply early - it may not forgive a 25% SAT, or a low GPA or a suspension, but minor academic anomalies may well be overlooked.</p>
<p>2) Some schools appear to be looking for numbers kids in the early rounds, and some don't appear to have even read SAT scores or GPAs - contrast the Columbia and Dartmouth ED results (of course, this could be an anomaly of the kids who have posted, and Sybbie's comments about things changing from year to year are well taken). Does this reflect the approach these schools take with their ED candidates, the segment of the class they are addressing, or is it a fluke?</p>
<p>3) HYPS is NOT a crapshoot, we just don't have anywhere nearly enough data to make anything other than broad generalizations, and the rules change every year anyway.</p>
<p>cangel, what is it about the Columbia and Dartmouth ED results. Just curious....if you can say it without stirring up controversy (lots of Columbia and Dartmouth moms and dads here).</p>
<p>In a sense, HPY are a crapshoot in that there are many identical, or similar profiles submitted to them that have different results. Things that we cannot control like the timing as when the app is reviewed, how many similar apps were reviewed prior to that app, and the particulars of the admissions officer reviewing the app can make a big difference in the outcome. There is some resentment brewing among some of the Asian families that I work with in that the apps were virtually the same, the stats virtully the same, and the oucomes different with sometimes someone slightly "lower" on the hierarchy getting in over someone with a slightly "better" resume. If your app is one of the very first reviewed with sterling academic credits and great ECs including some wonderful music experience accompanied by a very nice tape, you will probably get in. But when you are number 323, you are old hat and put in the stack for comparison. Really some of the kids do not have much in discernable differences, and I know these schools do not add up the test and gpa stats and skim off the top. Too much conflicting data in that regard.</p>
<p>Achat, since D was in the Dartmouth ED, I read those with interest, and Columbia came out about the same day - anyway, there was a strong cutoff for Dartmouth at 1500, most admits were above, most deferreds were below - not 100%, but a definite trend. Columbia was just the opposite - lots of the reporting deferreds were above 1500, lots of the accepts were in the mid-high 1400s. What does that mean, who knows?! It makes you wonder, though, does Dartmouth pay more attention to scores, or are they looking for high score kids in the ED round? Someone suggested on the Columbia board that they were picking out kids who had expressed an interest and knowledge of Columbia specifically, vs "I want to live in NYC" - it certainly didn't look like they preferred high scorers. In the case of COlumbia, I didn't pay attention to GPAs, maybe those kids had higher GPAs.
Jamimom is right, and has the experience to back it up - all this speculation can only get any individual so far, there is an element of fate, coincidence, luck, whatever.
The take home message for next year is do what my daughter did - fall in love with 3 or 4 schools, and at least like your safety - because once that ED application goes in, you will feel that potential for disappointment, even if you know there are aspects of School #2 you might even like better than School #1 - after all, they are just 17.</p>
<p>We used some of Jamimom's logic---the similar profiles--during the application process. Our son's guidance counselor thought it was odd to have eight applications since most kids auto admit to their first choice state school. But if a school accepts 1/3 of the applicants, and you are "average" or maybe slightly above, it seems realistic to think that given three similar applications only one will be admitted. People who have the same score and strengths could just as easily be declined for no other reason than that the school has already accepted somone just like that.</p>
<p>A little luck (a long one-on-one session with an assistant director of admissions) and a little talent, plus applying a lot of things we learned here. We'd have never known about how important ED was or how to clearly articulate our S's best qualities consistently through the application any other way. </p>
<p>We owe a lot to the folks who run this forum and to dozens of people who post here, some here now and others who have gone on. He might have gotten in on the numbers alone, but we appreciate what we believe was the edge you helped give him. Thanks.</p>
<p>Sometimes it is just that your talents fit a crying need the college has at the moment. My D is a bassoonist--and last year, the adcoms at Harvard must have been on the lookout for bassoonists. She is playing in the Pops Orchestra and also the Wind Ensemble (who BEGGED her to please play with them--they had NO bassoonists). </p>
<p>Next year, they will be on the lookout for quarterbacks, soccer goalies, Latin majors, trumpet players, who knows what. . .Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of specialized, ever-changing knowledge. That is part of the "luck" component. (Believe me, there are definitely some schools that must not need bassoonists! She did not get into her top choice.)</p>