<p>I was trying to not sway you guys in my original post, but I was honestly quite startled at his results. To me, he seemed like a pretty subpar candidate for most of the schools he applied to. And this is certainly nothing you can blame on the college admissions process as being subjective. I’ve literally given you his entire application excluding his actual essays and recommendations, which I believe I objectively analyzed. But, really, how large of a role can essays play?</p>
<p>I completely agree that you just never know what the result of an application will be regardless of how weak/strong.</p>
<p>At my school, the salutatorian, with NM and lots of good EC’s got denied at Northwestern while another student who was considerably lower in GPA, rank, scores, and EC’s got accepted. </p>
<p>The lesson I learned is that I should have taken a few chances with my apps. If you can afford it, add a few more reaches. I only had two (got in one, denied at the other), but had I applied to a few more I may have had a few surprises and more choices.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for this thread! It made my day. My S really wants to go to Colorado College and I think he will have better stats than your friend but was worried about him only ending up in Pre-Calc Senior year. Based on A LOT of people’s comments on this forum he is doomed. I really didn’t think he was… and now I know he’s not.</p>
<p>Interesting exercise. I voted more pessimistically for his admission chances due to not being in the top 10 percent of his class: Deny, Deny, Deny, Admit, deny or waitlist, admit, admit.</p>
<p>Do you know if he had requested financial aid or not?</p>
<p>Did he apply to Chicago EA? I would not have guessed him for a Chicago admit, but he must have sold his fit there through his essays. </p>
<p>I do think many people underestimate the importance of essays for selective colleges.</p>
<p>Wow, and with only pre-calc…there is no way he applied for FA and it just shows you how different admissions can be from one year to the next…the Uchicago and Emory admits are a real surprise…</p>
<p>BTW, did I miss where he is actually going?</p>
<p>Believe it or not, he actually did apply for financial aid and was awarded it at all schools. </p>
<p>Also, the Uchicago application was NOT EA. Believe me, I was just as surprised as all of you. </p>
<p>In order of priority, he most wanted UChicago, Colorado College, and if not those, then Emory or Tulane. Because he wasn’t admitted in the first round to his top choices he accepted his spot at Tulane and didn’t expect admittance to any of his waitlists (he was aware of the schools’ selectivities). What he did do, however was he wrote letters of interests to all of his waitlist schools, so if there’s anything to learn, I suppose, it’s EXPRESS INTEREST in schools which you want to get admitted to from the waitlist. </p>
<p>He heard from Emory and Uchicago within 10 minutes of each other, in the first week of May and since UChicago had always been his first choice, he was already almost certain he’d accept their offer. The following day, he got a financial aid package faxed which made the school cheaper to attend than any of the other schools he applied to. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the U of C is where he’ll be next year.</p>
<p>I think that one of the things that people miss in being able to interpret chances is the teacher recommendations. I think that colleges really look at those to see a true perception of what that student is like in the classroom and at the school. For example my S does not always get the best grades, but his teacher’s always rave about him because he is VERY active in the classroom, loves to bring up interesting ideas, and basically loves learning for learning sake. The teacher’s always say he is a breath of fresh air. I’m hoping this will help him in admissions and I would bet that this"friend" was like that and the Admission Committe knew about it in reading his recommendations. I’m sure a college would take a student active in the classroom and the school over a kid who had perfect grades and test score but sat in the back of the classroom and never said a word, then ran home to play video games the rest of the day and night.</p>
<p>Ditto this. Earlier today I saw someone telling another poster to retake the ACT after the OP had gotten a 33 twice. Another thread said that the OP’s chances at the Ivies were shot because she got a 29. This place is ridiculous and a little out of touch with reality, considering that a 33 composite is a 99th percentile score, and the 29 is a 94th percentile score.</p>