I think difficulty is overblown on CC

Applying to College Admission Stories
1

Hey all, now before you all ridicule me for being a moron I’d appreciate it if you’d hear me out. First, off I should say everyone should have a balanced list of reaches, matches, and safety schools, and excellent students are frequently declined admission to schools they are qualified for. As top schools get more an more competitive it’s certainly easy to see why managing expectations is often the kind thing to do for applicants with high hopes. Nevertheless, I feel like college confidential is too extreme in its stance on how competitive schools actually are. I think a lot of the reactions might be stemming from protecting students, but some seems like it comes from a sense of pride about the difficulty of college confidential member’s schools that they attended/attend/were accepted to. While I only have my own experience, I’ve watched 4 or 5 admissions cycles at my own school and closely looked at the results. While my school is an anomaly, and I will talk about this later, we consistently outperform even the wildest of college confidential expectations. I’ve been a long time lurker, looking on college confidential probably too much for my own good, and I’m very interested in these questions. I’ve always wanted to post this, so here goes.

I go to a small, competitive private school in a Mid-Atlantic State that sends a disproportionate of students to top colleges. Each graduating class is around the size of 80-90, and while some deviate smaller or larger, it’s generally around this size. My current class is made up of 85 students many of whom are extraordinarily talented and intelligent, undoubtedly significantly more than I am. Based on my experience watching my class, and other previous classes apply to college, and seeing the results of my friends in and out of school, I’ve noticed a large disconnect between college confidential “chance me” thread responses and my real life experiences. While I get that people are only trying to be helpful, I sometimes worry that they are too pessimistic, and thus scare away bright students from applying where they might actually be accepted. My school is full of wealthy, mostly white, privileged kids, and 99%+ of students go to college, so I get we’re weird, but there’s so much success that I felt sharing might be beneficial to show CC that sometimes things aren’t quite as hard as they seem. You have no way to believe me, I get that, and I won’t share where I go to school, for obvious reasons, but I’d like to give you some results of our 85 student class for the early application round. None had crazy extracurriculars outside of what a normal but focused student would have.

IVY LEAGUE:

Yale SCEA: 3 students.

-URM, recruited athlete, 3.85~ GPA, 1400-1450 SAT, Top Classes.

-Legacy (no large donor status), 3.75 GPA, 1400-1450 SAT, Top Classes.

-Unhooked, 3.9 GPA, 1500~ SAT, Top Classes.

Dartmouth ED 1 student.

-Unhooked, 3.9 GPA, 1500~ SAT, Top Classes.

Brown ED 3 students.

-URM, 3.6 GPA, 1400 SAT, Top Classes.

-Multiple Legacy, 3.6 GPA, 1300-1400 SAT, mostly top classes. (Personally, I believe his legacy to be special in some way)

-Legacy, 3.75 GPA , 1400~ SAT, mostly top classes.

UPenn 1 student.

-Legacy, 3.85 GPA, 1450 SAT, Top Classes.

Columbia 1 student

-URM, 3.9 GPA, 1500 SAT, Top classes.

NON-IVY generally considered top 25:

Northwestern 1 student.

-Legacy, 3.95 GPA, 1500 SAT, Top Classes.

Tufts 1 student.

-Unhooked, 3.8 GPA, 1500 SAT, Top Classes.

UChicago 1 student.

-Unhooked, 3.9 GPA, 1500+ SAT, Top Classes.

WUSTL 2 students.

-Unhooked, 3.8 GPA, 1450 SAT, Top Classes.

-Legacy, 3.8 GPA, 1540 SAT, mostly top classes.

I get our school is weird, I really do, but it’s not like these results are even rare for our school. Not only this, but this occurs every year, and this is only early. I’m not saying this to try and brag, it’s honestly pointless on the internet. In fact, I don’t think that we’re that special, I think this happens at other schools too. What I’m trying to get at is that if so many from my school can do it, I think others can too. Personally knowing everyone in my class, I can say we’re not a weird breed of geniuses, we’re just normal kids who happen to be bright. I see too much negativity on these forums, and I’d just like to offer some inspiration to people looking to apply to tough schools. Yes it’s hard, and yes, people get better odds early, and you very well might not get in with these stats to these schools, but it’s still possible.

To close I’d just like to try and make sure people don’t start a war in the comments. Believe the stats or not, I can’t prove it outside of real life, so if you don’t believe them, I get it. Second, numbers aren’t the only thing in applications. I know that’s what I put up, but it’s impossible to quantify subjective things, you’re not made or broken by your stats. Third, as I said before, everyone should balance their schools, and make sure financials work, I believe everyone should have a shot at college, and in no way am I saying any of these schools are easy to get into. Finally, what school you get into doesn’t make you as a student. I put up a lot of classically defined top schools, but at the end of the day a name is just that: a name. Don’t get bogged down in prestige.

Thanks for reading, I know I write too much, fail to get to the point, and have poor style, but I hope I helped someone out their, or just made someone’s day better. Thanks all!

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@applicant2000 The story of your school’s fall EA/ED results strikes is very similar to what I have seen in high end private schools in both NYC and LA – where perhaps 20% of the graduating class attends schools with Ivy League-like acceptance rates and fully half the class attends the next set of extremely selective schools. I think the key point for readers of this thread is: those private schools are viewed by colleges, rightly or wrongly, as among the most reliable in the country for serving up kids who will succeed, graduate, and make an impact in the world (and contribute to their alma maters). The point I’d make to you is: kids from those kinds of schools are pretty off listening to their own school counselors, and looking at their Naviance and past-acceptance data, than listening to anything said on these CC threads. There are just too many schools, too many grading systems, too many meaningful and meaningless ECs, too many difficult judgement calls, and too much unintentional bias to to make sense of the some of what we see posted here.

My stepson goes to one of these kinds of schools. He has a 3.8, 34 ACT, interesting EC’s, and fabulous recommendations. He did 5 EA applications and all were successful: U Chicago, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College and Colorado College. If you read the EA threads for those schools you see dozens of kids with better profiles who were deferred or rejected. But based on the past experience at this school it was likely he was going to be admitted everywhere, and he was.

But one thing we have to acknowledge is that these kind of private schools are a tiny fraction of the schools out there – so our experience is not representative, and I wouldn’t want readers to take what you’ve said or what I’ve said as evidence of anything but the very specific circumstances of kids at a very small number of high schools.

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So essentially students who attend elite high schools, whether public or private, have a better chance of being admitted to elite colleges than their less privileged peers? No real surprise there.

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@Applicant1200 do you think, based on your description of your school’s demographics, the numbers to these top schools are high because of full pay status and high chance of matriculation? I’m not trying to downgrade the students and their accomplishments, just wondering.

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Also keep in mind that 9/14 of the kids in OP’s school are hooked.

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I live in a small rural town, and my friend got into Yale through Questbridge. She is the only person who has gone to an Ivy League from our high school in 20 - 30 years and probably longer. Everyone was freaking out about it. Our school doesn’t really see people going to very selective schools very often. Some OOS publics, some in-state privates, and maybe a couple OOS privates. But nothing to the tune of top 25 or Ivy.

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The results of a private, elite high school would be called anecdotal evidence and generally isn’t considered a reliable measure.

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Yeah, I guess. I was hoping that it isn’t completely that. I mean, of course, it has to be at least in part, but I’m not an adcom so I don’t really know what’s going on in their heads, just trying to understand based on data I have gotten in real life.

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All my responses here are purely anecdotal and opinion-based, not scientific.

I agree with the OP that I sometimes am surprised when people advise posters that what the poster is considering his/her matches are reaches, and advise only considering a school a “match” if the poster is in the top 25% by SAT/ACT. That ignores the fact that 75% of enrolling students (okay, maybe a bit smaller percentage of admitted students, but still well over half) have SAT’s below that. Being in the middle 50% is one of many factors in defining a “match.” (Colleges with under-20% overall admissions percentages should be counted as reaches by anyone, however, regardless of their hard score and GPA data.)

I also am wondering if admissions this year may be a little easier than in past years— or if our school’s students sre doing better with admissions for some other reason. My local public high school is considered a desirable school in a largely upper middle class neighborhood. Yet, in past years, as per Naviance and annual press releases of admissions results for the top ten students, almost no one got into top-ranked colleges. (Not that rank is what one should base a college choice on— I am just using it to support my point that colleges may be less competitive this year). Most years there was only one or two students or no student listed as attending an Ivy League college, for example— and admission to HMPYS was unheard of before last year. Last year was a little better than usual— and this year is already dramatically better based on the early decision round alone!

My son is the first student from his high school to be attending Williams since the start of Naviance data years ago. There also were students admitted to Wesleyan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Columbia, Brown, Franklin & Marshall, etc. in the early round this year. I may add that this year’s number of National Merit semi-finalists at the high school was ONE student, lower than last year when there were seven, so our scores are down, if anything. Yet more students are being admitted to top colleges than ever before, based on Naviance data.

Are our high school’s students doing better, our guidance counselors getting more savvy, or admissions getting easier? I do not know.

And while I do not know every classmate’s data or story, I do know that the one of the students admitted to one of these top schools had no hook whatsoever, and had scores and grades that, while excellent, were not high compared to that college’s data. This shows that admissions is truly holistic, and not based on scores or grades alone. My son’s friend will add a lot of personality to the campus, and it’s nice that admissions recognized that.

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One of the largest differences between public and private schools is the quality of the guidance counseling and the amount of time the guidance counselors have to spend with each student.

At the local private prep school that many of my friends’ kids attend, starting in grade 9 the students receive extensive and personal guidance from experienced counselors. During each of their high school years, each student gets hours of personal counseling ranging from courses to take, ECs, colleges to visit and individual detailed plans. Parents can also get advice. There are not only multiple counselors, they all are of high quality and have longstanding personal relationships with various colleges. And due to their experience and connections, they are wonderful at knowing what college each student will fit at and appeal to, so most students only need to apply to a few colleges knowing they’re likely to be admitted. Fewer applications means more time to polish the apps, plus class time is spent on the essays, meaning the students are working in class on the essays not trying to juggle homework and applications.

The public school is a magnet school where the kids have to test to gain admission, that graduates around 200 a year and 100% of the students go to college so it’s a group that is not just high performing but expected to go to college. There is one guidance counselor. He’s kind, but only has 4 years of experience and few close relationships to college admissions officers. It’s doubtful he has the ability to pick up the phone and influence admissions like the experienced GCs at the private prep school. Starting in 9th grade, students are gathered in the auditorium and given a general talk about things they should be thinking about as they go through high school - trying to take a certain # of APs, taking a foreign language through a certain level, etc, but there is no advice specifically given to any one student and it’s virtually impossible to get any individualized advice. When students reach their senior year, they each get two separate one hour appointments with the GC. As an example, when my son and I went for his first appointment this September, the GC hadn’t yet met my son, was just reviewing his transcript and test scores during the meeting and when we showed him the list of 15 colleges we’d thought might be good to apply to, he had no comments. None to remove, no additional ones we should look at, no ideas on where my son might fit best, etc. No advice on how to craft the app, what things to emphasize, what things certain colleges were looking for. After our hour was up, we were ushered out the door where there was a line of students waiting for their hour of counseling. Since we were not totally sure where son might get in, he was working on 12 applications, most of which required unique essays and all of which were done in addition to his class load, which included 5 AP classes at the time.

I’m not complaining, my son was admitted to his top choice and is thrilled. Many of the other students from this school also find their way to Ivies, Top 20 and other selective colleges as well. But their journey is different than the journey of the kids from the local private prep school and I can’t help but wonder how many of them would end up at different (maybe more appropriate for them) colleges if they had access to the same guidance given to the kids at the private school. After seeing this, I understand a little more about why some parents pay to get a private admissions consultant. If the school doesn’t have good quality GC, an admissions consultant may just be performing that role. We didn’t go that route, but many of my friends who have kids at the public magnet school did and now I understand why.

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It’s well known there are some Ivy feeder schools: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/. Whether the unhooked students get a boost from attending a feeder school is debated endlessly, and your original post doesn’t help answer the question. 7 out of 9 of your Ivy admits were hooked in some way. I’m betting your class’s admission stats would look less stellar, if you only looked at the unhooked students.

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I agree with @milee30 – quality of GC support as a factor is huge. Also, these kids are likely encouraged and financially supported in all kinds of interesting ECs throughout HS (and maybe starting earlier) that will appeal to ad coms. Their apps are carefully packaged and tweaked to show the most interesting, unique, lively applicants you can imagine. When you are in the environment like the OP is, it is hard to see all the little ways those privileges translate into a stronger application.

Plus, lots of those students were hooked that the OP gave as an example.

I don’t see how it hurts any student to be told to have a list of reaches, matches, and safeties, and to be warned that their odds are low at their reaches. One of my kids got in everyplace she applied, including reaches, in spite of one specific imperfection in her app (lowish GPA). She doesn’t feel robbed somehow because she got into a range of schools. She chose her list carefully, and was very grateful to have a lot of choices when spring came. I don’t see the problem with that.

And a boy at her school who thought he would get into all kinds of top ranked schools (strong student and strong test scores, and school usually does pretty well in admissions) got skunked everyplace except low match the GC begged him to add just in case. So it happens.

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There are 85 seniors and 2 of them, unhooked made it to an Ivy League school? That really isn’t all the special.

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Alrighty, as a current high school student, I see it two ways. Private school do definitely allow for better guidance counselors who probably spend more time withe their students which allows for more opportunity for those students. I had never really considered that counselors at private schools could have more connections, but that seems to make perfect sense to me. I go to a rather low tier high school that is relatively small compared to some of the high schools I have seen on this website. I can tell you first hand that at my high school the guidance counselors dont really care about their students, and in fact I would even venture as far as stating that they encourage students to take the easy way out and apply to local state colleges, as they believe Ivy league and “Big name” colleges are a waste of money and effort. The guidance counselors are so awful that we dont even get that one hour that @milee30 mentioned. All of the advanced to students at my school will testify that it is pure hell trying to get the counselors to approve taking extra classes to boost GPA’s

The second major factor that separated public schools from private schools is class availability and teaching personnel. Obviously my school does have a decent variety of AP classes, but I would say they have about less than half of the AP classes offered by the college board, In order to seek the classes that one wants to take the advanced students are forced to take online classes, which are absolutely awful, and really hard to learn from. The teaching personnel at private schools are obviously much more practiced individuals than at public schools. My AP physics teacher had never taught AP physics before, and we were not even informed that the class was an AP class until about a month into the class, there were only 4 people who passed the exam out of around 50 who took it.

In terms of the quality of students who graduate from my school, I’d say it is certainly less than stellar My sister’s graduating class (C/o 2016) only had two people with GPA’s in 5.0 which compared to some of the high schools I viewed is not great at all. My sister was the salutatorian of that class, and was rejected from every Ivy she applied too, thankfully she was accepted into Vanderbilt which is still and extremely prestigious school. In fact she was the only one to get into a top 25 university. My other sister’s class (C/o 2017) was slightly better with around 4 people with 5.0s or greater, except there wan none who was accepted to an Ivy or a top 25 let alone any one who applied, though there were plenty who may have been accepted. My class this year is made up of about 350 students total I rank number 7 with a 4.76 weighted GPA, so its getting better, however out of all of the students in the class, my friend and I are the only ones I know of who actually are applying to Ivy leagues or top 25’s. This statistics when compared to private schools are absolutely unheard of. I feel that such circumstances really hinder the student’s chances at actually being admitted in to these prestigious schools. I have personally applied to UChicago( my top choice ), Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Rice, FSU, Emory, Tulane, and Johns Hopkins. I was rejected from Columbia for ED1, Rejected from Tulane EA, and thankfully differed from Uchicago EA, The rest are RD. I said all of these things so that people would understand that making it to college is a different ride depending on a multitude of factors, some people are truly just much more privileged and lucky to get to attends great high schools.

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This just tells me that things aren’t so hard if you’re a legacy or URM, go to a nice private school and are wealthy to boot. Most people on CC are not exactly there.

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I think the OP is on to something here.
The VAST majority of US institutions take over 50% of applicants (CollegeDatacom). There is a fair amount of neurosis around college applications, in some cases rising to a frenzy.

The fact is that many institutions are tuition-driven and need the bodies. In addition, it seems that the pool of prospective students is weakening (see article today on InsideHigherEdcom).

Going forward, apart from the most selective schools, and large state schools, colleges will need students more than students need the colleges.
Everyone needs to work hard, do their best, and chill a bit.

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Having watched the college process for a long time now, ability to afford seems more often a roadblock to attendence than ability to be admitted. Of course, if Stanford is the only school you’ll apply to, you are most likely going to be disappointed. But almost any B+/1300 SAT student will find an interesting, reasonably selective school that will admit them IF they can afford it.

One thing I think folks on CC tend to misunderstand is that schools very rarely base admission decisions on small differences in test scores or GPA. (Just look, for instance, at Brown’s admissions by GPA/SAT that they publish. While Brown seems among the most holisitc of highly selective schools, they are not way off the charts. They “only” accept 23% of students who apply with 800 SATs and only 15% of those who apply with 750-800 SAT scores… yet the class is made up of 26% students with 700-740 SATs and >50% have less than 740… meaning once you hit 700 or so, sure higher can add to your profile, but adcoms are clearly now looking around at other info about the student. They are not tossing the 710/760 kid because they’ve got a 720/770 kid next on the pile. They are putting them next to each other and looking at lots of other bits of info. https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts)

But outside the tippy-top schools the issue is financing more than admissions, and for parents who are full-pay whose kids are decent students who don’t care what “selective” school they go to, there is almost always a good option available. Just check the “our grads attend” list for any top private (they are all usually published in the school paper at some point - or pick a recent Andover, Harvard-Westlake, St. Albans, Chicago Latin kid off facebook and check out their friends. 90% post their college attedance.) A huge % will be Barrons 1 and 2 schools - 'cause most selective privates schools have parents who can write the check.

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I have a cousin with a daughter-in-law who has been Head of Guidance at some of the top districts in Nassau County. She is doing a consultant position with a district that has always been thought of as low end, disproportionately minority as the white population primarily send their children to parochial schools. As a consultant to this district, she has found that there are numerous college planning tools and protocols that she is familiar with and uses as common place in higher end districts but were totally unfamiliar to the guidance counselors in the district she is consulting with currently. Without an educated and informed parent who is willing to spend the time to explore options, the available options are not being explored or presented to the students.

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OP, I believe your numbers, but I don’t think you really appreciate how fortunate you are compared to the vast majority of high school students out there. You come from a privileged environment, and kudos to your entire school for the fact that you all are making the most out of your opportunities. You and your classmates still work hard and value education, and it will pay off.

I recall a few years ago reading that around 30% or so of Ivy/elite school students come from private high schools, but private school student represent only 10% of so of all high school students. And since the elites only give need based financial aid, many private high school kids (who come from wealthier families) would be full-pay, so even though many of them could get admitted to these schools, they don’t apply because they chase merit-aid instead.

Something like 99% of students from private high schools go to college, while only 65% of public school kids go to college at all. Someone else can check the numbers for me, I am going from memory.

If your entire post is that it is not so hard for the privileged, of course that is true. But it is so much harder than you can possibly understand for kids who are not nearly as privileged.

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totally agree @3puppies, Refer to my comment