You don’t even need Greek. It isn’t offered in many places. If you have strong Latin and history grades, classics would be a path.
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Well, honestly I think you can consider pre-2020 ( when TO was a thing at few schools) to post 2020 when TO was the norm.
The amount of applications has exploded in the last two years!! In many cases, apps are up more than 30%. So respectfully, I’d discount a 2019 admission as a comparison to 2022. Same things don’t apply.
I think parents and kids do a lot of homework before applying. Some don’t. But many do. It’s just become more of a numbers game, hence the packaging. It’s sad.
I have a kid like that. 800 Also in Math and high English as well(780). Kid is very well rounded with national accomplishments, captain of many things (sports and ECs) and dug deep into schools. The results were not what our student/CG expected. The list was made with the help of the CG ( who has only a small number of kids). We though the list was very aggressive but CG insisted kids with these stats have been accepted every year from this school. Not this year.
Top kids (over 1500, top 10%, national stuff) seem to be getting hit the worst.
So not to discount your well rounded kid but I don’t think you would have the same results in 2022.
And yes, my kid also is a Latin scholar and has won the top award every year. Not interested in Classics sadly. Though I did know about that back door route.
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One of the (many) problems with ED lately is that kids weren’t able to visit colleges properly because of Covid so it was really hard to figure out fit.
Our kids didn’t apply to top 20 universities but applied to top 20 LACs. Our D21 got into Colgate when the apps were up 125% so last year was pretty bad as well. I don’t know how the chips would have fallen for S19 if he applied to top universities exactly but I can tell you it would have been a no from every Ivy (he did apply to Dartmouth RD and was denied and WL at Vandy but the rest were LACs). I think he would have gotten off WL at Vandy since almost everyone did from his school if they showed interest. I think he could have gotten into Northwestern ED since we are alums and he had the stats and we know the history from our high school.
I know the last few years were tough. Every family has to know their own kids and decide on the best path for their application plan. I don’t know if there’s much more to say than that. Bottom line - it’s rough out there and don’t get your hopes up or think your student “deserves” a spot. And maybe apply to regions that don’t get as many apps from your high school. As I look at the current 2026 threads, that seems to be a trend. If you live in the NE, your list better have schools outside of the NE on it if you want more choices.
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Hi @htas, to answer the question. 2026 is not an outlier. Kids and families will keep shotgunning because it works.
In particular, I admire this candidate on Reddit. International, needing full aid. Applied to 15 2020/2021 with no success and this year applied to 60 after a gap year. With great success.
There’s also selection bias. Everyone remembers the kids who overapply and get unexpected positive news.
At DD22’s school, diversity candidates did better than others. In no way, do I mind this. But even diversity candidates have to shotgun to get the best possible FA package.
Grade inflation at schools ramped up with Covid as well, and I don’t see that changing because who on earth who argue for a class median grade of C?
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Agree - there are plenty of students who don’t have a passion for military history or molecular biology beginning at age 10, or others who may have the early stages of a passion but lack the financial privilege to nurture it via pricey college summer camps and pay-to-play research opportunities. There are plenty of kids who spend their time just being kids - up until about 9th grade when an adult tells them they need to start frantically signing up for community service and clubs, or they won’t get into a college.
There are plenty of kids who honestly don’t know at age 17-18, what they want to do when they get thrust out into the world at age 22 - and their applications and accompanying EC’s reflect that they had a variety of interests, and are not trying to come across as a “packaged applicant”. I do agree that the onus is on the applicant to convey to AO’s a connection to the college(s) to which they are applying, but that connection can take a variety of forms which have little to do with being able to discuss a given topic for hours and hours.
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I do think that path is smoother (intentionally not saying easier)to an LAC. I suggested my '22 apply to LACs but there was limited/no interest. The kids applying to LACs have done better than those applying to U’s. Maybe those kids and AO’s know what vibe and type of kid they are looking for. And kids who EDed seem to have results similar to previous years. It’s the kid who applied regular decision to highly ranked U’s public and private who are a bit surprised. Places like BU which were not considered to be far reaches for many had acceptance rates that were tiny.
I don’t think it’s regional because folks on CC are spread out widely. I’m sure there will be more info to parse in the coming months.
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Hope it’s all will change for next year students . MIT just announced they will be requiring standardized testing next year . No more TO.
Others universities will follow .
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Yes, when you pull up the Common Data Sets from SLACs the differences in the numbers pre-covid are stunning.
Hope they all require tests. UNC has also gone back to testing for 2023
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Conversely my student and their classmates ruled out colleges that didn’t have vaccine requirements and were lax in protecting their broader community.
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MIT Dean of Admission Stuart Schmill’s interview with MIT News is also illumating:
First, why SAT/ACT tests are helpful for admission evaluation:
“Our research has shown that, in most cases, we cannot reliably predict students will do well at MIT unless we consider standardized test results alongside grades, coursework, and other factors. These findings are statistically robust and stable over time, and hold when you control for socioeconomic factors and look across demographic groups. And the math component of the testing turns out to be most important.”
Second, arguably more notable, why requiring standardized tests can help disadvantaged students:
“…what we have found is that the way we use the SAT/ACT increases access to MIT for students from these groups relative to other things we can consider. The reason for this is that educational inequality impacts all aspects of a prospective student’s preparation and application, not just test-taking. As I wrote, low-income students, underrepresented students of color, and other disadvantaged populations often do not attend schools that offer advanced coursework (and if they do, they are less likely to be able to take it). They often cannot afford expensive enrichment opportunities, cannot expect lengthy letters of recommendation from their overburdened teachers, or cannot otherwise benefit from this kind of educational capital.”
…
“It turns out the shortest path for many students to demonstrate sufficient preparation — particularly for students with less access to educational capital — is through the SAT/ACT, because most students can study for these exams using free tools at Khan Academy, but they (usually) can’t force their high school to offer advanced calculus courses, for example. So, the SAT/ACT can actually open the door to MIT for these students, too.”
Lastly, why reinstating standardized tests can help reduce speculative gamesmanship:
“We are reinstating our requirement in order to be transparent and equitable in our expectations. Our concern is that, without the compelling clarity of a requirement, some well-prepared applicants won’t take the tests, and we won’t have enough information to be confident in their academic readiness when they apply. We believe it will be more equitable — and less anxiety-inducing — if we require all applicants who take the tests to disclose their scores, rather than ask each student to strategically guess whether or not to send them to us.”
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That was my argument all along . I agree with all of his points .
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Very much to the point.
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Maybe, maybe not. Some LACs like Colgate had big increases. Colgate’s apps up 125% in 2021. That’s more than double the number of apps.
I think the tippy top LACs, like Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams, etc., are always a difficult acceptance especially in RD. They take 50% in ED and the classes are SO small. They’ve also been trying really hard to diversify their classes so the white kids from the suburbs (like our kids) don’t have much to stand on in that category. Even back in 2019, RD for Bowdoin was 7%.
I do agree that top universities were definitely rough for the last two years.
Yes, some LACs are a very difficult admit ( I’d say Amherst. Pomona and Williams, Next tier down Bowdoin and Bates, Hamilton and so on). Yes, they have tiny classes so only need one of everything. 
I’d imagine that ED’s would have a huge edge here.
Glad MIT is doing this and hope the other large schools follow suit. S24 tends to do a little better on standardized tests and he attends a school where the grading curve is significantly lower than the ones many high schools on here seem to use. (His 90/91 average in his courses translates into an A- and therefore a 3.67). Hopefully, a return to standardized testing will return a little predictability to the process. I’d rather my son know he’s out of the running than waste time applying to additional schools because he hopes he can get in TO. To that end, I really hope this was an outlier year because we’ll be doing this soon enough!
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MIT wasn’t really “Test Optional” in the sense that most schools were/are. While it allowed those who could not take the test (because of Covid disruptions) to apply without scores, MIT strongly encouraged applicants to submit the scores if they were able take the test.
Looking at the “interview”, MIT’s reasoning seems about the same now as then.
I imagine that some schools with a similar scores-strongly-recommended approach may follow MIT’s lead, but I’d be surprised if we see a major rollback among those schools which were more truly test optional. My guess is overall we see more movement toward test blind, rather than back toward test required.
Time will tell.
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I wanted to share just some very tiny data - we have about 300 kids in the senior class at a private high school. My takeaway from Scoir scattergram is the kids with the 35/4.0 are struggling more with admission than the 33’s and 34s with similar GPAs. One thing I noted tonight is some kids are getting lucky and getting into one very desirable school while being denied/waitlisted at 4-5 others. Now the next interesting thing would be $$. It’s all great to get into Northwestern or BC but its an entirely different thing to have to cough up 80K a year to attend.
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