Family member was at an expensive private and their school also didn’t see any anomalies this cycle. Same numbers being admitted to the Ivies and peer schools.
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You know what, that is not true at all. I have heard “we got lucky” from a great many Ivy accepts especially this last few years.
My kid is not Ivy-bound but she was very, very lucky to be part of single-digit EA waves at various schools. I certainly wouldn’t blurt it out (though wait -i have!) to perfect strangers.
And it’s not about feeling better or worse, it’s about (i thought) trying to divine institutional missions.
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I’m sure many kids who were accepted to Harvard feel they didn’t get lucky, but not for the reasons you might think.
Congratulations on your kids success!!
I won’t question your experience. I will give an opinion that they are being polite and humble but they recognize just how much work went into their kids situation. While appreciative and thankful most parents who have seen their kids work their buts off and get into an elite recognize that it didn’t happen by accident. They likely acknowledge the opaque and idiosyncratic nature of the process but don’t question why their kid “made it” having experienced the why first hand.
Once again congratulations and I am glad in your words your daughter was lucky. Had your daughter applied to super elites and gotten rejected it would perhaps be unlucky but had she gotten accepted I would have given her the credit of attributing it to hard work, accomplishment and distinction amongst qualified peers.
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Many kids from our private high school did not get accepted to the school of their choice . Many great students got rejected or waitlisted .
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Yes, my daughter “worked hard” - harder than someone who doesn’t have stable housing, supportive parents, no. There was an element of luck in the sat test. She guessed correctly in the verbal section and got a better score than expected. I say this is luck, others would say it’s an educated guess based on hours of practice tests.
She didn’t write about her ECs, but about something else - more of a personality essay.
Was that more intriguing to a reader who’d just read 10 essays on volunteering? Maybe.
I call that luck, others may not.
At the end of the day, we’re not going to agree.
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It doesn’t. I think test optional is great both for students like yours and for those others whose neurology impacts their gpa. Test blind policies on the other hand suck for the latter.
Our public high school typically places 1-2 students a year in the T10 and it’s usually either a recruited athlete or someone who has an exceptional story. We have a strong track record of kids attending T20-50 schools and this year when a lot of those schools seemed to be yield protecting, many kids from our school were accepted with merit aid. I have no inside knowledge, but I do wonder if colleges are looking more closely at yield from certain high schools in making their decisions.
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Despite what I’m hearing from others, that it’s been hard, DD22’s school has had offers from Harvard, Duke, cmu, Cornell, brown, pomona, Dartmouth, georgetown, Michigan, bu, northeastern, nyu, mit, unc, uva, ucb for 40% of the kids. That’s not bad. Don’t know what it was last year (offers vs. matriculated).
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Just for information purposes what non Ivy school had single digit EA acceptance rounds?
For example Harvard’s REA rate was 7.9% and Yale was 10.9%. Just curious as to which schools have more competitive non binding EA rounds? Thanks.
I didn’t do the calculations personally, but was told that both Michigan OOS EA and northeastern EA was single digit.
One source.
Another source was the CC Michigan EA thread. They base this on Michigan having 50-50 OOS/instate and filling 50% seats EA.
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Got it, and agreed that those schools are a bit more random as they try to ensure full pay, manage yield and measure demonstrated interest. Glad she pushed the right buttons.
Not sure if she applied further but hope she lands happily.
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There’s always a sense that one didn’t do enough or need to apply more widely. But it’s fine!
My kid did not apply to any Ivies. But I definitely would not respond to the “got lucky” comment by saying “She is not lucky, she just worked harder than your kid(or smarter than your kid)”. Because basically this is the implication I can hear in your comments (again, just my perception, not sure if this is your intent) - kids who got into Ivies just worked harder/smarter. How do we decide that 4.0/36 kid who did not get in worked harder/smarter than another 4.0/36 kid who did get in? This is basically where my comment about luck comes in. But looks like we will not agree on that anyway.
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Well you would be wrong. I specifically said the kid that didn’t get in should be validated in saying you got unlucky. I have also stated all these kids are worthy.
That said you don’t respond to someone’s achievement by saying you were lucky in my opinion.
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Same here! So I have no idea what is going on.
Consider yourself fortunate (I was going to say lucky, but now I am scared to use that word) you cannot relate. For most people on CC and people I know, it has been a blood bath. All I keep saying is the Waitlist is the new Acceptance.
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There’s a saying in life: it’s better to be lucky than good. Achievement puts you in a position to benefit from luck IMHO… It’s really all about process vs outcome. An excellent process does not guarantee an excellent outcome; however, it’s hard to have an excellent outcome with a poor process…
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Not to my knowledge. It’s an upper middle class/fairly wealthy town. Good % of families there send their kids private, and the school itself is probably average in terms of the US but well below average within the region.
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That is what we need to do.