I’ve heard that calls are less welcome than they once were. Honestly, it does seem unfair to have one person’s CG calling and another kid not having someone to advocate for them.
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Yes. Our GC told us that it used to be common practice, especially by well connected schools. But in light of the recent scandals, the colleges don’t want the calls and the high schools don’t want to make them.
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I grew up in the suburbs and my public school GC had no trouble reaching out to schools. Ours was a middle of the road high school - definitely not wealthy and 75 per cent of the class attended public universities.
So I’m not really sure why GC’s aren’t doing that today. It’s not that hard and you don’t have to say too much. Just stress how much Student X wants to attend etc. and how great they would be if accepted. It may not move mountains but it will confirm someone really wants to attend. If it’s uncertainty that is causing so much WListing, then colleges should welcome these kinds of assurances.
Are the AO’s no longer taking these calls or advising against them? And how can today’s GCs be so disengaged? I went to college 30 yrs ago; my high school was far from elite and yet my GC sounds far more proactive than most GCs today. Very odd!
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We’re at a Title I school. Our GCs are dealing with homelessness, food insecurity, and other traumatic issues. They don’t have the bandwidth to call AOs.
My kid is waitlisted and really, really wants to attend school X. Why should a kid at your school get the seat because you have a GC that has time to make a call and explain the situation?
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I have no child on a WL this year, but I would want AOs to take the call from any reputable person at your high school. A trusted teacher could call too - in fact, that’s better in some ways.
I understand concerns about inequity, but I’m not sure enforced silence fixes the problem. If it just means schools depend more heavily on things like in-person visits and ED applications, then the unfairness is still baked in.
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I agree, not to mention full pay students have an advantage at many schools in getting off the waitlist too as FA budgets are often maxed out by then.
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I think it’s important that students who are truly committed to attending a specific school be encouraged to leverage any reasonable, ethical method for gaining admittance to that school. If getting a guidance counselor to advocate on their behalf to get them off of a waitlist would be a benefit, they should at least make the ask of their counselor.
Is it going to be easier for some students in some schools to find that advocate? Of course.
Are some guidance counselors not going to want to make the phone call? Perhaps.
Are there schools that may not want the phone call? Sure.
While there are legitimate concerns about fairness and system inequities, the reality is the only way to achieve the outcome you want is to ask for what you want, using the resources available to you.
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Waitlists at most colleges are growing longer. If I were an AO, I’d be annoyed by more calls from GCs. I don’t want to take their calls because I’m going to make nearly all of them disappointed (not only this year but year after year). They’re all going to tell me the same story and how committed their students are. Besides, those students who got their GCs to call probably had stronger recommendations to begin with and even stronger recommendations from the GCs are unlikely to tip the balance.
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Sounds like my child’s high school.
Regarding Waitlists, I found this article last year and it is explains the waitlists strategy well with humor. I have posted this on the Waitlist Discussion threads for the last 2 years to try to give the students a better understanding. Although this was written for GTech, it has a universal message.
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I agree with you that knowing your high school really well is important, otherwise you’re guessing as to the story behind the data that those red x’s and green checks on Naviance represent. However this year I think it may have depended to a large degree upon what schools a student applied to.
I’m one of those parents this year saying that Naviance didn’t “work” for my ds, but not because he didn’t get accepted and not because we didn’t really dig into the numbers. We actually had to sort of ignore Naviance’s low expectations for him, and I’m glad we did. Ultimately he was accepted to 10/12 of the schools he applied to, but his profile was tricky. His SATs were decent, but his overall gpa was very low relative to his gpa from sophomore year on. He had a truly horrible freshman year, and then an upward trend thereafter. This meant we had to spend a lot of time reading between the lines to help him figure out where he might actually have a shot despite Naviance indicating otherwise.
On the contrary, his very high-performing girlfriend had a really different outcome at the most competitive schools she applied to. Her stats are average excellent, her ECs are strong, and she’s full pay. Her parents took lots of time to dig into Naviance and she felt felt pretty confident based on the data that she had lots of solid matches on her list. In the end, she was rejected from both of her reaches and most of her matches, including one that both of her parents went to and her older sibling currently attends. This, despite trying to increase her odds by applying ED, only to have to pivot to ED2, and then again to RD only. In the end she was accepted to her 1 safety and 3 matches.
All of this is to say that whether or not this year seems like an anomaly may be dependent upon what you were hoping for. It appears that those applying to elite schools may have ended up with the most disappointment.
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I agree with this completely. This is what I saw at my D22’s school as well. When my D22 first applied, we categorized her schools as being 2 reaches, 4 targets, and 3 “safeties.”
Honestly, after this admission cycle, we now realize that only 1 of her 3 safeties was actually a safety, even though she got into the other 2 “safety” schools. Her list was better categorized as 2 reaches, 6 targets, and 1 true safety (yikes). The schools were a lot more competitive and selective than we ever imagined. In the end, she was only rejected from 1 reach and 1 “safety” that ended up not being a safety at all.
Other kids who have great stats are on multiple T20 Waitlists, and who knows, maybe they will end up getting in and there won’t end up being surprising results when all is said and done.
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Great article! I like the message – take your spot and move on!
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The thing about waitlists is it is still all swayed to the school. So, a student has their GC call their choice school say they would attend if pulled off but then it is up the the school to decide when or if at all. Getting pulled off the waitlist in the middle of summer maybe a few weeks before school starts makes it a difficult commitment so there are many students who want to go but want more realistic options but then I guess you do have those students left that would go no matter what. This whole process is messed up.
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I agree with that. So much energy and resources that have been collectively spent on the process of college admissions contributed little to the college education itself.
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Not really. No student is obligated to accept a spot on a waitlist nor is any student obligated to matriculate if made an offer.
I am sure it can feel very one sided if a student isn’t happy with their current options but the reality is decision to participate remains in the hands of the applicant.
I wish your kid good luck!!
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Many traditionally high paying fields/firms are now paying more attention to the combination of major and performance than to the school brand name. The days of classical studies from an Ivy going to Wall St and minting money is quickly coming to and end (in fact I think that party is over). The world is far too competitive these days.
The much maligned classics major :-). I think the reason people still like majors like these from places like the ivys is that they are trained to a) read and absorb a large amount of material in a short of amount of time, b) write well, and c) think critically. So if an employer is looking for those skills, then classics is as good a training as any other major. The actual craft in a Wall Street job can be taught quickly, and large firms have very good training programs anyway.
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I thought there was business school in between? Or did I miss that transformation too (and I am being quite serious!)
“The days of classical studies from an Ivy going to Wall St and minting money is quickly coming to and end (in fact I think that party is over).”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The most common career for Religion majors at Amherst College is consulting. Although the most common path for students who want to go into investment banking or consulting from Amherst is to major in Econ, there are several non-Econ majors going into that field as well. D knows a Psychology major who got an internship at one of the big investment banks (one of the first names you would think of) the summer after sophomore year and received an email guaranteeing a position after graduation if she wants it, because they were so happy with her performance.
I don’t think elitism is coming to an end in any way, shape, or form. I honestly think a lot of the arguments for College Confidential that elitism is dying out are rooted in confirmation bias.
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