<p>Let’s not get into the marketing argument again. I firmly disbelieve it’s to draw tens of thousands of useles apps. Do you really think Harvard wants to jump from 35,000 apps to 40,000? </p>
<p>I do however firmly believe there is a thing I call Admissions Speak. But, I see it less as a concerted effort to mislead and more about avoiding saying anything too revealing or that seems like a promise that there’s a formula.</p>
<p>Ucb- are you asking about quantifiable factors? Because a large part of rising about the competition is qualitative- the rest of the package. You get day after day of reading 4.0+/2000+ apps and something has to make one kid look more appealing than the others.</p>
<p>Well Harvard would tell you their marketing mission is to enable them to reach and be able to choose from kids all over the planet. But the bottom line is these schools are caught up in the rankings game and they all want more applicants.</p>
<p>What schools would you say an applicant would need to excee the thresholds you posted? The Ivy leagues or really any school that accepts less than 20% of the applicants? And I’m curious would you include Cornell in that group? I got into the college of engineering, unhooked, and I’m ranked 20/202 in an average suburban high school although I got a 35 on the act</p>
<p>I’ll offer our local “best in State” public HS’s results for perspective. Granted, anecdotal information shouldn’t be projected as universal truth, but my observations go back about 4-5 years, and the results have been amazingly consistent over the years. Out of each year’s graduating class of about 300-325, LOTS of kids apply to top schools. With few exceptions, kids out of the top 2% aren’t accepted at the elite schools.</p>
<p>The exceptions fall into one of two categories: legacies and recruited athletes, and even these kids are ALWAYS in the top 5%.</p>
<p>Over the years the outcomes have been very consistent: Most years the val will be accepted to a HYPS school, and #2 and #3 to a Columbia, Penn, Duke or similar.</p>
<p>This year was a bumper crop. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 got into Caltech, MIT, and Yale, and another top 10 (top 10, not top 10%) kid got into Duke. Most of the rest of the top 10% kids who applied to selective schools had some good results, but nobody outside the top 2% was accepted to an elite school.</p>
<p>So I’ll side with Waverly in this debate. Rank matters a lot.</p>
<p>Question for Waverly: So what about the high schools that don’t post ranks on their transcripts? I’ve met with my guidance counselor for college planning, and he told me that my rank in school is #2, but the rank will not be sent to colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, quantifiable factors which would distinguish between the “no hope” applicants who should not bother applying and “some (small) hope” applicants who may find it worthwhile to apply. Obviously, figuring out which of the “some (small) hope” applicants actually get admitted may not be obvious from the outside (especially given the qualitative or holistic evaluation of things like essays), but there likely are reasonably well defined rank/GPA/test-score/combination thresholds that indicate whether an unhooked applicant is “no hope” or not.</p>
<p>Of course, additional “no hope” applicants (rank/GPA/test-score/combination is too low) just mean additional application fees with not much more real work for the college.</p>
<p>I’m curious how people know colleges want to lower their acceptance rates- top tiers, I mean. Sure the 3rd nd 4th tiers are always in jeopardy. Please don’t note USNWR.</p>
<p>^ Some schools (U Chicago) have hired marketing firms to blanket the high school juniors of America with solicitations. Do they think the best and brightest have not heard of U Chicago? I suspect the goal is simply to boost application numbers for the purpose of improving rankings in the periodical whose name shall not be mentioned.</p>
<p>But, there’s so much certainty on CC- people insist it’s for USNWR rank or the dollars. What’s the source of this info- CC? Parents an d hs kids?</p>
<p>I’m asking for a higher explanation than “because they want to” or to encourage apps. People are just so certain and I am asking how they know? They read it in some thread on CC? Someone claims an insider told them? And, it’s true in all cases, for all schools? One of the reasons that sons and daughters are not getting in is because few of us and few of them are really doing much critical thinking about any of this.</p>
<p>Why else would they spend millions on mailers to kids who got a 2000 SAT score? The ivies are also spending multi millions in Asia and Europe Becuause the number
of US students is Dropping. The college admin community is a small one and people within it know what’s happening, why is this a surprise?</p>
<p>Maybe some colleges ■■■■■ for applications to decrease their admissions rate and boost their USNWR rankings; others may sincerely be looking for “diamonds in the rough.” Different colleges probably have different motivations.</p>
<p>It bothers me the way that a few colleges in particular seem to go out of their way to instill false hope in prospective applicants.</p>
<p>Duke for one explicitly said they encourage applications for the application fee and to decrease their acceptance rate for rankings (see the book admissions confidential) and I would be shocked if duke was the only highly selective institution to do so.</p>
<p>^ I don’t really see it as false hope. Students who are knowledgeable (obviously not all are) should know where they have realistic chances of getting into and they aren’t forced to apply.</p>
<p>NACAC researches this and itemizing the most important factors in their summary each year after they compile their survey. Here is the most recent data (page 2)</p>
<p>ASchoolCounselor, I think the data u have provided is completely true. Because, when I went to school counsellor two days ago, she said the class rank is important up to a certain extent. She proved her statement by telling that “Our current valedictorian got acceptance from nowhere, but a girl who was 30 out of 550 became wait listed from MIT, and a girl 90 out of 550 got in MIT… Two years ago, a boy who was 27 out of 530 got in Harvard. So just try being in top %10 and put importance to other elements than class rank” By the way my school is one of the most prestigious schools in Turkey…</p>