<p>Just because Duke deferred doesn’t necessarily mean she won’t get into an Ivy! If you decide to let her apply let her know that it is a crapshoot for everyone. Many kids have been deferred by schools this fall. Take a chance because if you don’t she will always wonder. I personally wouldn’t look at anymore schools until April. She can visit once she knows she has been admitted. Many of the schools have admitted students days. </p>
<p>I agree I think people are way too cynical:)</p>
<p>sorry. in a lousy mood. she applied to two ivys. waiting. columbia just put me over the edge. tested in spring. 2100 32 sent from my kindle</p>
<p>Because they actually get more prestige from rejecting students than from accepting them. An entire community might learn that their top nerdy-athletic-all-around-superstar got rejected from XYZ, which means the the place must be really good, filled with super genuises.</p>
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<p>I disagree. Universities do not produce more when demand increases. There are a fixed number of seats in the freshman class. There is nothing materially gained by rejecting an extra applicant other than the prestige factor of having a lower admit rate. Very different than a corporation. Schools are in competition with each other to admit and reject students. These are famous schools after all, high achieving high school kids don’t need a brochure to tell them that Harvard exists. </p>
<p>These extra applications do not change a thing for the freshman classes of schools who, by their own admission, already get enough applications to fill multiple indistinguishably stellar classes.</p>
<p>Oh, there is is a lot more prestige gained than just a lower admit rate. The more high-achieving high school kids they reject, the more they glitter.</p>
<p>I agree with mini. It’s called exclusivity. They cultivate it by excluding vast (and the vaster the better) numbers. The higher the stats of those they exclude, the more desirable they become to those families who care for such a school.</p>
<p>Interesting reading…yes, I am new to this game and find it very puzzling/frustrating at times. Six months ago, I was under the impression that my overachieving kiddo could get into any school she liked (and we could afford). I thought there was still such a thing as a free ride! I’ve learned a lot here–and a lot of these comments make sense. </p>
<p>I got very nervous when I learned the “the smartest kid” in last year’s class was rejected from Harvey Mudd. WHA??!!? Her school hasn’t sent a kid to an ivy in many years though we’re in the top 12 of our state, so not too bad. She’s applying to many more schools than we’d planned to hedge our bets. </p>
<p>After I typed the “yield” comment I knew I’d goofed. What I really meant to ask is if the marketing companies are tracked for how many kids they get to apply at a given school. I’d assume they would need to prove their efforts are working to continue working with a school.</p>
<p>Also wondering…Does this late marketing push indicate a weakness with the pool of ED applicants the school received?</p>
<p>There is a limit to the number of seats in the class, but not to how awesome the kids will be. Every selective school today is admitting a class of kids stronger than they had ten years ago. Marketing has everything to do with that. If their peers do it and they do not, they will be left behind.</p>
<p>@Sunshinestatemom, No matter it’s a mass recruiting strategy or not, if your DD finds Columbia interesting and likes it, why not to apply?</p>
<p>I personally believe that your Daughter’s personal interest is the most important factor. :)</p>
<p>Acceptance rate constitutes a very, very small percentage of U.S. News ranking. Also, many colleges have openly stated that application fees only cover a very small percent of the cost of running admissions (i.e. [Does</a> MIT Offer Application Fee Waivers? | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/does_mit_offer_application_fee]Does”>Does MIT Offer Application Fee Waivers? | MIT Admissions)). From the willingness of colleges to waive app fees (all you need is a letter from your guidance counselor), I believe that. </p>
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<p>Perhaps. But while they reject those “high stats” kids that are all the same, they’re also trying to admit a good number of students who might not have thought to apply because they didn’t deem their scores good enough, students who may have unusual achievements or family circumstances but nevertheless demonstrated exceptional maturity and accomplishments.</p>
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<p>Perhaps. But I thought the other Ivy’s deferred pool supposed to have kids with similar or good enough stat, if so, then maybe why not the reject pool, or the lower SAT score pool… Or could it be, other Ivy deferred pool is statistically more likely to apply than other kind of pools? I don’t know.</p>
<p>There is no way that Columbia knows that Sunshine’s D was deferred at Duke. Columbia is just sending an email to high stats kids who may have been deferred or rejected by their first choices in the early round. </p>
<p>Columbia and Duke have somewhat dissimilar applicant pools. I suspect that there are more top students from the state of Florida applying to Duke than to Columbia, for example. So, the D’s odds at Columbia may be a bit better.Being from a rural area may also be less common in the Columbia pool than in Duke’s.</p>
<p>If Columbia does not know she was deferred from Duke, how do they know that she was deferred or rejected at all? Only Duke has that information, I think? They could easily share info, right?</p>
<p>“Every selective school today is admitting a class of kids stronger than they had ten years ago. Marketing has everything to do with that. If their peers do it and they do not, they will be left behind.”</p>
<p>If you talk to faculty, they will tell you that the classes are getting weaker and weaker, even as the stats go up. Less creativity, more students asking what is going to be on the final the first day of class, class discussions deader than a doornail. More reliance on Wikipedia as a “primary” source. Less independent reading; poorer overall writing skills.</p>
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<p>They do not produce more when demand increases. They produce better. “Better” being defined as students with higher stats and greater accomplishments. Whether they are actually better students or better people is a different debate. </p>
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<p>Incorrect. They get higher stat “better” students. See above.</p>
<p>“Incorrect. They get higher stat “better” students. See above.”</p>
<p>But all we hear about is how they all reject hundreds of kids with 4.0 gpas and 2300+ SATs. If all they wanted was an incoming class with higher qualifications, it seems like they could easily do that with what they already have.</p>
<p>I’m with the cynics here who think the colleges and their marketing henchmen are preying on the gullible and those on the rebound from early rejection/deferral, merely to pad their “rejected” numbers.</p>
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At least complaints by faculty about how bad their students are hasn’t changed much over the years–or over the centuries.</p>
<p>As for this advertising, I guess the question is whether it yields applicants who are ultimately accepted and who matriculate–and who are, in some way, “better” than those who would have attended without the advertising. I’ll bet it does–probably not so much in finding high-stats kids, but in finding kids from smaller towns, states that aren’t on the coasts, URMs, etc.</p>
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<li><p>Why does American Idol set up mass auditions in multiple cities, with hopeful candidates packed into football stadiums? Surely they could cast a decent show by holding auditions in Los Angeles, or contacting a few hundred middle-market agents around the country. But . . . the wide net is part of the appeal of the show, part of the content they are creating, part of the mystique. Does it create inconvenience and heartache to thousands of Carrie Underwood wannabes across America? You bet it does! Should they stop? Of course not. </p></li>
<li><p>In fact, colleges do produce more as demand increases. They just don’t do it in a smooth curve. There was an enormous increase in Ivy League slots in the early 70s, accompanying co-education (and, not coincidentally, the thickest part of the baby boom). More recently, Princeton and the University of Chicago both expanded their student bodies by 30-40% starting six or seven years ago, and Yale is in the process of completing the infrastructure for an 18% increase. And across the whole spectrum of higher education, tens of thousands of new slots have been created over the past few decades (probably too many, at least in the Northeast and upper Midwest).</p></li>
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<p>What’s more, the market has done an excellent job of meeting demand for prestige slots by expanding the supply of prestige slots very significantly. For example, since 1972, the aggregate class at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton has only grown by about 7.5%. But the number of equivalent superprestigious slots has grown by at least 50% . . . in large part because Stanford is now clearly seen as their equal (maybe better) in all respects.</p>
<p>When my daughter received her first few college recruiting letters stating how great her stats were and how much they wanted her to apply to their school - it made her feel very special — until the next day when her twin brother with lower stats received the exact same letter from the same schools. We would laugh about it because these colleges really do try to make you seem special and sought out and it probably would work if you didn’t have sibling going to school the same time.</p>
<p>The thing is that college adcoms are incurable romantics – they really do want so much to find the “diamond in the rough,” the brilliant hayseed from Kansas, the unheralded black kid who studies in Harlem by candlelight when the electricity is cut off, the quiet poet published as yet only in obscure academic magazines. I am sure that each reader tries to find at least one or two real “stories” among his/her pool to tout at the general committee meeting. How exciting is it to be the prospector who found gold? Very! So, you betcha the adcoms are trawling long and deep to find that one jewel that they can be credited with discovering and so acquiring more status within the committee. No one gives you props for “finding” a jewel at Andover. You get the kudos for showing up with the hayseed.</p>