<p>admiscouns,</p>
<p>You should have a big "conflict of interst" sign flashing over your head.</p>
<p>It's impossible to offend me in cyber space, curious, but it is against CC terms for you to attack other posters. CC welcomes adcom posters for example.</p>
<p>Also...this is the parent's forum. Hence, the verbosity.</p>
<p>PV member,</p>
<p>Do you feel, with hind sight, that the anonalies you observed in the outcome of the admissions process could be easily expalined by things you have since learned.</p>
<p>I'm not attacking. I'm simply pointing out that a professional admissions advisor has a conflict of interest on the question at hand, which is a fact. I too welcome the post. I just think everyone should be aware of that fact.</p>
<p>By the way adcoms have conflict of interest on this issue too. But I welcome their posts too.</p>
<p>Admissions are extremely unpredictable.</p>
<p>I am a black/nigerian male.
I have a 1980 SAT and a UW 3.88 GPA.</p>
<p>I was accepted at Rutgers, NJIT and GaTech. I got into GaTech's biomedical engineering program but not Rutger's. GaTech has the 4th best biomedical program, they should be the 4th toughest to get into. Rutgers Biomedical engineering is far from being top notch, but I was waitlisted there. I also got into Rutgers school of pharmacy, one of the best in the country.</p>
<p>Y2kplay92, </p>
<p>I guess it's possible that individual schools within a university may have varying policies on URM's. I'll record that as a group 3 result. Is there any objective basis for the quality and selectivity assumptions you are making about these individual programs within universities, e.g. rankings, scores, selectivity numbers or are these your own opionions?</p>
<p>It is also possible, since your Nigerian, that some programs may not actually count you as a URM. It's not my point of view, but I have seen it argued on other threads that only African Americans qualify.</p>
<p>I think you are (1) overestimating the impact URM status, by itself, may or may not have on admissions, and (2) making a mistake to assume that to be the most salient feature in y2kplaya's application package. There could be many different factors at play.</p>
<p>Curious, I'm curious too. So far you have gone to lengths to define the parameters for your survey, but you haven't contributed any data. I suspect you know someone with high SATs and high GPAs who had a recent disappointment.</p>
<p>OP: I'll share a bit from last year, basically an anomoly which we still haven't figured out (and which reinforces that S2 will also apply to a large number of schools). I don't like to share info, but I think it's important to realize that there will be times when you just can't figure it out.</p>
<p>S applied to three ivies, W&M (in state), Wash U, Midd, Amherst, Swat, Haverford, and Dickinson.</p>
<p>Rejected at 2 ivies (one early), accepted at 1, merit scholarships from W&M, Dickinson, Wash U (law school acceptance here too), early write from Amherst, likely letter from Midd and rejected from Swat. His top 4 picks before results were the ivy where he was accepted and early rejected, Midd and Swat. Just never understood the A & S disparity.</p>
<p>Stats in general: Public magnet school where all classes are Honors but he took all Honors Plus, AP, and Dual Enrollment. All A's, except 2 B+'s. Four years Nat'l Latin Exam Perfect Paper, Int'l Undergrad level math competion winner, We the People team 5th in US, no sports (archery on his own), piano, trumpet, a capella, choir, Ivy Humanities Symposium, Nat'l AP Scholar, Pres Scholar nominee, etc., four languages, 2400, SATII's 800 (chem), 790 (Math 2C), 780 (AP US), worked during school, great recs, great essays, great personality. </p>
<p>End result: lots of stress, sleepless nights, he's at a place where he is EXTREMELY happy. BUT..... he probably would have been happy at any of the schools he applied to - that was our criteria in allowing him to send in an app - could he picture himself there and be happy with that picture? If so, go for it! Yes he applied to a lot of schools, but we just didn't know what might happen....would the top schools reject him (90% chance), would the "safety" schools reject him (he'll reject us, let's watch our yield)...we just didn't know, and we still don't.</p>
<p>Hope this helps. Best part as a parent was that we never pushed him, we let him enjoy his passions (my idea of fun is not learning Italian so I can read the Divine Comedy without a translator's slant), and he was able to let those passions show through what he pursued and how he spent his spare time.</p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>I am working with the information he gave me. I am assuming that these special programs are more difficult to gain admission to than the Universities that they are associated with. The poster seems to think that he was accepted to the more selective program and denied by the less selective one. I am taking that as a given. It may be because his grandmother is related to a Dean at one of the colleges, but I think he might have mentioned that if that was the case. He did mention his race and nationality, so I'm just speculating based on data he obviously thought was relevant.</p>
<p>edad,</p>
<p>Actually no. So far, based on only a third of the results, everything is exactly as you would have expected.</p>
<p>Glad to hear, even better, maybe there will be some unexpected and positive surprises.</p>
<p>Sewbusy,</p>
<p>Am i reading this right. It looks like the only "disparity" was that he was accepted at Amherest but not at Swarthmore. I guess this technically counts as group 3, but I have to tell you Amerherst and Swarthmore are so close in rankings and scores that I'd view them as identical and would not count this as an anomaly. Some years Swarthmore has outranked Amherst. To me a real anomaly would be if the Ivy's, and A&S all took him and W&M had turned him down instate. When I started this I was thinking of suggesting a 5 school range in ranking before declaring a result anomalous.</p>
<p>I don't see how someone can see an "anomaly" or "disparity" when a strong applicant is rejected by an Ivy or elite college like Swarthmore that accepts less than 20% of its applicants... especially when you throw ED into the mix, putting the RD candidate at a further disadvantage. No matter how strong the applicant is, odds favor rejection, so the fact that the student does not get uniformly admitted to all is not at all surprising.</p>
<p>I think it is somewhat surprising -- and an anomaly -- when a kid whose qualifications are strong in relation to the school gets waistlisted or rejected from a college that takes more than half of its applicants -- because then the odds shift. </p>
<p>In other words, if the college accepts 1 out of 10 applicants, and a candidate is twice as strong as the typical applicant, then maybe his odds double -- but even with that, odds are still 4 to 1 against him. If the college accepts 2 out of 3, and the kid is twice as strong as average ... well then it is more puzzling when the kid is rejected.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the emphasis on SAT scores has been reduced and the new holistic review at Berkeley and UCLA expressly looks at more than SAT and GPA
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's what I thought, but haven't been following the details, once we decided Berkeley would be better for grad school. At least for our kid.</p>
<p>You don't mention which Ivy's, so I guess there could be an anomaly here with his acceptance at Amherst?</p>
<p>mathmom,</p>
<p>Was that post meant for this thread?</p>
<p>Yes, I was answering post #77. Sorry if it's too off topic for you.</p>