<p>She was in the top 2% at an average high school which had a very strong group at the top of its class. She had excellent grades in her freshman year of college. But she did not take "the most rigorous curriculum" in math and science, which are not her strength or interest. Many students with similar or better grades and "most rigorous curriculum" are rejected from the school she attends. However, she had other pluses that would not show up on a listing of stats.</p>
<p>I agree with Calmom. I think adcoms put a lot of effort into the selection process and a pretty good at assessing fit and looking past the SATs and class rank. My D applied to several schools where the fit was poor. A couple were mainly done based on prestige. She was not accepted by any of the poor fit schools even though they were matches or reasonable reaches based on her stats. I suspect many kids and parents who are making judgements solely on stats and a list of common ECs are likely to view the process as a crapshoot.</p>
<p>"You just think it's more complicated than test scores?"</p>
<p>Curious, I think Calmom has made it crystal clear what her opinion is on test scores. And I agree with her. </p>
<p>First off, every college makes its own admission decisions based on its own objectives/goals/mission. As calmom pointed out in her comparison of Brandeis and Chicago, two very different schools with different needs, so two different admission results. Reading a college's strategic plan sometimes gives outsiders a clue as to what they are looking for -- which is one way to eliminate the "crapshoot." For example -- Brown just built a huge new life sciences building, and is very interested in filling it with students. I'd say it's quite likely Brown will accept life sciences applicants with lower SATs over a high stat English major.</p>
<p>I have read about two dozen complete files of applicants, and I can tell you with confidence that the high scoring kids are not always the best applicants. Kids here on CC boast of having "unique" essays and "amazing" recs. My response is that while undoubtedly many, many kids with high SATs and GPAs have written great essays and gotten great recs, many have mediocre essays and poor recommendations. But if a kid fits a need at a particular school, he/she may be accepted despite those poor elements of their file. </p>
<p>Unless you actually sit in during a committee's discussions, and read the entire file, you really have no idea how they make their decisions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Unless you actually sit in during a committee's discussions, and read the entire file, you really have no idea how they make their decisions.
[/quote]
Absolutely true! And that's why many of the kids and parents feel that this is, from our viewpoint, a crapshoot. Once you make the initial "cut" based on statistics, you as an applicant have no way of knowing what any committee or school is looking for. Undoubtedly, the admissions officers are good at determining the fit of the applicant for the school. That just means that it's not a crapshoot from where they're sitting. That doesn't mean that it's not a "crapshoot" from where the applicant is sitting.</p>
<p>Curious: What makes you think that so many kids are wasting their families' money (or theirs) applying to schools where they don't have a snowball's chance of admission? My experience is to the contrary. Although I'm sure the various Ivies and Stanford get a few thousand wing-and-a-prayer applications, the vast majority of kids who apply there are, in terms of numbers, well within the range of kids who are accepted. What makes them have so little chance is not their grades or SATs, but the absence of other "wow!" factors.</p>
<p>At my son's school, 10 kids applied to Harvard this year; one has been taken so far, and the other nine are waiting to hear. Statistically, probably none of them will be accepted. In terms of SATs and GPA, they are all practically indistinguishable. Even in terms of other things, they are very, very comparable -- all of them have obvious talents and areas of leadership. Of course, all of them (including the boy admitted already) knew that objectively they had little chance of being admitted, but that was purely on the basis of probability, not because of anything you could tell by looking at their resumes.</p>
<p>At another school here, 20+ kids applied to Yale, and it has been more than a decade since Yale accepted more than 2 or 3 kids in a class from that school. You could make a perfectly good case for admitting any of them; none would be anywhere near the bottom quarter of Yale's stats in any category.</p>
<p>So, yes, I believe that the system Hernandez described is still in place, and than one's chance of admission at highly selective colleges goes down statistically with SATs and GPA. But as calmom's story shows, a low chance may not be no chance, and a high chance is not a certainty. The year calmom's daughter was accepted at Barnard, my daughter was waitlisted with stats near or above the top quartile line in every category, and excellent "fit" with many aspects of the school, an interview she felt great about, etc. </p>
<p>That's why you are wrong that a good admissions counselor has little to offer. Applicant A may be in a category with a 75% success rate, but converting a 75% chance to a "yes" has real value. Applicant B may be in a category with a 25% or lower success rate, but getting her chances up to 50-50 also has real value. And all of that happens notwithstanding the things you are looking at.</p>
<p>Chedva, I suspect we tend to overemphasize the fit issues from the perspective of the college. I also suspect we overemphasize the special categories such as oboeist or rowing enthusiast. Colleges are looking for some indications of maturity, dedication, accomplishment and enthusiasm which go beyond just good grades and high SATs. That aim does not vary a lot between schools or adcoms.</p>
<p>Mother of two,</p>
<p>Can you share, some way the nature of those "pluses"? I am curious, and I'm sure others are too, about the kinds of things that cause ad coms to move away from the stats to take a particular candidate.</p>
<p>"Unless you actually sit in during a committee's discussions, and read the entire file, you really have no idea how they make their decisions." </p>
<p>This belief is why kids are sending out 10, or even 20 applications. I'm surprised that many of you think this is a good system.</p>
<p>I find myself agreeing with edad, this is why I think if we get a decent sample size we will find that the pattern of the decisions will be consistent by and large. There will be lots of examples of rejected high stats students and accepted low stats students but, for a given student, the pattern of acceptances and rejections should be as expected.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>See post #109 to see whay I believe this.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>"That's why you are wrong that a good admissions counselor has little to offer." Sorry, I never said that.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>Hernandez doesn't say so, but I would bet that the sole person in that lowest group had some good reason to believe that they would be treated differently. I guess we'll never know. I guess my point may be that students should not look at these outliers and say oh well it's worth a shot unless they really do have a special plus factor that ought to make a difference. I think the role of a good advisor is to help them figure this out.</p>
<p>Curious14 "Mother of two,</p>
<p>Can you share, some way the nature of those "pluses"? I am curious, and I'm sure others are too, about the kinds of things that cause ad coms to move away from the stats to take a particular candidate."</p>
<p>I do not want to post all of my daughter's specifics but, in general, I feel that her pluses include the whole combination of factors which make her unique - academic interests (an uncommon combination), her initiative in pursuing indpedendent study, her essays and recommendations, her activities, and her interview (in the case of her first school - there were no interviews for transfer students at her current school).</p>
<p>My high achieving son applied to college two years ago. I think that his story demonstrates some interesting aspects of the "crapshoot" element. To me, the "crapshoot" element comes into play at the point that a kid's application falls into the first set of hands....the admissions officer who can choose to go to bat for your kid--or not.</p>
<p>Since I'm too lazy to type this out again, I'll copy and paste a post of mine from another thread summarizing his story:</p>
<p>
<p>Our background: There is no record of elite school attendance in our background. No legacy whatsoever. There was zero talk in our home of my son's applying to any elite schools until his ACT scores came back in April of his junior year surprisingly high, especially given that he'd never taken a prep course for either the ACT or SAT and had instead, taken the test with the only preparation being one practice test completed the night before.</p>
<p>Long story short, he ended up rejected by three schools, waitlisted by two, and accepted to six, three of them considered elite. Ironically, his biggest merit offerings were from the more elite schools: The Hodson Scholarshp at JHU and the Vagelos Program at Penn (with its possibility of two years paid tuition). Duke accepted him, but with no merit offer. His lifelong love had been Duke...he'd dreamed of attending there since elementary school, but it never even approached the realm of a realistic goal as we thought 1.) that he'd most likely not be accepted, and 2.) that we would not be able to financially swing it.</p>
<p>Luckily for my son, the "need-based" aid that he received (much more than would EVER have been indicated on the FAFSA or the Profile) from Duke edged out the offers from everyone else, and since Duke was where his heart was, that is where he went.
</p>
<p>My son's results were interesting in that he was typically either rejected outright...or accepted and COURTED with merit aid/special programs. Each of these schools received the same stats and similar essays and recs.</p>
<p>To me, the knowledge/experiential base/preferences of the <em>INDIVIDUAL ADCOM</em> who initially handles the app. is one of the most underappreciated and underacknowledged elements of this process. Let me take two of my son's schools for a comparison:</p>
<p>Son was rejected outright in the EA round at Yale. Later, upon googling his adcom out of curiosity, I came to find out that he was VERY young, and through reading some interviews he had given to the Yale newspaper when he was in college there, he had been (presumably a short time ago), somewhat of a "partier." </p>
<p>Now, S had unusual letter of recommendation in his application packet. The doctor mentioned above who had mentored my son had, in the interim between when he had first connected with her and when he applied to college, garnered an extremely prestigious national position in her field. And her letter was amazing...a huge endorsement of a kid who had held this long-term passion in her field. As a matter of fact, this doctor had NEVER done a recommendation for ANY students other than medical students, but she felt sufficiently impressed with my son to issue one to him as a HIGH SCHOOLER.</p>
<p>It is my firm belief that S's adcom at Yale had <strong><em>NO</em></strong> idea who this woman was or how much impact a letter of rec from her SHOULD have held. Johns Hopkins knew. They not only offered my son admission, but also their highest merit award. Penn knew. Penn offered him admission and a special invitation into an extremely selective and rigorous science-oriented program. Duke knew. Though he was not offered a merit award there, he was admitted and courted in a regal fashion with all sorts of personal attention, emails, and phone calls. AND, coincidentally enough, both Penn and Duke threw in enough "need based" aid to make either school completely doable.</p>
<p>The adcom at Duke into whose hands my son's app had fallen initiated enough personal contact with him for us to get to know something about her. She is middle aged, had, at the time, over twenty years experience as a adcom, and, unlike the Yale adcom, had children. Had had a son who, in his teen years, had been fascinated by infectious disease, though from the historical perspective, not the biological perspective like my son. She was MESMERIZED with my son's passion, his motivation, and his essays which reflected intimate knowledge of his interests, sprinkled with a good deal of humor.</p>
<p>So, is ANYONE out there going to tell me that Yale simply didn't NEED a kid who might one day find or collaborate with others in finding a cure for AIDS? That just wasn't on their list for that year? OR....did the random element of WHICH adcom handled which geographic area that year come into play and that young, inexperienced adcom simply missed the mark-- a unique opportunity to nab a pretty special and very promising kid? You decide. ;)</p>
<p>At any rate, Duke had a good eye. My son is currently ranked in the top 2% of his class, this after having come from a mediocre public school in Kansas. And he has already met with the lead researcher on Duke's HUGE $300 million AIDS research project and has discussed doing an independent study with him. He is also looking at working at a biosafety level 3 lab this summer and through the remainder of his tenure at Duke.</p>
<p>For the OP, his stats:
34 ACT
1460 SAT
Class Rank: 4/444 (the gal who had been ranked #3 had a 25 SAT)
GPA: 3.98 UW (he'd had one B+), 4.5 or so weighted</p>
<p>Rejected: Yale, Cornell, Stanford
Waitlisted: Brown, WUSTL
Accepted: Duke, Penn, JHU, UMich honors, UMiami, KU (all with special merit programs/big money)</p>
<p>All told, his results were pretty predictable.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>
[quote]
All told, his results were pretty predictable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not entirely. Getting into Penn but being rejected by the supposedly less selective Cornell could be considered atypical.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not entirely. Getting into Penn but being rejected by the supposedly less selective Cornell could be considered atypical.
[/quote]
Statistically, you're right. Keep in mind, too, that we had the finaid box CLEARLY checked!! ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
This belief is why kids are sending out 10, or even 20 applications. I'm surprised that many of you think this is a good system.
[/quote]
There are many variations of the following:</p>
<p>Goldberg was a faithful Jew who went to synagogue every Friday night, and Saturday mornings as well. He prayed with passion and conviction. He prayed to win the lottery. Months and years of prayer went by and Goldberg did not win. Not once. Finally, in despair, he shouted to the Deity, "God, I am a faithful man. I do no harm to anyone. And I come to synagogue and pray regularly. All I have ever asked of you is, just once, let me win the lottery. God, why have you not answered my prayers?" Suddenly, there was a clap of thunder, the clouds parted, a light shined down and a voice boomed out from the heavens: "Goldberg. Buy a ticket!"”</p>
<p>
<p>So you don't line up with those who think it's a "crapshoot." You just think it's more complicated than test scores?
Exactly.
.....................</p>
<p>Curious, the reason why I don't want to get into the details as to what my daughter's pluses were is that they aren't quantifiable. Sure she did X and she did Y.... but her essays, her recs, the impression she made at her interview.... all of that is subjective. I think it was a very good but not great essay (in other words, I've seen better)..... I think one of her recs was amazing, the other reasonably good....and I wasn't there at the interview, but I know my d. has a very strong and often charming personality, so people who meet her often come away impressed, plus she said the interview went really well. But I still don't know which quality was most important to the ad com - and what worked at the colleges she selected is not necessarily going to work anywhere else. </p>
<p>I do think in hindsight that the "odds" for a candidate with a strong application are somewhat better than one with a weak application -- and by that I mean the quality of the package or presentation they put together. In other words, even though on paper my d's odds were one out of 4 in getting into Barnard, maybe in reality it was more like 1 out of 3 ... because I'll bet Barnard gets a bunch of applications from kids using it as a safety who don't put much effort in replying to the short answer questions, or submit a generic common app essay that doesn't project a Barnard-fit. </p>
<p>I know that despite availability of the common app, my daughter did each application one at a time, separately. For the schools where she used the common app (like Barnard), the application was submitted on paper. So at least she took the time to think about each college separately, and try to tailor her application to her sense of what that college was like and how she would fit into that.</p>
<p>"I'm surprised that many of you think this is a good system."</p>
<p>If the alternative is something totally numbers based, where only top SAT scorers and high GPA students are accepted, then yes, I think this is a good system. I think it is flawed. I know many parents and kids don't understand at all how it works. Yes it's a mystery -- but it's a mystery that's relatively easily solved if you bother to spend time here on CC or reading some good college guidebooks (or I assume looking at Naviance, but my D's school doesn't have that). If all you do is believe the PR material sent in the mail to you and the stuff they sell you during info sessions and tours, then it will seem like a crapshoot.</p>