<p>Doubleplay,</p>
<p>I knew what you meant. Thanks. My dog complains when I'm on the site too long too.</p>
<p>as Mathmom said, "the top schools in the country are a crapshoot for everyone"
It does seem from our experience that the more highly ranked a school was the greater the element of crapshoot/surprising results, both pleasant and unpleasant</p>
<p>Mombot, I never heard of ThickEnvelope before your post. They now want $29.95 for 10 schools. I am way past worrying about that stuff... but I wonder if their questionnaire allows much leeway in entering subjective information-- and also whether they break down admission chances for subdivisions of various colleges. For example, on paper NYU would have looked very difficult for my d, relying on stats alone -- but I personally felt that she had a high chance of being admitted because she was applying to Gallatin, rather than CAS, and I felt her application meshed very well with the qualities that the more holistic review of Gallatin would be looking for. So admissions "chances" at NYU may be very much dependent on the college chosen. The same could be true at many other large universities with a wide range of programs- for example, I'd imagine changes vary considerably at Cornell depending on the target college. </p>
<p>So I guess I am asking: if other parents want to play that game, are they going to get more than a strictly-by-the-numbers analysis from ThickEnvelope?</p>
<p>Curious: Where did I say the adcoms want to protect the kids? Of course they are looking out for the interests of the schools, which is why they look for kids who have a high probability of liking and being successful in that environment. It's not perfect--we are dealing with human beings with limited data sets.</p>
<p>"I wonder if their questionnaire allows much leeway in entering subjective information-- and also whether they break down admission chances for subdivisions of various colleges. For example, on paper NYU would have looked very difficult for my d, relying on stats alone -- but I personally felt that she had a high chance of being admitted because she was applying to Gallatin, rather than CAS, and I felt her application meshed very well with the qualities that the more holistic review of Gallatin would be looking for. So admissions "chances" at NYU may be very much dependent on the college chosen."</p>
<p>I would think (hope) that most people using statistically based "chances" programs would know this. I think it's a good start (sanity check) for those who are going to try to get into colleges based on the "traditional" application- grades, scores, recs, and ECs. If someone is, say, a music major applying to a conservatory, obviously ThickEnv is not the way to go.</p>
<p>As for subjectivity- I would recommend being very conservative when answering the questions. For example, I'm not sure how my son's teachers/GC characterized himm or his curriculum, so I definitely wouldn't select "best of the bunch" or whatever. If you are conservative in your answers, you can get a good idea of your relative chances, and they shouldn't be overstated.</p>
<p>Mombot,</p>
<p>"the best thing you can do for your child is understand that the adcoms at selective schools, in general, do an excellent job of discerning what is best for each applicant."</p>
<p>Here's the news from our house:
Accepted: Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Cornell, Middlebury, Colby, + couple of safeties
Rejected: Williams</p>
<p>I think he was in range, but not a shoe-in for all of those schools. His stats:
GPA: 4.1 something
Rank: around 5/400
SAT: 2200 + or - (I'll probably be thrown out of CC for not knowing these numbers exactly)
School: urban, very diverse public school - sends students to both Ivy League and street gangs
Courses: All AP classes Jr & Sr year
Other: NMF, competitive athlete (pursued by some coaches, ignored by others), actively involved political campaigns, musician (symphony & chamber group), webmaster to multiple groups, math tutor at lunch</p>
<p>Was it a crapshoot he didn't get into Williams, but got into Dartmouth? Probably. Williams got 6400 applications. They probably tossed out the out-of-range GPA/SAT, immediately accepted the 18 year old Nobel Prize winners and were left with a pile of 3000 applications for 1000 slots. Those 3000 were all just like my kid - bright, involved, accomplished, will get a lot out of the school and bring a lot to it. Should they have accepted my kid over the artist, non-NMF, with a lower class rank? Should Dartmouth have accepted the #1 ranked student/actor instead of him? Who knows? At some point the differences in GPA/Rank/SAT are meaningless- all they indicate is that the kids can do the work. Admissions folks are left to build a community by balancing athletes, joiners, republicans, actors, musicians, activists, cheerleaders, webmasters, dancers, philosophers, club presidents, and artists. Since the demand for these selective schools are 5-10 times what they can accept, they must be getting it right. </p>
<p>Was it a crapshoot that Williams didn't need any more viola-playing skiers? Maybe so, but I'm glad some other schools did!</p>
<p>For me, the results were unsurprising.</p>
<p>Accepted: Caltech, Berkeley, safeties
Rejected: MIT</p>
<p>SAT: 2220 (770 math)</p>
<p>Students with much more impressive accomplishments were rejected by Caltech (for example, I've only ever won a couple regional awards, and I have only participated in one club ... for one semester). There were a couple of accomplishments which (I think) stood out (my MIT interviewer called one of them "impressive"), but I think the reason that I was admitted to Caltech but not MIT really was the "fit" factor. Both apps included all my major accomplishments, but in my MIT app I didn't really put in a solid effort to show that I would fit in there. Caltech was my first choice from the very beginning, and I tried very hard to show this in my Caltech essay. At some point in high school I really fell in love with math & physics and started studying them well beyond the material being covered in my classes. My essay was about how I had solved a partial differential equation - before even taking AP Calc. I tried to make the essay read like a story rather than a textbook, and even though it contained a couple equations and some technical language, my English teacher loved it. Caltech says they're looking for students with an unusual interest in math & science, and this is what I tried to convey in my essay. I was very lucky to be admitted to Caltech, but I believe that finding schools the student really "clicks" with (for reasons other than prestige) greatly improves his/her chances, independent of stats on paper.</p>