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<p>I would think that sentence means … ND denied 50% of the 2400’s who applied to them. Which could be 10 people, or 50 people, or 100 … who knows?</p>
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<p>Good for you, silverturtle. What a great attitude - and how refreshing that you’re excited / humbled by your acceptance, as opposed to other threads on CC where kids are upset over “only” getting into a handful of t 20- schools.</p>
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Congrats on Columbia and Brown!</p>
<p>I also commend silverturtle for his attitude, and I have to note: his colleage application strategy worked. He gained admission to Columbia and Brown, two super-selective schools. I think he had matches and safeties, too. If he had applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Dogpatch, the results would have been pretty awful. As it is, they’re pretty great.</p>
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<p>Yes! I see some of that around here as well … HYP and then the state flagship. Really? Like there’s nothing in between?</p>
<p>As silverturtle noted, I wouldn’t exactly say that Columbia is “between” Harvard and the University of Dogpatch.</p>
<p>I have a nephew who made a perfect score on the SAT a few years ago in his first and only sitting, when he was a junior, who was also valedictorian of his high school and who appeared to have excellent EC’s. He applied to several Ivy League schools and was rejected by all but one (one not in the top three). The LAC’s loved him, though. He ended up going to the one Ivy that accepted him.</p>
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<p>Oh, of course – it’s on the same plane. (I refuse to engage in the stupid upper Ivy / lower Ivy nonsense.) I was more commenting about the concept of having the reaches, matches and safeties – rather than using the HYP + state strategy, which pays out for very few.</p>
<p>I knew what you meant, Pizzagirl. I’m just re-emphasizing that Columbia and Brown are reaches for everybody.</p>
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Correct, I should have been more clear. It was 50% of 2400s and 70% of Valedictorian that applied to that school. For more selective schools, it’s far more than even that.</p>
<p>May be Notredame turned down 50% to improve their yield and to brag about it since some schools can easily figure out where that candidate will go even if they admit the kid.</p>
<p>Silverturtle - out of curiousity, do you know what was in your recommendation letters? I understand unless the teachers claim that you are the best they have seen in their lifetime, it is not taken seriously enough at some of these schools. I know one kid (Asian male!) in 2009 who had the perfect scores in both SAT and ACT (was a presidential scholar), was in top 3 in his class etc who was EA waitlisted by stanford but got into HPS, Columbia, Upenn and waitlisted at Yale. I can’t believe the process has changed so much in two years that they would even waitlist you in some of these so called top schools.</p>
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Eh, I doubt it. They let in the other 50% (which is more than double their admit rate), after all. It’s just an example of a college having a certain type of student they prefer and not being afraid to turn down high stat students that don’t fit that mold.</p>
<p>It obviously isn’t just one school that does this, I just happened to have the stats on hand for one particular school. Other, more selective schools, turn down many more (think that’s yield protection, too?). They see students as stat blocks so much that one who is able to jump off the page, so to speak, and really show who they are as a person is definitely at an advantage.</p>
<p>BillyMc - I agree with you and think we are looking at it from different angles. I am only saying the schools figure out who might be actually serious about coming to their school even with stellar resumes (the adcoms are visiting schools, doing seminars and meeting kids that are interested in their school) and reject those who they know wont show up even if highly qualified (example would be that first time they have heard any interest from the kid is as an applicant - never registered in their databases ever in the past which means it is a safety school). Anecdotally speaking and I am not stereotyping here - I had a classmate in grad school a while ago who went to Penn State for undergrad. He would regale us with stories about how every Catholic Polish parent in Pennsylvania required their kids to apply to ND. When he chose to go to Penn State, everyone in his extended family automatically concluded that he was nt good enough to make it to ND (dont remember if he even applied).</p>
<p>“reject those who they know wont show up even if highly qualified (example would be that first time they have heard any interest from the kid is as an applicant - never registered in their databases ever in the past which means it is a safety school”</p>
<p>So I’d you never go on a tour or request information for a school, it’s automatically a safety school?! LMAO…</p>
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<p>YK, I disagree. It’s just … great, this kid had a 2400, but the rest of the application wasn’t compelling so he’s not as interesting to us as the 2250 with a compelling story. I think it is ludicrous bordering on insane to think that they are deliberately rubbing their hands together to deliberately reject 2400’s. </p>
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<p>Not directing this at Silverturtle, but just using this as a jumping-off point … I’ve always wondered about this. Why should an adcom particularly care that Jane Schmane, a teacher from a high school they know nothing about, thinks that little Johnny is the best English / Math / French / History student she’s ever had in her career? For all they know, Jane Schmane is a person with very poor judgment, or she unduly favors little Johnny because she always favors the boys over the girls, or white boys over black boys, or whatever. I don’t see how adcoms can really do much with the random opinions of people they don’t know and therefore can’t evaluate relative to one another. Unknown Person #1 says little Johnny is great; Unknown Person #2 says little Susie is fabulous. Now what?</p>
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<p>Not everyone can afford to visit every school he or she is interested in, texaspg. We visited 18 schools for our twins, but at that point we had to say “enough is enough” and we had the disposable income (and frequent flyer miles!) to be able to do so.</p>
<p>Data on OPs original question: </p>
<p>For 2010 Brown denied acceptances to ~70% of those who applied with 36s.</p>
<p>“May be Notredame turned down 50% to improve their yield and to brag about it since some schools can easily figure out where that candidate will go even if they admit the kid.”</p>
<p>Notre Dame has the 3rd highest ACT average of anyone in the country, how do you think they get that if the best students aren’t accepted because they are “too good”. </p>
<p>33.5 - Yale
33.0 - Princeton
32.5 - Notre Dame
32.5 - Harvard
32.5 - Columbia
32.0 - Dartmouth
32.0 - Stanford
32.0 - U of Penn
32.0 - U of Chicago
31.0 - Brown
31.0 - Cornell</p>
<p>Btw, check out the ND board. There are at least 20 people (on CC alone" that are turning down Ivys to go to ND. Full of useless and false information, aren’t you?</p>
<p>I would think that very high test scores without the requisite high grades would not be a good sign, n’est-ce pas?</p>
<p>I mean, you have the brain power. What is stopping you from using it in high school? It’s either a massive life event, which hopefully will show up in the essays, or it’s a sheer lack of effort.</p>
<p>I mean, even a learning disorder would present in those tests, so unless there is a techical diagnosis for “lazy” I don’t see how a 2400 cum 3.5 could possibly impress. I know I wouldn’t be impressed. If the kid called me I’d tell them that either the score was a fluke or they didn’t take high school that seriously. I mean there just aren’t that many high schools where you get a 3.5 if you try really, really hard most of the time and have the kind of intelligence, as evidenced by the stats posted here.</p>
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First off, this discussion is not about one school. Literally the only reason why I said Notre Dame was because I had the stats on hand. I think someone else mentioned the stats for another school earlier, too. That said, I don’t think your allegations about their process is correct. I did not visit (was financially unable to, though they didn’t know that), was not on a mailing list, and still got accepted. Yes, I showed genuine interest in my essays, but if I hadn’t, they would have been pretty bad essays. And why would a school want a student who writes bad essays.</p>
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Interesting. That’s a pretty large amount. It really shows that schools are taking holistic review seriously.</p>
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This is a pretty good thought. I know, for me, there was a reason for why I underperformed for my first two years of high school. However, when I addressed this with colleges, I was honest. The situation didn’t change, yet I started getting better grades. Thus, I could have been doing so all along. I took responsibility and stated that I was dedicated to academic excellence and would be in college. I hoped it would show that I had matured, and I think it worked out. Otherwise, I would have been treated as just another high-SAT, low-GPA student.</p>