Thank you @Midwestmomofboys . That’s helpful to know . I think quite a few families and students are surprised when they begin to apply to schools that friends and family members with similar stats were accepted into several years ago, now are being waitlisted or rejected outright.
Two- the top girl in my HS (Boston metro area) went to nursing school right out of HS (not even for a BSN, but a hospital affiliated nursing program). The top boy went to U Mass Amherst- they didn’t even have an honors program at the time. We were very proud of our high achievers.
You guys are too quick to condemn an entire region of the country.
There was some “chatter” when the next ranked girl opted to commute to a mid-tier local college and live and home, but the chatter was only because she had gotten a very generous “scholarship” from one of the Seven Sisters. Her parents did not want her to dorm, so that option was off the table and she happily took the bus to college every day even though it likely cost her family more to pay tuition locally.
People in Massachusetts are just like people everywhere, I promise.
Maybe if I had another kid (too late now), they would have wound up at Grinnell because we adults just loved it so much, but neither of my kids felt the same way. Again, not mid-tier, but in 6 years of tracking Grinnell, its acceptance rate moved from around 42% to, I thought I heard, below 20%.
Another surprise can be predicting admissions results for an OOS student at publics, since most data does not separate in-state vs. out of state acceptance rates (or, it takes a lot of digging to find it). A family might see 50% acceptance rate and think a school is a clear safety for an OOS kid with high end stats for that school. In fact, given the school must have, for ex., 60% instate students, the acceptance rate for OOS may be much lower.
Some schools could have other types of different admission buckets.
For example, the University of Texas - Austin automatically admits top 7% rank Texas frosh applicants. These applicants can view the school as an admission safety if they are not applying to a selective major. However, other applicants face a very high level of competition to get into the remaining space, so that overall admission stats can mislead them in terms of their chances.
Also, at a decent number of schools (mostly public) that admit by major with some majors that are highly-sought after, the overall admission rate may not be a very useful guide at all.
In any case, what’s with the gross generalizations? I certainly know of Midwesterners obsessed with elite universities and admissions to those schools (and don’t care at all about sororities/hockey/tennis). Granted, a couple differences are that I don’t see an obsession and competitiveness about getting in to the right pre-school (that seems a very NY thing)* and Midwestern kids and their parents who want to get in to elite LACs like Carleton/Grinnell/Oberlin seem to want them solely because of their academics and fit; not so much social prestige (which seems to play a role when it comes to the East Coast and Amherst & Williams and a bunch of other East Coast LACs)
*It also seems crazy to me; just my opinion.
Postmodern is creating a tempest in a teacup. Generalizations exist for a reason. It is sometimes much easier to lump a whole region of people together. If the worst insult I ever hear is that I am impractical, I will take it. Sheesh.
another surprise for me is NYU. when oldest was applying three years ago, a b+ student from our hs was pretty much assured admission. Since then it’s become much more selective. I think in general, schools in big, desirable cities have become more selective. My guess is the thinking goes: “I can’t get into a top tier school, so I may as well go to a good school in the NYC (boston, etc.).”
and given we’ve not really defined middle tier, let me throw u mich ann arbor into the mix. when my son applied they took something like 8 our of 12 applicants from our school,overall admit rate was 42%. fast forward to last year, 1 out of 9, and that was the salutatorian, overall admit rate now in the low 20s. I read somewhere that UM’s act statistics are now indistinguishable from Brown’s.
Thanks @Lindagaf , for demeaning my position. “Generalizations exist for a reason”? Does that apply to all generalizations in all categories? I think generalizations are, usually, the unsupported positions of the uninformed.
I stand by my position. I think it’s pretty obvious. You don’t have to like it. I won’t post about it again here but it’s 100% true.
So am I to assume that anyone that does not share your position is uninformed @postmodern? Isn’t that a generalization in and of itself?
Generalizations are a useful shortcut, IMO. As long as we all understand what “generalization” means - that there are always exceptions, I take no issue with them.
IN GENERAL, it seems to me that those in the midwest love their flagships and often don’t apply to elite (private) colleges.
…and to return to topic, this general popularity has led to some pretty high stat expectations for this state’s flagship, OSU, like:
@Postmodern here’s the definition of generalization: “a general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases.” I think this is the spirit of @Lindagaf 's statement.
having said that, IMO, I don’t think the data presented justifies the generalization that was made nor is anyone posting on CC likely to have access to that sort of data.
@bclintonk “The pattern is similar in many other Midwestern states. At Ohio State, 44% of the entering freshmen in 2015 had SAT scores of 30+, out of a class of 7,023. So that’s about 3,100 30+ enrolled freshmen. Were they mostly rejects from top 50 schools? Highly doubtful, though certainly some were.”
At SUNY binghamton, an east coast school. 47% of kids have act scores >= 30. Looks like new yorkers are more practical than our midwestern counterparts.
obviously, the driving force both in ny and ohio is the cost of attendance for an out of state university rather than some misguided generalization around chasing rankings.
Hey folks. Maybe time to focus on the topic, which is schools that you were surprised to find were more selective than you expected.
To add to the discussion from a few pages back - sorry if this is derailing the thread again - but I’d separate the Northeast from the Southeast in terms of prestige obsession. I lived in New Jersey for 18 years. My suburban public high school of about 1900 was ranked top 30 in the entire country by Newsweek in my senior year. It was kind of a fake/tryhard private high school. The kids I went to school with represented the very worst of the stereotypical Northeastern snobbish attitude. Their obsession with fancy private schools was the epitome of elitism. I was revolted by it and only so glad to finally get out of there at graduation.
I myself had applied to several fancy Northern privates as reaches, but only one was top 50. I didn’t get into any of them. I’m more than fine with that, as I ended up matriculating at an excellent Southeastern public and have loved every minute of my experience. I agree wholeheartedly with @Midwestmomofboys that the pace and standards are different - down in the Southeast, people are more than proud to attend their state flagship (UNC, USC, UF, UGA, NC State, Clemson etc) although they like the privates as well. Meanwhile, up north, there was a piece in the Boston Globe the other day about how UMass Amherst used to be laughed at for being considered an automatic safety for in-state students, now people are getting angry that they are becoming more competitive and diversifying their student body. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I dislike UMass (but not for the reason most people seem to think). However, I can sympathize with them on the count that they are very unfortunate in suffering from some very callous and repulsive elitism from the private universities that they share a common area with. Not even Rutgers is victim to that caliber of snobbery (at the hands of privates, at least). People say that NJ is the most arrogant state in the nation, but I would definitely nominate MA for that honor instead. New England in general is worse than the Tri-state in that arena to begin with.
The general obsession with prestige here in the NE is very damning and irritating. I also personally feel that many NE schools are only so highly-rated because of their location. Look at the Bloomberg 2016 Undergrad B-school rankings, for example. Look past the top few, and you’ll see yet another ranking dominated by Northeastern schools. Seton Hall is included, yet UNCW is not. It’s absolute madness how overrated the Northeast really is.
And I’m sorry @Postmodern, but you are definitely feeding into a few other Northeastern stereotypes. I am not at all offended by the generalizations that posters from other regions have been making about NE’ers. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with these generalizations. Despite growing up in NJ my whole life, I never felt like a typical Northeasterner at all, and I’ve found that the Southeast is a much, much better fit for my personality. The manner of your overreaction is a part of the reason why I’ve felt that way for so long.
Now, back to the topic of this thread. I will nominate my own school as a middle-tier school that is more selective than most would think. Looking at my high school’s Naviance, from 2011-2015, 39 students applied to UNC Wilmington; only 16 got in. That’s an acceptance rate of 41%. In 2015, I was one of only three students accepted to UNCW out of 10 applicants. I didn’t even know that many people from my HS applied to begin with! The average GPA for my incoming freshman class was a 4.11, which honestly surprised me as well. This is a school that is ranked only #16 in the South by USNWR (criminally underrated, but that is a different thread). I just finished my first year at my beloved school, but sometimes I’m still surprised that I got in to begin with.
Watch out for us, we are soaring up the ladder and will only gain an even more positive reputation in the next few years.
@Labd96 We get it. You think UNCW is better than most colleges ranked above it. Go it.
@itsgettingreal17 I guess my post kinda went over your head…
@LBad96 , how am I feeding into the stereotypes? I am objecting to them.
In order to provide the most useful info to people who may be looking for information regarding specific schools ( which was the original intent of this post) please provide specific schools that you have experience with, not just opinions on. This thread continues to veer off course.
@Postmodern by making a mountain out of a molehill and generating a big fuss over something that was meant to be taken as a relatively insignificant but factual stereotype. They say the only people who get legitimately angry over generalizations are those who fit it to a tee.
Great, so now no one can object to anything without being accused of being it?
Why does that not apply to your post then?
And would you apply it to the following?
{insert race here} are bad drivers - objecting to that generalization makes you what, a bad driver?
{insert location here} people are rude - objecting to that makes you rude?
{insert region of us here} are racists - objecting to that makes you a racist?
That logic does not make sense to me. Feel free to explain or PM if you like.
Moderator’s note:
Please take the off topic discussions off line via PM or I’ll be forced to close the thread. It has a good goal and I am loathe to do that.
Thanks