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Yup. You can try any formula you want, but the colleges will pick based on the whole they want to see in that kid and his/her app and supp. You can trip, despite your hs standing.

You really think adcoms speculate the kid won’t accept school X because his family lives in a wealthy area? The ones I know focus on the kid and his app. We won’t know why that kid didn’t get into Bing, but it could be anything. The Tufts Syndrome thing is more specific to Tufts and the presence of the two giants down the road.

@emilybee anesthesiologist, no wonder.

@brantly We understand all this that is why the list is varied and includes Catholic schools where we can almost get a free look.

However, you can only make decisions where to apply based on objective criteria.

In the case of Elon, over 80% of the students currently attending had lower test scores and grades than my daughter. So, this is a bet I would make every day if I could.

Colleges are largely ranked based on the kids that attend. The rankings don’t pick up the soft things like ECs, so cynically I would suggest hard numbers are the focus of the decision makers, acknowledging of course that “shit happens”.

It really depends on the school, ScaredNJdad. The smaller schools and the top schools especially, build a class. They may use some hard numbers as an initial threshold, but they ask for essays, LORs, etc for a reason. When they say they look wholistically, believe them. And demonstrated interest can be important at smaller schools in particular, and those with low yields. The top schools don’t need to care about that. Its fine to be cynical, but then some might be surprised at the outcome.

I happen to think your daughter will very likely be admitted to Elon but I see the danger in assuming she will be admitted. I’ve learned over the years, it’s best to be a little cautious in one’s expectations. There are quite a few parents and students who post every spring “I can’t believe I didn’t get into…and this other student with lower stats did!”

The updated list is a good one. You have a good GC who alerted your child to the need to apply wisely and widely. He didn’t say your daughter couldn’t get into her schools, he just pointed out that many more applicants are rejected than accepted. When three quarters, or even two thirds, of the applicants are rejected, it means you can’t count on being accepted just because the stats are in the range.

I would suggest applying unrestricted EA to matches and safeties where possible.

I also think Binghamton is careful about its number of downstaters. I have posted before, and it’s still true, that very high achieving kids in my area in my daughter’s year did not get into Binghamton when they did get into places like Brown and Swarthmore. When we went to the open house at Binghamton (high school class of 2010) we were told straight out that they were looking for out of staters first and foremost, which would skew the number and balance of in staters admitted. There was absolutely no ambiguity. And if you go back and look at the admission threads and read press accounts, the timeline for acceptance decisions was completely different and much earlier for out of state students. And it makes sense if you think about it that if you are starting with a small number of instate students, they can’t all be from one area, which means that it would be easier to get in from the areas where there are less applicants to provide geographic representation.

Emilybee, would it be ok if I sent you a PM about two schools that I believe you are familiar with so as not to hijack someone else’s thread?

I don’t know why there would even be any resistance to what we’re saying. It makes sense, isn’t difficult, and improves chances.

Don’t send off her apps and supps based on first timer assumptions.

Skimmed the 12 pages – just agreeing that EA to Dickinson, plus regular to St Lawrence and Denison makes good sense. Conn Coll? Trinity? Women’s schools which are part of a co-ed consortium (Mt Holyoke, Bryn Mawr) would be good options as well.

Lookingforward, not only do I think adcons look at whether a student is likely to accept, I know they do. And, there have been studies showing that certain schools do protect their yield (a la Tufts). And, Tufts is certainly not worried especially about the schools down the road-it would be rare for someone to be torn between MIT and Tufts, for example-I’m sure they are more concerned with schools like Northwestern, Chicago, Duke.

Zoosermom, a student accepted by Brown and Swarthmore and denied by Binghamton was denied because Binghamton knew that the likelihood of the student accepting an offer was next to nil. The student’s credentials were too good. You can’t possibly think that the student’s credentials were not good enough right? People on this site will argue otherwise but I can tell you that Binghamton is simply not filled with students who could have gotten into Brown and Swarthmore but chose Binghamton instead. Financial aid for the Ivy’s has changed appreciably over the past decade. Parents with incomes under 100K often find that the IVYs+ are less expensive then Binghamton. I’m sure that, had the denied students exerted effort to make Binghamton believe that they’d come if given an offer, the offer would have been extended. Binghamton’s yield is about 21%. If they accepted all the top students who they’d love to come but know won’t accept their offer, the yield would be 2%. Have you read the paper called “A REVEALED PREFERENCE RANKING OF U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES” by Christopher Avery Mark Glickman Caroline Hoxby Andrew Metrick?

Spending time scouring the Naviance reports at my kids’ top private school, I am positive that many colleges reject or wait list students for yield purposes, not just Tufts. I spent probably too much time looking at Naviance, not because my kids were interested in all those schools, but more because I found some of the patterns fascinating and telling about the admissions process. There were clearly schools that would wait list more students in the upper right hand corner (high GPAS, high test scores) while fairly consistently accepting groups of students fairly further down the curve. It was obvious yield protection by the colleges, as they figured these students would have other options they would likely take. I’m sure these schools would jump at the chance to take one of these top tier students if one came back expressing interest in getting off the wait list.

Exactly doschicos. I’ve known students accepted to Caltech and MIT but waitlisted at CMU. Accepted to Brown and Penn but waitlisted at WashU. Some of these patterns are very predictable. Read that article called “A REVEALED PREFERENCE RANKING OF U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES”. I think you can simply google it. It is an old paper (2004) but excellent-in “NBER Working Paper No. 10803”

Another paper that provides insight into how decisions are made is “Students choosing colleges: Understanding the matriculation decision at a highly selective private institution” Peter Nurnberga, Morton Schapirob, David Zimmermana,∗

Lostaccount, you stated:
“Binghamton must have been fairly convinced that this student wasn’t going to accept a Binghamton offer. They didn’t want to be used for his safety. *Because he comes from Scarsdale *they knew he could afford to…”

And I asked: “You really think adcoms speculate the kid won’t accept school X because his family lives in a wealthy area?”

Yield is a consideration but not this superficial. Academic studies about how kids choose is not the sole rationale behind admissions decisions. Nor is this as simple as what one thinks about “credentials,” (usually stats and some personal opinion on the high school activities) for any college which looks for more, including how the kid matched him/herself.

Waitlist also serves many purposes.

Tufts traditionally needed to be concerned their highest quality applicants, if also admitted to Harvard, would choose H. That doesn’t mean we can automatically extrapolate. Not for other colleges, in general, and not based on SES or zip code. And not when holistic is used.

Not all top performing kids submit what all colleges will view as a top app. So, imo, “Mind your app.” And any supps. Know your target colleges, beyond a simple stats comparison and what made you a big deal in your one hs.

We live in the down state area, live in a relatively wealthy area, my kid graduated HS #1 in her class with test scores into the 99th%, and she was accepted to Binghamton. I do not think the answer as to why this boy was rejected is so cut and dry. We may never have an answer. I agree that Bing is not analyzing towns and deciding who will and will not attend based on wealth. It could have also been a mistake- I know of two instances where these mistakes have been made and a phone call from the GC got the kid in (one was Bing). Are there any other students from this particular HS who were accepted to Bing during the same year that this boy was rejected? Was everybody rejected?

Getting back to the topic, Scared’s daughter has a nice list now that includes some safeties. There is no longer a reason to be scared. Good luck!

Colgate.
No question.

I honestly, sincerely don’t know. It’s very confusing to me because my kid went to an inner-city high school and the kids I’m talking about were either URM or very low income (or both), but also kids like my D who were neither of those things but high achieving still didn’t get the love from Binghamton. But whatever the reason, it’s not always a shoe-in for high achieving kids from the NYC/Long Island area and anyone who says otherwise isn’t giving the big picture.

Looking at our school’s Naviance there was absolutely no sign at all that Tufts is protecting their yield. In fact of all the ones I looked at Emory was the only one that looked like it consistantly rejected high scorers for ones lower down on the food chain. Tufts is looking for more than scores and grades and anyone who spends any time on their website or talking to their admissions office will see that.

I think a lot of times these head scratcher rejections are kids just phoning it in. They send the same application to everyone. They don’t articulate the “Why ___ College?” in any meaningful way.

When my kids were applying (5+ years ago now) no top students were ever denied. It was a rock solid safety for kids in the top 5% of the class. But things do change. (And we aren’t in Scarsdale either which may help.)

The Naviance data isn’t foolproof. I know for a fact it is wrong at my sons school. I couldn’t find the dots for my oldest son. When I asked the counselor about the data, his response was “we don’t know where that data comes from.”

Naviance is only as good as the students who report the data and the school staff members who put it in the system.

I definitely see it for Tufts on our Naviance (which I agree is not completely accurate). Kids in the top right (including a couple of almost perfects) were waitlisted at Tufts and similar data points accepted at Georgetown. The top right waitlists did not show either accept or reject, so students probably did not bother taking a place on the WL and likely were accepted some place they would rather go. I guess that means Tufts was right to WL them for yield protections (if that is the reason). Kids get into Ivys from our HS every year, but not enough to figure out any patttern. Emory and BC, for example, accepted all the kids in the top right, and then had scattered wait list, accept and rejections in the next group. Lehigh is famous for that practice in our area, and interest counts a lot. Seems like just a visit is not good enough.

A number of years ago both my son and a friend’s daughter were waitlisted at GW while accepts at several higher ranked schools. I would guess it was a combo of the so-called Tufts syndrome, as well as a bit of not as much effort on the why GW essays (at least for my son, not sure about friends daughter who went to an Ivy).

It may not be as visible these days, as admittance to HYPS etc. has gotten even more difficult so schools like Tufts may not lose as many admits to those schools. Based on the number of forced triples I am hearing about, a number of just below elite schools seems to have high than expected yield this year.

I agree that it may not be completely this kid is not likely to come here, but I think Adcoms at some schools must consider that in their tool kit of figuring out acceptances.