Agree completely with this statement. I read many more posts suggesting that CC doesn’t consider (Pick a School) elite or is only concerned with Top 10 or 20 admissions than I do posts actually proving those statements.
A healthy amount of this site’s bandwidth is taken up discussing state flagships and career outcomes of students who didn’t attend school in the Ivy League, NESCAC, Stanford, MIT, T20 … pick your proxy for “elite”.
School choice, for whatever reason, is personal, and people have a tendency to rationalize the platform that they chose or had to choose (for admissions or financial reasons). I know I do.
I didn’t find @westchesterdad22 's post elitist in the least. Setting aside that he took Calc. as a sophomore, he’s also telling the OP he received Bs in other classes. That’s directly informative to the OP worrying about an impending B in one of her son’s classes. It’s also helpful to hear his perspective here, too, because we do get a healthy dose of “4.0 UW, pure rigor, 35 ACT, Captain of the Universe, denied at (Pick Your Non-Top 50 school),” which I’m sure does happen.
But many of us, and I get PMs from people here about this, have different experiences for different reasons. Admissions is an involved business and I find it helpful to know about a kid with a smattering of Bs, even if that kid is at Exeter (I made that up to be clear) and even if he took Calc AB as a sophomore, who got into Cornell. I assume @westchesterdad22 would have told us if his kid had been a recruited athlete (which would make the anecdote a lot less relevant for gen pop). Assuming he was not, it’s helpful to know that perfection isn’t what is always (maybe even not often) required.
The rude part is is commenting that parents pushed and kids didn’t master arithmetic before moving on. Both my kids took Calc BC as sophomores. Their schools had placement exams for 6th grade so the comment that these kids moved on without mastery is just ridiculous. Frankly my son spent at least 3 years of elementary school with nothing but “review” and could have been further accelerated, but the school didn’t offer it.
I find people’s opinion of math acceleration so interesting. No one questions my 2nd grader reading at a 12th grade level and appropriate acceleration so she didn’t suffer through beginning readers, but somehow people are so very skeptical of strong math students. Some kids get math, easily, it’s not a reflection on whether or not your kid is smart.
The question is, how many of those rocket scientists get rejected and why. We won’t ever really know, and I agree with your general point … a 22% admission rate (I can’t find that but based on what Florida State recently announced it’s entirely plausible) state flagship might yield unpleasant surprises to a few kids with those numbers … but you have to ask/wonder whether that’s an outlier result. I think the 75th percentile test score gives us some indication, and the GPA relative to cohort another, but that’s always going to be a year stale anyway.
I guess it comes down to how safe the “safety” must be for a given family. Anything can happen at almost any school. I had athletes with good to great stats, so we’re not a great example, but our fall back was a great local state flagship, where admissions is fairly predictable beyond a given stats threshold. It’s often easier to calibrate your chances at the home state flagship because the counselors know the university and the university knows the high school and they talk … a lot.
I think most agree that S has a “safety” in likely Holy Cross or Trinity.
And D is the one who needs a true safety. Nothing in the arts is a true safety and she should cast a wide net.
Why nothing in the arts? She is almost exclusively looking at film/tv programs housed in the A&S colleges (a couple of exceptions.) So she isn’t applying to the major as a freshman admit. She also wants to double major in QMSS/Applied Stats or similar. She’s not looking at the uber pre-professional film programs like UCLA (which doesn’t even allow film majors to double major elsewhere.)
Good point. I myself am not initiated in the film school admissions world, but of course Wesleyan as a LAC doesn’t do direct major admissions. You just need to get into Wes, and then you do need to apply to the major. From the website:
## Admission to the Major
The requirements for admission include a minimum overall academic average of B (85.0) and the successful completion of two designated entry-level courses with a grade of B+ or better in each. Entry to the major is possible only after completion of these two courses and application to the film major. To apply, students must meet with the CFILM Director (Scott Higgins) or CFILM Associate Director (Tracy Strain) by the end of first semester of their sophomore year and place their names on the list of potential majors. Students on this list will receive an application form. Applications will be evaluated based on performance in film studies classes (including but not limited to grades) and any other factors deemed pertinent.
On a more anecdotal note (isn’t this fun?), a colleague of mine had a daughter just graduate from USC film and she had a few “C” grades in high school. Admittedly, they were surprised by her admission there, but it happened. Again, is that the outlier like the 1520 SAT kid who didn’t get into Florida? IDK.
Just to clarify - UF is 22% this year (not FSU) although their entering stats are similar and FSU is no cake walk either.
Also, while everyone looks at where your from, major, or ACT score -
Where you’re from is not evaluated per the school website and AO on the UF page (although the CDS says it’s considered).
Major is not evaluated
ACT is important - but essay is very important
Many schools are “predictable” but the ones that perceive themselves as creme de la creme sometimes equate those to community college.
btw - you have kids get into Ivy and turned down at publics - so it’s not like you get turned down at #28 (UF) means you’ll get turned down at #18 or #22, etc.
As you say, each family looks at safety as they perceive.
I just wish more of them ensured they found an “affordable” school vs. a high ranked one. Crushing your quality of life, taking on financial stress (and interest rates are clearly heading higher) or impacting one’s retirement fund makes no sense (in my opinion).
As others have said, in some places you need to apply to an arts/film major after completion of a certain amount of courses. So anytime one is interested in film and they aren’t admitted to that major as a freshman, it seems to be a risk. For those schools that do admit to film/TV as a freshman, often those are competitive spots as well.
She may likely be interested in a master’s program. So could undergrad schools open up a bit and add some true safeties?
If those students on the +2 or +3 math track (calculus in 11th or 10th grade) are not finding all high school math courses through calculus to be “easy A” courses, that suggests that they were inappropriately pushed ahead of where they really should have been in math.
Being on the +1 math track as your daughter is should be fine for just about every college in the US.
Yep, I agreed with all that. I was using FSU’s precipitous drop in admit % as a proxy for Florida, which has always been more selective. I was reading something on the Florida website while I was looking for the 22% figure and, while I may have misread or am misremembering, the % of total applicants from OOS wasn’t that high to begin with, which probably does more to explain their small % of OOS enrolled. Don’t know why that is because UF is a great school and when people tour it they tend to like it and Gainesville. If I were to go to school in the southeastern US, Florida would be among top 3 of my choices. And despite my general view that we (collective CC “we”) tend to be a little defensive of these schools, Florida does suffer a little from their rep as a major SEC athletic power, which generally translates to the uninformed as antithetical to elite academics.
And I agree with your general view about borrowing, at least insofar as it relates to where you get your undergraduate degree. For grad school outside of the PhD, a lot of people have little choice, but that’s another thread.
I feel bad for the op. I replied earlier so i will say it again, a lot of times there is no rhyme or reason we can tell why x college rejects x student. 34 ACT is solid. If your kids want to retake act, go ahead. It won’t hurt anything. Add a few safeties to the list. Safety means will get in for sure. OP or someone else asked why add colleges kids don’t like. Unless they have toured said colleges, kids don’t know if they will like it. But you can also ask said kids, if none of these accept you, are you ok taking a gap yr? Said kid will decide. I cannot stress enough how stress-reducing is getting acceptences by those safeties with solid merit in the beggining. Then whatever came our way made it even better. Now kids have plenty of schools to choose from. Don’t stress about As and Bs. What’s done is done.
I just looked at the websites for the three institutions that I mentioned earlier that I think would be extremely likely admits for your daughter.
Drexel: The page for the major didn’t indicate any particular admissions requirements, but on the general admissions page it indicated that students in the Playwriting & Screenwriting major may want to include a portfolio sample, though they are not required to. (Some of the other arts-related fields were required to.) This makes me think that Drexel admits by major and not just into the university, but I would definitely double-check on that as it’s just a sense I’m getting.
U. Cincinnati: The film & media studies major didn’t list any admissions requirements. On the general admissions page it says, “Each year, some University of Cincinnati majors receive a high number of applications and will close to first-year students before the March 1 Rolling Admission Deadline. Review this year’s list of closed programs for fall 2022 before beginning your application.” This year, at least, Film & Media Studies did not close before March 1, but this leads me to believe that UC may also admit by major, but once again, double-check.
At SUNY Purchase it appears as though the BFA programs in film, acting, etc. have earlier deadlines and audition/portfolio requirements. But it does not appear as though there are requirements for the various BAs in Screenwriting, Playwriting, Theatre & Performance, or Cinema & Television Studies. For the major in Film it appears that advancement to the next year (each year) is by invitation of the faculty. Minors in Film/Video Production and Television Theory & Practice do not appear to have similar requirements.
So in all I would say that it’s probably going to really depend on each individual college. Make sure your family looks at each institution thoroughly, including the process for admission to the major (and to change majors) and see how likely your D’s desired options are.
Not necessarily. There are some kids that have LDs in math fluency but are highly gifted in quantitative reasoning. These kids don’t need to be held back, yet they may never make an A in math.
For all who recommended Syracuse as a safety for my D23…doesn’t Newhouse have a ~10% acceptance rate? From their own site:
" Selectivity
Newhouse received approximately 5,000 applications for a first-year class of 425. The typical admitted first-year student has a 3.9 GPA."
but also from their own site:
"Newhouse admissions are very competitive. Our incoming students, on average, have a 3.8 GPA, SAT scores in the 1290 range (without the writing), and ACT scores between 28 and 30. "
That’s who enrolls - that’s not how many they accepted.
I don’t see a Common Data set to determine yield but I assume it’s not that high…likely sub 30%.
As a top school, Syracuse is an easy in - well easy relative to other top schools. I’m an alum but neither of my kids looked (too cold). My friend whose kid goes says it’s the same as b4 - they love money. Back in the day, they put people in Arts & Sciences who had money but didn’t have the grades - people like me - and you have to transfer in - I did.
Edit - they’ve gone to great steps (it seems to me anyway) to not provide data - an independent source shows a 23% yield - no clue if Newhouse is higher or lower. Newhouse is pre-eminent - but SU is really expensive and many simply can’t afford and will choose other options, especially when most employment related to Newhouse is lower paid.
So many Minnesota kids are applying to UW Madison now that it’s become a real reach from here. When 300 kids from your high school apply, you’d better be among the top kids because they don’t take them all. I don’t know how that reflects on applicants from other states.