<ol>
<li> Did the "big shot" at your son/daughter's school get in where people anticipated?</li>
<li> Did the * highly selectives * surprise you in who they admitted or were they fairly predictable in your opinion?</li>
<li> What is the most surprising decision (good or bad) that you know of?</li>
<li> Which school was surprisingly rough in decisions this year?</li>
</ol>
<p>Interesting - look forward to hearing others’ inputs as well!</p>
<p>For us:</p>
<ol>
<li> The “big shot” did not get into the Ivy they expected but did land at Williams.
The cockier “big shot” who thought he’d survive on perfect scores but not a 4.0 didn’t get in any of his reaches or even the best state school and instead is settling for his safeties :)</li>
<li> The highly selectives did surprises us in some ways - one we didn’t expect landed an Ivy and another with great stats but slacker attendance/work ethic landed some bigger schools and an MIT WL - made us very curious how the application read! The other Ivy attainer did not surprise anyone as she was a strong candidate and URM.</li>
<li> The unexpected Ivy above was the best “shocker” - no real bad shockers except how many students only selected safeties and then Ivy reaches with nothing in between and found themselves debating safeties. Actually no, the worst shocker was the very talented studio arts student who found herself denied at 4 schools and waitlisted at 1, she ended up applying to a rolling admit school to have options but she had a few years worth of hands-on experience and classwork and good stats but after a competitive major.</li>
<li> We are in Virginia so the UVA admits weren’t surprising really though as usual many more “expected” it than got it. Same with William & Mary.</li>
</ol>
<p>At our HS:
- One hot shot kid predictably got into Harvard, but another kid did NOT get into Yale.
- Surprised that the students only got into a spattering of their highly selective colleges. It was not across the board.
- The surprise decision was their list of colleges. I was surprised some kids had so few safeties.
- I think all the schools were surprisingly rough, esp. the ivies. These kids have amazing stats, gpa, ECs. But they aren’t URM. The kids who got into the ivies have dual nationalities.</p>
<p>Two kids at our school got into all of their Ivy choices and it is good to see because they worked hard and earnestly and deserve it. In our own camp, we were surprised by a financial package that came with an NYU admission (jazz) which makes for some unexpected decision laboring regarding the other packages and schools. Rejected by USC (not a first choice school though) so that might have been a rough school this year (or a bad audition). Got accepted at all others.</p>
<ol>
<li>No, the “big shot” at our school was a MIT hopeful, but did not get in. Everyone expected him to get in too, and even tho he was deferred before getting rejected, people still expected him to get in upon his hearing about his deference.</li>
<li>The highly selectives(Princeton, Ivy’s,etc.) ended up admitting no one at our school except for the MIT hopeful guy. But he’s already pretty set on going into CalTech.</li>
<li>This one guy who got into UC Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> Big shot ‘only’ (ha ha) made it into Princeton, but was turned down at other Ivys. </li>
<li>Highlly selectives admitted Princeton, Penn, Duke, Pomona, Tufts, Rice, West Point.</li>
<li>Surprise- the number of kids who got into UTexas by taking the EASIEST courses possible, and making As in them. The kids who took APs but had a lower GPA were rejected. I was surprised by that.</li>
<li>Reed surprised us at how tough it was to get in, especially asking for FA.
All’s well that ends well, though!</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m surprised so many people know this much about others’ college process!</p>
<p>^^ YDS- really? Our school is small and they’ve been together for 12 years…it’s like family.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay – I was just thinking that, too! Maybe it’s a private / public school thing. I can’t imagine knowing this much about anyone other than kids in our mid-size public who have been family friends for years.</p>
<ol>
<li> Big Big shot was really only interested in UF and will be going there</li>
<li> Little big shot has a very compelling story and got into Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Brown. </li>
<li> Couple of others landed UChicago, Duke, Vandy, UVA – surprised that virually everyone who applied was waitlisted at Emory.<br></li>
<li>Biggest surprise is that a few more students than usual applied somewhere other than just FL schools. Usually 85-90% of those college bound matriculate to UF, FSU, USF, and UCF.</li>
</ol>
<p>YDS - it’s no different than CC for the top group of kids at our school. They all spend time together and talk and debate about it all the time.</p>
<p>The biggest surprise to me is that my kid and his friends have been so adament about not talking about colleges. Probably a good thing!</p>
<p>I will find out where the top 25 are going at the awards ceremony, assuming my kid gets an award. So far all I’ve heard is a bit of disappointment that the “biggest cheater” got into Cornell instead of getting his comeuppance. </p>
<p>Biggest surprise to me is that my son has such great choices. I underestimated him.</p>
<p>Mimimomxe wrote:</p>
<ol>
<li>Surprise- the number of kids who got into UTexas by taking the EASIEST courses possible, and making As in them. The kids who took APs but had a lower GPA were rejected. I was surprised by that.</li>
</ol>
<p>Anecdotally, we had the same experience with the UCs. Students fared better if taking regular classes ( which were very easy) with a couple of honors/AP classes and keeping the GPA maxed-out. If you took the really tough course load, packed with honors and AP classes, and didn’t max out the GPA, then it hurt at admissions. Truly, with the difference in the coursework, you had some kids who were known to be not terribly bright getting into top UCs.</p>
<p>For example, Kid #1 could get an “A” in regular Physics and look better at application time than the kid who got a “B” in AP physics. But, if Kid #1 had taken AP Physics, he’d likely have only been able to pull a “C” or a “D”. The level of difficulty in the courses is vastly different.</p>
<p>Biggest surprise to me is my kid still hasn’t heard from NYU yet - but it doesn’t matter, he’s already made other plans.</p>
<p>Haven’t a clue what’s gone on his his classmates.</p>
<p>Can’t really answer the other questions (large school, talking about colleges is sort of taboo), but above all, I’m surprised how RANDOM these decisions seem to be. Can’t even begin to try to make sense out of some of the results I’ve seen.</p>
<p>Thats probably what I’d tell juniors right now. Don’t rely on patterns, or expect it to make sense. There isn’t much method in the madness!</p>
<p>Our school is relatively small (graduating class of less than 200) and I volunteer up there a lot, but I couldn’t tell you who the valedictorian is, much less where he/she did/didn’t get in. We do have a couple of year-end ceremonies that will yield some clues as to where people are matriculating/scholarships won, etc.</p>
<p>ETA: I’m not surprised that kids with lower GPAs wouldn’t get in to UT despite the more rigorous courseload, as rank is so important there.</p>
<p>I love how parents are so interested in knowing where all the “big-shots” get in and actually know just 2 days after decisions came out. But like someone already said, when you go to a private school, almost everyyyyy student finds out which people got into the ivies/ top schools almost instantaneously. And then almost 30 seconds later, people already have justifications for why a person was chosen ( legacy, URM, athlete hook etc…) or why they weren’t ( not enough ECs, bad essays etc.)</p>
<p>Don’t your kids’ friends post acceptances on Facebook?<br>
Our school sends out ‘updates’ on acceptances and put them up on a map in the hall!
I think it’s kind of exciting.</p>
<p>^ Most of my friends consider it pretty egotistical/ bragging to post acceptances on FB. Especially those who write 6/6 ( 6 acceptances/ 6 schools). Usually the most important friends find out without FB.</p>
<p>I don’t pay a lot of attention to where kids got in right now – a week or two down the road, when families have digested the financials of the different choices the kid who was “absolutely” going to NYU often ends up depositing elsewhere.</p>