So I am an international student and I got in! I was 100% sure that I would get rejected, so this is to everyone who thinks applying to your dream school is not worth it: please apply.
And for everyone who got rejected, something better is waiting for you.
Is there a thread for admitted students?
Accepted Steinhardt (Education Studies Major) ED2
3.3 GPA
1 AP (5 on test)
1510 SAT
Decent related ECs
Did my common app and Why NYU in 5 hours, no editing, 7/10 probably
1 rec, from a teacher who didn’t even know me, bad rec probably
Also 49k scholarship from NYU + 5k TAP and 6k Pell Grant, all of this covers tuition and gives me 5.5k bonus to keep 
My son rejected from Steinhardt Ed2 Music Business
Didn’t apply for financial aid. OOS.
ACT 34
UWGPA 3.98 WGPA 4.55
Rank: 17/613
AP scholar with distinction; 1 AP- Sophomore, 3 AP- Junior (4 and 5 on exams), 5 AP- Senior
EC: Founder of business speech seminars at school, Officer of Spanish Club, 2 internships (1 in marketing, 1 in music production studio in Manhattan), NHS, Mu Alpha Theta X2, Student government X3, 8 years of piano study in music school, music technology club award, 3 years of JV sport.
Volunteer: 200 hours
Very good common app essay, decent supplemental ones, wonderful teacher rec (she loves him and offered to write it), 2nd rec is also very nice.
We were shocked to know he had been rejected… On my phone conversation with NYU admission counselor I was told that they had a lot of strong applicants with higher stats.
Good luck to all applicants and congratulations to admitted ones!
what is TAP?
NYS tuition assistance program.
https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/apply-for-financial-aid/nys-tap.html
Also, my S is bilinqual and First Generation American
Could you please wright about your EC, because your GPA looks low in combination with bad rec and sloppy essays. Sounds strange, especially the fact that you received decent scholarship… I was said Steinhardt was extremely competitive.
It’s hard for people to judge essays and recs. Some recs may look good to us but look like formula to a college. My daughter’s college counselor hated her “why NYU” essay (I loved it), she sent it in anyway, she got in. The thing with holistic colleges is that you can’t just work on stats. There were some kids at my daughter’s school who had much better grades, test scores and ECs than her but didn’t get in. Schools look to make up a class best they can and especially for somewhere like NYU, which likes diversity in many different ways in its class, you just don’t always know the magic formula. (People are also judged in comparison to their schools, and the person you are quoting - I am speculating based on Pell and TAP - probably went to a low income school where it’s harder to do well, so that SAT score, good to begin with, is amazing in that context.)
I’m truly sorry your son didn’t get in, especially as it does sound like he has a fabulous resume, but I don’t think agonizing over trying to figure out why someone else did and he didn’t is going to help. Best of luck with the outcomes of the other colleges he applied to for RD. I’m sure he will get some great admits with his grades and ECs.
First of all, I am sorry, I meant “write”. I am not agonizing, I am trying to find out what else that kid did well except coming from a low income family (BTW, we are not rich family-90k/year, and S’ school is not competitive public scool in Midwest suburban). Again, I wish this kid all the best! I hope that he had outstanding EC…otherwise I have to trust people from NYU I talked to, who advised me NOT to rely on some publications. That would be nice if people would share as much as possible trustful information here to help other kids and parents in future planning.
Thank you very much for your nice words about my S. Unfortunaely, NYU was his dream and match school; he didn’t apply to many… few local ones he was admitted.
Your son has a great great application. I am shocked. Your GPA is perfect. That ACT score stands out positively. I highly suspect it’s your son’s essays.
My ECs didn’t have any leadership experiences whatsoever, they were all related to my major tho (education), but nothing more than bunch of volunteering and one job. No startups, no companies intern, not much really.
I can send you my essay, my Why NYU essay in private. I worked the hardest on this, tailoring everything to relate to Steinhardt’s course offerings. I hope you wrote more about “Why you?” instead of “Why NYU?”, because that supplement is meant to show more of the student, not just blah blah ‘NYC is great location, NYU is prestige’ etc.
I’m also first generation, Asian, son of immigrants and billingual as well, i’m sure im not benefitting off affirmative action. i did go to a specialized high school in new york city hence why my gpa is not so good.
Oh, now I see -you come from competitive specialized high school in NYC, not a rural low-income one as SJ2727 thought. I would never assume what kind of essays you wrote, you made me think you did sloppy work.
You never read my S’ supplemental essays to make your statement. He didn’t write a word about how great is NYC. I even suggested to write about it, but he didn’t agree. Instead, he wrote about his dream, intending career, the reasons why he thinks NYU is a great and unique school for this career (providing the results of his research).
His essays are pretty honest and thougthful, but I agree that this is very subjective. At least, he put hard work on it… Also, he is said to be a good writer.
I don’t need to read your essays; this is admission officer’s job. You probably somehow attracted them, I don’t beleive just because of your SAT-it doesn’t work alone. That’s why I assumed you had great ECs. Well, I really wish you good luck!
My intent was to help people read, compare and think, think, think…
85000 x 80= $6800000
Sorry it sounded like I judged your son and assumed how he wrote his supplement essay. This isn’t the case, I was just describing my supplement essay in general and pointed out some tips I learned online about writing the NYU supp.
I shouldn’t have said I suspected that the variable is your son’s essays, that is my bad. His grades and stats and ECs are qualified. Steinhardt isn’t a very selective school, but the Music Business Major is very very good and is probably twice as selective as any other major in Steinhardt (although you couldve apply undeclared and declare Music Business right away upon acceptance, since everyone comes into Steinhardt undeclared regardless), and you take many classes at the prestigious Stern as you probably already know. I think you needed a bit more ECs relating to business. Anyways no point in talking about this, whats done is done and im sorry for your son. Shocked that it wasn’t even a deferred or waitlist, but outright rejected.
dont understand your last words, is it a jab at me? saying theyll take anyone for the money? hope you realized ill be going for free
Again, no point trying to figure out why one application is accepted and others not, holistic colleges are about much more than grades. Particularly when it starts sounding like sour grapes to the ones that are accepted.
Oh, not at all! I know NYU like wealthy people, but you are definitely not one of them. My last sentence was just general thought addressed to everybody; I am sure many people will understand my message. 85000 applications, each costs $80 + they lowered their acceptance rate drastically. Good marketing job!
On another note - NYU’s admit rate was 16% last year, and is likely to be around that again this year, maybe marginally lower. Whatever guidance counselor advised your son that such a school is a “match” and did not insist on him applying for a few other (real) matches too, was not doing his/her job properly. A match is a school where not only your stats look good, but you have a reasonably good chance of being admitted. No school with an admit rate in the mid teens fits that definition properly, no matter where your stats are. There is a kid in my daughters class who had better stats than your son (perfect 4.0 gpa, 35 ACT, tons of awards) and was only admitted to his second choice at NYU last year. Her one high school classmate that was denied last year had very similar stats to your sons. It happens when a school can pick and choose the exact class it wants that many high stats kids don’t quite make it, obviously not quite to ivy extent at NYU, but note that the admit rate at NYU now is less than it was at some ivies a decade ago. College has gone crazy all round.
The application fee income is minuscule compared to NYU’s total income, even if you ignore the fact that a number of applicants qualify for fee waivers. (One should of course bear in mind that the more applications there are, the more staff or hours you need to handle them, so staff costs go up too.)
I was trying to say the same. I wanted to warn people not to make mistake, because NYU is not match school any more. It is a reach school for everybody- doesn’t matter how good you are and what high stats you have.
Just wanted to say that getting accepted ED is nice but also has its downside. Our son was admitted for Music Tech and we applied for FA but were offered none (either need based or merit). We’re now looking at a total college bill of roughly 1/3 of a million dollars with no way to know whether he would get assistance from any of the other schools to which he applied. His other favorites were Stevens, Rochester, Northeastern, and American. Stevens seems to give a lot of merit aid but it’s hard to tell about the others, and of course there’s no guarantee he would get admitted to any of them if we declined NYU. Anyone else in the same boat?
Getting out of ED for financial reasons is extremely common. It’s not a big deal either, just talk to college counselor and they’ll talk to NYU with you and the agreement is released. Most of the time there is no consequence to this either.
It’s not a downside of ED. You aren’t going to be forced by cops with a gun to pay some ridiculous amount of tuition and ruin your family’s financial situation against your will.
Well, it is a downside of ED, but that is why ED is not recommended for those who need or want to be able to compare financial aid offers. Hard to give advice, especially without knowing if aid is a need or a want. (Although if it’s a need, then NYU will have to be turned down as being unaffordable - if it’s a want then it’s a hindsight observation, but ED is not the way to go in this situation. )