wow
@WGSK88 Northwestern is roughly 30% Asian. Clearly, they are accepting top, elite Asians. They just didn’t want your daughter. That simple. From looking at what you’ve stated, she looks like a good student into the arts. She doesn’t look like someone aspiring to be in med school. Maybe that’s it. IDK. But your child is not entitled to acceptance anywhere. Everyone is applying with high stats. I know at least 20 people at NU who have better academics than your daughter. We have students who run successful businesses. We have students who are Olympians. This is not an indictment against her or the system. Not everyone can get in everywhere. Fact of life. Better she learn that now than later.
@denydenzig I’m pretty sure at least 3 people read each application. Considering more than 1/2 of the student body is Asian or white, and considering almost 1/2 of students receive no financial aid, obviously there is plenty of space for people without “hooks.” Every year, elite colleges reject elite students and every year, there’s the same, bitter “I didn’t get in bc I have no hooks.” People don’t get in because you have almost 40000 people applying for 2000 spots. The narrative is lazy and requires no nuance. The people who got in deserved it more. That’s why they weren’t thrown to the wayside with everyone else.
@CaliCash I wouldn’t say that those who got in deserved it more. I was accepted, and know plenty of people who were more “deserving” but got rejected. Btw, I was unhooked (upper middle class orm from a large public school). It’s all luck of the draw.
@WGSK88 I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. She’s obviously highly intelligent, and I’m sure she’ll do very well wherever she goes.
@WGSK88 You should be proud of your daughter’s achievements. With her stats, she will end up in a good position this time, and will have a bright future in the long run. Just ignore the noise.
Does anyone how my chances are at Ivies/Similar tier schools? I got waitlisted at Northwestern after a denial for HPME interview. Asian btw.
@rollkang Last year, Northwestern waitlisted 2752 applicants. Of them, 1760 stayed on the waitlist, and then of that group, 9 were taken off the waitlist.
Source: http://enrollment.northwestern.edu/pdf/common-data/2016-17.pdf section C2
You can see the historical data by checking out old CDS’s, same section: http://enrollment.northwestern.edu/common-data-set.html
I am a parent whose daughter was recently waitlisted at Northwestern. I also attended Northwestern as a graduate student, and my daughter asked me to tell you all a story from my time at Northwestern that may give you a little perspective on admissions.
I always had an inferiority complex about getting into Northwestern. My grades in college were fine, but my test scores were really substandard, and I hadn’t gone to an impressive undergrad institution. I was a white girl from suburban Milwaukee with no hooks of any kind. I was surprised and a little title embarrassed to have gotten in, given my weak credentials.
My second year in graduate school. I started working for the admissions office, and I told my boss, during one of my vulnerable moments that I was confused about why I had been accepted. She said she would check, if I really wanted to know. The next day, she told me that I had been selected to fill out the class. Apparently, Northwestern had already selected a lot of high stats kids before me with intellectual and solitary ECs. So, they were looking for extroverts to fill out the class, and I looked like a good bet to fill that role. I actually was selected in part because I had been the social chairman at my sorority. Crazy, but true.
What is really interesting is that they were right about me. I was an average student in the class, but I was the person who was always organizing events. I was always trying to being people together. So Northwestern got exactly what they wanted out of me.
The moral of this story, I guess, is that Northwestern’s decisions are not moralistic. They are completely selfish from the school’s perspective. If Northwestern doesn’t need another high stats musician (and believe me, they have plenty of them), they don’t care at all whether you kid “deserves” admission or not. They are going to take another kid who fills up the holes they see in their class.
Btw, @denydenzig , I object that it was a lack of empathy, instead it was reassuring, if it’s not the right fit for you, it just isn’t. As a religious and spiritual person, whatever is meant to happen, will happen. People will learn more when they stop feeling so entitled (:
@blackgirlmagic Colleges have said before that they could swap the entire admitted class with other qualified applicants in waitlist and rejected, and the colleges would still be completely satisfied with the end result. So in a sense, there is a little bit of luck in admissions. Not a major part compared to all the other parts of an application.
Can we disabuse ourselves of the notion that the admission process is looking “very hard for these people who truly fit Northwestern personality-wise”? One may be able to tell the admissions people what their personality is, but I doubt it - they spend 10 minutes at most on the apps.
NU rejected a ton of qualified applicants, like all highly selective schools do. If you have numbers to get in, they look at location (got to say the student body is made up of people from all 50 states and x number of countries!); economic status (can’t have all rich kids- and they probably got their fill of those with their 50% ED acceptances); social factors such family status.
It doesn’t get deeper than that. Qualified applicants are rejected due to factors beyond their control.
@Maggie1224 common data sheet for last year says it was 9 off the waitlist
@seaotter17 I think many more people apply during the RD round. If I’m not mistaken, that means the acceptance rte is a lot lower during RD that ED. Keepin’ it real.
Hello everyone, I was just wondering if any accepted students had been able to access their financial aid yet?
I couldn’t disagree more with this preposterous claim that some deserve it “more” than others.
I am objecting to “some admitted applicants” feeling smug and superior to “rejected applicants” and unwilling to empathize with the pain of rejection on the other side and reminding them that things could have easily gone the other way for them
@CaliCash I am not sure where you are getting that I said Asians are not taken in NW. I said as an Asian you have to to be top notch compared to other races especially in Sciences/Engg/Medicine. That’s the reality - though I have been informed before but you don’t really realize until it hits you. I know quite a few people who are family friends that at NW as well as graduated from there. We understand it’s not the end of the world. One of my other friends son was in the same situation where he was refused interview in HPME at NW as well subsequently admission as well but he got into UIC GPPA Medicine and in fact he is in 2nd year Med school at UIC even getting quite a good amount of scholarship from UIC Med School (merit based!).
One more thing not as a sore loser that my daughter didn’t get in, I will bet you at least 25 to 30% doesn’t have comparable GPA/ACT Score who were admitted in to NW. As I state my daughter is at NHS Executive boards, tons of volunteer hours in various organizations including helping mini medical school as well as shadowing Dr, BPA, etc. Don’t say that their essay and leadership got them in, it’s utter non-sense. My daughter worked herself hard on the essays and did a marvelous job. If any School including NW or any ivy league says that essays made a difference it’s fully garbage. Only gripe I have is, that they should clearly state there is a reservation system based on race/ethnicity which they wouldn’t admit. But it’s the fact…
Anyone who has followed this topic closely knows that Asians are held to higher bar in admission into top 20 schools or so, followed by Whites, followed by Hispanics, and then African American.
My following of NU threads over last 2-3 years suggests that RD becomes extremely hard for unhooked candidates. It is quite possible that they take everyone in ED who meets the stats, and then look into their diversity goals and other considerations for filling the remaining 50% of the class in RD. It does not mean that no Asian will ever get in for pre-med during RD, but it may be one of every 5-10 candidates with excellent stats, based on various subjective considerations.
When average ACT of enrolled candidates is around 33, sure it hurts to be at 35, be strong otherwise also, and get rejected.
@CaliCash: I believe you when you say that there are better enrolled students at NU. Can you also claim that everyone admitted is better than @WGSK88’s daughter? If you can claim that, then you will be right in saying that she did not deserve to get in or people who get in deserved it more.
@WGSK88 It is also possible that race/ethnicity is not a factor as far as your D rejected by NU. It could be that NU doesn’t think that your D will be attending as she will be certainly accepted by many other top 20 schools, and therefore lowers their yield rate. If she applied for the NU medical program, it may hurt her as well. I don’t think that you should be so bitter. Please treat this as a learning opportunity for your D that life is not always fair, especially when we are talking about college admission.
I was accepted and haven’t been able to view my financial aid. After I logged in to CAESAR (headache) It said I still needed to submit CSS Profile, which I submitted along with my application. Anyone else have a similar situation?