<p>Our daughter has 3.9 29 act national honor society, all AP classes junior and senior years, loads of volunteer hours, manager of varsity football-lettered in track, football. Played volleyball, snow club, German club exchange student and multiple other organizations. Her dad is an OSU grad who donates every year to OSU graduated engineering pre med minor and she has been deferred. Not understanding why. She is also out of state and we qualify for little financial aid so they would be getting real money for her to go there. We have called and have been told they receive 39k applications. Does being a legacy have no bearing? There are many schools that even if you are out of state simply being a legacy qualifies you for in state tuition. Yet OSU is deferring a kid who has wanted to go to OSU her whole life and has worked hard to achieve that goal. U of M is no better. 15 kids applied from my daughters class and 13 deferred 2accepted and all top notch
students one of whom her parents are Dr’s who graduated from u of M and make BIG donations. Where is the justice? Furthermore, taxpayers for the state of Michigan. It seems that the tax paying citizens of the US are having to send their kids to the private schools because the foreign students have priority and that is fact. We were told that by an admissions person at another state school off the record. By the way my daughter has been accepted at 5 other schools all with academic scholarships. Waiting for the final word on whether they will admit her is also putting her and us behind the 8 ball in regards to summer planning. I guess if you have been admitted to OSU and are not going let them know so someone who really wants the spot can get in! Does anyone know the earliest one might hear? We were told the end of March. If they do not accept her OSU will lose any future donations from us. Respect your past, present and future Buckeyes! </p>
<p>I guess it proves that you can’t buy your way into Ohio State? Or maybe you can, but perhaps other people made bigger donations and have bigger connections. In any case, OSU found a student they like better, and they’re under no obligation to accept a student just because her father went there and donates money.</p>
<p>In-state tuition is based on residency requirements, not alumni status.</p>
<p>I am surprised that with an ACT of 29 and a multitude of accomplishments in many extracurricular activities, your daughter was deferred at OSU. Since your daughter has taken multiple APs, do you know if she qualifies for College Board’s AP Scholar awards? If so, you may want to get an unofficial print copy of the scores which will mention her award status (at the bottom of the scores), and send it in to her territory Admissions Counselor. Also, if you have her 7th semester high school record of her GPA, have her school send it in a sealed envelope. Please call the admissions office & ask to talk with her territory admissions counselor to explain the situation. It is true that swamped with more than 39K applications, it is easy for the admissions folks to go by certain threshold of GPA + Standardized test scores, and defer the rest for further review. The territory counselor will hopefully explain how best to address your daughter’s situation. Also if your daughter can get her high school counselor to write a letter of advocacy supporting her candidacy, it might be a good idea. </p>
<p>Hang in there; good luck, and hopefully you will have another alum from the OSU. </p>
<p>But in any case, there are many colleges, other than OSU & U of M, where your daughter should be quite happy. </p>
<p>One does not EARN a place in a college class, just as one does not earn a job. One is offered admission. A college like OSU can decide who they want to admit at will. They are not obligated to offer anyone a spot for reasons of loyalty or legacy. It may seem cold, but that’s life. I was perfectly qualified for most of the schools I applied to, statistics wise, but in the end I was only admitted to one. I guess the programs found students they liked better, and that’s their right. They can engineer their classes as they see fit. Maybe the university didn’t want another student from your demographic. I’m sure that 9 out of 10 people who apply for Harvard are perfectly qualified, but that doesn’t mean that they automatically “earned” their way in, or that the one person out of ten who got in is any more deserving. At some point, college admissions is just a numbers game, and your number didn’t get called. </p>
<p>In any case, I think the dig at “foreign students” was pretty distasteful. I mean, come on. If you want to go to a big school like OSU, then get used to being in a cosmopolitan environment. Places like OSU are considered good precisely BECAUSE they have a reputation on an international level. </p>
<p>There is always a reason, being bitter is not going to help. And being racist is totally uncalled for. Your daughter might have that GPA and ACT (which by the way are average if not below average for engineering), but she probably has a bad math GPA, or bad math ACT score. These are the two most important things they consider. Did she take any AP math or science classes? If she did all that and has good math scores, then she will probably get in regular decision. If you hadn’t noticed by the posts on this board, more than half of the people who applied got deferred. Your daughter did not earn admission because she was not a strong candidate, simple as that. They will not let your daughter in just because you pay your 50 dollar a month alumni club membership fee, she has to earn admission by showing she has the right stuff.</p>
<p>Not too sound mean, but the first problem is that you think your daughter is entitled to a spot just because of legacy/donations. Your threat of stopping donations if she doesn’t get in comes off in a way that makes it seem like you thought those donations would sway admissions.</p>
<p>Anyway, there are likely more factors at play here. Where are you located? Often schools will only take so many from a certain geographic area. How many in your school applied? Again, they will not accept all from one school if a large number applied. Maybe your school has a past issue with low yield. When did your daughter apply? The later she applied the less spots there are available.
At a certain point admissions becomes a lot of luck, as a previous poster said.
Best of luck.</p>