Overconfidence & Significant Unknowns

Parent Cafe
41

Someone pointed out on another thread that there are 37,000 valedictorians in the US each year. Over 100,000 students are among the top three in their graduating classes.

There are very large numbers of students trying for small numbers of slots. 8,549 applicants to Amherst this year, and 8,894 to Middlebury. 7,077 to Kenyon and 6,883 to Williams. 5,000+ to Smith. No GC should predict acceptance for a student. It does a disservice to the student and to his/her family.

Fortunately OP has excellent schools to choose from. It seems a bit odd not to have interviewed anywhere. D actually used that opportunity to interview the school, not vice versa. FWIW, with these 4 choices I would suggest setting any consideration of prestige aside. Visit all 4 again, attend classes, talk with professors. The one that is right should emerge.

42

Naviance is a useful tool to consult, but it is nothing more than that. The site for my sons’ school never weighted GPAs, and so there was no way to know how rigorous the courseload of past applicants had been. It obviously failed to include any ECs or hooks in its scattergrams, let alone rate an applicant’s essays, recommendations, or demonstrated interest. It did provide a general taste for how students from that particular school fared over time. If they appear to be all over the place for certain colleges, you can tell that the college considers a lot more than scores and grades for admission. If there are one or two outliers on the chart, you can suspect that those students had special assets or liabilities. If you see that the acceptance rate is discouraging, but applicants with your child’s stats have often been waitlisted, then it’s probably worth a try - those colleges obviously would consider your child academically qualified - if the guidance counselor recommends it. Pitzer, for example, had not accepted any student from my son’s school in recent history, but it had waitlisted everyone with similar stats. Pitzer sent an admissions representative to the campus for the first time when my son was a senior, and his college adviser pressed the rep, saying that their school’s mission seemed to align perfectly with Pitzer’s. My son and I had visited Pitzer the previous summer, and he had a face-to-face interview with the rep. He was accepted. Unfortunately, they weren’t as kind about financial aid and we couldn’t rationalize the $65k cost of attending.

43

Not to dispute the conventional wisdom, but “demonstrated interest” (or the lack thereof) in selective LACs had little impact on my kid’s outcomes last year. It was really the only thing about the process that ended up being a surprise to us.

44

Great thread and glad this worked out for you–as your options are good ones. I’m not sure our daughter will apply, but Gettysburg looks like a great school.

For future college seekers, two things to add:

A lot of us don’t have Naviance at our schools, and it isn’t something people can buy a subscription to individually. I even wonder if it is more an East Coast thing as I’ve asked others even in private schools here if they use Naviance and they don’t know what it is.

Interviews can often be done with alumni in one’s home city or within a few hours drive. College reps also sometimes swing through the region. These are all ways to show interest within a more reasonable budget if you don’t live within driving distance of a school.

45

We found Naviance’s scattergrams the most useful for schools in state and in nearby states, as those had higher numbers of applicants from our son’s HS and thus more reliable statistics. More distant schools often didn’t have enough previous applicants to be statistically useful. And I know a lot of people are complaining about GCs, but ours was wonderfully supportive and appropriately cautious about getting hopes up.

46

I find the OP’s story of particular interest for a few reasons. First let me mention that my son’s stats are very similar to the ones Crabby posted of her sons, albeit a weighted GPA of 4.2. Our Guidance Counselor, and in fact a college admissions consultant we briefly worked with, both advised us in the exact opposite manner as hers. The GC was repeatedly encouraging more safeties, even though we had 2 strong safeties on our list already, implying we would surely need them. The consultant completely discouraged my son from applying to Bowdoin and Williams out of hand. My son is very strong in math and science (both 800’s on SAT 2’s), however the consultant said that unless he was on an MIT math decathlon team for high schoolers - or some such - , or had produced his own CD of his jazz trumpeting, then he would never be a candidate. Such overall discouragement!

The happy ending is that my son, too, is going to Hamilton as a math major and is very pleased. He applied and was accepted ED1 so we will never know if the GC and consultant were right in discouraging us from Bowdoin and Williams, his initial first choices.

47

OP, thank you for posting this thread. Hopefully some students and parents of up and coming classes will internalize it.

[quote]
Is it that hard in admissions that a 97% and 98% percentile student can’t haven’t better odds?[/qupte
You have to realize that your child applied to the top 2% of schools. Is it a surprise he didn’t get into all of them? It’s great has some fantastic choices

48

Right. So a few things to keep in mind about numbers:

Acceptance rates do matter, but that’s when the difference is between 25% and 50%, not so much between 10% and 25%. The reason is this:
Say that for any school, about 50% of the applicant pool have the statistical profile that they want (not that many no-hopers applying). At a school with a 50% admit rate, a 97 percentile kid is attractive because they don’t really have another applicant for that spot. At a 25% admit rate, they have 2 for each spot, so they can be more choosy (and 5 for each spot at a 10% admit rate; in any case, the school has choices).

Keep in mind that around 30K kids are 99th percentile at least once in either the SAT or ACT. In fact, it’s probably more like 40K kids when you take in to account tests taken multiple times, superscoring, etc.

The Ivies and equivalents take in 20K a year. Add in the top-most LACs and that’s a couple thousand more. Add in some more elite privates and you might get to 30K. And the elite privates don’t just go off of stats, so they would be taking in applicants with lower stats but compelling (to the schools) qualities/talents/whatever.
So you have to add in the (big) top publics (Cal/UMich/UVa) and probably UCLA/UW-Madison/UT-Austin (as well as big privates like USC/NYU/BU and whole host of other privates in that tier) before you reach a tier that you can comfortably say a 99th percentile applicant who has a smart application strategy shouldn’t drop below.

Note, this is for a 99th percentile applicant.

For a 97 percentile applicant, you can probably only say that he should be able to get in to a school or several with a 50% acceptance rate if he applies to several of them. Ivy-level and near-Ivy-level schools would all be reaches (likely high reaches) for him unless he has some hook. Preferably several.

49

The first sentence is the crux of your problem. None of the schools you mentioned accept anybody (with the exception of applicants with major hooks like recruited athletes) “in a heartbeat.”

50

Mammakin, your story bothers me a bit. Plenty of kids are accepted to those schools without such unique ECs or high honors. As long as he had realistic expectations and did not think he was a shoo-in, that kind of discouragement is too far in the negative direction, IMO. I’m glad it worked out and he is happy where he is going.

51

crabby932: Congratulations to your son on some great acceptances. We went through the process last year. Your son’s GC, IMO gave harmful advice but I am so glad that things have turned out well. With acceptance rates of under 10% or even under 20%, you need to know that most likely, no matter what your stats, you will not get in. However, no harm in giving it a try because things are so unpredictable.

52

If a school goes test-optional, does that mean that high scores don’t count very much for admission? DS is interested in Wesleyan and it will probably end up on his list. He just got 1580/2310 on his SATs.

53

And as I’ve mentioned before on here Stanford briefed that every year has a different flavor so someone accepted one year no guarantee a student with exact same stats and record accepted next year. The Ivies and anything under 30% acceptance rate are crapshoot a and are reached for everyone. Look at all the students posting their info in the rejected threads. There are some top students. You are not alone and applaud you for giving a reality check to next year’s applicants.

54

@NYMomof2

IMO, high scores are still a hook, even among test-optional colleges. I couldn’t help but notice on the Wesleyan CC board the contrast between the ED acceptances and the RD acceptances. The former seemed to have a higher number of kids reporting their scores and the scores themselves seemed to be more in your son’s range. By contrast, i saw a lot more <1900s among the RD acceptances that the kids, apparently, did not report. I think what this means, is that a high score can only help you while a (relatively) modest score may not necessarily hurt you, should you choose not to submit it.

My two cents.

55

Agree with soze. We chose to apply to a group of schools we thought he would be accepted to in a heartbeat. These were Colby, Bowdoin, Bates, Hamilton and Wesleyan.

Those schools are safeties for no one.The 20-30% admit rates should show nothing is a given. Unlike hs, where only X kids can be in the top ten percent, now you have a vast pool of those top kids applying.

Congrats to OP’s son for some great options. But how many times do we say, a highly selective college using holistic is not all about a kid’s stats?

This isn’t about focusing on one activity, either. Nor national awards. You have a full application to fill out and they read it all. Each college has its own flavor and self-image. “Interest” is far more than showing up for a tour and interview. It’s knowing that college, academically and as a community.

As saintfan alludes, it’s about knowing what makes that school tick and the sorts of kids they value- the whole kid, not just the line about test scores and the transcript. If you really and truly look into various colleges, if you do look at the sorts of kids they brag about, those kids are activated in the ways those colleges like and it comes through in their apps.

And rarely, rarely, is being unilateral in activities an advantage.

As for test-optional schools, if you do not submit scores, they can’t take them into account. Instead, they look for the drives, self-awareness and challenge-worthiness through the record and how you express yourself in the app. If you do submit scores, obviously, good number are good. But they are still looking at the whole application.

56

A school going test optional raises the bar quite a bit for test scores.
Let’s say before going test optional, the average score for applicants was a 2000. Once it goes test-optional, the entire low-end of the test score spectrum goes away. As an extreme example in this case probably no 1500’s would submit scores while all 2400’s will.

So if you got a 2000, in the pre-test-optional era you would be right in the middle of the pack while once it goes test optional and you submitted your 2000 score, you now would be at the bottom.

57

That’s debatable, @soze. Yes, among those who submitted test scores, you would be lower down, but there would be a chunk of applicants who did not submit test scores who adcoms can assume did poorly on standardized tests.

It would hurt someone with a 2000 only inasmuch as there may be be more slots taken by those who didn’t submit test scores but whom the adcoms otherwise like.

58

I agree with a lot of what @lookingforward‌ wrote, but with a little different spin. I think applications from kids in a certain income demographic (maybe a geographic demographic as well) can look contrived. There are kids (and parents) who collect activities to appear well rounded; debate to show s/he is a good public speaker, marching band to show musical ability and key club to show that s/he is civic minded and works well with others. Many of these kids take the SAT/ACT 3-4 or more times, focusing on one section or another to “goose” the super score. My assumption is that these type of applications look pretty much the same after awhile. By contrast, a kid who really likes debate or oral advocacy may have extra curriculars like Model UN, mock trial and academic challenge in addition to debate. If that kid excels in one or more of those, and writes a persuasive essay about his Daniel Webster underoos and how reading about the Lincoln Douglas debates really made him think about the way a civilized society should grapple with its problems, blah, blah, I think he has a real advantage (particularly at Dartmouth, gotta show demonstrated interest some way), even if his stats are a tick lower. I agree that the true “one hit wonders” are few in number, but it is the ultimate hook, really. Few kids have the ability and the discipline to excel at a level to be attractive to a lot of these schools, and in my mind it is appropriate that the schools acknowledge the vast amounts of time and effort it takes beyond “normal” activities.

59

Bowdoin and Bates have been test optional for decades, so you could say they are defiantly anti-standardized test. Bates did a published study that is extremely interesting.

In thinking about our strategy we might have had a better chance of acceptance had we not submitted the scores.

60

LOL about Model UN as a non contrived EC compared to debate.
Maybe in your area and high school system but where I live just one of the same.