It’s yet another way for UMich to assess “interest”. Instead of admitting students based on qualifications/fit, they are playing a game of yield-protection. UMich already has a 650-word “why us” essay in their app, yet these RD applicants are supposed to do another 250-word “why us” LOCI, in many cases, barely two weeks after they submitted their app! And, as you said, if they don’t fill out that additional 250-word “why us” LOCI, UMich will simply figure they are not interested enough.
I agree with you that turning down acceptances early from schools you are no longer interested in is the right thing to do. But it infuriates me that some schools are jerking our kids around by making them jump through hoops to prove their “interest”, while we are here trying to help them manage their process by letting them know early (I know we do this for the benefit of other kids, but I am not happy, that’s all)
4 Likes
It’s not specific to NE, and it’s definitely not all NE schools. My D got the same competitive vibe at a number of midwest schools she toured.
“I agree with you that turning down acceptances early from schools you are no longer interested in is the right thing to do. But it infuriates me that some schools are jerking our kids around by making them jump through hoops to prove their “interest”, while we are here trying to help them manage their process by letting them know early (I know we do this for the benefit of other kids, but I am not happy, that’s all)”
I couldn’t agree with you more, but ultimately just hope 6 months down the road from now all of our kids will be happy where they are and this is a distant memory and their hard work has paid off.
5 Likes
My daughter in Engineering at a NE school finds it to be very collaborative. My other daughter in an Honors Business program in the South always finds groups to work with, but some of the students are uber competitive it’s a little over the top. Our high school in the midwest is highly competitive so maybe they don’t see it as much as they did here which is a good thing.
How are you seeing waitlists on Naviance?
Ours shows it for prior years also. I think your school can set it up to see the breakdown. Ours we can see it on the scattergram.
Our Naviance scattergrams indicate past waitlisted applicants (waitlist/accepted, waitlist/unknown, etc), I think the symbol is purple. (But, not for the current year.)
Hmm. I think this might be something the GC has to activate. Our GC doesn’t seem to have done so.
The only things our scattergrams show us are applied, accepted, enrolled.
1 Like
I was wrong about the color - waitlisted accepted is green, waitlist unknown is purple, waitlisted denied is red, with different shaped symbols. If your school showed waitlisted data points, the legend under the scattergram would show these.
I hadn’t looked that closely at them before, but I might if we end up with some waitlists. Not that it’ll be meaningful in this weird year…
Our scattergrams do not show enrolled, so at least you have that - I didn’t even know that was a thing.
2 Likes
Our Naviance shows a purple dot for kids waitlisted and a green dot for kids waitlisted and eventually accepted. Accepted kids are green checks. Denials are red crosses. This isn’t info from this year just the last three prior years.
are you talking about scattergrams or the bar graph? Our bar graphs show applied, accepted and enrolled. The scattergram below with all of the check marks shows GPA and then SAT/ACT etc.
1 Like
That’s an interesting take on Cornell. I agree from a community safety aspect they are doing a great job. But I know a lot of students who would do a spit take if they read your description about how it has been socially. The ones I talk to on a regular basis are kind of wishing in hindsight they took a gap year, but at this point are also not enjoying college at all and don’t want to extend it by another year they just want it overwith. Which i think is pretty sad. Most of the off campus students, which is a huge number at Cornell, only go to campus once or maybe twice a week, other than for testing. They spend 95% of their waking hours in their apartment.
I’m sure they are doing a much better job safety-wise than Texas, but I’m guessing 99% of the kids would be having a lot more fun at Texas than Cornell this year.
1 Like
Yes, the bar graph. I don’t believe we have any other scattergrams that I can find. We have the other area where it shows how many students have applied to a particular school, gpa, test scores, and how many accepted, but nothing else that I can find. This latter area is hit or miss, though, because the GC inputs the gpa and test scores, and she doesn’t input all of those, for some reason.
1 Like
So you actually do not have the scattergrams then just the bar graphs. What @evergreen5 and I are taking about are scattergrams shown under the bar graph. They are somewhat useful but have a lot of problems too.
1 Like
Maybe she leaves out hooked applicants, or maybe not all the students properly report their results to her.
(Just to clarify, by scattergram, I was referring to the graph of gpa and test scores that is underneath the bar chart. We do have enrolled on the bar chart, but only if the number hits a minimum, so there are plenty of schools or years for which that does not display.)
Nothing under the bar graphs. 
But again, our GC is not the best at Naviance. She inputted my d21’s SAT score this year, but not her gpa. Last year, she inputted my d20’s gpa, but not her SAT. And sometimes, when I ask her questions, she doesn’t have the best answer. It’s ok, it’s a small school and maybe it just isn’t on the list of priorities.
1 Like
No, she gets the test scores. When my d21’s PSAT score came in, she called her into her office and had printouts of both her PSAT and her SAT.
eta: Also, there is very little chance any of the students at her school would be a hooked applicant. There was one last year, a legacy to Princeton. But her gpa and SAT were both entered into the system.
Our school doesn’t even use Naviance and no such support from GC at all. I feel it would have been nice to have Naviance access as a Junior/Senior in HS.
3 Likes
I feel bad I started the withdraw/don’t withdraw your application debate. I didn’t mean to say everyone should do that, it’s just what we are doing because D21 has already chosen her college and put down the deposit.
D19 took much longer to decide, I think it was mid April, so she only withdrew from the schools she knew for sure were on the bottom of the list and kept the top two until she had her final decision.
We have lots of friends who are still waiting on financial aid, possible visits, deferrals, etc so it is just a different situation for every family.
I agree it can hard to do even if it is May 1st - every time D clicks no thanks I think about how great that school is. It is so hard to pick just one when you get lucky and have a few acceptances in hand. Also hard to turn down our state schools when both D19 & D21 had the Bright Futures scholarship and could have gone tuition free - so many people think I’m crazy when I tell them we turned down UF. 
I’m still holding out that someone I know will go to Elon because I think their focus on real world experiences sounds so cool. And William & Mary, and Richmond, and please someone go to my alma mater St. Lawrence, but also Hobart is very cool… 
13 Likes