We expect an awful lot from high school students these days. My kid is way more accomplished and driven than my friends 25 years ago who got into the top UCs.
I didn’t necessarily think of any school as a sure bet, but our Naviance goes back 20 years and if only two kids in all that time with a gpa at/above hers got denied at a school, we did consider it a safety… not so much this year I guess!
I do see a lot of kids thinking UCI was a safety - I don’t think any mid or high-tier UC can be anyone’s safety, there were an awful lot of high stats rejections posted. Then you see the kid post “I had a 3.0 and no ECs no idea how I got in!” and it does feel like all the extra work and effort and accomplishments were just for nothing.
I know it’s normal to be a bit raw and disappointed right after a rejection, by the fall all will be well and the kids will all hopefully be headed somewhere that is a good fit, even if there were bumps along the way.
I wonder if school yield is playing a larger and larger role in this phenomenon. What’s the likelihood that student will attend that school? I think schools are realizing those kids are using them as safeties and they’re accepting those more likely to say yes.
Kind of surprised they aren’t WL those higher stat kids just in case.
What a difference five years makes! I used to lurk here on these forums all the time five years ago when my older daughter was going through college admissions - it was a tension filled few months until she decided on her school.
Now, my younger daughter is going through the admissions process, but our anxiety levels are a lot lower this time! Having been through all of this once, it all doesn’t seem quite as intimidating! This is the first time I have checked in here on the Parent’s Forum this whole application season
This is true for some schools, but IMO public schools shouldn’t play the yield game, at least for in-state students. It’s ridiculous.
This type of yield management adds so much uncertainty to the process if a given student doesn’t have at least an in-state safety. Many public schools don’t do rack and stack anymore, so in those states, there might not be any true affordable safeties for relatively high stat students.
Do you think publics are looking for more flexibility with enrollment management this year because of the increase in applications and fewer data points to predict acceptance?
Having 20 years of Naviance data with that few denials at your D’s level make it really hard to understand. Is this for UCI? If so, have you considered an appeal - especially if she has maintained great grades and rigor senior year? I can’t help but wonder if she didn’t slip through somehow?
I think yield-protection is a particular big deal this year. College Board data shows that kids this year are applying to more schools than ever. So schools know that anyone they accept is also holding multiple acceptances. Someone on CNN said yesterday that colleges traditionally use the SAT/ACT and GPA to help them project whether or not an applicant will actually matriculate. This year being test-optional has really made yield prediction a much harder exercise. All this makes me wonder if we made a mistake submitting D21’s ACT to all her schools… we’ll see.
SDSU which hasn’t actually been rejected yet, just not in the (first? Only?) acceptance wave.
We knew UCI would be a toss up, our Naviance is totally mixed for all GPAs and she didn’t have the SAT data point to balance a gpa in the lower end of acceptances.
Couldn’t agree more!
Edit: which is why my upthread rant re. UMich. It was asking RD applicants to write an “optional” additional 250-word “why us” LOCI before they received their RD decisions. This, on top of the 650-word “why us” essay applicants already wrote for their app! Though maybe they only asked OOS applicants to do this.
Ah. I’m sorry, I’m watching so many kids on here and I got mixed up. So that might still have a happy ending. I still think that being prepared to appeal is something that can be considered this year. The kids seem to be really paying the price for the school’s uncertainty.
I wish her so much luck with SDSU. They need to finish getting those decisions out there!
I was admitted to UCLA in 1980 and I was a total slacker. I did not even apply anywhere else because I assumed I would get in. My UC GPA was 3.7; there was no weighting then. They did not ask about ECs which was a good thing because I had none. There were no real essays. You just submitted a one page personal statement that could be typed or handwritten. I was bright and was only 16 because I had skipped a grade but all I did was hang out with my friends and smoke pot in high school. Boy, has the world changed.
@spaceaquarium I’m sure you’re aware of this link to the UC’s admissions stats by HS:
Irvine accepts less than 15% (14.8%) from our local public HS, and no one from D’s school actually enrolls. So, we had almost no expectations of getting an acceptance yesterday. About the best we could expect was a waitlist. And UCI was correct in rejecting D, because she wasn’t going there anyway.
@sushiritto thanks for the posting. I almost forgot about it. S21 was WL yesterday from UCI and this make sense. No one from his school has gone to UCI
Unfortunately that data for Naviance is not representative of what is going on today, even in a non-covid time. The school should reset their data so that it is more like over 5 years of trends as opposed to 25 years because let’s face it, many schools have completely different standards than they did 25 years ago. USC is a perfect example. Years ago USC used to be super easy to get into and now it’s near impossible. Likewise, you’ll hear many people say how they never could’ve gotten into Ivy Leagues today yet 20 years ago, way easier. So the data from even 20 years ago is useless and it’s misleading IMO for current seniors because for many of them it will give them the idea that they have a chance for a school when it may really be a much bigger longshot.
OMGOSH, we are so very excited, my son got an Unconditional offer for Biology at St. Andrews in Scotland this morning at 7am!!! He submitted everything on December 1st. We are from Atlanta,GA. Would love to get to know anyone else from the area that might be going or trying to decide. What an amazing opportunity!
