Sorry, my comment didn’t come out right. I wasn’t implying you paid a fortune for a counselor. I was talking about people here. You did the right thing. I think the issue this year with counselors and for the people that did pay a fortune to them, and even yours with the once over, is that none of them knew what they were talking about because they had never been through this, which in their defense is fair, but every counselor I’ve seen and every webinar I was on with national counselors, etc. they all pretty much eluded to the same thing and all were dead wrong. That’s the unfortunate thing there. The current juniors now at least have some idea of what they’re in for next year as they go into the application season with eyes wide open.
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Question for parents -
As it seems like a lot of our kids are on one or numerous waitlists this year which is way more than in a typical year, do we think it’s the result of…
- Schools having bigger waitlists?
- Better quality of students on waitlists?
- Schools intentionally under admitting in RD (or earlier) rounds in order to leave plenty of spots open to offer to many kids on waitlists after Ivy Day once some spots on the waitlist clear off as well as admission decisions are declined from those who get into their top schools in the next few weeks?
From some comments and based on the types of students that seem to be getting waitlist invites, to me (and this is just my own opinion) it seems that many of the kids on waitlists (not all kids) are high stats kids who also applied to a number of T20 colleges and have gotten into some or deferred or are waitlisted and that there are plenty with lower stats in at some of those same schools. Such that, I’m beginning to wonder for instance if College A didn’t accept their normal number during RD and is just planning to do it during the waitlist period once they see how many they have on that list in the next few weeks. Maybe it’s just me, but in a normal year, it seems rare to have a kid on 3 or 4 waitlists and it seems that a lot of our kids are having it happen over and over instead of just getting a straight up rejection.
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@srparent15 If you go by my son as one data point, I think it’s #3. His friends all made a pact to stay within SoCal UCs but come 4/6 and if my son or his friends get into an Ivy, it’s fair games. I’m letting the weekend sink in but this week, we will free up a slot for Davis and Santa Barbara. Will hem and haw over UCSD and UCI, but come 4/6, it’ll be either two more UC spots will free up or one.
I thought another parent posted that even though apps were up, there was only 1% incremental number of unique applicants.
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Yeah, common app data suggests not many more unique applicants there either but lots more applications so something is going on. I also think colleges don’t know what will happen with internationals and that WSJ article seemed to confirm that. I also wonder with the covid variants how that impacts internationals and countries where they have not been able to get the vaccine. That is probably why things will be moving until August for some kids, basically when the big $ is due at some schools.
Mine has declined one, has 3 acceptances but one includes a waitlist for the program he really wants, and then he’s either waitlisted or deferred everywhere else with 6 still to hear from (including the 2 deferrals). This week we should have some resolution…I’m just praying for no waitlists. Accept or Deny would provide a little more clarity.
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How about for any rejections you buy a beautiful kite. March is perfect “go fly a kite” weather 
It lightens the mood and you get outdoors with your kid.
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In 2019, there were a ton of kids on numerous waitlists. I remember watching the threads and some kids had 6-7 WL offers. I understand this will happen even more this year though. I think the biggest difference is that kids might be getting off of these WL earlier. So many kids haven’t seen the schools on their lists but, if you take a WL spot, you have to do your homework on that school and maybe even visit without knowing if you’ll get the call. Hard to accept a spot if you’re not ready when the call comes.
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Thank you!
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I think this is very concerning – that even experts seem unable to accurately predict safeties and targets. Setting our kids up for so much disappointment and heartache when results come. This year seems even more unpredictable than when D18 applied probably because its test-blind at the UCs and test-optional at most others. Idk what’s the solution but I hope the “experts” figure this out by next year by the time 2022s apply. @Southoftheriver
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Right! And since it is clearly in the school’s interest to know sooner rather than later, you’d think they’d make it easy to decline an acceptance by including a “decline” button with their acceptance letter or something similar. It can be hard to get kids to write a whole “thanks but no thanks” email to an AO. They feel bad doing it so they procrastinate.
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Accurately describes D21 – after REA deferral, panic-applied to 20+ schools. One additional factor: many REA applicants also apply EA to top publics like UMich, UVA, and UNC. In the past, they got their EA results in December, which then informs their RD apps. This year, all the EA decisions were postponed to January or later, meaning that the REA deferred/rejected kids were applying in the RD round as if they didn’t even participate in the early round, adding to the increase in number of apps per student this year. Just an insane year.
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Great point!
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For us Test optional made us panic. No one had a real clue as to how the decisions will be. As one of the key component is taken out didnt know how each college will decide. Due to this we came up with a list of 30 colleges to apply early on. Once we got the acceptance from one of the EA schools in December we dropped applying to the 12 schools we planned in RD.
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Yet another factor that made it even worse!
We panicked because of the virus. We really want residential and at least hybrid without a gap year. We also shot a little low during EA round because S couldn’t take the ACT until October. We didn’t drop any schools then with the essays already done, just added.
I think the wait lists are longer this year due to some kids submitting more apps. Also it appears that more internationals replaced some low income US applicants. Some may have trouble getting visas here or decide not to come so that yield is less predictable. Rick Clark also said the AOs think kids might stick closer to home this fall so yield of US distant kids is less reliable. The selective schools will play it conservatively and work the WL April-July.
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It is more than lifestyle. She is not invested enough in being a doctor to fight the 4 years of med school, internship and residency. She wants to be in the medical field but doesn’t need the autonomy of being a doctor or the stress of getting there because of her chronic illness. She wants to start her profession and have kids at a younger age and not have all the stress of being a doctor or starting her family during internship or residency. She knows for her mental and physical health what she wants. Being a doctor was her mother’s dream not hers.
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Thanks for your kind words. We are very proud of this accomplishment; like many others, our son has worked really hard to get into this position. He was so excited to get that acceptance; it will be an interesting decision for him to make.
One of our challenges is that we are not very familiar with UCLA beyond what you can get from sites and videos; both my wife and I have been on the UCLA campus briefly at different times in the past. We were set on taking a college tour trip last spring that was focused on visiting California schools (as well as Rice), but that got scuttled by COVID. We’re also waiting to hear from Berkley; none of us have ever been there, though we have two kids from the neighborhood who are there now and have been a great resource.
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@srparent15 I think D21 withdrew her applications through the individual college portals after she got her ED news?
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@bestmom888 agreed. How can schools even refer to a Jan/Feb decision as ‘early action’?! Ummm, not quite!
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Hi all! I haven’t posted here in a couple years – ever since the new CC interface fiasco. But, I was checking out some college threads to see when admissions were coming out, so thought I’d pop by. I recognize at least a couple names. I hope you are doing well.
This has been a tough year. School-from-home is not what we’d anticipated when they were starting HS, though it has been mostly OK with S21. He’s enjoyed having S17 home doing remote college, even though that wouldn’t have been S17’s choice.
His high school just started hybrid mode this past week after being remote for a year, but S21 opted to stay remote. Happily, they are letting him come on campus just for his zero period “Small Scale Farming” class but take Capstone Art and AP Biology from home. (He took 4 classes in the fall semester, and there wasn’t much left for him to take in the spring.) The farm needs a lot of cleanup, and he’s been relocating bee swarms that spread into unwanted places around campus and the neighborhood.
S21 has heard from all his colleges now. He’s on a trip with DH now to the Pacific NW to at least drive through some of the places he’s considering (a few are doing one-on-one tours). His major at most colleges is Ecology, Environmental Science, or whatever the college calls it. He wants a non-urban, forested location and would prefer close to either surfing or skiing. These are the choices he’s considering:
– UC Santa Cruz (hopefully visiting in April)
– Humboldt State (visiting this week)
– Univ of Montana (Wildlife Biology with honors college; visited a couple summers ago)
– Lewis & Clark (visiting this week)
– Evergreen State (visiting this week)
– Reed College (visiting this week; probably too much of a grind school for S21)
– CU Boulder (not sure if we will visit)
Probably out of consideration:
– Univ of Oregon (too big, people don’t seem to like their honors program, visiting this week though)
– UC Davis (no forest, no beach, no mountains)
– UC Santa Barbara: (too close to home)
– Willamette (seems too liberal arts)
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There was something interesting about my D’s WL letter from Wellesley today. She is a super high stats kid with legacy at Wellesley, so first of all we were surprised by her third WL. But at the end of the letter they stated that they will open up registering for the waitlist only on April 7th. So clearly assuming that most applicants they WL’d are applying to the Ivies. This seems to be a very strategic move for YP.
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