S is applying RD, but they already took a couple of kids from our area with QB, so probably even lower chance of admissions from here now.
For the schools with large increases in EA or ED, it will be interesting if they have so many new applicants compared to prior years or it is just kids applying earlier overall so the total applicants remains similar?
I can see kids taking a shot at some top schools given TO but that does not seem like it would explain the rumors of MIT being up 60% and I believe I read Caltech had a large increase in EA too. Those schools are not for many kids and I am surprised TO would increase apps so much.
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Arg, you guys are making me nervous! D21 did not submit SAT scores to her lotto schools as she did not get a chance to take the SAT again as planned and she didnât break the 1500 mark with the score she does have. She does not have a slew of 5s on her AP exams, she has a bunch of 4s. So if they are going to look more closely at AP tests then she is screwed. Hoping her one high SAT2 score helps (she had planned on taking another, but, you know, COVID).
She ended up submitting her SAT score to 65% of her schools. The other 35% of her schools are not all lotto schools, but for most of that 35%, her scores were just slightly under the 50% mark. Maybe she should have submitted her score to those regardless, ugh.
Whatâs done is done, though. One good thing about her having applied to 87,000 colleges (slight exaggeration) is that she should definitely get into at least two other places so she feels like she truly has a choice (if her ED2 choice doesnât happen). Weâll see. Arg. Waiting sucks.
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I sent you a pm.
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@evergreen5 unfortunately no more info like that, at least not before I was interrupted. BTW, there was a separate question and answer afterward that you had to link to, but I wasnât able to go to that at 6. If anyone else did, Iâd love to hear more.
It would have been an interesting year for an outsider like Selingo to sit in. I keep hearing over and over on podcasts that schools are somewhat used to the human, holistic process so they will kind of know their kids without test scores and parents are putting too much significance on test scores. I also hear that at the tippy tops, there are tons with good grades and test scores each year, and admitted students also have some crazy good ECs that make themselves compelling. At the outset of this, one of my favorite podcasters said, just being #1 or at the top of your class in your little high school is not enough for maybe T15-20. If people are amazed by all that you are doing and itâs unique, then thatâs compelling. As far as my student goes, he has some unusual ECs but heâs not really in that category IMHO. He has a ton of service so Iâm hoping he will appeal to them at a place like ND.
Selingo also did an interesting interview where he talked about overmatching. https://academicinfluence.com/interviews/education/jeff-selingo
And so I talk about that in the book, thereâs the idea of over-matching, and then thereâs under-matching, where you end up at a school, and you could have ended up at a better place, and you start to then go to the low⊠You move to the lowest common denominator. And at a school that you might over-match, youâre just⊠Youâre struggling. And yes, I get it, even at Harvard, somebody has to graduate last in their class, but you donât wanna be constantly struggling and trying to keep up. You really wanna be in that solid middle, you want people to be pushing you along, but you donât wanna be constantly clawing to keep up with everybody ahead of you.
06:50 JM: So would it be best then not to even apply to those over-match schools?
06:55 JS: Well, if you apply to those over-match schools, you may not get in, as I point out in the book.
07:00 JM: Oh. Of course you probably wouldnât, you probably wouldnât if you did.
07:00 JS: You probably wouldnât get in. The only way you might get in is if youâre a full-pay student, and they really need full-pay kids. Harvardâs not going to be that, they have so many applications, they donât need to worry about that. There may be some schools that still are an over-match for you that are really desperate for the revenue, and they may take you if they know youâre gonna pay full price. But apply, thatâs why theyâre called reach schools. You should still apply to them, theyâre not gonna be totally out of your range in many cases. Apply them, and see if you get in. But the chances of you getting into many of your reach schools, especially if theyâre highly selective, are not great. Because remember, even at the year I was at Emory, 30,000 applications for 2,500 spots, they only accepted about 6,000-7,000 students for all those spots, âcause obviously not everybody comes. Chances are not great. 15%, essentially, is their acceptance rate. So youâre more likely to get denied at most of these places.
08:00 JM: And this problem Iâm describing is really not a big problem for most people, that they get into a school thatâs too good for them. [chuckle] But in general, you would suggest going to the best school you can get into, and just work hard and try not to fall behind if you did happen to get into some school that was a little beyond where you maybe normally would have gotten into.
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From what you have written about your daughter over the life of this thread, I am sure you have nothing to worry about and she will have some great options!!! Do not worry!!
DS used the Covid essay to say that he acknowledged overall his hardships paled to many even though he lost a lot he had worked for but Covid fairly directly led him to an interesting EC that he would never have done otherwise. I told him it was against the conventional wisdom to do that and he said if a school did not like it they could disregard surely and if they held it against him he would not want to go there anyway.
Good luck to us all!!!
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For the bazillion-th time I donât know about the full pay thing. Almost all of Dâs schools are need blind. I wish Selingo would give us the scoop on how he thinks need blind schools really use financial info. He does touch on it a little bit in his bok but only in regards to Emory I think. Iâd like to know what heâs learned if anything since he talks to AOs all of the time and it might be different with Covid.
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@JanieWalker your daughter sounds amazing and we had the same strategy applying to a lot of schools. Iâm sure she will have great choices. Yourâre right - donât look back, just look forward! 
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I listened to Selingo last night too (at least the 5th virtual session of his Iâve listened too).
IMO undermatch/overmatch really only applies to URMs and/or low SES studentsâŠbecause those are the only groups that data show going to higher ranked college helps in terms of increasing their socioeconomic level. Data also show those groups chronically undermatch. And really, the whole idea of what constitutes a better school is nebulous at bestâŠas we know itâs not the rankings that determine this, and most often itâs the parentsâ budget that determines where a kid goes, and fit is secondary. Thatâs the reality of college admissions.
Selingo also talks about some colleges being buyers, and some sellers. Last night his example of a buyer was Emory (selective with not much merit aid, merit is mostly just tuition discounting) and Tulane as a seller (because they give out more merit than need-based aid, at least as of 2019/20, we donât have 20/21 data on that yet. Tulane has said that they are shifting to more need-based aid. Time will tell on that). My issue with this comparison is that Tulaneâs acceptance rate is lower than EmoryâsâŠso not sure the buyer/seller distinction works here. Maybe Emory vs. Furman would be more apt.
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@Aguadecoco FWIW, last year the SLAC that took 2 Posse students from Dâs school, deferred my D and at least one other student who applied ED1. They were both accepted RD along with a couple of other students. Donât despair 
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I think these online AP tests are to be blamed. Samething happened to my daughter for AP Chem. She had perfect 100s in every test, yet ended up with a 3 in the AP test. We were shocked as well.
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@Creaky too funny. My S has taken a lot of electives in multimedia and is super critical of the videos on the admissions websites if they are not well executed. Williams I think it was had one where kids were talking over one another at the transitions. 
On the other hand WPI had the best video.
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D21âs school profile shoes none of that information. It simply says â55% of students go to a 4 year college. 34% got to a 2 year or technical college.â That tells the AOs very little.
@yearstogo this is an interesting thought. With a lot of ECs canceled, perhaps the usual applicants got things done sooner in the cycle. I feel badly in a sense for the AOs because they might be having to guess whatâs coming. Hopefully not doing extra deferrals because of that.
I have been reading these most recent posts with great interest. To recap-My D21 is a high stats kid with great ECâs that include leadership. She goes to a competitive HS that routinely sends kids to ivy and T20.
We started this process looking at T20 schools. I read Jeff Selingo, consulted many resources and had some long discussions with her HS college counselor about our strategy and list of schools for her. We were on a path.
We took her on visits pre- COVID and she liked what she saw - even bought a couple of sweatshirts. My DH was thrilled as he is an ivy guy.
COVID hit and we kept chugging along doing virtual visits and compiling a list. I then hired a private consultant - never did this for my other kids- mainly to help her with the essays as we were in virtual school and she was not getting the help that my previous kids had gotten with this process in school.
It changed our path completely. She had some lovely conversations with this counselor about her hopes, dreams etc in figuring out her main essay topic and some of the supplementals. She came to me one day with a whole new lists of schools- not T20, smaller and more focused on her intended major and things that mattered to her. I was open to it, didnât expect much. Despite COvID we got her on some visits where we could. She has chosen to not even apply to her previous top 2 any longer. She has only applied to 6 schools total. Her favorite is a low match that is top notch academically in her major. I know if she gets in it is where she will go. We have heard from 2 of these schools already and she got merit from both and offers for honors application and further competitive scholarships. She is much happier and way less stressed.
I am worried when I read about over/under match that maybe we should have pushed more. I do have a friend whoâs child chose this route after an ivy acceptance- I remember thinking it was crazy at the time- she graduated from her choice low match school after an awesome 4 years and has a fantastic career in her chosen industry and is in a T10 MBA program. This is what I remember when I worry that she could reach higher. I see ED results from one of her top choices and she most likely would have been accepted with her stats (I know these things are never for sure). I have already had to justify this choice to other parents and I will admit it makes me wonder if we are being smart letting her take the lead on this. I guess we will see how it ends up and keep telling myself itâs her journey and I need to have faith - she is not looking back and I just keep trying to stay in that mode with her!
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Same thing with my daughter⊠she is a gifted writer and somehow got a 3 in English Lang. Her teacher had access to all the essays written by his students for the AP test this year⊠and could not figure out why she didnât get a 5 (half his students got 4s and 5s). She was his top student in class this year, with âa rare Aâ in his class (his words, he wrote her a recommendation later and shared it with her). He reached out to the college board to get it regraded but since it was a 3 they refused to per policy. It doesnât jive with her class grades and her 780 on the EWR section on the SAT at all (She is also editor of her school newspaper). She chose not to submit it as it does not reflect her writing abilities at all. She did submit her other AP scoresâŠ
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@whyboydanny I applaud your D for getting so invested in the process and finding some great matches for her.
After reading that book, I reflected on the fact that I undermatched in college after going to a college prep high school. I got into USC, but my dad had a plan to save money by sending me to a Cal State school for the first two years and then transfer. Socially I really had some growth to do, and didnât want to leave my friends after two years. Ultimately, I got into a very respectable second tier law school and it all worked out. Had I gone to USC I probably would have gone to a top tier law school with my LSAT, but I have no regrets and from my college years I have great friends and memories. Not much academic pressure and maybe that was what I really needed back then.
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@RockyPA I thought when sending AP scores it was all or nothing? Or maybe Iâm remembering that wrong. Too much shizzle to keep up with
I think full pay always helps, even at need blind schools. They may not have explicit internal numbers they need to hit, but even Harvard canât afford to have a few years where they have no full pay students. It isnât by accident that they all seem to end up year over year with similar numbers on % of students who are full pay.
That reminds me of something a vet told me when I asked about my dogâs habits. She said there are two kinds of dogs. 1, Dogs who eat poop, and whose owners are embarrassed by it. And 2, dogs who eat poop whose owners refuse to admit it happens.
I think the need blind schools are less explicitly need aware and probably have more flexibility, I.e. they wonât have a situation where they go through the pile needing to cut 10 kids with financial aid. But I think on some level they have soft targets they are trying to hit and itâs not that hard to do (ballet and fencing v. works 20 a week at McDonaldâs). Pretty easy to guess which kids is full pay and which will get a Pell grant.
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@rbc2018 didnât know about that being the case. She has not submitted the score to any of the schools she applied.