I think you should submit a formal LOCI and contact the AO.
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And I totally agree about AP Physics C, even with me being AP Physics 1 and AP Calculus teacher.
I seem to have upset you with my wording and attempt to shorten multiple tweets into a single sentence. Iām sorry. I have edited the post and anyone interested can search for the info.
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What is a LOCIā¦sorry Iām new to the thread not sure of all the anacronyms
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Our small public (800 students) doesnāt offer Physics-C so heās taking Physics 1 now and will take Physics 2 next semester.
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@roseleafmom ā Letter of Continued Interest. Itās what you send to a college if youāre deferred or waitlisted to say, āPlease take me ā Iām great!!ā 
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Not upset, just pointing out the inaccuracy just so others arenāt confused.
No one wants disinformation out there as it only adds to the anxiety for so many parents and kids that they donāt need. 
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Glad to hear weāre not the only ones waiting for UT in this thread. Maddening is a good term! D21 has top scores and was top 6.5% in her classā¦ But I havenāt seen anyone non-auto admit for her major yet. So Iām still hoping over here.
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Wow, so much has happened since I went to bed last night! 
Congrats to everyone who received admits and for those of you still waiting to hear. Lots of EDs today and to hear about Stanford now releasing for their REA. Our kiddos are tough cookies. At least thatās what Iām telling myself. 
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The BU ED thread is a buzz! Portal was undergoing maintenance yesterday which started speculation that decisions were coming out. Someone posted a link to a hidden page that shows your admission decision. Would love to know how they found it.
So currently everyone is freaking out because while no one has the link to view their decision, (page just says your decision is ready, click on link below) some have additional links to view financial aid and/or loans. But some donāt have anything. I feel terrible for these kids who now think they didnāt get accepted and will have to stress for a minimum of a couple more hours before they find out. I mean, I kind of feel like they probably did not get accepted. I would think all financial aid information would be loaded at the same time.
My daughter isnāt on CC so she doesnāt know and Iām not telling her. If there isnāt financial aid listed she will be utterly miserable until the actual decision comes out.
I know the person who posted the link was just trying to be helpful but I feel like it has caused soooooo much stress for some of them.
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Letter of Continued Interest for deferred and waitlisted kids.
Two years ago something similar to this happened when my daughter applied ED to Cornell. There was a hack people found a few days before the decisions were coming out. I told my daughter whatever she does, do NOT click on it. Who knows if itās a trap, if theyāre recording IP addresses, or whatever but do NOT be stupid and click. I got into an argument with some student about it. Thank god she didnāt. Well, as it turned out and no idea if it was related, not one of the people who clicked on that link were admitted. I canāt remember if that link ultimately even took them to a decision or if it may have just been a link telling them when decisions were coming. Back then cornell only gave a few days notice about their decisions so maybe thatās what it was. But I never take stock in any of those things. There was also financial aid talk also going on about some people who had things on their FA portal and others who didnāt. It made no difference in the end. Sometimes itās much better to just not read the stuff. I stayed away from CC during this process until recently for that exact reason.
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That is excellent advice! Think Iāll stay off that thread for the rest of the afternoon. I feel like it will be much better to rip the band aid off then to pull it off in a slow agonizingly painful manner. 
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Congrats to those with acceptances!
To those with deferrals, Iām heartened by stories from @homerdog and @gotham_mom. Please forgive me if I have it wrong. Iāve heard more stories of ED students being deferred then accepted in RD than I have stories of students accepted in the ED round. So, keep hope.
I think there are a couple of issues that face most of us with ED kids in this group:
- For the most part our kids are high-achieving, have solid ECs and recs, and in many cases, have high test scores. Theyāve worked hard and they have great credentials. But theyāre not extraordinary (except of course to us).
A few of you have heard this story, but to illustrate the point, consider 2 students in D21ās school last year and 1 from the year prior:
Student 1: straight Aās in every class throughout high school, except an A- in Art junior year/All IB classes/4 high-level classes/35 on ACT/state music award/worked in university lab for 2 years, including 2 summers/community service, leadership etc. Applied ED U of Chicago, denied and heartbroken. Denied at Northwestern, Notre Dame, William & Mary. Accepted at Tufts and Emory. Attends Emory.
Student 2
High 4+ GPA/all IB classes/4 high level classes/mid 1500ās on SAT/SAT subject tests: 800 in math & chem/National Merit Scholar/community service, model U.N., etc. applied ED Princeton and denied. Denied to all of the T20ās to which she applied. Didnāt have a balanced list and ended up attending U of Minnesota.
Student 3
Graduated the prior year with similarly impressive credentials except that she went on a 6-month wilderness excursion in the 10th grade where she foraged for food (Iām not kidding), climbed an impressive mountain, and did her schoolwork in a tent at night by lantern (again, not kidding). Wrote a book about it upon her return. Was admitted to Harvard.
So thatās the first issue. Most of our kids wonāt stand out as extraordinary to an admissions committee. Iām guessing most of you made adjustments to expectations like I did after researching and learning more about how truly difficult college admissions has become. Jeff Selingo says in his book that 50% of college-bound American students graduate with an A average. I find this really surprising and Iām not sure I believe it, but if true, maybe it helps explain the high GPAs we see on cc.
- The next issue is the institutional priorities as Jeff Selingo mentions. Take Amherst College for example, which D21 is in love with and where she originally wanted to apply ED. For the record, D21 is white, unhooked, and comes from an underrepresented state. I know that @purplemama has a child at Amherst who was admitted unhooked and a non-athlete which is extremely impressive as youāll see. My D21 did not end up applying ED as we determined she has almost no chance of being admitted.
First by way of comparison:
Amherst
1800 students
676 athletes
25 sports
Northwestern
21,000 students (8340 undergraduates)
468 athletes
19 sports
Amherst Admissions
475 students in 1st year class (give or take a few)
-52 International students (roughly 11%)
=423 domestic spots available
*56% of Class of 2023 and 60% of Class of 2024 were U.S. students of color. For this example, I estimate 58%. Soā¦
423 domestic spots available
-245 U.S. students of color
=178 spots available (42% of 423)
*Amherst reserves 157 admissions spots for athletes (per Selingo and per Amherst task force on diversity recruitment in athletics). Of the 157, 67 spots are for āathletic factorā athletes and 90 spots are for coded athletes. 157x4=628 and Amherst has 676 athletes. So in addition to the 157, additional athletes are chosen from the applicant pool. Iāll leave it at 157 for this example. Of those recruited athletes, 73% are white (Amherst is working on lowering this number every year). While athletes of color are well-represented in football and basketball, athletes who play lacrosse, tennis, golf, soccer, crew, etc. are predominately white.
178 spots
-114 recruited athletes (73% of 157)
=64 spots remaining
*Roughly 10% of each class are legacies. 77% of Amherst legacies are white (per Amherst Student paper).
64 spots
-36 legacies (77% of 47)
=28 spots remaining
*There could be overlap in legacies and recruited athletes but the number of spots available for a white, unhooked, non-athlete remain in short supply. Although there is overlap here, see the last class admitted to Amherst:
157 recruited athletes
129 Questbride scholars
52 international students
47 legacies
90 1st generation
D21 thinks Iām a total freak when I delve into the numbersā¦and maybe she has a point!
Despite all of this, when our kids really, really want to apply to a high reach, I think itās hard to advise against it because some of them will always wonder if maybe they would have been one of few to make it. I do wish there could be some kind of admissions reform but I certainly donāt have the answers. Anyway, hereās to all of our kids ending up with some good choices where theyāll be happy and successful!
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@tellis6653 stay away! It will not change anything either way and why put yourself through it. Channeling positive vibes for good news for your D tonight!
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Oh boy, that is why my husband hid Jeff Selingoās book which was sitting on my bedside table. I kept reading him the Amherst stats. Son applied ED to Amherst, typical white suburban kid with strong stats, but hasnāt cured cancer. He is a legacy- that is all that he has going for him. 4 hours and 21 minutes!
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@GoldPenn Our college counselors did this exact same exercise using Pomona as the example to try to get parents and students to understand why they need a balanced list. You could hear a pin drop in the room (last Fall - pre covid)
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@goldpenn Great points. And yes, our kids with great stats for not extraordinary in the eyes of the AO. Our counselor told me S21 freshman year that she had one student who had great stats like many of our kiddos. Applied to the same set of colleges (she used UC as the benchmark). He didnāt get into any of his top UCs. Another kid had solid stats but didnāt max out APs at all. Got into all the UC. The only thing she thought was materially different was their home zip codes.
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@GoldPenn that is incredibly sobering (depressing?!) to see this breakdown in black and white. Anxiety in full tilt!
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Yes it is a bit sobering - but I do appreciate schools commitment and transparency around building a diverse class. These schools are also are so small with numbers like Pomona and Amherst.
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