All that semi-sour grapes from me upthread being said, we are in it for the experience and academics not for the bumper sticker. It’s just a little tough that S didn’t get into a private school that is great for both of his majors of interest. It’s made it hard to choose the 5/1 school. I’m still most grateful it looks like he will have a close to normal freshman experience and be vaccinated. Hooray!
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Ultimately as I have always said to my kids, if they are miserable at the school they wind up in, they can always transfer. Nothing is permanent.
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I remember thinking about the toothpaste when I first heard of Colgate! You just can’t care. Our older S is at U of Richmond which everyone here thinks is a bad state school and they don’t understand why he’d go all the way to the east coast to go there!
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People are so rude!! Richmond is not a bad school and those people can just stuff it. Seriously what nerve.
And Colgate is a phenomenal school so her son will figure it out.
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My thinking on this: to some extent, it would be natural for the increased acceptance rates for score-submitters to be a reflection of a GPA/transcript that is consistent with the score, as is the case for roughly 2/3(?) of students, rather than a result of score submission. [Edit, in other words, correlation rather than causation.] Some portion, but not all, of the non-submitters didn’t submit because their scores were lower than prior published 25th or 50th percentile and a big chunk of those would have grades consistent with the lower scores. I’m speculating that test optional would play a role (in one direction or the other) for the third of students with high gpa/low score (benefit from TO) and high score/low gpa (detriment if they didn’t test), but not much of a role for those with grades consistent with scores (except for decrease in available seats due to some number of TO benefiters getting accepted). Then there’s the gray area where scores add confidence in admitting a student from a less-known high school. One question I’d have for AOs is whether weight placed on the transcript, which was already heavy, increased, or not really.
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What schools people have and haven’t heard of seems so random to me! In my town just outside NYC, people know Macalester. Maybe it’s because several highly ranked kids from our high school go there every year . . . but if you said University of Toronto, most people would be completely unfamiliar.
I think one of the most frustrating side effects of Covid has been the loss of college visits. For my D21, how she felt on campus—vibe, fit, community—were the top considerations. A school she had never seen could not have competed with a positive visit. Any chance it makes sense to take a trip to the twin cities? (I don’t know where you’re located.)
Also, I’ve seen studies where career success after college is linked to relationships with professors while an undergrad, which is something LACs certainly do well. Best wishes to your D, and I hope her excitement for Mac starts to build! If it helps, one of my D21’s long time friends committed to MIT, but she’s not super psyched. She’s actually feeling unsure that the culture there will be right for her, and her mind keeps going to the possibility of transfer.
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Yes! We have had that conversation, too. And on top of that, she has said she can go to Toronto for grad school. They are resilient and smart kids, I have so much faith in them and their decisions. I don’t think I would have been as thoughtful as my daughter.
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This was a pretty big deal this year I think for some applicants in regular round. Hence the multiple waitlists.
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Looking at how our district did this yr with top schools, I think TO and the initial narrative that URM applications were down ended up hurting our non QB applicants. The QB applicants did really well and matched at higher rates and some kids that would not have matched previously did because they went TO. By the time the RD round came around our top non QB kids were all R or WL from most top schools.
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I want to add, In the end everyone ended up with a great choice, but in previous yrs they would have had more acceptances to choose from.
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As others have mentioned, Canadian universities are a bit different - more of an emphasis on large lectures for the first couple of years, less personalized support, you need to advocate for yourself more. Is this something your child would enjoy? Some prefer anonymity over a more intimate learning environment.
We visited Mac and I was extremely impressed with the school. My older kid ended up applying. I think of it as an urban Oberlin. The campus is compact but charming, the surrounding area is very appealing, the Mississippi River is close by for running or biking trails. It’s served by a major airport, which is only a few miles away. And while the winters are cold, they are not gray.
We did a lot of college tours pre COVID and most blended together over time but Mac’s did not. My impression was not SJW’s run amok but a school that took community engagement very seriously and embraced that idea both locally and globally. The number of international students historically has been very high and it’s more diverse than many LACs.
Can she connect with current students at either campus or both? Are there student blogs that can give you a feel for the flavor of the campus community?
It can be hard to figure this out from afar. Maybe have your D dig in a bit more on the school’s website or watch YouTube videos depicting campus life? And even if she ends up ambivalent about her choice (many students are initially), she is likely to appreciate where she ends up after a relatively short period of time.
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She has attended lots of virtual events and just this week there was a live tour which was kind of cool, although not many kids were visible. A linguistics professor did a live q and a and he was fantastic- just the type of prof you would want. I do think she is warming up to it. I think the social media route may be pretty helpful, but she is a slow adopter so we’ll see when she decides to take that route.
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Wow - tks for sharing. Have to say I’m surprised. Seems like the whole “not having a score won’t hurt you” that we heard from AOs over and over in webinars last Fall was not actually true for a good number of schools. I mean, I guess it’s possible more students w/o a score also had less rigor/lower grades/fewer ECs – but it doesn’t seem like that is true enough to explain a difference in admit rates of this magnitude.
Every college needs to release this data so future applicants can evaluate whether to send in a score!
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Agree. The more transparency the better. Though juniors planning TO might be careful as I suspect things might change again, especially if test sites are pretty accessible and some TO 21s are struggling in their first year at selective schools. On the podcasts I’ve heard like NACAC there is concern about performance, but I hope it’s unwarranted and extra support is there if needed. 
. They certainly have an obligation to support the class they admitted.
Also all the experts talking about the gap 20s taking spots not being an issue. 
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After much deliberation between two great NESCACs, my kid has committed to the same school as your’s and is very happy with the decision. I think that once your DD gets there she will be fine. A cold, gray day and quiet campus affects everyone’s perception of any campus. We drove up recently and the campus did seem quiet, but then we saw the students emerging from buildings as classes ended and there was a buzz of activity. We have a friend up there, who brought my child on an informal tour, although we had pre-Covid visits. They even met some of current student’s roommates and friends. All were welcoming and gave my kid a good sample of student personalities. Left feeling that some friendly acquaintances were already made for next September. This visit made the final decision easier. Major draws were the vibe of the campus and the kids that they met during this recent visit.
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This supports the hypothesis that a number of kids are holding multiple selective spots. I think many had a rough go regular round. I feel like the lesson is the early bird gets the worm.
This was also confirmed anecdotally by Elizabeth Heaton on the College Coach podcast. They saw a lot of all or nothing results she shared.
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Hi all - I’m usually just a lurker on CC but gotta weigh in on a few separate topics here.
As a primary care MD, I spit out my coffee at the salaries listed above. No one I know makes that kind of $, although that’s mostly because NO ONE I know works full time since the charting and in-basket burdens of even part-time medicine are so high.
Also, count us in to the ‘no Goldilocks school’ bar. My high-stats (NMF, 3.98 UW, IB full diploma etc) D21 is very disappointed about where she’ll be starting this fall. Because of the above (and we are a two physician family!) we limited her search to schools in which she would qualify for at least some merit, so the NESCACs etc were off the table (she wanted a small LAC). Now it’s really stinging for her to see her friends heading off to highly ranked schools while she’s heading to a solid but not ‘great’ LAC (although with a full tuition merit scholly). I feel so badly for her to not be super excited about college after her senior year was basically ruined.
But as I keep telling her, I think she’ll find her people there and be super happy by October, and she can save her 529$ for grad school, endless study abroads, can do unpaid internships etc. And if she’s not happy, she can transfer. She has several friends heading off to schools completely sight unseen, so I think there’s going to be TONS of reshuffling the deck next year. She’ll have plenty of company if she transfers.
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At our HS kids’ grades are down, dramatically. And…far more Ds and Fs than typical. The school started identifying struggling kids in the fall, but it’s been hard. We have been hybrid since November or so, it will be interesting to see if second semester grades are better than first.
Also our instruction time is much lower than a typical year, around 20%-25% less than normal (Mondays are asynchronous, new block schedule has less instruction time too). Particularly concerning are the AP classes and whether they have learned the whole curriculum. Will be interesting to see what happens with AP test scores.
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Thank you for this! This is very thoughtful of you, and very reassuring.