Exactly, all of that. It also seems to me intuitively - follow this chain of assumptions - that applicants are more likely to attend reaches if admitted, and among accepted students to any one school, the school was a reach for its test optional applicants, assuming that the vast majority of TO applicants had scores they chose not to submit for being too low. (But then reach/match/safety categorizations get awfully messy under TO, a can of worms.)
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Weâve seen some numbers of percentage of TO applicants accepted at some schools but it will be interesting to see how the classes actually shake out. Like, if a school accepted 40 percent TO, what percent of those enrolled? Stands to logic that maybe more of the TO kids took the offer versus the test taking kids for top schools so those freshman classes might have an even larger percent of enrolled TO kids.
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Yes, this. I really hope those sorts of numbers are released, but I have doubts about that. My gut says TO will yield higher than submitters - itâs logical. And the greater the portion of admitted students overall, the greater the yield. (oh my I could get into some serious mind games over whether to submit.)
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I think thatâs true. For example, the 31% yield quoted for Wesleyan is wrong; itâs based on a normal target of ~760 students. By all accounts, theyâve over-shot that by a substantial number.
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I have something totally new to stress about today. My D is a freshman next year- but also a transfer into her college. Apparently the transfer designation trumps the freshman one, and she is not guaranteed housing (only freshman are- and this year last yearâs freshman too⊠which is most of the housing slots right there). The school only has housing for a bit over half of students, so itâs truly not even close to guaranteed. While finding an apartment in LA sounds both daunting and expensive, even more pertinent is that sheâll be 17 all of fall semester, meaning she canât even sign a lease. Iâm gonna stress so hard about this until housing assignments are released in mid-July. I donât even know what sheâd do? Gap another semester/year (they did offer it to her so that she could continue with her dance company)? Would I have to move with her for a semester? What a pain it all would be.
Youâll be signing the lease as a guarantor anyway, regardless of her age, because like most college students she wouldnât pass a credit check. That doesnât mean you have to live there. If the landlord wants at least one adult resident, wonât her roommate suffice? I canât imagine a student being able to afford a single studio apartment, costing $2000+ per month in West LA. S has an only tolerably OK 1 bed apartment across from UCLA which costs $2650 per month plus utilities for the two of them (and they thought that was good value for money). Many friends pay more or cram more people in.
I think may be you should go ahead and find someone in similar situation. Then few students can find an apartment and sign a lease. That will give peace of mind.
Speaking of double depositors, we know two. One just got busted by UC and they gave the student 3 days to drop one. (In that case the student make it off the WL but didnât remove the first choice since she had trouble deciding.) The other is a private and a UC and nobody knows.
We did not double deposit (I want to make sure to be clear) but just got an email from the GC who collected everyoneâs school and will send the transcript by 7/1. No doubles going on beyond that point.
I think it is a mix of double deposits and more newly-qualified students at the selective / WL level (because overall apps werenât up much but the applicant pool is not the same - basically 10% of the FAFSA kids out and replaced by potentially highly competitive internationals) plus American TO with good grades. Probably leans more toward the latter. I also feel like the UCB and UCLA might cause some waves eventually. Still not clear on at what point internationals would call it in terms of being here for Fall in person. Our tuition is due 8/1.
A vocal Twitter counselor said some lower income kids were really working appeals to get the best financial aid offer, so that was another reason to double deposit. She said her clients got extensions but she knew of others with DD. I believe some of the kids got deposit waivers so free to do so.
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Have you (or she)contacted the school about this? Any chance the school would give her some priority for housing because of her young age? Maybe Iâm being naive to think so (maybe Iâm completely off-base). Would it risk annoying staff of the housing department to try?
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I agree. You need to call LMU ASAP. Isnât it also a financial burden for you to have your D live off campus? Seems like she will need housing all four years.
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I doubt there is anyone else in this situation tbh. She fell in a crack that isnât supposed to be there- they generally require transfers to have 30-60 credits and come in as sophomores or juniors. We didnât even think theyâd consider her app and still have no clue how she got in tbh. All the other people her age/class level will be in housing.
She could likely afford a studio- the GI bill does pay a generous living expense monthly. Even with a roommate I donât know that we could afford the start up costs though. The last time we lived in California we had to pay first/last/one month deposit and it was a near impossible sum for us to conjure up. She already knows to save every penny for these costs the following year.
I really hope she continues to just get lucky- they have no clue what to do with her. Housing said she was unique and they were stumped, and apparently no one even knows if she should do freshman orientation or not. Sheâs really making her own new path here. Ha.
Edited to add sheâs spoken to housing a few times. They said theyâve never come across this situation before, but that since the system says sheâs a transfer, sheâs not guaranteed.
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I donât think thereâs any such thing as a transfer who came with zero credits and so is a freshman? And then she still counts as a transfer? I would get involved and move up e chain of command a bit. More than one thing about your Dâs freshman year seems a bit off.
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She doesnât have zero credits, she has 21. Unfortunately 3 of those were taken after graduation, so boom. Not a freshman applicant. They actually require 30 credits to apply as a transfer, which is where all the confusion comes in. The dance department really went to bat for her with admissions, but she really doesnât fit in any of their predefined boxes at the moment. It really wonât matter after this year, so we werenât worried about it until now.
Maybe someone in the dance department could be helpful? Is there a particular professor who pulled for her?
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LMU has suite style residence halls for non freshmen as well as apartments and off campus housing with optional meal plans. Does she qualify for any of those?
She only qualifies for freshman housing based on number of credits, according to housing.
I think it just comes down to TO increasing the number of unique applicants to top schools. At our school several kids were accepted at top schools TO and in the past they wouldnât have applied because their SAT score was not competitive even though the rest of the app was.
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Yes, I do agree thatâs probably most of it. There were some reports early on in the media, podcasts, and other places about certain TO kids getting multiple top school offers (while others were totally shut out of T20), but it seems like that was not the vast majority of RD applicants. Likely many places are really full high up and the next level sort of full or even overbooked. Itâs interesting how little is being written about this even in June. Still, it was a tough year to decide and I think some kids might be holding multiple offers, though it might not result in much WL movement. The âexpertsâ did say that something doesnât add up on Twitter but they arenât saying much so they arenât really sure.
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If I recall, didnât common app state how many were unique, so many of them could have been last yearâs applicants as well so it throws the numbers off. I may be confusing myself on it, but like I previously said, my brother had read that there are 25% of students from last yearâs class that are entering as freshman this year. They could be students that took gap years and reapplied or students that were accepted and then had permission to defer their admission a year. Many schools have mentioned 20% from last year. Who knows, but I guess we will soon find out.
Also, as for double dipping. I canât remember if we paid anything for orientation at UIUC when my son was supposed to attend, but Michigan does charge. So at some point people will be backing out when the money starts to pile up that they have to pay. @123Mom123 I have no idea why anyone would double dip between UM and GWU. Those schools are so opposite and different things going on at both. Michigan has announced in person. I donât know what GWU has done but Iâm sure the same. Once a kid signs a housing contract at some of these schools they wonât be able to get out of it so easily so maybe that will wake up some of these kids.
@evergreen5 Still agree with you 100% There is just no way all of this is attributable to double dipping. By this point also, most people shouldâve had a chance to visit schools that they were accepted to by April 8 between then and now. Especially as covid has gotten so much better and they were all able to be vaccinated. And like you said, itâs the reaches that kids went for, and even those schools are closing their waitlists. Itâs the other schools that are struggling to get bodies. So maybe itâs not that itâs everyone double dipping but that itâs like a pyramid and at the bottom it is completely empty but the top is just stuffed and it didnât trickle down like it normally should have. Test Optional is likely the culprit as well as grades during covid when policies went out the window. A kid couldâve gotten all Aâs last spring and those couldâve been complete BS or not at all in synch with what the kid wouldâve gotten without covid. Illinois made a rule that you couldnât get a grade worse than 3rd quarter. Our school had more kids qualify as Scholars than normal. Having 4 kids that was easy to see why. Kids at the top stayed at the top, but many more fell into that other (gray) category.
The true test now will be to see how many of these kids, TO and non-TO actually make it. Just because you get into a competitive college TO, doesnât mean you canât handle it. It also doesnât mean you can. There are a lot of smart kids all over, and some not so much so.
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@milgymfam That is crazy that as a 17 year old, transfer or not they wonât guarantee her housing. Until sheâs 18 at least you will have to sign for her housing, but not necessarily after that.
@Twoin18 I have never cosigned any lease for my now 24 year old son who has lived in California on his own since he was 18. For my 20 year old daughters both living in apartments next year, I only had to guarantee one of them. Every state and landlord does it differently, the terms of the lease and any state laws dictate if a guarantor is required.
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