<p>The time spent on the college search should be in getting a number of schools with different selectivities that the student will enjoy. If the selectivity is the most important factor to a student and a family, there is something wrong. When you just pick a safety just to have one, you are not going to be happy if that is the only school that accepts you. Much nicer to have a range of schools some with merit money sweetners and different strengths and drawbacks to contemplate. Otherwise reign in that safety early with EA or rolling admissions. When my friend’s sons were applying, they each got into UMich very early. They like it enough that they only applied to one other school, because they were that happy with that choice.</p>
<p>I think another lesson here is to make sure that your safety schools really are safety schools. That is one mistake that Andison made, by thinking that Oberlin was a safety. I don’t want to sound too harsh for the OP, but if they considered Washington & Lee a safety or even a match school, with an acceptance rate of 19% – that was the problem, right there. W&L was a reach for the OP daughter, and being waitlisted by a reach school should not be a surprise.</p>
<p>I am very risk averse, and believe that a safety school should have an acceptance rate well above 50%. No matter what your stats are, even if they are in the top 90%, if a school has an acceptance rate below 30%, it is NOT a safety school.</p>
<p>“Who wouldn’t rather go to their reach than their safety?” </p>
<p>D1. She ended up attending her safety (which also provided excellent merit aid) over all the other colleges she was accepted to, and has THRIVED. On track for Phi Beta Kappa, and just heard this week that she has a fabulous summer internship (she has essentially now gotten 2 of the top 4 internships most coveted in her field). If you ask her now, she would pick the safety again in a heartbeat (and pooh-pooh the reach, she now KNOWS that she made a better choice for her).</p>
<p>Hmmm … not sure OP’s D is “doomed.” My D was accepted to Tufts, Vanderbilt, and 6 LAC’s (all with great merit awards) back in 2007. However, she was waitlisted at Macalester & Davidson. Davidson we could understand, but Macalester? It was weird. So you just never know! Hang in there. :)</p>
<p>@Calreader</p>
<p>I have tried to talk to my son about appealing at Sac State but he is still not at all receptive to the idea and certainly is not ready to go there and talk to someone about it. Our position would not be a very strong one since we are the ones who made the mistake, not Sac State. I had thought about talking to someone in the Physics Department there who maybe could do something since it is very unusual for them to get an applicant wanting to major in Physics with a SAT Math score as high as 720 but then we would still have the problem of the poor GPA which combined with his SAT scores has slacker written all over it. Furthermore, his inability to correctly fill out something as important as a college application form would likely confirm their negative impressions of him.</p>
<p>He is getting used to the idea of going to Cosumnes River College (CRC), our local CCC, and has already enrolled there starting in the summer term. He did extremely well on the CRC Math placement exam and was recommended to go straight into Calculus 1 for Math, Physical Science and Engineering majors. My major concern is that he will not be able to get into the class with all the budget cuts since he is a new student with a low registration priority date and this class is required for anyone planning on majoring in Engineering. The course at CRC uses the same Calculus text as Sac State and UC Berkeley. I am just hoping that he can get into the courses he needs, improves his study habits, gets a good GAP and in a few years hopefully can transfer to a four year university.</p>
<p>Just looked up the most recent CDS data for W&L – <a href=“http://www.wlu.edu/Documents/institutional_effectiveness/CDS/CDS2010_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wlu.edu/Documents/institutional_effectiveness/CDS/CDS2010_2011.pdf</a> Did not realize W&L has <1500 total students.</p>
<p>In last year’s class, there were 6627 applicants for an entering class of 471.<br>
ED stats: 492 applied ED, 225 accepted (acceptance rate 45.7%). Those 225 ED acceptances make up 47.7% of the entering freshman class. Overall acceptance rate (including ED) is 18.9% (1259 total accepted/6627 total applied). </p>
<p>They waitlisted 1947 students, 616 remained on the list after 5/1 and 111 were offered spots in the class from the WL.</p>
<p>Will also add that it seems to be a lot tougher for young women to get into selective LACs (esp. on the East Coast) than for young men. We know of a couple instances where results seemed way out of whack given the stats, GPAs and ECs.</p>
<p>Lemaitre, I think you’re wise to be concerned about getting into classes at community colleges, because of all the budget cuts.</p>
<p>If your son did appeal at Sac State, they might or might not be able to do anything, depending on their policies. But I still think you should do it. The people at Sac State are doing the work they do because they want students to come to college and succeed. They are not looking to judge students and find ways to keep them out. When it comes to freshman admission, they know they’re dealing with 17 and 18 year olds. I think if you explain the situation, they will want to help if they can.</p>
<p>I had to call the Sac State admissions office to ask a question recently, and they were very nice. The person I spoke to took a lot of trouble to ask around the office to find the answer to my question. I think you would need to call the admissions office directly, not go through the physics department.</p>
<p>OP, what are your D’s other schools? Looking at the stats in post #66 its hard to say how anyone could consider W&L a safety. 19% overall acceptance rate AND nearly half the class cam in ED, meaning the RD acceptance rate is considerably lower. They eventually offered acceptance to 18% of the kids who chose to stay on their waitlist, which says to me that their yield (the % of accepted kids who enrolled) wasn’t nearly what they had hoped it would be.</p>
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<p>I love CC.</p>
<p>Just to commiserate a bit, DS has some nice acceptances, although did not get into a single in-state public (wait-listed at two; rejected at one). We’re all pretty surprised. Now giving serious consideration to money issues. It’ll all work out, but we still have an interesting couple of weeks ahead of us.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the insight. It’s true that competition is fierce these days, and demonstrated interest plays a lot in decisions, especially in small LACs. Luckily D was already accepted to a couple safeties she likes.</p>
<p>D recently WL from Vandy with same stats; though their admission blog says this year the admitted candidates’ scores are at 1590/1600 at the 75th percentile…</p>
<p>I saw the stats on Vanderbilt for this year and had to whistle! Wow. It’s been a tough year for those looking at the selective school. Remember that post earlier about “buying one’s way” into the selective college. From what I see in our area, lots and lots of full pay kids with great stats–high test scores (easily in the top 25% of the school’s), high grades, tough courses, good ECs. great lods are being rejected and waitlisted. If buying one’s way in is being able to pay, they would be accepted. And there are a bunch who applied for FA accepted. I don’t see the buying of selecitve school entry this season, unless the purchase price is an endowed building or something of that nature. </p>
<p>I truly think it has gotten even more difficult as families are increasingly willing to pay the premium for certain select schools but not for schools less well known. That makes a true bottleneck for those top schools that are already tough to gain admittance.</p>
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<p>Sorry, a lot of shorthand in there. “Have the potential to get in,” I ought to have written, because that is what I meant. I think I just wanted to recognize the potential to be rejected even despite a good profile, depending on the class makeup they are looking for.</p>
<p>I think you put too much emphasis on “scores” in that reading. My intent was to say, suppose you are in love with high-ranked schools that meet full need, but you apply to schools you can afford in case you get in.</p>
<p>Are you really going to love the schools that are not your dream? Even if it’s not a rational dream, because you might need what a state school has to offer better, it’s going to be a time of coping.</p>
<p>Scores, profile, whatevs. That was really not the point.</p>