<p>I've been looking over my public school's Naviance scattergrams. In the last three years, 15/80 got accepted to Harvard, 12/65 for Yale, but only 1/35 for Penn. They don't even come to our college fair. Doesn't this seem odd? It seems easier to get into Harvard and Yale than Penn, Brown or Dartmouth. I don't know what to make of it? Hardly seems worth the effort to apply.</p>
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Hardly seems worth the effort to apply.
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<p>On the contrary. This optimist says the dam is about to burst. Pendulum is about to reverse. Pick your metaphor. It can't stay like this forever. This could be the year Penn takes more kids from your school than any other Ivy. If you don't apply you'll never know.</p>
<p>^unless someone,(like the 1/35), backed out of an ED acceptance......</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know when the lone acceptance was offered relative to the 34 rejections. Perhaps some sort of dishonesty was discovered by Penn that makes the admission folks wary or perhaps there is a personality clash between the rep. handling your school & your school's administration. Another thought comes to mind here that I am not comfortable discussing. The pattern is unusual, however.</p>
<p>Yale is like that with my high school, we never found out what
happened but think it is related to someone backing out.....</p>
<p>I've heard of Penn blacklisting a high school before after someone backed out of an ED acceptance. Perhaps that's what happened?</p>
<p>yeah I know brown and harvard black listed my high school because of ED back-outs... haven't gotten anyone in for who knows how long
schools do this because they simply cannot trust the guidance departments of these high schools to keep their students committed to their agreement.. i don't blame the universities, but it sure does suck for the kids who want to go to say, penn or harvard or brown</p>
<p>My high school is so bad that they don't even HAVE naviance plots for Columbia, Rice, Yale, or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>this happened at my friend's school when they had a total of 10 kids (over 2 years) back out of ED agreements...now, the college admissions officers specifically tell them (from that hs) that they have 0-00.1% getting in even if their stats are amazing.</p>
<p>But what about schools like Yale, where there is no ED contract to break?</p>
<p>^^ If this is happening, I think it's incredibly arrogant and deeply unfair to applicants from the schools that are getting blacklisted. Being Ivies, they can get away with it; they're accountable to no one, they don't "owe" anyone admission, and they'll always have dozens of highly qualified candidates for each one they keep out via blacklist. But that doesn't make it right. Presumably they think they're punishing the school's administrators and GCs and sending a message to others to do better on keeping ED admits in line; but they're really doing it by punishing innocent kids who have absolutely no control over the situation. Do any of you have hard evidence of this blacklisting practice, or is it all just hearsay?</p>
<p>Correlation does not imply causation blah blah blah.</p>
<p>Maybe the "most qualified" students applied to Harvard and Yale, and Penn tended to be applied to most often as a "high reach" school. </p>
<p>You really can't determine much without looking at the overlaps in the applications and acceptances.</p>
<p>But at my school, a similar thing has been happening with Yale. While we have generally had 2+ to Princeton a year, and several to H, M, S, and other top schools, we haven't had anyone get in to Yale for 10 years. I'm really hoping it has just been coincidental.</p>
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Do any of you have hard evidence of this blacklisting practice, or is it all just hearsay?
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I've read about it in books by former admissions officers. And here's a snippet from the NY Times
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Early decision commitments operate on the honor system, but there are safeguards to discourage students from going back on their word. High schools often sign off on applications, and they don’t want to lose face. “They know their actions can impact future classes,” says Ms. Hall, who contacts the school if an early student fails to enroll at N.Y.U. [ed. the article identifes Ms. Hall as an associate provost at NYU]</p>
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What</a> she means by "impact future classes" should be clear ...</p>
<p>mhmm, I hear this happening a lot. I know my school doesn't have very good relations with MIT or Oxford. It's unfair of course, but there's nothing you can do about it. Just apply, and hope for the best.</p>
<p>I believe that colleges do blacklist schools. I'm guessing the student that got into Stanford the year before didn't do so well academically and therefore our Valedictorian (National Merit Scholar, 2300 plus SAT, ECs, etc) did not get in. The other student got into Stanford primarily for sports although still a good student. We had one student get in each year for four consecutive years but none this year. Wonder what happened.</p>
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I'm guessing the student that got into Stanford the year before didn't do so well academically and therefore our Valedictorian (National Merit Scholar, 2300 plus SAT, ECs, etc) did not get in.
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Well, Stanford is as much of a crapshoot as any other school, and just because your valedictorian with awesome test scores and ECs did not get in, doesn't mean it was because of someone who didn't do so well. Vals with those types of scores get rejected all the time. Also, having one person get in every year but none this year doesn't really mean anything. If your school has 20 people get in every year but this year none, then maybe they do have something against your school.</p>
<p>hmm. If a student who got into Yale was discovered to have cheated on his senior project and had to defer, willl Yale blacklist that school?? </p>
<p>I'm praying that this is NOT THE CASE.</p>
<p>haha. nobody at my school has ever been accepted to any of those schools. so, i cant really relate.</p>
<p>MIT hasn't accepted anyone from our school for over 7 years O_o....Georgetown just refuses to accept anyone b/c someone backed out of an ED admittance.</p>