Agree! Our school is the same with band. The kids from our high school who go to tippy top schools are not typically ranked the very highest. Sometimes I am sure that’s due to finances (and we have a really strong state flagship) but I also know kids ranked lower (and thus with lower GPA’s) who got into schools that the higher ranked kids did not. The “lower ranked” kids often had other unique activities or interesting stories that pushed them ahead in admissions over simply stats.
I feel like when my D went through this, she was deferred at some schools where she applied early (but not ED) that surprised us - one was the alma mater of both my husband and I. I felt at the time that maybe they were waiting to see if she pulled her application after being accepted ED somewhere else. She didn’t, did the LOI, played the game and waited. It’s frustrating but who knows what happens in the admission’s offices.
I am really not understanding your assessment of schools that are beneath themselves when they say “Why Stanford,” etc. Most schools ask this in a roundabout way— they may not just ask it in a straightforward way.
The moderators find this line of discussion off-topic. I’ll just say that for Stanford’s stature, they shouldn’t ask that question. Maybe they feel a little insecure versus, say, Harvard, who they think they are directly competing against. I mean they correctly realize that for their stature, they shouldn’t have ED as a mode of admissions :-). These are all markers of self-confidence of the administration in question.
I don’t think any school asking “why us?” is insecure. I think they are genuinely curious about how a student expects to engage with the school-- whether it is specific programs, activities, etc.
The reality is that many many schools are excellent but that few are the same. This is an opportunity for an applicant to say more about who they are and what they’ll bring to the community. Really fair question and not so different from asking a job applicant what prompted them to apply. Fit…
We don’t know what their applicant pools look like. The top kids that routinely expect to get into Harvard, and want to go to Harvard, apply to Harvard early. There is no game playing there. So then Harvard accepts them, and they matriculate. The process is more reliable than at Stanford. Stanford is known to be a bit quirky for their own reasons. A little bit like UChicago. Stanford is unpredictable. So maybe the best kids don’t apply to Stanford early. As an example, we were warned by our GC that you can 't rely on Stanford. So maybe Stanford has to reject more of their early applicants and wait for their RD applicants. I have no idea. Stanford sources 36% of their incoming class from California. Undergraduate Student Profile - Facts – if you are a world class university, you shouldn’t be sourcing more than a third of your class from your own state :-). The prior year California was at 41%.
You may be right. Maybe this is all innocuous. Frankly I find it silly that companies ask why us. If you applied to Goldman out of college, and they ask you why us, I am not supposed to say that I want to join them for money. I should put up a song and dance. Tell them that I am excited by the intellectual environment (which incidentally it is, but I have no way of knowing until I join). I am supposed to tell them that I am looking forward to doing God’s work (as their CEO once remarked). They shouldn’t ask the question. It is silly. Then expecting me to lie about money is also silly. Similarly Harvard shouldn’t ask why them. Because I expect you to be the best at most things I am reasonably interested in. Now can we move on? I think schools should ask what majors kids intend to study, and whether they know what the job prospects are etc – that would be a valuable question to ask. Upfront.
Data from Harvard lawsuit have shown clearly that applying REA to Harvard offers a significant advantage (relative to RD) for an unhooked applicant. Even though we don’t have similar data from Stanford, it does appear the REA advantage at Stanford is much less significant based on its REA admit rates alone. On the question of why Stanford has more students from CA, I think the reason is primarily that they have a lot of more applicants from CA. There’s a greater percentage of CA students who want to attend college in their own state than any other state.
This REA application process is more nuanced than the headline would suggest. They get much of their institutional priorities in the ED round – athletes, IMO medalists, NYO first chairs in various instruments, certainly all legacy etc – what I call micro buckets. They have to fill a lot of micro buckets. And they are going in for the top kid in each micro bucket nationally. They are competing for these kids with 2 to 4 other schools based on the bucket. Then there are the non-micro bucket strong kids that would normally get into Harvard any year. So it is a very loaded pool. People making judgments based only the acceptance rate have zero idea what is happening under the surface. I wouldn’t say that there is zero advantage – there may be a very tiny advantage simply because it is less crowded and there is more time to pay attention, and you are softly signaling interest. I suspect it will be very small.
If a student want to be a stem major - she or he needs to take stem classes. D22 goes to catholic private school and need to take religious classes every year that not even weighted . If a student wants to major in art - with all do respect take art classes and apply to an art major, present an art portfolio. I don’t see any relevance to your comment. What do you mean that student with high and test scores doe not not how to write a a good essay? ))) it’s a not fair assumption . I assume competitive Schools are looking for the a whole package in the candidate. My comments were related that some competitive schools deferring qualified candidates to protection their yield . In our case schools that myDD22 applied and who differed her were not viewed as safety. She is writing a LOCI and we will wait and see.
Yes, they both favor hooked applicants in the REA round, but the Harvard lawsuit data are extracted from the unhooked applicants. For those unhooked applicants, applying REA to Harvard offers a more significant advantage (compared to Stanford).
Of course, but it’s only an advantage from the school’s perspective. From the applicant’s perspective, it’s still much better than ED, though.
California is 12% of the US population and comprises 36% of the Stanford students. Combined, New York and Massachusetts comprise 7%. International is 13%.
Massachusetts is 2% of the US population and New York is 6%. Combined they comprise 30% of Harvard students. California comprises 14.5%. If you throw in all of New England and New Jersey, arguably Stanford is more geographically diverse than Harvard. International is 15.6%.
The combo of legacies, % of state population with college degrees, and a preference for students to stay more local feed the numbers. California is just so large its numbers look skewed.
I think the Why school question is to see if they can separate those that love a school vs. those that are applying because it’s highly ranked or in the case of these schools the creme de la creme.
I’m sure Harvard and even a Pitt or Rice or W&L or any other school who asks are able to suss out who has actually learned about the school and see it as a viable fit vs. simply applying because - wow, it’s highly ranked.
Perhaps it’s another part of yield protection - those who show knowledge about where they fit in are more likely to choose than someone who says - you have a variety of majors and great study abroad opportunities and that’s what i’m looking for.
Matriculation patterns at our east coast school suggest that kids who are choosing between Stanford, Harvard, and MIT more often give the nod to the Cambrige school. Likewise, most of my friends in CA, even those with east coast legacy ties, see Stanford getting the nod.
As someone with a bi-coastal past, some of their reasons for staying close to home make sense to me and some are pretty nutty and factually incorrect, suggesting emotional attractions to whichever option they prefer.
The perception at our HS is that more of the Harvard matriculants go there for the prestige vs matriculants at YPM. We don’t have a statistically significant sample at S to reliable judge the matriculant type. The YPM crowd sorts itself out at the EA stage. There is usually no confusion as to who belongs where. This is like the Harry Potter sorting hat – self-sorting in this case.
You’d be surprised how many people who are asked during an interview “why are you interested in working here” do not have a coherent answer. I’m not talking about a profound answer, or one that would win the Nobel Peace prize. I’m talking basic coherence at an 8th grade communication level.
So yes, Goldman gets to ask the question. I think it’s a dereliction of duty NOT to ask “why are we here” during an interview. And you would likely be astonished at some of the things people say (one guy had the decency to get up, shake my hand and say “I don’t think I should waste your time or mine- I have no clue why I am here and now that I think about it, I can’t imagine why I agreed to interview since this doesn’t fit with what I want to do with my life”. We both chuckled and I walked him to the elevator.)
I don’t think colleges are looking for deep profundity in the question “why us”. But some evidence that the kid has given a little thought to what he/she wants out of the next four years? Some answer other than 'My parents made me apply" which I got more frequently than I can count when I interviewed for my alma mater!!!
Is someone allowed to answer “I need a job in Finance (because that is what I studied in college), and I heard you guys pay well?” Rather than listing self-actualization goals …
That’s a pretty bold claim, do you have any evidence on this? It’s actually the opposite, the kids with the best grades and rigor usually have the best essays and recommendations. In terms of the OP, yield protection or management is probably a better reason than assuming the essays or recommendations were average, especially if these essays and recs got them into selective schools.
“Undergraduate Student Profile - Facts – if you are a world class university, you shouldn’t be sourcing more than a third of your class from your own state :-). The prior year California was at 41%.”
Stanford, like most other colleges, value geo diversity so they can say look we have 50 states and whatever number of countries. However once they have their kid from an underrepresented state, and it’s usually one, unless they are an athlete, they’re not going to take more over kids in CA that have been accepted into MIT, Cal Tech, Harvard etc… As a a bay area resident, I’d like to see them take more from CA, not less.
Rather than listing self-actualization goals …