Do call your GC early tomorrow morning, say that you intend on applying ED to NU and that you have to complete that app by Wednesday, so time is short. I fear that you will be teaching your GC how QB works, but regardless, ask if they would consider speaking with the AO to gather information that would help inform your decision.
Speaking with AOs is the GC’s job, especially at a school like yours where they only have responsibility for college admissions counseling and don’t have the social/emotional counseling component.
Another way to think of it is that many GCs and private counselors will be having conversations with AOs about QB candidates over the next few days…why not yours?
There is nothing unethical or improper about a GC calling a university to inquire about his or her student’s application; in fact, I think that initiating such inquiries is part of the job. Furthermore, the AOs at NWU can discern whether to answer your GC’s questions. As others have suggested, call or email your GC as soon as possible.
Your applications in the ED2 and RD rounds will be evaluated in totally different context; your research at NWU will likely make you more of an outstanding candidate among these new pools of applicants. The time window at MWU is very short, so just focus ahead and don’t look back.
Has anyone here you trust had a look at your essays?
Look, there are lots of reasons they may not have admitted you at this point. A good chunk of those are institutional and in this moment. Not a rejection of you as an individual and not indicative of a future shot or no shot.
But with the comment about gpa, ar you applying to the right targets? Penn’s going to have mighty high expectations.
Rice isn’t less reachy than Penn. Both have <9% overall acceptance rates, and 18%-ish ED acceptance rates. Rice’s median GPA and test scores are higher than both Penn’s and Northwestern’s. NU at least has a 50% higher ED acceptance rate than the other two.
You are hyper focused on stats. All these upper level schools - and especially places like UChicago - are instead focused on fit. Fit, fit, fit. Not what you think is a fit, what they want and think is a fit. Stats are only a small piece of that.
@Mwfan1921 Sounds like a plan. Yeah I’m just so reserved and my confidence falls down to zero when talking about college since I’m just so lower class and everyone at my high school is essentially upper middle or very upper class.
You can do this hkim, advocate for yourself…you will need to do that in college too.
I agree with lookingforward that you are having a crisis of confidence and doubting yourself…normally I would say go eat some ice cream and forget about things for a day or so, but time is of the essence with regard to your QB apps/decision for EDI so you have to keep things moving forward. Keep persevering, you can do this.
Edited to add: there are far more students in that high school who require significant financial aid to attend college than you think…it may seem like everyone has gobs of money, but I promise you it’s not so. And irrelevant to the task at hand. Good luck tomorrow and keep us updated.
I echo lookingforward’s asking about your essay, as well as milee30’s point that stats is not the determining factor. I came across this news article about the admission process at Cornell. The information do apply to other schools as well, so it might be of use to you. https://cornellsun.com/2018/11/06/a-look-inside-how-cornell-accepts-its-students/
@ucbalumnus Yes I have. Thankfully it seems like all the schools have approved it. @milee30 I guess we’ll never know what it means. But I have a sense that “fit” is just euphemism for “we do whatever we want”. Hmph, I’m having pessimistic views about the application process all over again.
@aquapt Very true. I actually didn’t realize that Northwestern truly took as many ED applicants as Mwfan said. Northwestern seems like a solid contender. I also forget that I have Urbana Champaign to fall back on - given that I get in first.
About that, I’m actually feeling a lot better this year and taking these rejections not as bad. But honestly, I do not think I would be recommending Questbridge and regarding it so highly to prospective students in the future. I think there’s a bit of a facade going on.
I’ll give you an example:
Your stats likely place you in the top 10% at a nationally ranked High school. You’re awesome (you wouldn’t have so many people rooting for you otherwise) and what you’ve accomplished is extraordinary, but there are other ways to be extraordinary.
The kid with the 29? The recommendation letter may read the formal version of something like “OMG we have NO idea how s/he got a 29, our school average is 16* and no one in the school’s history has ever got higher than 24. In addition we’ve had to cancel Precalculus classes for several years due to lack of interest but this kid as single handedly motivated enough students for Math and college starting in the 9th grade that for the first time in years we had a class for precalculus. All students in that class supported by KidApplicant, will be applying to programs and colleges we didn’t even know existed but apparently offer financial aid. Kid A has changed the life of 17 people.”
Pretty typical for a lower income school in the South
I am not familiar with QB…When they ask you to rank the schools, wouldn’t be better to rank schools you have higher probability of getting in higher? I would think the match happens when schools’ ranking of applicants match students’ rankings of them?
They do that for sorority rush and sometimes at law firm recruiting (my kid just went through that). She had to be strategic on which one to rank higher so she could get matched.
@oldfort for QB you are considered for the match for every school you rank. The schools say yes/no, and in the case of multiple acceptances, you are matched to the school you ranked higher. The schools do not know where they are ranked on individual student’s lists. The best strategy is to rank a mix of schools where you could be happy attending for four years- universities and LACs with a range of selectivity.
HKim, I’m sorry you weren’t matched, but I don’t think you can say QB is just a facade. There’s another poster on CC who recently got matched to an excellent LAC. Four years of paid tuition, room and board. She also worked her socks off, like you. And QB isn’t over for you yet.
Are there limitations to you now applying to a nonQB school? This could have been brought up before so forgive me if it has. Your list is very reachy, and I think you have rejected the idea of LACs, but if you can, please consider applying ED2 to an LAC that might meet almost all of your need. You can run NPC on several that offer ED2 admission. I’m sure some have already been mentioned, but here they are:
Bates College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Bucknell University
Carleton College
Case Western Reserve University
Claremont McKenna College
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Holy Cross
College of Wooster
Colorado College
Connecticut College
Davidson College
Emory University
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Haverford College
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Macalester College
Middlebury College
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Saint Olaf College
Pitzer College
Skidmore College
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
Tufts University
Tulane University
Union College
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Wesleyan University
Whitman College
Some of these are ridiculously selective, but some are not. I urge you to consider some of these.
I just wanted to tell you that I understand your disappointment. Last year when my daughter made finalist we were over the moon. Then, in the course of waiting, I found out that without a zero or near zero EFC her chances of being matched were nil (at the schools she ranked). I did feel the process was a bit disingenuous, and they shouldn’t take kids with EFCs that school won’t match. It also didn’t take away from the sting when she wasn’t matched. I think some negative feelings are natural and you just need to process them. Then you need to get cracking on a plan B and C for ED and ED2. The end is in sight, you just have to hang on a bit longer.