So is this story unusual or quite typical these days?
1500 SAT, 5.3 GPA from one of the best public high schools in a large midAtlantic state. 12+ APs, mostly 5’s. Accomplished musician. Decent volunteer work.
Rejected or waitlisted from most top and second tier schools, including BU and CWR.
Why?!
Do we need to do a deep dive into the recommendations and how strongly the school supported the application?
The school doesn’t like ranking its students as they try to make every student there look good. More than half the class graduate with academic ‘honors’ though most obviously don’t put up such a high GPA. The parents are mostly college educated and beyond in an upper middle class district and have high expectations.
Was his gender and ethnicity an application killer (Asian American male) ?
Did he submit a music supplement with recording/video, music resume and music letter(s) of recommendation?
There are a lot of posts like this, this year (and other years). I think it helps to remember that selective universities are assembling a class and not judging individuals in some hierarchical fashion. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.
The vast majority of high stats kids are not getting into reach schools either, that’s why they are “reaches”. BU’s acceptance rate is less than 20%. That also puts it into a reach. Case, at 30%, fills much of their class in ED and is known to want to see a lot of demonstrated interest.
Hopefully your student has some acceptances and is getting excited with a school that loved them back.
We seem to be seeing quite a few posts a lot like this. It at least appears that many or perhaps most of the students having this issue are Asian.
I happen to have a large number of friends, and two very good neighbors, who are Asian. A large number of their children are attending in-state public universities.
Years ago the company that I worked for was hiring a lot of graduates from MIT and Stanford. Now we are hiring a lot of graduates from the in-state public university. The reason? That is where we are seeing a lot of very strong students graduating from. The hiring managers have noticed.
He did get an acceptance from a school he really likes. But I feel very badly that he worked so hard. His school is no joke and his courseload was heavy. He was always studying and doing homework or practicing music or going to orchestra or doing travel soccer. And all that for what? To not even be good enough for an acceptance from a second tier school? I have also read elsewhere that colleges are not really looking for smart kids these days.
To add, and yes I think this plays a role sometimes, he is a very very nice kid, the kind teachers have loved since grade school, one who is always the first to help fellow students having difficulties. And he is a good looking, athletic looking kid (yes, I think this can be important sometimes too).
Typical (unfortunately). In the past couple of years I’ve seen a lot of very highly accomplished kids getting shut out - but landing at excellent public flagships and doing very well there.
We hear this year after year on CC. The hard work, the studying, doing ECs, etc… creates a wonderful work ethic that will help with the transition to college, career, and life. These attributes don’t suddenly evaporate because a student didn’t get into their reach schools. And your son will still need to work hard to stand out at whatever college they are going to attend.
And YEAH for him having an acceptance to a school he likes. Time to start buying the swag and getting excited!
The reality is that all the schools are taking the highest stats - although with rampant grade inflation and increased AP offerings, there are a lot of high stats.
So much more goes into it.
I’m glad he found a school he really likes. You only need one - and hopefully he’ll forget about the admissions decisions as he revs up for campus.
While there are less students overall, it does seem like there are more “top” students chasing the same places with limited spots.
I’m not sure there’s a “why” to be shared - it can be anything really and we haven’t seen the entire portfolio.
This will make him better prepared to do well at whichever university he attends.
One daughter was in a similar situation but due to finances. She wanted a small school. We could not afford the highly ranked liberal arts colleges in our area. She attended a small university in Canada instead. She started off as a languages major but also got permission to take “biology for biology majors”. This is of course the first serious college level biology course that many premed students take. The first mid-term had a class average of 45. My take on this was that the professor was doing a favour to the many premed students who were not going to make it to medical school, by giving them a hint early of how tough it would be. However, coming into university as an “overqualified” student did help a great deal. She ended up as a biology major with very good internship and research experience.
This is what matters.
I personally think that the big name schools are still worth it for graduate programs. For undergrad there are a lot of universities where a strong student can get a very good education.
Being a nice person will also help your son down the road. In life we might help 100 people over the years. Then something good happens to us and we do not know why. One of those 100 people remembered us and helped us out without our quite knowing how it happened.
The schools ARE looking for smart kids, and bluntly, your child is not smarter than the ones they accepted. As smart as, sure. But not smarter.
Please do not disparage kids that got into schools where your son was rejected. You have little idea of their applications, just as you don’t know why your son was rejected.
High schools do a disservice to students and their parents when they report only a weighted HS GPA with exaggerated weighting. The disservice is that students and their parents can become overconfident in college application chances.
Great! Where will he be going? Maybe if you share the school name, posters here can help you to get excited about the possibilities available at the school that your son will attend.
I think colleges are still looking for smart kids - it’s just that there are so many of them. Also, I think an increasing number of schools are taking a high proportion of their accepted students ED - I know quite a few students who got into BU, for example, with lesser stats than your son (though still very strong) but they all went ED. With top level kids now applying to an enormous number of schools, I think some colleges are trying to lock in as many as they can.
“Most” implies that there actually was a mix of acceptances, waitlists and rejections from top and second tier schools. THAT would be expected, as the number of high stats kids (even just counting 36 ACT / 1600 SAT!) can be many times the number of class size for some top tier schools.
With everyone increasingly applying to very many top/second tier schools that have a constant number of openings, it means that the odds to not being accepted (outright) must increase proportionally.
This sounds so familiar to me. I am also from Lake Wobegon. Being from the midAtlantic is tough, especially this particular area. Our children are all accomplished and look and sound the same. How AOs tell them apart is beyond me. BTW, it’s not just Asian students in this club.
I am working on getting my DS24 excited about a particular public school because I’m really hopeful (informed hope here, not a wing and a prayer) he will get offered acceptance there and if not, he’s headed out west most likely. Everything else is flying blind and that’s okay.
Our kids can be successful wherever they get opportunities. I’m so glad to hear that your child is excited about his acceptance.
This frame is part of the problem. The admission process is not about who’s good enough. It has to do with the needs of each college in building its class each year. To the extent that we are messaging to kids that the name on the sweatshirt is a measure of their quality as a student or a human being, we’ve served them very poorly.
Framing BU and CWR as second tier – in other words, not really good enough for YOU – is the other part of the problem.
The teenager in this equation has every right to spend some time feeling disappointed and sad. The adults, though, should be working to model a healthier perspective that college is what you make of it, because that is TRUE. If he’s a “first tier” kid, it’s going to show whether he goes to a strong brand name or not.
I love this post by Adam Grant. A very wise teacher told me something similar, after teaching for many years. I try to focus on what is truly important.
