Most of the other schools rejected her, a few waitlisted her (and frankly waitlist is tantamount to rejection these days). Haverford was one of the later schools we heard so do you know the stress he went through, particularly after the BU waitlist ? It could very well have ended up w her going to UCONN on a 25k annual scholarship. Her story could have turned out to have been like the poor lady whose daughter ended up transferring. I posted this to hear from others like her or those who fared worse. I am sure there are many more out there. Yes we were lucky.
And what would have been wrong with this? Absolutely nothing.
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No offense but I’d rather have my D attend UConn with a $25k scholarship than BU full pay at $64k/year tuition.
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Are we not all gaming the system? Is that not the point of the countless hours of research, strategizing over lists, essays, ECs, etc… we’ve all done? I certainly feel like my family has gamed the system to figure out what’s the best way to get our kids into the schools they hoped to attend. Every one of our kids is competing against other applicants that potentially look just as good, or better, on paper. The packaging of the applicant is an art and those of us not hiring pricey college counselors are here trying to figure out how to do it for ourselves.
Would your child have chosen CWRU or BU over Haverford?
[edit: Hah, I’m confused.]
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BU maybe. He has friends there. He would have had to decide go big or go small, urban or arboretum. Cleveland never seemed that attractive and there were some concerns about the safety of campus.
Had a very similar experience described on another thread. Kid’s acceptances (among small LACs similar to Haverford) were generally in a higher range of selectivity than the many schools that waitlisted. Thankfully it was not that stressful since the timing of the acceptances came before the waitlists. It would have been painful otherwise. As it was, it more of a puzzle since we were not expecting the wave of bad news that came at the tail end of the process. Simplified decision-making though.
So which is it? Her or him? Or is this just a “theoretical” case to stir things up?
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So why the concern about having been waitlisted there?
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Yes, that was certainly true. Not too many to choose from, largely binary.
Lol.
He’s switching gender pronouns in the same paragraph as well.
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Indeed, I DO understand basic statistics. Sure, applying to more than one highly selective school (if truly well qualified in all respects) would increase the odds! Obviously, we see kids accepted at Harvard, but denied at Brown and. Yale, for example. My objection is applying to a HUGE number of high reaches. I think for a very competitive applicant who realistically will be considered at such schools (which many families are not realistic about), I don’t think one needs more than 8 or so reach schools and then some matches and safeties. I’m just not into applying to 20 schools and doing a great job on each app, and showing interest in each school, or even knowing each school very well. I have not found that necessary to do. My most competitive applicants land somewhere quite good. They are not accepted everywhere. They landed fine choices.
I’m not into the idea of throwing darts at umpteen highly rejective schools or some such.
You write that the goal is to get an acceptance at the best school on the list they can get into. That may be YOUR goal and some others’ goals, but that is not true for all applicants. For example, I have a senior student who is opting to attend his safety and got into almost every school on his list, including reaches and targets (not highly rejective colleges…not at that level), even after being offered huge amounts of money at the more selective colleges on his list. Also, my own daughter, who was a top student and landed very good options, narrowed all her acceptances down to 3 to go revisit for accepted student events. She had gotten into Penn as one of 100 Ben Franklin Scholars and omitted that school from consideration for the schools to revisit and decide between, and preferred Tufts and Smith over Penn. She did end up choosing another Ivy she got into. However, she would have chosen Tufts over Penn, had that other Ivy not been in the mix and became her favorite after the revisits. My kids never viewed or cared about college rankings. They picked the school they liked the best on their list of many acceptances. Even for grad school, my kid got into many Ivies, though chose MIT(9yes, I know it is a top school too), but when she switched grad schools to specialize in a field within her field, and so had to apply a second time midway through MIT, she chose Berkeley over Stanford which she got into, because she liked the program better. So, not everyone chooses what is the most top ranked or some such school on their list of acceptances, and truly care about which school they like the best.
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Didn’t realize a place like CW would waitlist a student of his caliber. It was quite surprising. And then they kept teasing, saying thru emails, stay on the waitlist, most persons on the waitlist get off, even a music instructor there sent him a personal email saying they could talk to him directly on the phone, kind of all disgusting if you ask me. If so interested, then why don’t you just offer him admission? I hate the whole gaming aspect, and some clearly play it more than others.
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well it started as he and then someone referred to him as her so next I will use they 
es machts nichts. except for Vassar, as someone pointed out.
I guess the fact that the applicant pools are filled with students just as deserving as my children is a rule of the game I simply accept. All they could do was curate a list that was good for them and included schools where they would be happy. There is no prize for the most acceptances at top or second tier schools. OPs child is in at a school described as ideal for the student. Seems like they gamed the system just fine.
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typical Asian American male, likes science, plays video games … likes soccer, slightly atypical … plays musical instrument and well, pretty typical
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I also find CWRU’s process unpalatable. I’m not sure it’s gaming in their case though, because I don’t know what the point is then, as tsbna mentioned above they have a below average yield.
As for the rest of the ‘gaming’ you mentioned that applicants engage in…that’s the research piece of things. And it does suck that many kids don’t have a good HS GC to advise them, because it makes a difference. For example, via research and/or a HS GC Is how you would have known that applying EA to UMD is a must.
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yeah it would have been nice if they had told us that.
My guess is that if this is the attitude the student has towards CWRU (regarding “a place like CW” vs. “a student of his caliber”), they can probably sniff it out. It would be logical for them to waitlist such a student and give them a chance to demonstrate interest.
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He did get accepted tho nevertheless, to UMD … for a spring start!
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