Agreed.
The girl from my school who got into Harvard had won mock trial competitions and poetry competitions and performed in her instrument of choice at a national event.
Do I think in life she’ll be statistically more successful or more likely to be a leader than I am?
I do not.
But only Harvard knows why they selected her. That’s life and she deserved to get in.
To me, an example of an amazing “EC” is what David Hogg did after Parkland.
In an ideal world, that would not be the case, but I definitely remember my appearance being called out in interviews for top10 colleges. I distinctly remember two instances of this, both in interviews, one on campus and the other not. Of course, I can’t prove it had anything to do with the offers I did or did not receive, but the comments that were made directly to me certainly fit the decisions that I ultimately did receive.
It’s okay, too. We all won’t fit in everywhere. No college is going to change who you are or how you are perceived beyond college. Learning to cope with others’ perceptions and not let them define you is a valuable lifetime skill.
I heard him speak once. I wish he had had more of an impact, but it’s certainly not for lack of his communication skills.
It’s a nice quote, but rich coming from him. If you’ve ever read Adam Grant, seen him interviewed or attended his classes, it’s all of about 15 seconds before he mentions something about “…when I was at Harvard…blah, blah, blah…” And he’s a name dropper, too.
Because competing at that level teaches you things. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sport, instrument, debate, or whatever. A kid that can do that knows how to work at something, seek out opportunities/competition, come back from failure, deal with the pressure of competition, etc. That doesn’t mean other kids can’t do those things, but that kid has demonstrated that they can. And the schools are looking for those qualities.
Part of the issue is that parents or teachers or friends or whomever are setting this expectation.
Working hard, great grades. Great test score is no assurance of anything. No school ever promised an admission.
We saw a student going to MIT but rejected at BU. A San Diego State rejection in at UCB.
The truth is no one is entitled to anything just because they were well prepared. But we set a different expectation, in part to ensure our kids are doing their best, or to let them pursue their dream.
But what you don’t know is why - whether demographics, ability to pay, interest, a bad essay or underwhelming LORs….you just don’t know.
There’s another post with an amazing student - upset she only got into UMD and yet her amazing GPA and 97th percentile SAT are average at UMD.
I get the venting but truth is no one knows why your student didn’t get in. Many will say yield. But yet a school like CWRU has a horrible yield. Like 15% and that includes the EDs.
We didn’t see your son’s full profile and major and list but he likely overreached.
A lot are upset but when they lay out their full body of work and list the schools they applied to, others are like totally understand !! Some folks just mis rate their lists.
In the end, glad he got a great opportunity. Definitely not something to lose sight of. If he has a great and affordable four years, it’s a win !!
I’m not disagreeing with you.
But she was rejected from every other competitive school she applied to.
So I was pointing out that only Harvard knows why they accepted her and only other colleges know why they rejected her.
If it’s the “third tier, large public university” that I think you are referring to from your descriptions, congratulations are in order. Both of those are fantastic schools and your student will have no disadvantages in life compared to Ivy grads coming from either of those schools.
The “tier” designation is a meaningless metric based on how famous a school is and, by deduction, how many applications it receives. It tells you nothing about the quality of the academic program or the outcomes of its graduates.
congratulations to your son’s high school achievements! It is clear that you’re very proud of him, and I believe he feels that too, which means a lot to kids.
As a high school teacher, I’m used to seeing students with great stats rejected from their dream colleges. The one common theme I’ve observed is that they make getting in school XYZ their goal. I, along with all my colleagues, keep telling high school students that attending this or that college should NEVER be your goal; instead it’s a step towards higher goals. If the step you’re eyeing is no longer available, there’re always other steps.
On the other hand, I also see many students successfully navigating the college application process and landing at schools of great fit. The word “fit” feels vague but it is not. These students can easily talk about “why XYZ” at any moment and keep going forever. They know how the schools and themselves can benefit each other, in what programs, the potential paths, alternatives, experiences of previous and current students similar to them, etc. Usually these students apply to a small number of colleges (I want to say no more than a dozen) and are happy to attend any one of them.
This was exactly how we were feeling a year ago when our child was rejected / waitlisted (and ultimately rejected) from every school she applied to other than her 2 safety schools. She had excellent grades and extra curricular / volunteer activities and other stats. The year before her brother had been accepted to a top Ivy EA with very similar stats to hers which made the rejections that much harder. We tried to get her excited and supported the college she did get accepted to and chose. And she gave it her best and went with an open mind and positive attitude (took some time to get there) but was miserable this year as it was truly the wrong place for her. But she worked extremely hard, got a 4.0 both quarters so far, and just got accepted to a top 20 school that she had been waitlisted at last year! This wasn’t the route she wanted, and we would have been so happy if she had been either accepted the first time around or truly loved the school she has been at, but that didn’t happen. And there is no question now that she will appreciate next year so much more because of the challenge of getting there. So please know the transfer option can prove to be an incredible second chance.
Congratulatons. Maybe this will dispel the myth that colleges who waitlisted you wont accept you as a transfer.
The truth is though that we don’t know if the new school will be a fit. One never knows til they’re there.
I hope it is and congrats to your daughter on the admission but no school is perfect. And many are also unhappy at their dream.
I hope in this case it works out but of course I wish her current school had worked out too.
Best of luck.
Just to add a caveat. If one is looking at UK schools for example (which me might ), the AP exam results are crucial and can correlate somewhat to ‘A’ levels, although UK universities will usually want more AP’s than 3 (3 A Levels are typical).
Similar to us. Several years ago, sibling w similar academic record/SATs but weaker extracurriculars, was accepted to schools which this time waitlisted him. Take homes: 1) the college admission process keeps getting more competitive 2) applying EA offers huge advantages (just make sure the choice is somewhat reasonable given the strength of the record). This is the reality given the ease of applying to so many schools now through the Common App and the real and perceived possibility of getting into a school which might normally fall outside your normal competitive range, whatever that may be, given holistic admissions and the option to withhold standardized test scores.
@ProudDad721 I find your post disconcerting on many levels. One is that you have stated either on this thread or elsewhere, that your son got into several colleges, including a “top choice.” This spells SUCCESS!!! The goal is to land some options and even better, to get into one of your favorites. Your son achieved just that! How many schools he got into is irrelevant as he can only attend one, but having some options is nice and he got those, even a favored school. You mention your son is headed to a “little Ivy.” Here are some schools that fit that description: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Bucknell, Colby, Colgate, Conn College, Hamilton, Haverford, Lafayette, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Williams, Claremont Colleges, Boston College, Wesleyan, Tufts, Vassar (and some others). Is your son’s intended school among those? If so, he did GREAT!
Any college that accepts less than 20% of applicants, and even at a more extreme level, less than 10% of applicants, is automatically “reach” (slim) odds no matter how outstanding the candidate. Such colleges are turning away the majority of VERY QUALIFIED candidates. It is not enough just to be qualified. One must realistically understand this if applying to such colleges. Your son, who has a strong profile, it seems, is among sooooooo many others with as strong of a profile, way more than these colleges can admit. The odds are very low of getting into those colleges. Many denials should be EXPECTED. The hope is to land some options, perhaps a reach school, as well as some target schools, and one’s safety schools. Please know that tons of students have straight As taking a very rigorous course load. They cannot accept all such students. The 1500 SAT is in range for any college, though there are lots of students who have higher scores than that (many of whom will also be denied at colleges with very low acceptance rates). The acceptance rates at many of these schools in the RD round is lower than the overall published acceptance rate. Your son has solid extracurriculars, but he will be in a pile of applicants who have some extraordinary activities and achievements. Even those students will get some denials.
You ask what he did wrong? Nothing…just because he was denied at several schools with very low acceptance rates doesn’t mean he did anything wrong, but simply the odds are VERY low of being admitted.
One thing I would not have done as you did, is apply to 20 schools. Nobody needs 20 applications if they have a realistic, appropriate well balanced college list. The more schools you keep adding, the time on each app is going to be diluted. Demonstrating interest (which is a factor at many colleges) is harder to do for 20 different schools, plus to be able to show the fit.
You ask what the point was of working so hard? Is the only goal of working hard to be accepted to a college ranked top 20 or some such? That is a misguided approach. Your son worked hard and was rewarded with several acceptances. He learned a lot and it will help him in whatever college he attends and bodes well for his future. His hard work DID pay off as he got into some colleges that I imagine are pretty selective (you mention “little Ivy”). You can’t be a slacker and get into such colleges. One thing you did wrong is to think hard work is only worth it if one gets accepted to a tippy top ranked college. Not so.
You mention a Waitlist at Case Western (a school, which others mentioned, is quite selective, not nearly a slam dunk for a high stats kid, and cares about demonstrated interest). I am an independent college counselor. Just this year alone, I have a student WL at CWR who is accepted at Penn, UCLA, BC, WUSTL, CMU, and others. I have another student admitted to UMichigan who was WL at Case Western.
Another factor you need to consider is beyond your son’s control…and that is a college’s institutional priorities. It is not like they rank the applicants and take the top ones. Part of their mission is to build a very diverse class (diversity in so many different aspects) and so your son is not vying for every slot in the class, but has to fit a certain niche in the make up of the entire class. I have a student who got a full ride at CWR this year, and she is from a small poor country in Asia, and I imagine she fills a particular slot in the make up of the class. I have another who got a free ride at CWR too. But I have had many high achievers who got into some schools more selective than CWR, get WL at CWR. This is not unusual!! Just like I have had students get into Harvard or other Ivies who got denied at non-Ivy schools. This is what one should EXPECT. None of it surprises me. Denials are part of the process if applying to highly selective (“highly rejective”) colleges! Again, you can only attend one school. If denied at this type of college, it doesn’t follow that your student did something wrong. I had a student denied in the EA round at Yale this year, and the parents keep asking what she did wrong. She did nothing wrong. There are tons of very qualified applicants, and the expectations should be tempered by this reality. She is going to UChicago. She was deferred EA at uMichigan. And so it goes.
I think your son did well. This is not a game to be won, or to rack up multiple acceptances. He should have liked every school he applied to and if that was the case, and he landed options, including a favored one or so-called “little Ivy”…that’s TERRIFIC. What does it matter he didn’t get into more of his reachy odds schools? He can just go to one…he had choices, and he is going to a school he really likes that sounds to be quite selective. Yours is not a case of a student being shut out, or even only accepted at their safety schools.
The important thing to note here is that “fit” from the college’s point of view is not necessarily the same as “fit” from the student’s point of view. For example, lots of pre-meds want to go to JHU. But JHU probably does not want an all-pre-med frosh class, and its admission readers probably find the 50,000th pre-med application to be less interesting than the non-pre-med applications in various non-biology/chemistry/BME majors.
Yes
This is all that matters. Celebrate his success! Congratulations to him…and I hope he enjoys his time at this college…betting he will.