Guess I never knew since I was never interested in any of that.
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I agree with foodle. While each application needs some attention, I don’t believe that for the highly rejectives, some kind of long and deep meditation on what their AO would want to see in a supplemental essay is going to dramatically increase the odds at one school. Basic probability and the law of large numbers are going to be a greater help here.
Another factor is that for those needing $, the aid offers they receive with acceptances are also going to vary a lot, even for safeties. Went into this thinking 12 applications was a good number, but now I no longer think that 20 is an unreasonable number of applications at all.
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It was only a few years, my other kid.
SAT scores have been renormalized. When I was in HS, only one student in the USA got a perfect 1600 one year, an Indian girl from Texas. a 1500 meant a lot more then. Now the highest end is not well stratified by score. I believe the number was something like a 150 point bump when it happened. Since then, who knows maybe grade inflation has continued. This coincidentally happened around the time that ETS (that was what the company who put out the SATs were known as back then) received a lot of flack questioning the legitimacy of the SAT in gauging student ability and readiness for college.
And now SAT subject tests (formerly known as Achievement tests) are now gone too!
Maybe we can now use Tik-Tok and other social media follower numbers to stratify the applicants. It is kind of standardized and access is free, no?
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Most kids don’t get fee waivers.
Reusing essays is definitely a thing. They still must be specific to the college and the prompt. They still require 100% effort and can take many hours.
Most kids who apply to 20+ schools are not just accepted to one.
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I’m also annoyed about the renormalization you’re referring to. When we talk about our SAT scores from “way back then” (only when asked of course) it needs this big long disclaimer or the kids just think we’re not so good at tests. And still it’s “yeah sure mom and dad, it was harder back then…”
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From just the experience of the many kids around me who apply to a lot of schools, this statement is not correct.
Ok, Boomer 
But it works the other way too. Others Boomers you tell what your kid got on the SAT are like way impressed!
Nothing to be angry about then. Really. Move on for his sake and yours.
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Those posts have already been deleted by the mods.
But I have more down the pipe and so have to really learn how to game this whole new system.
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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563025.pdf shows the effect if the 1995 recentering of SAT scores.
https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/higher-ed-brief-sat-concordance.pdf shows the effect of the 2016 SAT redesign.
| Section | Pre-1995 score | 1995-2016 score | Post-1996 score |
|---|---|---|---|
| V/CR/EBRW | 550 | 620 | 660 |
| V/CR/EBRW | 600 | 670 | 720 |
| V/CR/EBRW | 650 | 710 | 740 |
| V/CR/EBRW | 700 | 760 | 780 |
| V/CR/EBRW | 750 | 800 | 800 |
| V/CR/EBRW | 800 | 800 | 800 |
| M | 550 | 560 | 580 |
| M | 600 | 600 | 620 |
| M | 650 | 650 | 670 |
| M | 700 | 690 | 720 |
| M | 750 | 760 | 780 |
| M | 800 | 800 | 800 |
For students applying to the most selective colleges, the SAT now has more compression at the top of the scale, so more SAT-taking students appear to have high end SAT scores now than before. High school grade inflation has also resulted in more compression at the top of the scale for high school GPA. Along with increasing population relative to the size of the most selective colleges, the top compression of both means that more students appear (to themselves, their parents, and others) to be plausible candidates for the most selective colleges based on top-end SAT and high school GPA. This drives up application numbers and allows / forces the most selective colleges to weight other criteria more to distinguish between applicants with similar looking top end SAT and high school GPA.
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as a reference, back then i believe average harvard undegraduate sat score was 1380, legacy 1350, jock 1250. caltech/mit was more like 1450, because of very high math.
And the content of the SAT has changed I believe? Much easier to study and prepare for to boost your score, such preparation also now being more widely and readily available to all? Back then, there was just Princeton Review and Kaplan.
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I have NEVER had any student just accepted to ONE college (unless ED). A well balanced list should yield options. That is the goal. I always have two safety schools, so nobody in a worst case scenario has to go to one school by default. I have NEVER had a student only get into their safeties, by the way.
I don’t have a magic number of colleges in terms of the list length. It varies depending on many factors and each individual case. However, most students I’ve had have applied to 12-16 schools. Occasionally there is someone with less than 12 and occasionally someone with 17. Rarely, have I found any need to have more than 15. Adding more and more highly rejective schools does not increase the odds. The odds at each one remain the same. I have a lot of students admitted to and attending highly selective colleges and their list did not go over 15, and some were less.
Also, @foodle indicated that I said people should visit 15 campuses. I said I think visits are important and beneficial, but that it may not be possible to visit every college on one’s list, and if not possible, do a deep dive on the college without a visit (I shared some ways to do that, and so it should not be a “random” add. If possible, at the very least, visit a handful of TYPES of schools within close proximity without requiring overnight costs, even if not applying to those schools to ascertain preferences such as size, public/private, setting, and other things. I find some families ONLY visit their reach schools, and that can be a set up for disappointment. Put energy into exploring your targets and safeties. Demonstrate interest in those schools to the schools…many consider demonstrated interest in admissions. Also, when I said my own kids visited every school on their list, my kids chose to apply to schools in driving distance in the Northeast quadrant of the US, except one of my kids had a couple we flew to. We were not flying all over the place. We often could see two schools on one excursion. One of my kids had to audition at the schools. Their lists were not as long as being discussed on this thread.
Child will be able to choose whether or not they waive the right to look at the recommendation. Generally speaking, recommendations for which the right was not waived will not be taken as seriously. The “secret” recommendation is felt to be the one where the recommender can express their true opinions.
She waived hers but even then I think the college you enroll in will allow you access to your admissions evaluation.
If there’s anything certain about college admissions, it’s that there will be changes by the time your younger kid is ready to apply to college.
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Yes, except for the letters of recommendation.
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Usually not to the letters. I think it is Kay for the comments the AO makes on the file.