<p>^ (Responding to my own post ;0)
Maybe it’s not so ironic. At high schools with competitive admissions top students may indeed have a better idea of who their competition is because they’re in class with them every day. A 2300 SAT and 6 AP’s may seem amazing until you realize that makes you average for your school peer group.</p>
<p>There may be something to that. Have a friend who’s son had a 36 ACT with two 800 SAT IIs. Not an especially rigorous HS, but he was convinced he was a sure thing for Stanford EA. Rejected. He got in Michigan, but haven’t heard how is Ivy day was. Had he gone to D’s HS, he would have known he was middle of the pack among the high achievers. And he would have had a much better GC.</p>
<p>There is no sure thing. </p>
<p>Actually, there are often sure things for high stats students, in the form of colleges with automatic admissions (or automatic full ride merit scholarships for those who do not have much money to spend) that their stats qualify for.</p>
<p>However, many of the high stats students posting here appear to consider such schools “beneath” them and refuse to apply to them.</p>
<p>The only automatic admissioms public unis in California are community colleges</p>
<p>There may be a high likelihood of admission for 4 year atate schools, but not “guaranteed admission” based on a certain GPA.</p>
<p>Other places might be different. </p>
<p>@SamuraiLandshark I know when I applied to the UC schools I was offered automatic acceptance to UC Irvine and UC Davis (I believe through ELC, which is determined by GPA). Now, that I’ve tried to look it up again, it only says that they are guaranteed admission to a UC campus, but I know I got specific offers from UCI and UCD about automatic admits to their schools if I applied (maybe 5 years ago? So things may have changed). Back when I was applying, they were my “safety” schools.</p>
<p>The Univseristy of Arizona is still taking applications and will until May 1. You should consider applying there. Great programs in business and engineering, great place to live with fantastic weather and resources because it is well funded. It sound like you are qualified for the honors college which is very prestigious and will get you a quality education. Furthermore, If you had a great transcript freshman year, transferring woulld be easy. Check out their website, see if there is a program you might be interested in. I believe in my heart of hearts that a gap year is only practical if you have a very clear plan and reason why. Simply Not getting into the best colleges in the US is not a good reason. You can do this. But you should go to college next year. You won’t regret it. </p>
<p>Yes…things have changed. The system is a little different, now. </p>
<p>UC Riverside offers a non-binding program to high school juniors if they sign up for it before senior year. </p>
<p>Sue22, My D’s ACT Plan score her sophomore year. I’ll show Subject, her score, % nationally, % her school. English 26, 98%, 90%;
Math 30, 99%, 94%,
Reading 23, 90%, 82%,
Science 25, 95%, 80%.<br>
Composite 26, 98%, 89%
She looks good nationally, but among her peers at her school she is so-so among the high achievers. </p>
<p>I think this has given a realistic look at the schools she wants to attend and what type of students she wants to be surrounded. </p>
<p>You also might get offered a spot - if space is available - at another campus in UC system. That does not always happen. </p>
<p>These days, ELC admission is likely to Merced.</p>
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<p>Non-impacted majors at non-impacted CSUs are also automatic admission to applicants who meet the published baseline CSU eligibility criteria. It is true that the number of non-impacted majors and non-impacted CSUs has been shrinking.</p>
<p>Indeed. Have you seen the CSU impacted majors grid? ;)</p>
<p>@OP- That stinks. I’m in a similar boat, but I knew I was rolling the dice and got into good safeties. As the country grows more and more populated (and the world) class sizes at Top-Tier schools aren’t really changing proportionately. </p>
<p>A common theme this year seemed to be “This year had our highest number of applicants”. I blame my parents’ generation for having too many kids. </p>
<p>It’s not too late to get into a semi-decent school though. U of Arizona, U of Wyoming and Ole Miss are still taking applications. </p>
<p>@dadoftwingirls- I wouldn’t put too much stock into the PLAN test. It isn’t the ACT. I did much better on my actual ACT than I did the plan. Just being in school every day and absorbing/learning material more advanced than what is on the test is the best prep.</p>
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</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/sas/publications/documents/impactedprogramsmatrix.pdf”>http://www.calstate.edu/sas/publications/documents/impactedprogramsmatrix.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impaction-campus-info.shtml”>http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impaction-campus-info.shtml</a></p>
<p>Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Dominguez Hills, Monterey Bay, and Stanislaus are not campus impacted, and have no impacted majors except for nursing. East Bay is not campus impacted, and is only impacted for business and nursing.</p>
<p>I know your pain. I have an unweighted average GPA of 3.86 and weighted of 5.14. I take the full IB diploma program and I’m top 10 in my school (with highly competitive students). ACT of 34. </p>
<p>I’ve been rejected from Stanford, Columbia, UCLA, UC Berkeley, JHU, Yale, and MIT. </p>
<p>I’m waiting on USC and I got waitlisted at Harvey Mudd. At this point, I think I’m going to commit to UR. </p>
<p>I’m in the same boat as two of the posters above. I just got waitlisted at Rice, Cornell, and Vanderbilt, and rejected from Columbia and Penn. All I have is NMF safety schools, and it looks like I’ll be heading off this fall to the University of Idaho.</p>
<p>This year is a crazy year for applicants. I had a child in 2007 get into the majority of Ivy’s, my child this year all rejections. The main thing that has changed is the acceptance rates of ED. The lowest Ivy ED rate was 18% all the way to Penn’s ED acceptance rate of 25%. So if you applied regular decision to any Ivy your acceptance rate was 2-5%. Unfortunately we have a crappy HS counselor and didn’t inform us of this change. BIG MISTAKE NOT APPLYING ED this year. </p>
<p>Ivymom - even ED is dicey this year at a lot of colleges. The biggest problem I see, IMHO is the common app which is allowing students to apply to large numbers of colleges at a time (versus the old days when each college had a separate application). I’ve heard of one student applying to more than 20 colleges. As a result of the floods, colleges are starting to consider making their supplements harder and more campus specific.</p>
<p>ED may be an asset if only because the readers aren’t exhausted early in the season and have more time to review each file. Still, a lot of colleges are starting to use deferred status so they can weigh applicants against the general pool that is coming.</p>
<p>There is no right or wrong answer. It’s just that the application pools at the competitive colleges have grown to insane proportions in general.</p>
<p>It’s not the number of people applying to college – that number has decreased over a few years ago. What happened this year is, people applied to far more schools. I was watching some of the acceptance threads last year, and there were a few students who applied to twenty or schools. I had a feeling that was about to become the new normal, and indeed I have encountered a number of students this year whose approach seems to have been “If I just apply to all of the top twenty unis, I will be admitted somewhere.” @ivymoma, I think the landscape the last two years is significantly different from what it was just a few years ago. I doubt that your second child is any less-qualified than the first.</p>
<p>What is going to happen, I think, is that waitlisting will become ever more popular, and many applicants will remain in limbo in June. Of course, if one has acceptances in hand, one always can choose not to play that game. </p>
<p>I practically had to twist the kid’s arm to get applications submitted to a dozen schools. The kid is a Presidential Scholar candidate, with other test scores equally impressive, lots of community service, tons of research. The kid took “love your safety” to heart and was admitted to both safeties, but was rejected by Ivies and by schools that are low matches. I am just happy that the kid has some great choices. </p>
<p>ED made no sense for us when the kid already had an offer of generous merit aid; walking away from that scholarship not knowing what outcomes at other schools would be would be insane.</p>
<p>Also, to anyone out there who didn’t apply to any safeties and whose future is in limbo: Take advantage of rolling admissions. There are plenty of schools out there still accepting applications. Some you may consider “beneath you” but there are plenty of good ones (Penn State, Alabama, Pittsburgh) still accepting apps.</p>