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<p>This is a fallacy which is one of the reason why there has been such an explosion in the number of applications to colleges. “My odds are just as good as anyone else’s so, since the CA is so easy to add another school, I’ll just add 4-5 Ivies and Stanford, U Chicago and Caltech while I am at”.</p>
<p>A 3.9 UW GPA from Stuyvesant or some top prep school has a better chance than a 3.9 from MiscNonCompetitive HS.</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s necessarily true.</p>
<p>Is that random high school in New York, or is it in Montana?</p>
<p>Stuyvesant and the top prep schools send many students to top universities, the kid attending Tumbleweed HS out in the Mountain time zone is being considered and evaluated in a different way and might be the only person in his/her county to apply to those top-20 schools in the last five years. Each applicant is looked at in context. And, not to split hairs, but the example I cited was a 36 on the ACT, not valedictorian at Stuyvesant/anywhere. Strong test scores are not enough. Neither is being valedictorian, although I do agree that graduating at the top of one’s class at Stuyvesant or a similar school is noteworthy.</p>
<p>The problem comes in when students are told, by their parents, guidance counselors, neighbors, aunts, uncles, supermarket cashiers, “Oh, you’ve got such good grades/ you’re so smart, you should go to Harvard!” As was noted upthread, there is a tendency, particularly among younger people, to dismiss statistics and say, oh, well, that never will happen to me. So there are young people who have been told so many times that, they’re so smart, they belong in the Ivy League, that they start to believe it. But when tens of thousands of people have been told the same thing, and all of them end up competing for those 2,000 offers of admission at Harvard, you are going to end up with many disappointed people.</p>
<p>A lot of the advice here is excellent. I wish I had heard things like that in my junior year since hubris got the best of me this time. Rejection from Northwestern ED really threw me off, which may have contributed to somewhat rushed supplements for my other schools. 3.9 UW GPA, 33 ACT, 2220 SAT, 760 Bio E, 720 Math 2, reject from all schools, waitlist from UMich, waiting on rolling admit safeties. :(</p>
<p>Sorry, salientstars. I hope it works out for you with Michigan waitlist. Follow directions of waitlist requirements and show them what they missed in reading your application the first time. My D is a student there. Feel free to pm me if you have questions. </p>
<p>That is not an uncommon statement - waiting to hear back from ED and rushing the rest of the apps happens frequently. </p>
<p>If applyimg to ED, it is a good idea to still continue to work on everything else…just not submit till near the deadline. Otherwise, you might be looking at two weeks or less to generate a lot of important content. Rushing makes it easy to do sloppy work and make mistakes. I cannot tell you how many kids do not pick up on simple punctuation errors and mispellings, even though they may have looked at spplication or essay lots of times. It is the kiss of application death. </p>
<p>Quote: [This is a fallacy which is one of the reason why there has been such an explosion in the number of applications to colleges. “My odds are just as good as anyone else’s so, since the CA is so easy to add another school, I’ll just add 4-5 Ivies and Stanford, U Chicago and Caltech while I am at”.</p>
<p>A 3.9 UW GPA from Stuyvesant or some top prep school has a better chance than a 3.9 from MiscNonCompetitive HS]</p>
<p>^^^Can’t agree more. I was skeptical about the “same chance” mentality before DS started this application cycle, but since he was the 1st going through this process, we forced him to add 3 schools that he didn’t have much interest in. One thing we made sure though, was that he must apply and be content with the state flagship, which we defined as a safety. He applied to 10 schools, accepted by 9 (6 in top 10, 2 in top 20, 1 state flagship with full ride) and was waitlisted at one. His HS friends who have similar stats as him all received offers that are worthy to them, meaning full-ride flagship + one or more ivies or M &S. So my reflection is - have a critical evaluation of your child’s credential (academics and ECs), understand his/her own HS’ Naviance data, and understand the competition. I am convinced now that the top 2% students from our HS and the similar caliber area high schools have much higher chance to get into one of the top 20 schools than the publish acceptance data. </p>
<p>@jackson61 - They do rolling admissions, and I believe they release a new set of decisions every Friday or something along those lines. Either way, I have yet to receive any email. I’ll check my account just in case.</p>
<p>Edit: I did not receive an email, but I checked my app status and I received an offer to be waitlisted.</p>
<p>If the posts here are representative, I’d also say that it is inadvisable to attempt to “run the table” by applying to all the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, MIT, etc. It is arrogant, and shows no marked desire to attend a top “reach” school. A top-notch university like Georgetown or Vanderbilt probably doesn’t want to accept someone for whom it is a tenth or twelfth choice. Decide whether you want Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford - don’t apply to all of them. High school counselors should work this out with top students.</p>
<p>@woogzmama My school advises applying to fewer…turned out for the worse for those who applied to 6-10 than those who “ran the table”.</p>
<p>6-10 worked five years ago. </p>
<p>It also works with match schools, but not with selectivity of less than 30-40%, approximately. In my experience, anyway. </p>
<p>What a mistake. </p>
<p>@SamuraiLandshark 6-10 was usually 1-2 safeties, 2-3 matches, rest reaches. No one had a problem last year, but this year a ton of people got rejected to all but one or two.</p>
<p>It might be a regional thing, figleaves. That strategy hasn’t worked well where I live for many years. :(</p>
<p>^^ I wouldn’t call it arrogant. It had been said over and over again here on CC that there is no assurance for any student to any of the top 20 school. Hence, top students do want to apply to a larger pool. Top students have been told that their likelihood of getting to HYPMS is the same as any other qualified applicants, i.e., 5-7%, then a prudent course of action would be to apply to more than one. If none of the super reaches works out, these student will happily attend Vandy, Gtown, etc. None of the top kids I know applied to all ivies as they all have their clear preferences. In my S’ case, he wanted good biochem and music programs so Yale is great so is Vandy, Harvard and Columbia are top choices because of their joint programs with NEC and Juilliard, Duke has a great Biochem program, Princeton has a beautiful campus & close to home, etc. Would agree with the arrogance comment if he also applies to MIT, Stanford, Brown, Cornell …That’s not the case.</p>
<p>I think fewer is better. It forces you to be more prudent in selecting schools and it allows you to write better applications. I think the most selective schools, HYP et al, will generally tend to select the applicant who makes thoughtful high-level strategic decisions as to where to apply over the hard-working plugger who grinds out twenty-plus applications to all the top schools.</p>
<p>20+ is too much, but personally I think 2-3 reaches are not enough. My DD will apply in 2016. Based on my DS’ experience, we will keep the # of reaches (5) but reduce the # of matches. She will have to apply for a safety /
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<p>Nothing has changed on CC in more than a decade. The poor approach to the entire college admission world is still prevalent. Misguided expectations. Untimely focus. Unfocused lists of schools. </p>
<p>In simple terms, people start way too late (often because of incredibly poor advice from GC) and focus on the wrong things. Serial applicants are often serial club joiners. Students with unhealthy expectations fueled by social climbing minded parents are often focused on …individual recognition and silly awards. </p>
<p>Internationals are simply misinformed about the availability of spots with financial aid, and overly obsessed with the prestige aspect of some US schools. </p>
<p>In the end, the top schools admit the students they want. It is unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of applicants fail to realize how mismatched they are to such schools and that buying more lottery tickets does not work well. Anyone who does not understand the precise definition of a TRUE safety school and does not build a list from the bottom up will join the list of disappointed April students. </p>
<p>There are no magical strategy to land one of the prestigious fat letters. But doing it all wrong is a recipe for the disasters shared in this thread … and in similar ones in every year since I joined.</p>
<p>Few things change from year to year, xiggi. It really is the same story every year for so many applicants. Too many applicants. </p>
<p>You really do have to construct a list from the bottom up. Why do you want attend a school on that list? What can you bring to the school? </p>
<p>I’m also a bit disappointed, mostly because I seem to have had false expectations. Accepted at WUSTL, Rice, Wesleyan, and safeties…rejected by HYP, Dartmouth, Penn, Duke…waitlisted by Brown, Northwestern, Williams and Amherst. I thought I would get into at least 1 of my mid-reaches, but I guess not. Does anyone have any advice as to whether I should remain on the waitlists of Brown, Williams and Amherst?</p>
<p>^ Why would you see WUSTL, Rice, and Wesleyan as disappointments? That skewed viewpoint is exactly the point of this thread. Too many students think that only a top ten college is an achievement. You are lucky to have the choices you do!</p>
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<p>Right. The post directly above mine is testament to this. satsarecool, what in the world is wrong with the schools that accepted you? Why does it matter that you didn’t have to “reach” as much to get into them as you would have to get into some of your others? Do you honestly think there is a substantial difference in the education you will receive at WashU or Rice versus HYP etc., or Wesleyan versus Williams or Amherst? Can you even put into words what makes the schools that rejected or waitlisted you BETTER than the ones that didn’t?</p>
<p>I didn’t say anything about them being disappointing schools, just that I had set certain expectations that were not met. As I said in my post, they were “false expectations”. The fact of the matter is that I liked Brown, Williams, and Amherst better than any of the schools that accepted me. </p>