I would say this is not the reject train since your daughter has been accepted to 3 schools so far and those waitlist may still turn into an acceptance. My kid applied to 8 or 9 schools I can’t recall and he was accepted at 4, 2 he was auto admit and he thought it was a successful application cycle. You can only attend one school. Good luck to your daughter and she has fantastic options.
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rejected from BU with those credentials?? that’s insane. i’m so sorry to hear this. this person is a decorated and amazing student, any school would be lucky to have her. transfer is always an option if it doesn’t work out otherwise.
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BU is definitely yield protection. they accepted me initially with a much lower gpa
I agree with others these results are not out of the realm of possibility but unexpected - I’m not saying there is, but could there be an issue with one of her recommendation letters? With her essay? With the coherence of the story/persona she put across in her application package?
It’s indeed disappointing. But highly selective colleges are reaches for almost anyone, including those with exemplary stats like this student.
University of Rochester is a great school. Hopefully she’ll have other acceptances too.
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I find this result extremely odd. Imo, those stats would’ve got you a fair shot at all the top schools and perhaps even favorable odds at somewhere like BU. I’ve seen people with worse stats regularly get into that tier of schools.
Was there a teacher that spoke poorly of your child? How are the essays?
“To say someone must be hooked to get into these schools defeats the whole purpose of applying for the typical middle class applicant!”
Please do not put words/thoughts into my mouth. I did not say or do I believe that one must be hooked to have a chance of acceptance into an elite college such as the ones the OP applied to. I AM saying that they those colleges must be considered a reach. I believe students should apply to some reach schools but must also find match and safety schools that appear affordable and that they would be excited to attend.
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Totally agree with above that the results are suprising but she has some wonderful acceptances and will be very successful in life. Just wondering if she sent music supplements to Ivys and other schools without conservatories? If those are still forthcoming there may be more positive results. As @parentologist stated, all of her reach schools have highly regarding conservatories so her excellent main EC will not be all that helpful unless she applied to their dual degree program.
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Tufts acceptance rate was 9 percent this year.
Sorry to hear. Definitely yield protection at BU. My DD22 who is (and I’m not embarassed to say it) “less qualified” was accepted without your DD’s credentials.
Having said that, I think to “crack” the Asian ceiling at schools, you have to think outside the box with ECs.
Sports - irrelevant unless you are ranked. D1 track, for example, boils down to your times.
Music - irrelevant unless you are picked up by a record label, fill a hole in the orchestra or something esoteric
Science/Math - Have to be on US Olympiad team or something
English - win a Scholastic award or be published in NYT
If money were no object, I would have also applied to all the UCs in your case.
Not just Pomona, but CMC and Harvey Mudd. (and “flexed” some science/math accomplishments.
And a lot more SLACs - Bowdoin, Colby, Haverford, Skidmore, Amherst, Dartmouth - and throw in a few women’s colleges.
Or just shotgunned T30s (like the internationals on reddit).
Or simply, do something in the broader community that doesn’t just look like it is for college but combines passion, community service or something like that.
A few years ago, a “privileged” kid in our neighborhood set up a composting service. I bet he got into a good college (didn’t check).
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I can’t help but believe that the applicant was yield protected from Tufts. I don’t see how they could deny such a great profile.
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Tufts 9% acceptance rate this year (and lower in the RD round) means many high stats applicants were denied admission.
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Did not mean to misinterpret. I apologize.
The problem is there are very few likely schools for kids in this position. I have been through this a couple of times before and will be again. Unless money is the main factor and the kid is looking for merit aid at the outset (which is very smart and reasonable but the kid needs to set that as a goal going in and that does not sound like OP), it is very disheartening for a kid to end up at a better state school (OSU, UMass, etc) when their lower scoring peers who spent the summer lifeguarding on the beach instead of studying Comp Sci at Columbia or violin at X program, or taking environmental science instead of AP Anatomy end up being in the dorm room next door. It’s like the movie Book Smart (never saw all of it) but at least those girls got into Yale! As for being better prepared for college, that is not always a factor, my older kids all took AP Chem, hated it (only option as the other science AP was worse) and never took it again in college and did not need it for anything and still had to take geology for poets in college or whatever. It is about having made choices to defer gratification with the idea that they will be both better prepared for college and will have more college options and instead this is proving not the case, especially for this year. I am encouraging my younger kids to study for the ACT and I am starting to feel like what is the point! Let them go out with their friends instead of staying home and doing assignments, it may not matter anyway. Hopefully Ivy Day turns it around for the OP and I am just getting nervous for no reason for the coming years! Again I think it is wonderful if kids are looking for a lot of merit aid and choose a school based on that (my neighbor sent all her kids to college for almost free because they were #2 in their class and were looking for $$ ) but that is not what OP wants based on the schools applied to.
BU should have been a likely as was Rochester where she was admitted. Even the likely schools such as Northeastern and Tulane are doing yield protection. A friend has twins, one is over 1500, the other scored a 1400 or below or something. Both good students but the 1500 was at the very top of the class, the other one is not. The 1400 was accepted to Northeastern, the 1500 plus was WLed! I know other kids in prior years who were accepted to higher ranked schools than Tulane, were deferred or rejected by Tulane (Dartmouth!)
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You would put Skidmore and Colby in the same category as the others?
These are not likely schools for OP’s D…they were matches/targets BEST case…some of these schools you mention have low single digit RD acceptance rates.
In the match/target category, you typically win some, you lose some…so nothing too surprising here.
These schools have all used predictive analytic models for years….yield mgmt is nothing new, it’s just more apparent because many of the highly rejective schools have experienced large increases in apps (and maybe more people are becoming aware of it).
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I’m not putting anything in the same category. Just saying to apply very widely, otherwise it is inevitable, you’ll feel a little sore at having “just” instate and Rochester (scanning list quickly).
Apply very, very widely - it seems that T30 and/or SLACs are important to the OP and his child.
Throwing a BU on there isn’t enough these days.
Why aren’t there UCs? Where isn’t UNC, GTech, U Texas, UF, Miami U, UVA, Wm and Mary all on his list.
And again, women’s colleges? Try them all.
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This article is an oldie but a goodie that helped me gain perspective of this crazy process.
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Please keep the focus on the OP. Feel free to start a new thread with questions about other colleges.
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Not helpful.
Some colleges do have “Asian ceiling”, but a significant number of the OP’s list don’t seem to be known for that.
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