I chose an arbitrary example. I didn’t even choose the CUNY that had largest discrepancy between admit rate and chance of a high stat student being admitted (Lehman has a 23% admit rate and admits nearly all applicants with an 1800+ SAT). Nearly every college that does not have a strong holistic focus in admissions will be an exception, which includes a notable portion of the <30% admit schools. For a very high stat applicants, I’d expect there are more with a sub 30% admit rate that are exceptions than for which the rule applies. Rather than go into depth about a huge number of exceptions, I’ll arbitrarily choose two that are well known on CC, which I have recently discussed in other threads.</p>
<p>UCLA has an admit rate of under 20%, yet stats published by UCLA mention that in last year’s class the 11.5% of applicants with the highest UW GPA had an admit rate of more than 70%. If you consider both test scores and GPA, it’s safe to say the admit rate would increase to well above the 70% for GPA alone. I obviously would not call UCLA a reach for a top stat applicant. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt has one of the 20 lowest admit rates among academic colleges in the United States, and it practices holistic admissions. Nevertheless, even this extremely low admit rate holistic school with a top applicant pool is not a reach for top stat applicants. Vanderbilt has a history of not only admitting top stat applicants, but also offering merit money. Scattergrams show almost no rejections for applicants with stats above 75th percentile. Among Parchment members, the acceptance rate is >95% among >75th percentile SAT/GPA applicants with course rigor. Sure Parchment isn’t perfect and has a tendency to overestimate, but I certainly wouldn’t call Vanderbilt a reach for top stat applicants, particularly when scattegrams and Naviance show the same pattern. </p>
<p>Perhaps a better rule would be there are some highly selective holistic colleges that emphasize many non-stat criteria. This leads to a high rejection rate among top stat applicants at some selective colleges that are frequently discussed on this site, such as HYPSM… For example, in a recent alumni magazine, Stanford said that applicants with a perfect SAT score had a 31% admit rate. If you cannot predict the holistic aspect of the admission decisions well, then such colleges might be considered a reach for all.</p>
<p>Data, I don’t know what Parchment is, so I really can’t comment on how accurate it is. I will repeat this – I am very, very conservative when it comes to college admissions. When a college like Vanderbilt has an acceptance rate of 12.5 percent, I don’t care what numbers you throw out, I would view it as a reach for EVERYONE. </p>
<p>Would you seriously recommend that a top student apply to only Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford and Vanderbilt? That Vanderbilt is such an absolute sure thing that you would with all confidence say that this student would be 100% sure to have a school to attend next year? I would not feel confident giving that advice at all.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the California system to comment on the UCLA example, but knowing me and my low-risk philosophy, I would most likely recommend that a California resident apply to more than just UCLA as a safety.</p>
In my earlier post, I said the top stat applicant had a good chance of admission, so they are obviously not reaches. This does not mean that they are safeties. There is a wide range of grey between reaches and safeties. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.</p>
<p>You say Vanderbilt is a reach for everyone, yet you provide no evidence besides that they have a 12.5% admit rate. There is a big difference between the two. For example, some foreign colleges have far lower admit rates than Vanderbilt, but admit purely on stats, so a top stat applicant has nearly guaranteed admittance even though admit rate is well into the single digits. Vanderbilt doesn’t just consider stats like some foreign universities, but they focus more on stats and less on holistic critieria than HYPSM, so they display a different admit pattern than HYPSM. This relates to why Stanford has less than half the admit rate of Vanderbilt with what is likely a more qualified applicant pool and usually wins cross admits against nearly all other schools, yet Vanderbilt has higher reported 25th and 75th percentile test scores. This also relates to why Vanderbilt’s reported 25th/75th scores have skyrocketed as their admit rate has decreased in recent years, while Stanford’s have barely changed as their admit rate decreased in recent years. This also relates to how Vanderbilt sponsors NMSs and is on pace to become the college with both the highest test scores and most NMSs over the next couple years. Or acceptance decisions among members on this site, with top stat kids almost always being accepted to Vanderbilt, including ones rejected from all HYPSM. Some have been offered as much as full tuition at Vanderbilt while being rejected from HYPSM. Or Naviance or scatterplots decisions for top stat kids. They all point to the same conclusion that is not a reach for top stat kids (not a safety, just not a reach). Or alternatively you could insist it’s a reach for everyone without providing any evidence.</p>
<p>I agree completely with fireandrain. I think it is beyond stupid to treat a college like Vanderbilt, with a 12.5% acceptance rate, as a match for anybody. It is completely ludicrous, unless perhaps your ancestor was the Commodore himself. </p>
<p>For the life of me, when we’re talking highly selective colleges, assuming a student is in the reasonable ballpark, I see no reason to think of their chances as being one iota higher than whatever the published acceptance rate. Not one iota. I had a kid who was a double legacy at a top 20 school, and he / I / we stared the base acceptance rate in the face. We didn’t pretend it was all of a sudden a match because he was a legacy. And we didn’t pretend it was all of a sudden higher when he was applying ED, even though the ED rate is higher. </p>
<p>I don’t know why you would set your kids up for disappointment like that. You point at the overall acceptance rate and you say - that’s what the acceptance rate is, kid. <em>I</em> think you’re fabulous and they’d be fools not to take you, but that’s the game we’re playing her. You don’t pull any of this nonsense that you can suss out admit patterns because you heard of five kids one town over who got in X and didn’t get in Y. </p>
If Naviance for your HS showed a 100% acceptance rate for persons in your stat range, which was a large sample size, would you still call it a reach? In my opinion “beyond stupid” is to act as if all applicants have an equal chance of admission, all colleges have the same admissions criteria & weighting of that criteria, and all colleges have identical applicant pools by blindly following the admit rate for the full class and intentionally ignoring all information about admit rate for an individual student or subgroup, </p>
<p>One of your examples, UCLA, is generally regarded as having different levels of selectivity by division, so overall stats can be misleading, and may lead to disappointment for those applying to the more selective divisions.</p>
<p>" for your HS showed a 100% acceptance rate for persons in your stat range, which was a large sample size, would you still call it a reach?"</p>
<p>Yes, because I don’t subscribe to the common CC philosophy that says that my high school is so oh-very-special that if College X admitted 3 out of 5 applicants last year, they’re bound to admit 3 out of 5 this year. It seems like common sense that colleges market to EXPAND the pool of high schools that they draw from, and so anything goes. They can decide they want to go to some “fresh” places and skip my hs altogether. </p>
<p>There’s an entitled assumption underneath that that I don’t like. </p>
<p>The information that is missing from published acceptance rates is the stats of the applicant pool. This, of course, is what Naviance tries to tell us, but if your high school is small, or if it’s big but not many students go on to 4-year colleges, or if you’re looking at a college that not many from your HS applied to, Naviance isn’t that helpful. In that situation, knowing that a school has a 12.5% admit rate doesn’t tell you what the rate is for applicants with your stats.</p>
<p>As an example, Pitzer has a fairly low admit rate but their admitted student profile is on a par with colleges with much higher admit rates. This might mean that an unusually high number of low-stat students are applying, or it might mean that Pitzer is very competitive but is accepting students based on factors other than stats, or it might mean something completely different. Admit rates don’t tell us the whole story there.</p>
<p>“In my opinion “beyond stupid” is to act as if all applicants have an equal chance of admission”</p>
<p>You know who are the experts on which applicants have what chances of admission? The adcoms. Not me, seeing the teeny-tiny slice of the world that constitutes my high school and pretending that I can project off that (invariably white and wealthy) slice to the entire cake. </p>
It’s not an all or nothing situation where you must choose between either having perfect clairvoyance of admissions decisions or treating admissions decisions as completely random by assuming an individual’s chances matches the admit rate for that college. The latter can lead to disappointment, particularly if applying to colleges with varying admission criteria and strength of application pool. </p>
<p>I mentioned CUNY Lehman earlier. They had a ~23% admit rate a couple years ago. The admit rate is probably ~20% today. It’s certainly a low admit rate, nevertheless, top stat students who meet the basic application requirements will have a 100% acceptance rate because their admissions decisions are not holistic. They only consider grades, test scores, and course rigor. Furthermore most applicants are typical students from NYC-area public schools, so the admit threshold is quite low by CC standards. Just an 1800 SAT and typical GPA is usually enough. It’s one thing to be conservative, but it’s ridiculous to tell a top stat student he only has a ~20% chance of admission because only the adcoms can predict admission decisions.</p>
<p>If you accept top stat students at CUNY Lehman do not have a ~20% admit rate because the decisions are not holistic and they have a relatively weak applicant pool, then the same idea applies to other colleges that are holistic. You won’t be able to predict decisions with perfect accuracy, but you can expect that some students have better chances than others based on things like stats and how they relate to the strength of the applicant pool, or ED/RD, or many other subgroups. Some holistic colleges apply far more weight to stats than others, but nearly all consider them to some extent. You can also get some idea about which colleges apply more weight than others based on tools discussed in this thread. It’s not perfect, but it’s more accurate than assuming your chance of admission matches the admit rate.</p>
<p>@@. Fine. For a school that has a relatively low stats hurdle and admits on stats, fine, you can estimate your chances better. </p>
<p>That has nothing to do with the top 20-30 schools, all of which are holistic, and all of which are unpredictable, despite the arrogance of believing that One’s High School is a representative and projectable sample of anything because it’s So Very Important that they owe the same number of acceptances each year. </p>
<p>The usual investment advice may apply - past performance does not necessarily predict future performance. </p>
<p>One reason I am conservative, especially looking at Naviance data, is that the college admissions process is fluid. Data from three, four, five years ago may be outdated, reflecting a different reality.</p>
<p>Take TJHSST, there was a time, not so long ago, when UVA was seen as a safety school. Dozens of kids enrolled (hundreds were accepted). Now the school reports an acceptance rate of under 50%. It’s not that the students are less capable, but that UVA has found new markets for students. They don’t have to accept so many from a single high school anymore.</p>
<p>I’d rather be conservative and be happily surprised than feel entitled and be disappointed.</p>
<p>If, as at our school, the GPAs are all unweighted, wouldn’t the Naviance data be misleading if not downright useless? A 3.7 with all honors/APs is very different than a 3.7 in General Ed classes, for example. Even if both students had strong SAT scores, I’d imagine their results would be very different. Without knowing rigor, what good are past results information based on GPA? Was that 3.7 2100 rejected because the student underachieved or b/c said college doesn’t accept many honors/AP 3.7 2100 students? I’m having trouble seeing what Naviance adds to my knowledge base. Seems like I’m better off looking at Fiske or the Common Data Sets given our unweighted GPA system. </p>
<p>Data, if Vanderbilt announces tomorrow that its application only asked for stats, and there was a chart that showed that kids with certain SAT scores and GPA were auto admits – then I’ll buy your argument. If that’s how CUNY Lehman does things, then fine, they are an exception to my rule. A savvy applicant will look at more than just the acceptance rate and look at policy. And look at the different acceptance rates for majors within schools. </p>
<p>But as long as Vanderbilt asks for essays and teacher recommendations, the ONLY statistic I need – the ONLY evidence I need to consider – is that 12.5% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>And we’re not – at least, I’m not – talking about foreign schools. That is not relevant to this conversation. My approach applies to kids applying to the top 100 schools – top universities and top LACs in the US.</p>
<p>You didn’t directly answer my question. Do you think it’s prudent for a top student to apply to ONLY Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford and Vanderbilt? Yes or no.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to give a bit of support to Data10 here. He’s arguing (and I think with some fairly persuasive evidence) that Vanderbilt, while very selective, is less holistic in its admission choices than HYPS etc.–if this is true, then a kid with very high stats might be justified in considering Vanderbilt to be a match. After all, a match is not a definite admit–it’s a place where most students like you get admitted. It’s certainly possible that if Vanderbilt relies heavily on stats, that a high-stats kid might reasonably think he has better than even odds of getting in.</p>
<p>It seems to me that there are several factors to consider: what is the admissions method (how holistic is it), how strong is the overall pool of applicants, and what is the quality of the data available on the experience of students like oneself. I think Data10 is now agreeing with me that very few students can treat Stanford as a match because of those factors.</p>
<p>But it depends on the student, too. Does anybody think Stanford is a reach for Malia Obama?</p>
<p>And that data may not be good even if the school inputs what they have correctly. One thing I noticed on our HS’s Naviance is that since the kids don’t have to report their ACT scores to the high school (and many, including mine, opted not to have ACT send their scores to the HS), the high school has no way of knowing what a student’s highest ACT score is. The school automatically gets the score from the ACT that is taken as part of the IL Prairie State test in April of junior year, but that may be the only score they get, and that April test is often the first ACT taken by students (and is often taken without prep). So we may be looking at a data point showing a 30 ACT score, when in fact that student took the ACT again in the fall of senior year and scored a 33 after prep - meaning that data point is very misleading</p>
<p>There are plenty of schools that admit on stats but say that they admit holistically as a CYA strategy. Or in other words, they admit 90-95% of their class on stats, but 5-10% are “holistic reads” because they have a certain institutional need (and that need may be for more boys, more local students, etc. . . ) Because they aren’t being honest with most students about how they read applications, it’s hard to know which schools are like this, but Naviance can be your guide. Does the scatter plot actually show scatter? If so, it’s a holistic read. If not, (or if there are only one or two odd data points) it’s only a nominal holistic read. At least if you have enough data points in Naviance.</p>
<p>A fuzzy scatter on Naviance may be due to a school using stats-formula admissions but having different thresholds by major or something like that.</p>
<p>Some more support for Data10 here. Having just caught up on the last 25 or so posts I’m a little disappointed is the logic of some of my fellow CCers. Data10 has made some measured observations with appropriate caveats. Others have twisted his words and arguments, cosntructed straw men, added a lot of emotion into the argument and then attacked his positions and him personally. Very poor behavior not to mention analysis.</p>