So I shotgunned.. what's the big deal?

Applying to College
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‘@epiphany‌ , yes, my daughter was hooked, but she/we still felt the need to apply to many schools. According to cc folks, my hooked daughter with her stats and EC’s should have applied to just a few schools, but we didn’t feel safe in doing that, therefore the high number of apps. I just see it as covering all your bases.’

Those “cc folks” were wrong in that case because QB is an entirely different process. You had two things going on: A Hooked student and QB. Entirely different scenarios, making the admissions cycle fluid, dynamic, and mutual. Your D’s case is not like the OP’s here. He is standard (non QB) and unhooked.

I will not derail the thread, but it’s a GREAT different topic: That is, should there be something like a QB process for unhooked students as well? While, as I said earlier,the QB process “invites” shotgunning, it does so nevertheless from a somewhat different framework. The part I like about it is that there are some constraints on the student’s part, due to the finite list of colleges which are part of the program.

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'There was a student last year who made national news for shotgunning all ivies. It was news because he was admitted to all of them."

WAS HE HOOKED?

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‘@epiphany Actually. No. And that was not my LOCAL paper. And it was not written in a school newspaper. Again, you can believe what you want. You’re entitled to your opinion. That is NOT the story I am talking about. This girl was already admitted, was at an orientation, and trashed the school. You are choosing to misinterpret my words. I’m done discussing this.’

Oh, I see. You’re “done discussing this” because you have no citations to give me. I believe cited works. If you have concrete proof of the above, then PM me and I’ll believe that the ONLY REASON the student was denied was because she criticized, in a non-inflammatory, non-disrespectful, non-vulgar way, an orientation. That’s what you ORIGINALLY claimed. You didn’t say she “trashed the [whole] school.” You said she trashed the ORIENTATION. You represented or at least implied that she merely made one critical comment on Twitter. Now the “story” is different.

If you were able to stand by the contention that all she did was make one negative comment about an event (an orientation) and did so in subdued enough tones, then you would send me that proof.

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Assuming that students still apply primarily to matches (and I don’t know if they actually do or not), I wonder if there are more “reach” applications or more “safety” applications in the system as a whole.

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I don’t see this thread as having “morphed into a thread where we basically discuss anything we want” (post #295). Rather, I see serious posters on either side of the issue trying to ascertain whether shotgunning makes sense, and whether there might be a down side for applicants to be writing in such detail about it on CC. “Laughing out loud” about the posts (again, post #295) kind of puzzles me, when we are talking about ramifications for applicants at this level of achievement. Other original posters might actually have taken some pride in having started a thread that has generated this level of discussion.

I would suggest that an important factor to consider is that in RD especially, Adcoms are not only looking for people to admit, they are looking as well for applicants to “weed out” in order to make their decision pools smaller. In the rarefied atmosphere of the prestige schools, having a downward trajectory in grades, and ECs that are only “meh,” could be two very significant obstacles for any applicant. Given these constraints, I think the shotgunning–if one absolutely must do it and can envision no other successful path–could be done far more effectively:

First, apply ED somewhere. Statistically, one has a much better shot at admission than trying to get in RD, especially if you carefully research what each school looks for in their ED candidates. If “fit” truly is of absolutely no consequence, all the more reason to try the ED route since one can be happy anywhere that is prestigious.

Next, apply to at least 50 of the top undergrad business/finance programs. It seems arbitrary to have stopped at 31. The common app opens August 1st. Can do, say, 5 per week for 10 weeks.

Visit 5 of the schools that your research shows you have the best chance of getting in, so those essays don’t have to be cut and paste jobs.

And forget safeties all together. There are some applicants who just would not be happy under any circumstances attending a school that they consider is beneath their intellectual level.

If there are zero admissions, take a gap year to work on improving ECs, and then try again next year, perhaps expanding the pool to 75. Again, I think this approach is expensive & inefficient, and IMO, one disregards “fit” at their peril. But if one has to do it, maybe this could increase chance of admission by a slight increment.

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Not that all TJ students will be shoo-ins for the “most competitive marks” but I would say, a very large portion of TJ students are aiming for top 20 schools (if not just MIT). They are among the top students in Virginia, if not the country.

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“Adcoms are not only looking for people to admit, they are looking as well for applicants to “weed out” in order to make their decision pools smaller.”

Yes. They’re looking for reasons to reject. They have too many reasons to admit already.

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@SlackerMomMD Okay, I don’t know anything about “TJ”. I am specifically referring to students who were accepted at selective institutions. Shortly into Fall term, the newspaper will run a poll of Freshmen to divine information that might not otherwise be released by Admissions.
Before anyone gets all excited about things found in those polls, I will point out that they are self-reported polls.

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The student who got into all Ivies was hooked, URM.

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@MidwestDad3‌ At that point, the conversation had turned primarily to the effect that derogatory social media posts and public comments can make on an adcom’s decision, which had little to do with the original topic, and the thread seemed to be derailed. Please accept my sincerest apologies for my ignominious comments and for being such an ungrateful OP. 8-|

Fit is certainly not of absolutely no consequence. The strategy was simply to apply first, then find fit, as opposed to finding fit, and then applying. I did say that prestige is perhaps more important than fit, but to an extent. If I despise Dartmouth, I’m not going to pick it over Johns Hopkins, just because it is one place higher in rankings. I didn’t ED because I didn’t (and still don’t) have a top-choice school.

The number of schools was not arbitrary. Top 30 US News is the cutoff for “prestigious” schools, and everything following is mediocre at best (in the eyes of my family, at least), with specific exceptions like UT and A&M for petroleum engineering for instance, or NYU for finance. These exceptions were taken into account.

Edit: Your rhetoric is fallacious there by the way - that’s slippery slope. 31, as I said, wasn’t arbitrary. I picked schools that I would want to go to (based on prestige and perhaps one or two other factors), and then I added in safeties and targets.

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“The student who got into all Ivies was hooked, URM.”

Just as I figured.

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The part I’m not getting @Baloney1011 is why safeties play any role whatsoever in your strategy.

@SlackerMomMD noted “the prevailing advice on CC was apply to two-three safeties, some number of matches (3?) and then any number of reaches you please.” To me, this makes a lot of sense where the applicant has visited a “safety” school, seen some aspects of it that they really like, and can envision themselves being a student there even if it isn’t necessarily the “best” school that they hope to get into.

But it seems like your family wouldn’t approve anything that is not prestigious. And you’ve indicated that you need a prestige school for your career. So realistically, aren’t safeties a non-starter in your case? Since there have got to be more than 31 universities that have business programs that are above “mediocre,” why not just apply to as many as it takes to get into one, and forget about any safeties? I was guessing that 50 might do it, but I really don’t have any idea how many it would take to be assured of an admit.

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I’m presuming the idea of a “safety” is to ensure that OP will, indeed, be attending some college in the fall? Although the odds seem against it with OP’s approach and stats, there is always the possibility that he will get 30 rejections, so that one sure bet could be important…?

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"Okay, I don’t know anything about “TJ”. I am specifically referring to students who were accepted at selective institutions. "

@JustOneDad‌, forgive me. I fell into the bad habit of writing in shorthand. By ‘TJ’, I meant the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA (the abbreviation is the rather clunky TJHSST so often ‘TJ’ for short). In past years, it traditionally been the number one high school in the US. About a third of the students qualify for NMSF and another 40-some percent are commended students - this means that the NMSF students may equal or outnumber the poor students who don’t even make commended. I assumed that many ‘TJ’ students will be accepted in and attend elite colleges and universities.

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“The number of schools was not arbitrary. Top 30 US News is the cutoff for “prestigious” schools, and everything following is mediocre at best (in the eyes of my family, at least), with specific exceptions like UT and A&M for petroleum engineering for instance, or NYU for finance. These exceptions were taken into account.”

This is America. Your family’s perceptions are faulty and stupid. It’s great to shoot for the stars, but to imply that anything below 30 is “mediocre” suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of US colleges.

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@Pizzagirl‌ Perhaps for other industries, yes, but for investment banking, no. Just visit Wall Street Oasis if you think I’m wrong.

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Right, but there’s no real reason you want to be in IB other than you’re 17 and a bunch other 17 yo’s think it would be cool because you don’t know anything about the wide variety of jobs out there

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Haven’t read the whole thread, but this topic comes up frequently. If a student does their due diligence and really researches schools that are either academically, socially or financially good options for them, then they don’t have to throw 31 applications at the wall to see what sticks.

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@Pizzagirl what a shame… At #31 on US News, Boston College just barely missed the mark for being prestigious. So close, yet so far.

Question OP: why the attachment to US News? Why not look at other rankings as well? It’s because you would realize how ridiculous it is to weigh the quality of academics based on rank. You would see a very different picture if you looked elsewhere. I mean, when you look at Forbes rankings, NYU is #72, Vanderbilt is #54, Michigan is #45, Berkeley is #34, and Cornell is #31. All of which are extremely prestigious and would miss the top 30 mark for you. You can’t just use rankings to decide which school has the best academics. So many rankings encompass different things at different weights.

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@Pizzagirl‌ Why would you assume that? You don’t know anything about me. Please stop arbitrarily insulting me.