<p>Inspired by recent heated discussion. Stats qualifer below is taken directly from the prior thread.</p>
<p>2250+/34+ ACT
3.9+ UW GPA
"most rigorous" curriculum (however your school decides it)</p>
<p>It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to note that "stats" only qualify you as a viable unhooked applicant for the elite schools. For these purposes, let's say schools with an admit rate <20%. IMO, ALL such schools are high reaches for unhooked applicants no matter your stats, and still reaches for the hooked.</p>
<p>What's a hook? URM, recruitable athletic ability, development (donate $$$), faculty (and sometimes staff) brat, QuestBridge finalist. "Tips"--less of a factor than hooks, but with some generalizable impact--include legacy, first-generation, non-QB low-income (less obvious to recruit), TASP/RSI (summer programs), known national awards/ECs (e.g. Scholastic Art & Writing, Siemens/Intel).</p>
<p>Now that you're qualified--essays and extracurriculars! Positioning is always important, of course, but perhaps this thread can serve as a newbie support group. I'll start off with a few anecdotal points of contention:</p>
<ul>
<li>Many of the top LACs, including schools as selective as Amherst, Swarthmore, or Middlebury, actively recruit Asian students. High stats are usually a prerequisite.</li>
<li>Dartmouth and Cornell are comparatively kinder to high-stat unhooked students with "meaningful but not unique ECs" (someone else said this in the other thread and it struck a chord with me).</li>
<li>I can share two specific anecdotes regarding Cornell and "merit-in-need" FA packaging. 1) They matched a significant merit scholarship from Chicago; 2) they offered a very attractive hooked student an "enhanced" FA package that exceeded those of Princeton and MIT.</li>
<li>Consider applying for the EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE full-ride/tuition scholarships offered by elite schools like Duke, WashU, Vanderbilt, Davidson... Swarthmore if you live on the Delmarva Peninsula... I'm sure I've missed some.</li>
</ul>
<p>^^“Consider applying for the EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE full-ride/tuition scholarships offered by elite schools like Duke, WashU, Vanderbilt, Davidson… Swarthmore if you live on the Delmarva Peninsula… I’m sure I’ve missed some.” </p>
<p>And I’ll second the “extremely competitive” bit. My very outstanding S was admitted to CMU (6 years ago) and I really thought he had a chance at one of their scholarships that would have made it possible for him to go there. Um, no. </p>
<p>But now he’s working for Google, so he did ok. ;)</p>
<p>^^I did, thanks menloparkmom! A bunch of high-stat kids from my school (in DE) are going to USC. One even picked it over Cornell, and Cornell was cheaper.</p>
<p>It’s common knowledge that the Ivies and some of the great LACs in the NESCAC conference value athletic ability, but I think few people are aware that athletic talent (if possessed by top students) can be leveraged at some other highly selective LACs and mid-sized universities such as Chicago, WUSTL, Emory, Pomona, Claremont, etc. If you qualify academically, even if you’re not at the tippy top, don’t hesitate to emphasize the hook if you’re a reasonably good club/high school athlete.</p>
<p>D3 athletic recruiting is a definite hook–no guarantee, but a hook, especially with an ED application–at LACs.</p>
<p>I also want to emphasize that IF you have done your homework and IF you qualify for significant NEED-based FA, applying ED can be a useful strategy to leverage.</p>
<p>NoIdeaDad - Do you mean merit scholarships in general or the “elite” merit scholarships I mentioned in the OP? For the former, you will want to explore CC’s many prior threads, or make a new thread asking for pointers. For the latter, high ACT/SAT and GPA and SAT IIs (subject tests) and strong ECs/essay are only the prerequisite… they sometimes send candidates through multiple interview rounds, and it will come down to that (often quantified as the elusive quality of “character”).</p>
<p>There are threads on this. Some schools give 1/2 or 3/4 tuition scholarships for specific SAT or ACT scores AND high GPA. </p>
<p>They realize high test scores mean nothing if you can’t show you are a good worker. And a high GPA means nothing if you haven’t learned enough to do well on standardized tests.</p>
<p>Anyone care to enlighten me as to exactly how competitive the Duke Robertson + other extremely selective scholarships are? A comparison to say the competition at HYPS would be helpful. I’ll provide my stats if needed.</p>
<p>Duke Robertson is probably slightly more competitive than HYPS. But they look for different things; my understanding is that the Robertson cares a LOT about nebulous characteristics like “character” as assessed through essays and interviews, though high stats + commensurate EC profile are a prerequisite.</p>
<p>I’m tired of this ‘facbrat’ thing that someone started on CC (I recall, as it was the first time I ever heard of this). I’d like some verification please, from someone! </p>
<p>As a faculty member of 20 years, overseeing a professional association of faculty members, and about 80% of my friends are faculty (at a wide range of schools)… but I have yet to know of a school that gives preference to faculty (or staff) kids. Never heard of a personal case. </p>
<p>Maybe I’m wrong and so that is cool, show me and that would be interesting! I really want to know!</p>
<p>Yes, many faculty (and staff) get tuition discounts or even free tuition; but preferential treatment in selection-- well I have yet to learn about this. Until I have some facts, I’ll call it a myth.</p>
<p>^Don’t know who started it first on CC. I personally first heard of it from Daniel Golden’s recent book, THE PRICE OF ADMISSION, which is reliable in other respects. I believe, but can’t say for sure, that a strong bias toward faculty children was also mentioned in 100,000 ADMISSIONS DECISIONS, an old (decade+) book written by a Stanford dean of admissions shortly after she left the career.</p>
<p>I remember reading somewhere–in a BOOK, not on CC–that an extremely rare decision reversal at a top (not elite, I don’t think, but nonetheless selective) school was due to misclassification of staff-offspring status.</p>
<p>USC has full tuition scholarships as well, and will award half-tuition to non-NMFs (who may have done better on SATs than PSATs).</p>
<p>By themselves, your stats won’t impress any of the schools you’re referring to for purposes of merit (well, perhaps for the lower merit scholarships at WashU and Vandy). High-level national ECs, coupled with an outstanding essay, would help.</p>
<p>Thanks for the sources Keilexandra. Clearly it would show up in the ‘Price of Admission’ as it would be a great bit of proof for his thesis, but where was the evidence? The book on Stanford admissions at this point is pretty dated, even if it was true for awhile in the past. </p>
<p>I want to go on record that I do not believe being an applicant with a faculty member as a parent does not help the applicant. I would like it to be the case (for self-interested reasons), but I do not believe its true. I went to a tippy top grad school so my network of friends are clearly at the of top their game, everyone is tenured, some are dept chairs, and some are Deans at this point. We all have kids at the college-entry phase, we talk about this issue, and NO ONE has ever heard of this happening: not only has no one experienced it, but no one has heard of it as even hearsay or as happening to a ‘friend of a friend’. So there aren’t even rumors about it, let alone anyone had their kid get into the school they work at. Legacy, yes, and some have found that to work well, but no one has found a ‘hook’ via being a faculty member, even a high status one. You would think if this were real, we’d have heard something at this point in our careers.</p>
<p>I agree that the Stanford admissions book is dated. My GC’s office has a copy of Golden’s book, so I’ll try to borrow it and post a reference quote if I find it. (Alternatively, I might just have a really bad memory. It has been known to happen.)</p>