<p>“GC’s at some private schools DO get those calls from Admission officers that they have developed close relationships with”</p>
<p>I do hear the same stories about some private schools GCs and elite college adcoms. Their goal is to get their kids spreadout well at the top schools and the private school does not gain anything by getting the same kid admitted to five top schools if they can push 5 different kids to five top schools.</p>
<p>So it is important for them to know which kid has which school at the top of their list. </p>
<p>It was explained to me that the taboo was against the old practice of the college rep and GC having their annual pow-wow each March to cherry pick which of the kids from that HS would get the nod. What is permissible is a conversation about an individual applicant so long as it is directed, whether over a mundane concern over a missing piece of the app to a more material information-gathering, e.g., at our school, GCs field a lot of calls about non-standard curricula and grading. I think a discussion of yield potential is borderline, but I can envision an admission rep wanting to know before making a pitch to committee for a particular applicant whether the applicant is still even available. Too many kids don’t promptly withdraw apps when they’ve made other choices. Fielding that inquiry, a GC can either say no, the applicant decided to take an EA or rolling offer, or yes, the applicant is still very interested. I think it would be ethically dangerous for a GC to attempt to further qualify the level of interest, although I think it’s likely a GC will close the conversation with a light bit of advocacy if the kid’s desires are known, e.g., your college has been at the top of his list since I first met with him soph year or she hasn’t stopped talking about X at your school since she visited.</p>
<p>Sure, send them a mailing - but six (I think the count was, I might have missed some). She got mailings from other schools where she stood no realistic chance, but one, not six.</p>
<p>If UChicago was really giving serious consideration to low-stat kids, then maybe it would make some sense. But they essentially admit no one with SATs below 600 (1% math and 2% CR). I strongly doubt they are plowing in detail through thousands of application packets of kids with 1200 M+CR scores.</p>
<p>In the world of UChicago and WASHU mailings, 6 is child’s play And again, they have no idea what your child’s broader academic profile is. She could have had the flu on PSAT day for all they know but may have made the master list based on HS profile.</p>
<p>The reason its admit rate is way down–and yield rate up–is that a lot more people are applying and want to go there. Obviously UChicago has always had an amazing education, but the recent rise in U.S. News rankings had an immediate effect on yield this year.</p>
<p>Why are you being disingenuous, Annasdad? You attack and question several posters when they question your credibility in this thread. YET:</p>
<p>You definitely did not have “The strategy there, she said she was told, is to lower NW’s admission rate to Ivy level, again to raise the USNWR ranking.” in the original post and instead had some BS about yield. </p>
<p>And now you add some more likely embellished information:</p>
<p>(Off topic: I talked to the mother of one of the students who was admitted and is not going. The deal-killer - when the student had to submit to a grilling by an armed security guard when she wandered into a classroom building to get a drink of water during an accepted student visit.)</p>
<p>A ton of people in this thread don’t believe a thing you’ve said. i can’t blame them.</p>
<p>When a kid has been waitlisted, the advice is often given to have the GC call the school and tell them the kid will attend if accepted–obviously, a GC will not want to do this unless the kid really will do so, because otherwise the GC loses credibility. I also imagine that it may sometimes be a good strategy to let the first choice school know that it really is the first choice, especially if the kid looks like he might be more likely to go elsewhere. I see no reason why a GC couldn’t do this as well. What’s troubling to me is the idea that the college would ask the GC this question–it really puts the GC in an untenable situation.</p>
<p>I became very close with D1’s GC at our kids’ prep school few years back.(Believe it or not, I was one of those low maintenance parents.) She told me that they made calls to every school students applied to, and in Mar before the decision was made, they would have a conference call with top tier school’s rep to go over each applicant. What I gathered it was more to give reps better color of each applicant. From the conference call, GC could get a sense which applicant had a better chance of getting in, but nothing definite. </p>
<p>When D1 was deferred from ED to the Columbia’s RD pool, the rep did tell the GC that she was going to push very hard for D1, but they had a very strong pool for that year. She said if she couldn’t get D1 in then she would recommend to reject D1 instead of putting her on WL.</p>
<p>D1’s GC didn’t admit it, but I did get the sense that she knew which school D1 was accepted/WL/rejected before actual decision date. </p>
<p>D2’s international school was a complete different story. When I asked her GC about whether she discussed with reps about applicants, she said, “Yes, if they should call with any questions.”</p>
<p>Good GCs at those private schools will “manage” their students by getting students with hooks (or top top students) locked in during the ED round, to get them out of the way. What they don’t want is to have few applicants in the RD round to take up every top school’s acceptance.</p>
<p>Hunt, our school will not make waitlist calls until any peer waitlistees have firmly committed elsewhere. More of the taboo against even the appearance of showing preference for one applicant over the other. But if you’re the only/last man standing, yes, that is the one time they’ve said they will advocate for you.</p>
<p>oldfort, I wonder if your D1 prep GCs still follow that practice? I thought an ethical guideline limiting that had been passed in recent years, likely post-D1 (such guideline being the cited basis for the practices I discussed above). Obviously, it would be naive not to believe old ways die hard. And there’s certainly a codespeak benefit between longtime GCs and their college rep counterparts.</p>
<p>I think you need to go back and read the original post again, very carefully; doing so will clearly review that the statement you said was not in the original post in fact was. The comment about yield referred to UChicago; the comment about admission rate to Northwestern.</p>
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<p>Ever been in the area around the UChicago campus? Especially south of the Midway? It’s very understandable that they would employ armed security guards in their buildings, and those guards would grill somebody who walks in off the street without any university identification. It’s also understandable that a student raised in suburbia (as this one was) would react as she did.</p>
<p>If you don’t choose to believe it, that doesn’t exactly ruin my day.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that people talk about U Chicago spamming large amounts of advertising. I think I got exactly one book from them over the past year (which I requested!), compared to, say, WashU with their 11 booklets.</p>
<p>snipersas - I think my D got all your mail and probably all your classmates’ too. :p</p>
<p>Seriously, you did not get their postcards every week? We got two cards each.</p>
<p>A parent on CC mentioned that their private school pushed a bunch of students to a specific ivy and got several of them admitted. The parent felt that their kid may have been talked down due to an SCEA admit elsewhere and GC was trying to help the other kids.</p>
<p>Nope - and I’m attending the school next year. I do wonder why they skipped over me, though; since pretty much every other school sent me large amounts of marketing material.</p>
<p>Yes and yes–and I’ve never seen armed guards asking for ID or grilling people who walk into buildings. They do limit access to the dorms as they should, but the people at the desk are not armed guards.</p>
<p>They were very interesting puzzles etc - trying to show how UC stands out and is quirky. I was certain they admitted only those kids who filled the puzzles out and mailed them back. You must be an exception.</p>
<p>Did you follow the scavenger hunt online recently?</p>
<p>If you take say the top 5 or 10 candidates from a public magnet like Annasdad’s D’s school, there aren’t plenty of qualified candidates which are comparable. Not thousands of people, which is how many people get admitted to Northwestern every year.</p>
<p>It’s not about NU owing the bricks-and-mortar of high schools. It’s about them owing it to themselves as an educational institution to open up their educational opportunities to those who are best able and motivated to use them.</p>
<p>S got virtually no mail from UChi outside of a couple of the books; once admitted EA he got the scarf and another book; iirc. He did not check the box on the PSAT asking for info (or however that works).</p>
<p>I know his small private school’s GC had meaningful chats with the UChi area rep. S was the only applicant from his school (the school typically averages one or none per year). I am reasonably sure the “will he attend” yield question was asked.</p>
<p>Texaspg, he got no puzzles; I’m intrigued to know what you’re referring too. I would have loved that!</p>
<p>And annasdad, that armed guard story is bogus. With all due respect, it sounds like your D has issues, not UChicago security.</p>
<p>Mutti - They would send a rolled up post card with questions and a card that you can send back?</p>
<p>“Give us your numbers. Save the GPA for your college applications. We want batting averages, height-in-cubits, ratio of Facebook friends to frenemies…your essential stats.”</p>
<p>See some answers sent back by prospects. There were several different themes about Chicago numbers and asking to send back the prospect’s numbers.</p>
<p>There were lots of other things too. They just dried up a week after EA app was filed.</p>
And again, they have no idea what your child’s broader academic profile is. She could have had the flu on PSAT day for all they know but may have made the master list based on HS profile.</p>