Just a reminder that applying to many highly selective schools and getting in isn’t “taking spots away” from anyone. Like at all. Once the accepted students deny their offer of admission to one school, then someone gets off the waitlist.
Also, while @writergirl0316 is right that we only meant that an Ivy would be our choice if we don’t get into Stanford, don’t shame people based on what their safeties are. We all have different standards and expectations of ourselves. If someone wants to have Harvard, Oxford, and MIT as their safeties, then more power to them. And truthfully, you can’t argue that someone else stopped you from getting accepted if you weren’t even waitlisted. That means that there was a few more reasons you didn’t get in besides just the number of spots available (a large amount of kids had better test scores, a large amount had more impressive awards, etc.)
The college admissions process is humbling, but don’t blame others for your results.
@EPFutbol ,
Congrats for all your great acceptances!!
I am international too( my DD). Could you please post your stats and
If you asked for financial aid? It would be great help for
future international applicants!
@harrya
1510 SAT I (780M, 730RW), no SAT II due to financial reasons.
Did apply for financial aid, got full need-based and merit-aid for all of the colleges mentioned.
Perfect grades, near first in class. Almost played soccer professionally here but that didn’t work out.
@LondonVall, agree that technically students getting admitted in multiple schools are not really taking spots away from other deserving students necessarily Many schools are trying to “engineer” their freshman class to have a certain demographic and geographic makeup and most schools accept more students than there are spots counting on some of the accepted students to not commit by May 1st. Only when some spots remain under subscribed after May 1st do they even go into the waitlist. That said, I would argue the fundamental premise that decisions are purely based on academic/extra curricular excellence as schools hide behind the buzzword “holistic” admissions process. Ergo my handle Holistic2. While I wouldn’t go as far as the lawsuit against Harvard of alleged discrimination against certain groups of individuals (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/harvard-justice-department-discrimination.html?), I would say that colleges have a right to choose the makeup of incoming freshman class and if they consistently choose less than able candidates, they do so to their own detriment as the class they choose to accept will ultimately impact the stature of the college compared to their peers. Then again, if every peer college is doing the same thing because it is politically correct to do so, the overall standards may suffer. Am I advocating a pure meritocracy? Not necessarily. Meritocracy within reason as many aspects of an individual’s application are not graded on a scale of A through F.
@minajestynic I didn’t apply to any literal “safeties” after I got into Harvard EA. However, my “back ups,” aka the schools I can choose from if I don’t get into Stanford, are Harvard and Columbia. I only applied to Columbia, Stanford, and MIT for the RD round. Likely letter and later accepted as a C. P. Davis “named scholar” from Columbia, rejected by MIT, and waiting on, obviously, Stanford.
@TheOneAndOnlyT-Rex Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Columbia are my only safeties with a big name. They are also amazing institutions but Stanford is my top choice.
