“I still don’t understand why high stats URMs are being denied . If they didn’t reject the hi stats URMs then maybe they wouldn’t be under represented any longer.”
I don’t think that anyone raised that specific point. The point that several made here is that the high stat URMs get in but also the average stat and subpar stat URM kids are also getting in.
You don’t need to worry about your friend, @twoinanddone. A recruited athlete in a popular sport will continue to be a BMOC anywhere he attends.
My takeaway from this year is that those without hooks (whatever they might be) need to aim lower and ED at colleges ranked 11 thru 25 or so. An SCEA or ED to the very tippy top without hooks is wasted and puts the applicant in the RD pool to her/his disadvantage, resulting in an admit to a college below 25 or so. Which still may be very fine but not what the applicant wanted.
^ I agree. My DD went 1 for 10 at top 20 USNWR National Universities including waitlists at Dartmouth, Penn, Northwestern and Duke. Given that she had above average stats for Duke and NU (and legacy at the latter) I think she would have gotten in at one of those if she had applied ED. In hindsight, her SCEA/ED bullet was wasted on Yale.
She went 7 for 7 on the rest of the schools that she applied to (the lowest ranked school was NEU at #39) which included two top 10 LACs.
@roycroftmom @londondad I predict that “ED Bullet” will be THE buzzword of October 2017.
I agree! Besides hooks, female applicants interested in LACs should particularly consider using the ED bullet to counter their often enormous overrepresentation in the applicant pool. My eldest applied to a school where she was comfortably over the stats, but given the 2 to 1 ratio of female to male applicants, not a safety by any means. She used the bullet to be sure.
For those of us with D’s interested in engineering, I’ve noticed that female applicants at some top schools have half the applications and twice the acceptance rate of male applicants (CalTech, GaTech, MIT for example).
@pantha33m Thanks. Is it too late for me to trademark “ED Bullet”? ;))
@londondad Good idea but just be careful doing a lot of googling with the phrase “ED”.
Am I the only one that finds this thread to be nothing but sour grapes from those who feel that their student was somehow wronged because they didn’t get into an Ivy+? My gosh! Such ridiculous statements being passed off as universal truths by a vocal minority. Move on folks. Your kids will do great wherever they will be attending. No one is entitled to an Ivy+ admission. Sorry your child wasn’t in the >60% of whites admitted and has to settle for a mere top 25 school (cry me a river).
*This is the most ridiculous thread on CC right now. It reads like the the Texas high school football forum’s loser’s lounge, which is really what this thread is.
@runswimyoga Actually I was being sarcastic.
But in case people on here don’t know - plenty of hi stats URMs are denied at the top schools. Also some lower than average kids are accepted without hooks. It’s called holistic admissions.
Yet many unhooked kids are still getting into schools 1 - 10(whatever those might be).
no sour grapes here, @itsgettingreal17. My kid didn’t want to and didn’t apply for top 25, is thrilled where she is attending, and I have no horse in this race, so to speak. Nor do I think the posters here are in a “loser’s lounge” (wow. did you really say that?). The statistics are what they are, and future applicants may wish to be well-informed in making their decisions. You are always free to ignore the stats and make whatever decisions you wish, but don’t criticize those who wish to do fact-finding.
I seemed to have missed the statistical analysis - can you kindly point me to the post(s) that did that.
well, I had stats in post 286 and you did in post 295, @Dolemite. In any event, I agree that the thread has outlived its usefulness, and am signing off-I wouldn’t want to stay in a “loser’s lounge” with people like me.
@shortnuke makes a good point that for females applying to engineering or CS, they may have a bit better than average results when applying to colleges that are working to correct a male:female imbalance. This tends to be STEM-focused colleges like Caltech, MIT, Mudd, RPI(?).
Engineering females in California need to be aware that the UC system and Calpoly are prevented for looking at gender (or race) in applications. So, there is no bump for being female when applying to engineering or CS at a UC.
We tried to talk our daughter into engineering (she has the aptitude) but she has no interest. Plans to get a math/analytics minor because she really likes math (will be more for fun because it won’t help her with her career goals – otherwise she would take no math in college). Son who just finished he second year in Chem E would definitely be happy to see more females in engineering. So he is very supportive of increased efforts to recruit more females into engineering. 
That’s common knowledge around these parts. If you want the legacy tip, you need to apply Early. (Otherwise, the Adcom may logically conclude that legacy school is not number one choice.)
Disagree. ED is a big plus factor, even for the unhooked. And those top ~10 colleges (however defined) tend to have the most generous fin aid. ED could be the ticket to a top 10 school at a big discount.
ED is a plus factor, but not that big. Remember, those ED admit rates include athletes and legacies. For unhooked applicants, ED gives an edge - but I would call it a ‘big’ plus factor.
Hey, maybe all top 30 schools will start taking 75+% of their class from ED and kids will just have to figure out what college they really want to attend by 11/1 and that will scale down app counts elsewhere.
Your suggestion is not far off, @suzyQ7! On other threads has been speculated that UChicago has filled its class of '21 by taking about 75% EA/ED1/ED2. Applying ED is a “big” plus factor, as you say, at certain top schools. But one has to research carefully what the admissions offices say in this regard. For instance, Harvard is very clear that SCEA won’t help you get it but Dartmouth is pretty clear that applying ED is a factor. Read what they say, listen at information sessions and ask if you are unsure before allowing your kid to apply ED. Otherwise, you may not get the “bump” you desire.
Attention rich folks…pick your school and then we’ll open the doors to the others.
As someone mentioned recently and I said earlier, I do think ED will continue to be a lever pulled by more and more folks. I don’t think it’s necessarily all bad, as what you’re seeing is the non-Ivy/Stanford top 25 become more and more competitive earlier. That alone isn’t good, but I do think students balancing a lightning strike at an ivy with the risk of being shut out of a top 25 school makes the use of that bullet more strategic.
There are huge inequities in the growth of ED, again tilted against those who need financial assistance. The strategy around ED is (for applicants / parents lucky enough to pay full price) IMO the most important decision they make in the entire process.
"Given that she had above average stats for Duke and NU (and legacy at the latter) I think she would have gotten in at one of those if she had applied ED.
That’s common knowledge around these parts. If you want the legacy tip, you need to apply Early. (Otherwise, the Adcom may logically conclude that legacy school is not number one choice.)"
I had been led to believe that for Northwestern that the legacy gave you a leg up for RD as well (compared to a place like Penn where the adcoms are explicit about the legacy bump being for ED only). Guess we got that one wrong!