Tell me your worst rejection stories

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1296843-why-me-cant-believe.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1296843-why-me-cant-believe.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Well, not quite shut out, since the OP in that thread got three waitlists along with six rejections. But waitlists may not hold much hope.</p>

<p>This year might be a bloodbath if the recently posted freshman admission thresholds at San Jose State are any indication:</p>

<p>[SJSU</a> Admission](<a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1327.html]SJSU”>http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1327.html)</p>

<p>The SAT-based eligibility index = GPA * 800 + SAT-CR + SAT-M. For what was once considered a moderately selective state university, there are now several majors where a 3.5 GPA and 1200 SAT score were insufficient to gain admission or at the very bottom threshold of gaining admission (eligibility index = 4000). The eligibility index thresholds appear to be significantly higher for fall 2012 than for fall 2011.</p>

<p>It is likely that many applicants’ safeties will turn out to be anything but safeties based on academic criteria.</p>

<p>The young man in the Why me? thread applied to a bunch of schools that could never be considered safeties, though, not just based on his GPA but in general. It appears that he had quite a bit of inluence from his overly optimistic father in compiling his list. Applying to OOS highly selective publics with a GPA well below their acceptance threshold is not a “shut out” story. It’s a poor planning story.</p>

<p>I think that most kids would be better served applying to schools that matched their unweighted GPA’s. Most colleges seem to unweight grades anyway, at least that is what we have been told at the many schools we have visited over the years.</p>

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<p>Students aren’t reflections of their high schools, though. My kids should not be evaluated a certain way because some other kid from their high school did X four years ago. That’s just stupid, sloppy thinking. They have nothing in common with that kid other than that kid’s parents and I choose to live in the same area.</p>

<p>And part of an institutional bias that elite schools have is to expand their reach into geographic areas and schools that AREN’T represented, not to keep on with the same handful of private and elite public schools that the denizens of CC think constitute the entire universe.</p>

<p>I’m surprised he got rejected by Minnesota.</p>

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<p>Exhibiting off-putting attitudes? Do the adcoms track the personalities of students who matriculate … Gosh, that girl from XYZ High School turned out to be a real pill, we’ll show XYZ and never admit any students from XYZ ever again? Somehow I doubt it.</p>

<p>post #205 He applied to CSE which is likely quite competative and maybe more than general pool. Still - 3.1 is low for a state flagship “safety” app.</p>

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<p>True, but many people underestimate the competitiveness of specific divisions or majors at schools which are generally not that selective. At schools where selectivity varies by division and/or major (which is probably most state universities and a non-trivial percentage of private universities), assessing whether a school is a safety based on overall freshman class averages may result in selecting “safeties” which are not safeties for the desired division or major. The same thing can mean that “matches” may really be reaches.</p>

<p>That makes more sense. I guess I was thinking of Minnesota’s liberal arts college.</p>

<p>ucbalumnus - that’s exactly what I said - I thought. He applied to the College of Science and Engineering which he might have expected to be quite competative. Maybe he would have had a better chance in the College of Liberal Arts.</p>

<p>RE: post 198</p>

<p>I’m not argguing, just genuinely curious. Once students are admitted and matriculate to a college, do people at that college actually keep tabs on grades/behavior to come to the opinion that the kids coming out of a specific high school look better on paper than their performance indicates? Is that what the admissions rep for that region does?</p>

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<p>For most kids, this may be true. The problem with this strategy, though, is that GPA without a sense of the academic context in which is was achieved is meaningless. My D attends a public magnet school that draws kids from 50 middle schools. Her GPA, while decent, is definitely lower than it would be if she attended the regular public high school down the street (her default option). She pursued a challenging specialized curriculum in the company of other similarly motivated kids. If she were to limit herself to applying to schools that list her GPA as the average, she’d probably be shooting too low. </p>

<p>This is where Naviance is helpful. It shows where students from a given school are actually getting in, and the information is more relevant to the students at that school than generally published averages.</p>

<p>Also, some schools don’t use unweighted GPA. I have no clue what mine is, the school doesn’t ever calculate it, and our school doesn’t use naviance. </p>

<p>What people do know is general facts about where kids from previous classes were accepted/rejected, and what those kids class ranks and scores were. It’s a small school, so it’s pretty common knowledge. We rarely have the scenario of students getting rejected by many schools, but rather students applying to all safeties with maybe one match and no real reaches, and receiving all acceptances by reaching low. Though, we are a public school in an affluent area, and most students are looking for a lot of merit money.</p>

<p>We’re definitely not a top public school, but our best students do get into some of the best schools. I think less has to do with your high school than many applicants think. Of course, admissions will take the strength of your high school into account when evaluating your class rank.</p>

<p>My school doesn’t calculate unweighted GPA. So while my class rank is decent, my actual letter grades are a whole different story.</p>

<p>I calculated my younger son’s GPA every which way, since I thought the schools system was overly optimistic. (All his orchestra A+'s were counted.) In the end though the school’s Naviance and his rank ended up helping him. But he had a safety that really was safe.</p>

<p>I know this thread is a bit old, but I’m not sure where to put this. A lot of people earlier seemed to express interest in my college results and right now I have great news: I just found out I got into Wellesley! Turns out I was one out of five people who got in after a likely! Although Wellesley is not my #1 choice, I am already super grateful for the opportunity to go to this great school. Now I just have to wrangle with my parents about how they shouldn’t be scared by the Boston weather. More news is going to come in soon, and I’d be happy to keep you all updated.</p>

<p>Awesome news, chaosakita. Please do keep us updated. I predict at least a few more acceptances from similarly great schools. Many, many people have endured winter in the northeast and lived to talk about it. Just remind your parents that they’re not going to school in Boston.</p>

<p>Temperature today in Wellesley: 77 degrees. Tomorrow: 82 degrees. </p>

<p>(Of course last year at this time there was probably about a foot of the 6 feet of snow we got in Jan/Feb that was still trying to melt…)</p>

<p>I’m not sure if you remember me but I’m the one who said they also got a possible and consequently was freaking out about not getting in anywhere. Well, I got into Wellesley too! So glad it worked out for both of us.</p>

<p>congrats, ladies!</p>