Agreed. I also don’t think getting rejected 6 weeks earlier with the message “you weren’t even close” is going to serve to preserve self esteem.
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Unfortunately there are suicides during college and not just the Ivies but at a wide array of schools
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You’re absolutely right. However, when students see that the stats of the rejected applicants are not far off (or are pretty identical to) the stats of the kids who are accepted, then maybe they’ll start thinking that they’re not likely to be part of the 5% accepted and are more likely to be part of the 95% that’s rejected/waitlisted.
Well…maybe. But if you are anxious about the Ivies, all you will do is compare your stats to the accepted student ones….and then wonder why they did not get accepted.
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Unfortunately, the more likely scenario is that the students see that some kids with similar stats got admitted and so they believe that they will be among the 5%. Humans are notoriously bad at calculating probabilities, especially when they desperately prefer the less probable outcome.
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When a kid posts a “Chance Me For All 8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and UChicago…” thread, I just want to type “REACH - YOU PROBABLY WON’T GET INTO ANY OF THEM” in about 30 font size and bolded italic. At least that would set a proper expectation.
There are caveats, of course – massive hooks mainly – but at least that would hopefully bring about a more realistic outlook.
I just don’t have the heart to step on their dreams – but someone (probably their parents and/or guidance counselors…) should.
And then “What about these schools draws you to them?”
And then “Are you also applying to schools whose acceptance rates aren’t in the single digits?”
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So if a college does a brochure and posts on its website the following information, you still don’t think students & families are going to get a clue?
Percentage of Applicants Admitted: 5%
Percentage of Applicants Denied: 95%
SAT Range of Accepted Applicants: 1530-1580
SAT Range of Denied Applicants: 1520-1570
Percentage of Accepted Students in the top 10% of their class: 99%
Percentage of Denied Students in the top 10% of their class: 98%
Percentage of Students who Accept their Waitlist Offer who Receive an Acceptance: 0.00001%
I’m sorry, but if the information is laid out that bluntly, then there’s really nothing else college’s can do.
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Are most top colleges advertising the “SAT Range of Denied Applicants” and “Percentage of Denied Students in the top 10% of their class?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, at least not prominently, but maybe I missed it?
I have seen is kids focus on the mid 50% range of admitted students and think that they are in this range they have a good chance, when the reality is they have very little chance.
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This is from Duke back in 2018 so things have only gotten crazier. They hardly sugar coated the odds.
I remember sitting in a room full of kids who upon hearing these stats surveyed the room sympathetically in consideration of the 71% of their peers who were valedictorians that were soon to get rejected, while all believing they would get in.
Regardless of what or how you cut it there will be disappointment and ultimately that is not the worst thing in life to experience at a young age.
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How many parents and kids in the US (or even around the world) EVEN KNOW to look deeper than the rack-rate median or mean SAT/ACT scores and GPAs for admitted students posted by the colleges?
How many of those same people (parents and kids) realize that there is rampant grade inflation at numerous levels of US education, most importantly for these purposes, at the HS level? In other words, the GPA is somewhat meaningless.
How many of those same people know that these rack rate standardized tests are very misleading/understated as they include “hooked” students who can bring down the scores?
How many of those same people know what the CDS is?
How many of those same people even know what “hooked” means and how that term and its implications profoundly affect admissions to many “top schools”? What FG/LI means? What ED means? etc etc
I knew NONE of these things until spending time on CC starting just a few years ago. I would never even have thought to look behind average GPAs and standardized tests scores. But for this wonderful website and some really patient folks walking me through the overwhelming complexities of college admissions, I would NEVER have known any of this.
If my kid had the stated GPA and standardized test score advertised on the college’s admissions website pages, I can really understand why both my kid and me would be disappointed if it was a rejection decision. We would feel that our applicant “met the grade”, so should have been in that 3%or whatever admit rate.
As I used to say, “I may be dumb, but I ain’t stupid.” I’m reasonably well-educated and informed. The folks on CC are extremely knowledgeable. Most people aren’t because they don’t even know that they need to be. Is it any wonder that kids are sorely disappointed?
There is a clear strand on this (and many) threads that it is the parents’ and kids’ “fault.” I agree, but beg to also disagree: there is plenty of blame to go around, including the colleges. I’ve referred to it as an “asymmetry of information” in another thread, and that’s what we are dealing with here.
To the extent that colleges, rankings, etc contribute to that asymmetry, they too are culpable.
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No, this does not happen, that I am aware of. @thumper1 was responding to my earlier post where I solved all the problems of the college admissions world 
and suggested that schools should also post the stats of the denied applicants. Thumper pointed out that admissions at the most selective/rejective institutions are holistic, and then we had a little back and forth where you joined in. 
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Nearly half of the US population buy lottery tickets, some of which have odds of winning less than one in a billion. The long odds never seem to dissuade these people, even the ones least able to afford buying these tickets. What makes anyone think that the odds of college admissions at 5% (or even 1%) are going to deter these students and their families, if they think they still have a chance, any chance?
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Posting stats of rejected students is an interesting idea, but it could be misleading because so much of admissions is compartmentalized, and a 1510 from from one demographic may be viewed entirely differently than for a kid from a different demographic.
And still, even with better, information, I think kids from certain demographics (especially high performing kids from decent schools) would continue misread the probabilities even if they had better information. It seems like a Dumb and Dumber scenario:
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So we create a new category of Ivy rejectee: kids who despite four years’ worth of hard work, earnest hopes and dreams, and the same application fee as everyone else are to be quickly deemed as inferior and uninteresting and have that fact broadcast VERY publicly…far more publicly than Ivy Day as it exists today.
…all so a select number of more worthy applicants will feel better about themselves as they head off to a different elite college?
Is the idea here that the dumb kids won’t have their feelings hurt or that we don’t care if they do?
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“Less smart”
A Less Smart and Lesser Smart scenario?
Better to get used to the inevitable rejections that are part of life. Goldman Sachs and McKinsey and Google and probably Amazon now have 1% acceptance rates as well, but tens of thousands continue to apply to them for jobs ( even with the right resumes and skills). Some of it is failure to understand the statistical chances, some of it is just luck. These things happen and time to move on.
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I don’t think it’s going to deter students from applying to highly selective/rejective universities. I think the goal is that 1) maybe they won’t apply to AS MANY highly selective/rejective schools, and 2) that they go in with the assumption that their application is not going to be a winner, even if they pay 20 application fees.
If someone buys a $2 lottery ticket or $20 worth of tickets, nobody should go off seriously planning how they’re going to spend the $250 million jackpot. Thus, even if someone has paid their admissions fee, they shouldn’t be buying their swag and making announcements until the numbers get called.
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Threads with “Ivy” in the title always seem to get pretty long. I haven’t read most of it. The interest we all show in such a thread is a symptom of the problem!! 
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A lottery is NOT a good analogy. The lottery obviously has NO element of skill or knowledge. AFAIK, it’s purely a game of chance.
By contrast, colleges published their average GPAs and test scores. If I met those, why shouldn’t I feel that I should be in that single-digit % admitted rate.
The reason is that those numbers are very misleading for some of the reasons outlined in my immediately preceding post. Some of that just happens, but some of that is carefully “cultivated” by these “selective” schools in their quest to be even more “selective”.
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