<p>cool2bars~</p>
<p>Last year's CCers dubbed andi's son "andison" for quick reference. Andi only referred to him as "son" or "S" to protect his anonymity! Nothing weird there! <em>lol</em> ~berurah</p>
<p>Thanks berurah :)</p>
<p>There's such a great community of posters here and I have to remind myself on occasion that I don't actually "know" you and so many others. </p>
<p>Unfortunately there seems to be a point in a thread where it goes south and poster's comments such as "precious overachievers" or other negative comments ("andison") are such examples. </p>
<p>Thanks to you also JEM for editing that post.</p>
<p>Let's keep CC and this thread a positive and helpful place for students and parents to visit during this crazy process.</p>
<p>Great thread, thanks for sharing, andi. I've been around college discussion forums for at least ten years, and every spring a few "Help! Got rejected everywhere!" tales surface. Most of these students are victims of bad advising - counselors who didn't understand how competitive top schools are, even if one has fantastic stats. Sometimes they are victims of seemngly capricious decisions by schools at which they would appear to be certain admits.</p>
<p>As andi notes, spend more time on safeties and ballpark schools, and less on reaches. Do some research, and you'll find schools that you'd love to go to and that will provide a great undergrad education, but that don't reject nine out of ten applicants. Read up on schools. Visit them. Ask for comments here. It will be time well spent.</p>
<p>Well, I remember andi's original thread and I'm glad andison's year is shaping up well, and good luck to him on his new round of applications...i'm sure we'll be curious what happens.</p>
<p>I would also like to add in my warning about not only having safeties that are truly safeties, but also that you truly like. I got my safety acceptances back earliest, and when I was looking through the brochures, etc. I sort of got a sinking feeling in my stomach when I thought about going there and I realized I didn't really like them. granted, for one of them i had a horrendous alumni interview, but I hadn't visited them or put that much time into researching safeties in general. A few days later, however, I did get another acceptance, and two more after that, but i also got several rejections and was probably on the borderline of admissions at the school i'll be attending in a week.</p>
<p>Even though I didn't end up going to them, looking back I wish I had put more energy and thought into selecting safeties. Even though I was expecting several rejections, I really didn't consider getting eight. I didn't, but I should have...and you should too...Just a word of caution.</p>
<p>One other consideration I'd add is having a financial safety or two on your list, i.e., a school or school that you will almost certainly get into AND that you know you can afford. A safety isn't much of a backup if the cost ends up being prohibitive.</p>
<p>It goes without saying that you should WANT to go to your safety school - if it's only appeal is certain admission, you need to keep looking.</p>
<p>Those of us with excellent state schools are truly fortunate - they tend to be good safeties and have reasonable in-state tuition. Not much help, of course, if the big school environment doesn't interest the student.</p>
<p>You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.</p>
<p>andi: I just read your first post on this page, and I don't understand why your son wasn't able to at least get himself removed from the three waitlists (or at least one or two of the three) that he was on. My D was unfortunately placed on three waitlists (not Ivies mind you), but even still, she was able to get herself removed from each of them in one way or another. She was extremely dilligent and showed persistence beyond what was expected of her in terms of just "waiting it out" so to speak. She hounded the admissions offices at each of the three schools, and for one of them, literally showed up at their door several times during the waitlist period and sincerely made her intentions known. The key component here is to be proactive. There was no way that she was going to let herself not get removed from these waitlists, and she never gave up, not for a second. Based on your son's stats, I'm appalled that something like this could happen - I know families in my neighborhood would have never tolerated it - and would have pursued the schools until a satisfactory outcome was reached. I know for a fact that scenarios like this have happened, and believe me, they were rectified immediately. You stated that there were students with lower stats that were able to get into these schools, so it's both ridiculous and absurd to think that someone as intelligent and talented as your son would not be able to have the opportunity to be able to excel in one of the schools that he applied to, and especially to those waitlist schools. You should have gone right to the top of the food chain in this case - as in the college president's office and explained that there must have been some kind of mistake, because you knew that there were students who were indeed accepted with lower stats, so you would have had a valid argument. You have to remember that some admissions officers fail to look at the applicant as a whole person - they're just looking at stats - but in your son's case, his stats were stellar, so that obviously wasn't the issue. It just sounds like it was a poor error in judgment on their part. It's a disgrace, and those admissions offices in question should be ashamed of themselves.</p>
<p>nyumom~</p>
<p>Andi is certainly more than capable of answering this for herself, but I happened to see your post and thought that I would explain that andison was <em>VERY</em> proactive in his effort to get off the waitlist at his most desired choice of schools. He sent in extra recs and supplemental music tapes. He made repeated (but not badgering) contact as did his GC. He did everything that could be done short of camping on the doorstep of the admissions office.</p>
<p>In recent years, the number of students placed on waitlists has grown enormously, and it is not unusual for some schools to take very few (if any) students off of those lists. Some schools, such as WUSTL, have begun to use waitlisting in place of outright rejection for large numbers of students. Even persistent efforts cannot ensure a student's success at gaining acceptance from a waitlist, especially without some sort of connection.</p>
<p>I would say that your child was very lucky to have been so successful with regard to her waitlists. But, the numbers are just too great for every student to have that kind of success, and not every school is receptive to aggressive techniques on the part of applicants. ~berurah</p>
<p>Andi, I'd like to echo the thanks others have given for your generousity in sharing your son's painful college ap experience. As you can see, it's caused several students here at CC to take note and vow that they will do things differently.</p>
<p>Your son sounds like he's doing everything right during this gap year, and enjoying it to boot. I have no doubt that things will turn out entirely different for him this go round. I'm curious: Is he planning on applying to any of the same schools that rejected him last year? Also, how does one handle teacher recommendations when one is no longer a high school student?</p>
<p>nyumom-
"You should have gone right to the top of the food chain in this case - as in the college president's office and explained that there must have been some kind of mistake, because you knew that there were students who were indeed accepted with lower stats, so you would have had a valid argument."
At very competitive schools, stats aren't the whole story, they just aren't. Colleges are assembling a class - and student B, with a different EC or athletic talent, or home town, could easily edge out student A, with a stellar resume and academics. I have followed the admissions results for a couple of rounds, now, and it seems to me that you start getting unexpected results a little bit under 50% acceptance rate. In most cases - a stellar student will be admitted somewhere - but there is always a chance (unless a virtually guarenteed admit school is on the list) that the numbers are going to, in a particular case, just run wrong.</p>
<p>The waitlist situation this year was pretty rough; a lot of schools had very short waitlists or no waitlists at all. I don't think that badgering a waitlist school is such a good idea if your child intends to reapply there the following year.</p>
<p>That's my point - you have to campout if that's what it takes. By the way, even though I know that the right thing to do is to let an applicant handle his/her own particular situation when it comes to dealing with admissions offices, etc. sometimes it's imperative (and certainly acceptable in this case) for a parent to step in and help mediate the situation. As I said before, most parents that I know would have never allowed a situation like this to get out of hand, and if it did, they would do everything in their power to rectify it. They would have nipped it in the bud, by contacting the colleges and making sure that their sons/daughters did not get "lost in the shuffle".</p>
<p>"They would have nipped it in the bud, by contacting the colleges and making sure that their sons/daughters did not get "lost in the shuffle"."</p>
<p>So, I'm curious, how does associating a student's application with an aggressive parent help matters?</p>
<p>
[quote]
As I said before, most parents that I know would have never allowed a situation like this to get out of hand, and if it did, they would do everything in their power to rectify it.
[/quote]
nyumom~
I think it is a terrible misconception to believe that it is always (or ever?) within a parent's control to determine whether or not a child gets accepted to an elite school (unless s/he's a very large donor). To me, this smacks a bit of the "blame the victim" mentality. The truth is that it is a numbers game, and when a school gets 18,000-20,000 applications, some of the most qualified among them WILL "get lost in the shuffle"...it's that simple. ~berurah</p>
<p>ohio-mom: I never used the word "aggressive". I said that both the students and the parents need to be proactive, and if that means having the parent(s) talk to someone at the college, whether it's an admissions officer, dean, etc. in order to sort things out, then there's nothing wrong with that. Anyone can see that it was clearly obvious that there were mistakes made from the admissions offices point of view, and in some cases it's just a crap-shoot. It doesn't hurt for the students to have an advocate (whether it's a parent, counselor, teacher, professor, etc.) to go to bat for them.</p>
<p>Actually, anyone can NOT see that mistakes were made by the admissions office. That's because probably no one here knows what were the adcoms' criteria for accepting applicants at the schools that Andi's S applied to.</p>
<p>Just because others from his h.s. got in with lower stats doesn't mean the adcoms blew it. While Andi's S sounds like an outstanding applicant, factors that we're not aware of may have tipped the adcoms in others' favor.</p>
<p>The idea of Andi's storming college presidents' offices and demanding that they rectify their "mistakes" in rejecting or waitlisting her S sounds like a scenerio that would end her S's chances of ever being admitted to those colleges.</p>
<p>nyumom there was a cc poster waitlisted at my D's school. Desparatley watned to get in. Had been in contact with everyone there from day one and had reasonable stats but ended up waitlisted. She did everything you suggest but the situation didn't change because the school, with a mid 30 ish admit rate, took no one off the waitlist. There's not much you can do if the movement is nonexistent.</p>
<p>Northstarmom: I never said anything about "storming" college presidemts' offices and demanding that they rectify their "mistakes"..... Based on the experiences of families that we've known who have gone through this process, evidently, the students have been able to fulfill their college admissions goals with the parents, teachers, counselors, etc. in supporting roles.</p>
<p>SRMom3: This was a very difficult year as far as waitlists were concerned. If there isn't a chance of a student being removed from the waitlist, then there isn't much that can be done about that. If a school is, however, taking students from the waitlist, then it's really important to be as proactive as possible, including going up to the school(s), making an appointment to see someone in the admissions office or in the school/college within the college/university, getting in touch with a current student who attends the school, etc. There are many different ways to reach this goal, and as I said before, many students in our community have been through this type of scenario, and they've all managed to achieve in their college placements.</p>
<p>My heart skipped a beat when I read your post and skipped more beats when I read some of the thread. Your story validated my gut instincts. Our large public school offers no guidance -- we are out there on our own. I just discovered CC and am finding it a useful resource.</p>
<p>My son is similar to yours, except not quite as exceptional in music. He too is mostly interested in a few ivies and top-rated LACs. He has three matches and one safety on his list because I pushed it. Two of those are large public universities (not our state, alas); therefore, showing interest by visiting is irrelevant. Your advice on visiting is relevant for the other two, however. I am wondering if the visit has to be before the application deadline, or even before the application is complete. One of the schools is across the country and a visit before late November is impossible. </p>
<p>Just want to tell you that my heart goes out to you. I'm impressed by how you guys handled this.</p>
<p>nyumom, I'm certainly glad that things worked out for your daughter; however, I think it's misleading to imply that there's always a way to get off a waitlist if you "do the right thing." Last year, at least, this just wasn't the case and in spite of carefully orchestrated efforts on the part of students, parents and GCs some colleges didn't budge. </p>
<p>I see waitlists as necessary evils -- a kind of admissions purgatory that leaves kids unable and unwilling to move on because the colleges seldom will give an indication of where the applicant stands on the list. </p>
<p>I've known several cases where things have worked out wonderfully and several where the kids have faced ultimate disappointment. Although demonstrating interest and lobbying strategically can help a lot, there is just no guarantee that you'll be the chosen. So like so much of the admissions game, you need to be simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic and have a many pronged approach.</p>
<p>atlantamom, Welcome! For a visit to "count" as demonstrated interest it would have to be before the admissions envelopes go out. It doesn't have to be before the application deadline, but since you never know when your application will be reviewed, it's better if it is. </p>
<p>I think this is especially meaningful in two cases -- safeties and smaller universities and LACs. Safeties because they hate being considered just throwaways. LACs because they care a lot about admitting people who really want to be there. Some of the larger U's and Ivies that get zillions of applicants don't much care if you show up or not. </p>
<p>I wouldn't suggest applying ED anywhere without first visiting.</p>
<p>By visits, I would think that a tour, an info session and an interview if offered would do the trick. The applicant could save the overnight until after accepted (except in the case of ED where an overnight would benefit the student).</p>
<p>Schools are sympathetic to kids who live far away or have financial difficulties. If you really can't visit there may be other ways to compensate.</p>