<p>My son applied to 9 excellent fit schools + StateU. Some had higher acceptance rates than others. The only one that I would consider a real “reach” was an ivy simply because so many apply that it was hit or miss whether he’d get in. As it turned out he was accepted. He had his heart set on another, smaller, less selective LAC. We both loved the school. However, in the end he went to the Ivy because they offered him the most financial aid and will be walking away with almost no debt. He’s now a freshman there and is having a great time. Could he have saved the $70 and would he have been happy at any of the other 9 school he’d been accepted to – sure. But, he’s so glad he’s there and it’s a great fit for him.</p>
<p>I’m a newcomer to the application process and this site. Seeing these comments has prompted me to register because it is so on point with some of what we’ve been going through. I believe too that the right fit is the most important factor and began the exstensive search for possible schools with that in mind. We looked first for schools offering courses of particular academic interest [although D is still “undecided”] and that met criteria such as size and distance from home, etc. That’s when we came up against the “fit” vs. “match” dilemma. The two are, as someone said, not the same. We eliminated ridiculous reaches but then most other good fits are in the target/ reach zone. We don’t want her to be overwhelmed and have not pushed her to consider such schools. On the other hand, although GPA and score wise she’s an avg. student [difficulty with math has brought down both] she is bright, engaged and has true interest in learning. She has taken challenging courses and would not be happy in classes or an environment that was not stimulating. When we search by “match” or, even worse, “safety” it seems that all the best “fit” criteria go out the window [eg. courses, size, number living on campus, etc.] So, now my head is spinning and we’re all dazed and confused. Do we encourage the reach applications? Are the people telling us not to apply ED because it will hurt not help correct? [our school GC is not very helpful] Do we apply to safeties even if we don’t think they’ll be a fit–and of course we could be totally wrong about everything. Sorry for going on at such length but I see so many thoughtful comments that I’m hoping for some help.</p>
<p>confuzdmom - That indeed is exactly what this forum is supposed to be about.</p>
<p>First, anyone that told you ED hurts instead of helps is wrong. There is a lot of angst filled discussion out there, but the bottom line is these schools know from long experience what kind of applicant pool they are going to see and how your student fits into that. ED applicants tend to be self selectively higher in stats than the overall RD pool, and in general that is why the % that get accepted is higher. But it also shows strong interest in the school and they love to see that. It really depends on how much of a reach it is and also on how much you need to be able to examine different financial aid packages. If FA is not an issue, then forget that. But if it is, then you should consider it. Depends on what school you are talking about for ED. If you want to post her stats, your likely need for FA (not exact numbers unless you want to, but some general idea), and the school she is thinking about, then we can pitch in with our thoughts. Also, if you answer as many of those questions on my list as possible, we might be able to recommend some schools she is highly likely to get into that she might not have considered yet.</p>
<p>OP seems overly concerned that a student will be stressed by attending an elite school because she does not have the academic skills to match the other students. This assumes a fallacy - that every student at the “elite” schools has super high stats. That is not the case. The “elite” schools try to build a diverse class, they do not merely accept the top stat kids. If your child gets in without a hook, she will do just fine. Not every 800, 800 applicant gets in. The only thing you have to fear is fear of applying.</p>
<p>glido - I appreciate what you are saying and certainly there is some truth to it, but one needs to be more specific. For example, I doubt there are any 600, 600 3.3 GPA students at Harvard or Yale either. Even if one somehow got in, don’t you think they would likely be out of their element in the classroom? I think it is indisputable that one should be in an academic environment more in tune with one’s capabilities. Now IMO, and only my opinion, it is better to be in an environment where at least half the class is “smarter” than you. Obviously this is not meant to be taken as an exact science, just that you know there are a lot of other smart people there that can challenge you and open your mind to new thoughts and experiences. Others might think it is fine to be in the top 10% or so of a school and be the “lead dog”. Not my thing, but legitimate.</p>
<p>The point is that being in over one’s head can indeed be extremely stressful, and to glide over it so easily would be a mistake for many students.</p>
<p>
All three? Perhaps not, but there are certainly students who are lacking the classic CC Harvard profile and for the most part they do just fine. By definition half the class will be below average, but colleges don’t tend to accept kids they don’t think have the potential to succeed. (There are a few exceptions for some well known sports teams.) Harvard has said that they think anyone with over 600s on the SAT sections has demonstrated the ability to do the work.</p>
<p>A few years ago a book was written (A Hope in things Unseen.) about a young man from DC whose SAT scores were in the 400s. He was accepted at Brown. It was rough going, but he did succeed and went on to grad school.</p>
<p>Yeah, I would like to see proof of that student at Brown and his claims. I wouldn’t take someone’s word for it just because they wrote a book, but even if true so what? Besides, Brown of all the schools is famous for not grading if you choose not to take a grade. Anyway, that is one story. I never said this was a blanket truth. I promise for every anecdote there is about kids that got in with low stats and still did well, there are more that stuggled and suffered. Obviously it isn’t 100% either way, but there is a reason the vast majority of those students with lower stats don’t get in.</p>
<p>Here are Harvard’s stats from 2009:</p>
<p>•Test Scores – 25th / 75th Percentile
•SAT Critical Reading: 690 / 780
•SAT Math: 690 / 790
•SAT Writing: 690 / 780 </p>
<p>So only 25% are below 690 690, and I am willing to bet very few if any are 600 600. Of course that can be the rare exception, but one shouldn’t base a discussion like this on the 1 in 100,000 student.
True, of course, but when they are clustered very close to that high average, a student falling a few or even many standard deviations below will stand a high probability of struggling, maybe a lot.</p>
<p>Most schools don’t publish their admissions statistics so you can see what they are willing to take a chance on. MIT does though. <a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml[/url]”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml</a> They accepted two students with math SAT scores in the 600-640 range, 56 with writing scores under 600 and 76 with CR scores under 600. Every elite school has a handful of students with low scores and most of them graduate.</p>
<p>I think these discussions are often affected by different groups of students. There are probably a disproportionate number of people on CC who are looking at the very most selective schools, and who have the stats to look at them realisticly. For these students, attending school with high-achieving peers is often a major goal. So, the schools they gravitate toward tend to be reaches for just about everyone. And these schools don’t really take people who can’t handle the work, so there shouldn’t be much concern about being at the bottom of the class. The bottom of the class still consists of people who got excellent grades in high school, very good scores, and impressive achievements of various kinds.</p>
<p>I think it’s a different story for a student who has stats that put him in the center of the class for a less selective school–should that student consider other, more selective, schools where his stats would place him in the bottom 25% of matriculating students? It seems to me that this is a much more difficult question, and a lot has to do with the individual student–is he highly motivated? Did his high school grades really reflect his abilities? Does the more selective school have a particular program that interests him and in which he is likely to excel? How well does he function under pressure?</p>
<p>Excellent post. Why apply to a “reach” if you’ll probably get rejected? Why incur the cost in time, money, and dreams of getting in when your chances are slim? Having said that, the $100MM question is: what if we’re wrong? What if the school we think of as a “reach” actually recognizes your child’s unique gifts and wants them there? I say if your child is ok with the potential disappointment, let them apply. On some level, it’s a crapshoot.</p>
<p>I want to challenge blossom’s notion that there are some children for whom only a “reach” will do, and oldfort’s suggestion that there is some kind of huge gap between “tier 1” and “tier 2”.</p>
<p>One of the things that sustained me throughout my children’s college process, and that I have continued to see confirmed for later cohorts, is that true admissions tragedies are rare or nonexistent, and that the close calls are almost all self-inflicted. We are blessed with access to amazing universities and colleges. Faculty strength is not at all limited to the most selective institutions, and neither is student strength. I am perfectly prepared to believe that Harvard undergraduates are uniformly wonderful in a way that perhaps no other institution can match (maybe Deep Springs), but there are dozens of colleges where any kid can find a sizable group of students indistinguishable from those at Harvard, and the fact that there may be other kids around who ARE distinguishable doesn’t detract from anyone’s educational opportunities. These less-impressive students are not roaming the halls of Tufts giving wedgies to the smart kids; in fact, these “less impressive” students are often plenty impressive in their own rights, and even when their faults are visible to the naked eye they are usually motivated and diligent. </p>
<p>Of course, there does exist within the higher education world a sizable tier of colleges that are effectively providing remedial high school to a student population that may include some kids who still aren’t ready for that. But that’s not where the Harvard near-misses wind up.</p>
<p>There are many public institutions that effectively guarantee admission to any student who could put together a credible Harvard application. When I look at my kids’ friends who took that route, whether by choice, or out of economic necessity, or because they didn’t have anyplace else to go that had admitted them, I see success story after success story. </p>
<p>One of my kids’ best friends is a deeply, deeply intellectual young woman, the daughter of a highly-regarded professor and a physician. She is a little quirky, and did not “play the game” much, and had disappointing admissions results from her parents’ point of view. Then, she practically had an allergic reaction to the most selective college that accepted her. (She got hit on by another girl at accepted-students weekend, and her mind clamped shut. Immature? Yes, which may have had something to do with why she didn’t have more choices. But immaturity is a condition that usually takes care of itself with time.) Anyway, this kid wound up at a large public university where she – and thousands of students not as intellectual as she – was assured of admission based on her stats alone. She has been completely, utterly stimulated there, and had wonderful opportunity after wonderful opportunity.</p>
<p>Another close friend went to a large public to save $15,000/year vs. the Ivy that accepted her. Guaranteed admission, no essay required. When she applied to PhD programs last year, she was accepted everywhere, at every “reach”.</p>
<p>(I would add, too, that these women are nothing like academic nuns slaving away in their cloister to overcome their disadvantages. They took considerable advantage of the social opportunities available to them at their schools.)</p>
<p>And then there are the LACs. I am not an LAC partisan, but there are dozens of LACs where a good student can go and get hands-on teaching from first-rate professors, in the company of stimulating, first-rate peers. The trade-off is intimacy and depth of relationships vs. breadth of opportunities, not bad education vs. good.</p>
<p>Admissions at the 20 or so most hyper-selective colleges may seem random, but there are very few students who in fact could take advantage of what those colleges offer who cannot get completely first-class educations at institutions whose admissions decisions are almost completely predictable.</p>
<p>Confuzdmom – you could be me! I too have so-so GC and am worried/anxious about guiding D (1st child) through what another mom told me was “an ugly process.” Do you tell them to swing for the fences and do ED at a reach? Or is it futile to use up your one chance at increasing admissions chances? In terms of acceptance rates, check out [InLikeMe</a> | The College Admission & Student Aid Resource Hub](<a href=“http://www.inlikeme.com%5DInLikeMe”>http://www.inlikeme.com) – it posts ED acceptance rates vs regular. ED is sometimes almost twice as high. Which only makes the choice of which school to apply ED to even more stressful. </p>
<p>My question for all: if you need FA, should you NOT apply ED? If college costs a Lexus, I can afford a Camry. I’ve heard/read posters saying don’t apply ED if you need FA. Why is that? Any info is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>After successfully navigating the college selection process with my oldest child, Im convinced that you have to really know your kid and what makes them tick. Are they OK with some faceless admissions staffer passing judgment on them and their dreams? How will they react if their dream school rejects their application and others will find out? Are they confident enough to accept an offer from a school that their peers and society doesnt rank as cool enough or prestigious enough, but that is a good school and one they really want to attend? Do they have the self-confidence to succeed even if they are not one of the smartest kids in the class, or are they in danger of being intimidated by other students and the expectations that are placed on them?</p>
<p>My son visited eight schools and applied to six of them. None of the schools were true top-tier reaches, but three were certainly closer to reach status than match. He was also cognizant of the fact that financial aid would be a key criteria of his final selection, since we have a limit in what we can help him pay. In the end, he was accepted by all six schools, but none of the reaches offered him any significant amount of merit money. He decided to accept an invitation from the State University at Buffalo which had one of the stronger programs in his field of study and which also offered him a merit scholarship and an opportunity to join the schools Honors College. He is confident that he made the right choice and that he will be in an excellent situation both academically and financially once he graduates and starts his career he didnt want to have a $70,000 debt load that would limit his opportunities to take a lower-paying position if it was the right fit professionally or to eventually attend graduate school. He also told us that UB was the one school that made him feel wanted (he was really disappointed that one of his reach schools kind of screwed him over by apparently sidetracking his application at the time that the merit decisions were being made and then brushing him off when he personally called to attempt to remedy the situation). He made the process his own.</p>
<p>While at Parents’ Weekend yesterday at S2’s school, I was reminded of the very beginning of the college search process. When I initially read about the college, I thought it would be a good fit because of the school’s personality and the emphasis on community and service and athletics. But when I saw the admissions stats for previous freshman classes, I didn’t even suggest it because S2’s stats were solidly at the lower end of the mid-50% (and this at a school that offers virtually no merit aid).</p>
<p>Over the following year or so, S2 discovered the school for himself. We visited, and once again I was struck by the high admissions statistics presented; I was sure he’d never get in. Yet the school emerged as his first choice and he applied EA. I was flabbergasted when he was accepted EA, and after attending Accepted Students Day was even more convinced that the school was indeed a perfect fit. So, he enrolled.</p>
<p>Now after his first 4 weeks, he is truly “at home” at this reach school. He says that the classes are challenging in a fun way. He feels he’s doing very well academically and that he’s even doing a little better than his classmates. He is in a sophomore level math class (math major) and having no trouble. Feels his writing skills are more than adequate and is handling the workload of 17 credits while still having plenty of time to explore ECs and watch a lot of sports.</p>
<p>If we had discouraged this apparent “reach” school just because his statistics were lower than those published, he would have missed out on this very excellent opportunity. Somehow this school knew that he could handle the workload and that he would be a great addition to the student body…they certainly knew better than us as parents.</p>
<p>mathmom - like I said, I understand this is not a 100%, black/white thing. However, 2(!) people at MIT with math SAT’s of 600-640 is hardly a ringing endorsement of your position. I mean, it is two(!!) and we have no idea what the fate of those kids will be. And of course it doesn’t surprise me greatly that at MIT they would let in kids with lower CR scores. They may be math geniuses for all we know. It shows nothing, really.</p>
<p>As many on here have said, schools are not going to purposely let in kids they think will be in over their heads. Anyway, I was simply responding to glido’s overly broad statement.</p>
<p>Jhs, excellent post!</p>
<p>Classof2015, the reason not to apply ED if you need financial aid is that doing so effectively takes all other offers off the table. In other words, you don’t get to compare prices for that Camry, instead you pay whatever that one-and-only school says you’ll pay. Not a good position to be in when different schools’ finaid packages, for the same kid, can be so different.</p>
<p>archiemom - that is great! I would only say that being at the lower end of the mid-50% range shouldn’t have scared you off in the first place. After all, some 30% or so of the students were accepted with lower stats than his. In fact, this is very much the situation I was talking about for a student like your son. Place yourself in an environment where about half of the kids are smarter (don’t take that word too literally) than you and be challenged. Sounds like that is exactly what happened.</p>
<p>
I think this is a very good point. In a few cases of disappointment I’ve seen, the problem was not so much with the reaches or the safety, but with the matches. Some kids have too large a gap between their reaches and the next school on the list–it can be a sort of “Harvard or bust” attitude, when there are many fine schools that would have made a good fit.</p>
<p>Ah but just think about how many kids are told they have no chance at MIT if their math SATs aren’t over 750. It’s simply not true. :)</p>
<p>“The “elite” schools try to build a diverse class, they do not merely accept the top stat kids. If your child gets in without a hook, she will do just fine.” - glido</p>
<p>“As many on here have said, schools are not going to purposely let in kids they think will be in over their heads. Anyway, I was simply responding to glido’s overly broad statement.” - fallenchemist</p>
<p>Sure you were.</p>