You can create a parent / view only account on the Common App that will allow you to see what the essay requirements / questions / supplements each school requires. When DD was applying, we made a spreadsheet with all of those and tried to group by theme / common question to see how many unique ones she really had to do.
I’ll put it in a plug for Rice as well - DD just finished her freshman year there and LOVED it!
In my opinion, college applicants get unnecessarily stressed out over college application essays.
Reflect, think, write, review, make edits, then submit. Be genuine & write in a clear fashion.
Too many consultants place undue stress-inducing importance on college essays as a means of attracting clients & of justifying fees.
Very easy to spot essays that were written & rewritten over a long time-span. Often comes across as too polished, insincere, & manufactured, while killing the writer’s voice. Strive for clarity & authenticity with meaningful insights.
It’s very interesting to see different views of the same places. I think it can often be a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
There’s a difference between a student’s stats being a match, and the CHANCES being a match. Your list is pretty good, but I agree that Williams and Amherst are high reaches. For the last three cycles, Bates’ acceptance rate has been in the teens, and last year, it was 12%. I think it’s a reach.
One issue is that schools like Bates admit a lot of the incoming class ED. You might want to check the ED rates at various schools.
Given the likelihood that college visits might be off the cards, I think using websites such as Niche and Uni Go and looking Fiske and Princeton Review are going to help her get a more clear idea. Hopefully by next March, kids will be able to visit their top choices.
Helpingmom40: “Skidmore is need aware in their admissions decisions. In the info session we went to, they came right out and said they prefer to deny students they feel can’t pay what they determine the EFC to be. I think that reason alone contributes to the lower acceptance rate since they want more control over their yield rate. Other schools are probably similar but we didn’t hear any other school be that blunt about it from the very beginning.”
Spot on. Skidmore rejects a lot of higher stats kids from the local high school my kids went to. What stood out was who was accepted. Kids below 1350/28 with low financial need were accepted, kids with 1400/30 and above rejected with high need. It was very different from other Naviance grids we looked at.
For comparison, nearby Union College had a more predictable Naviance grid. A more balanced Arts/STEM mix of students at Union, IMO.
So a serious question about “chances” and how to categorize schools. I’m not trying to argue with anyone, I’ve followed CC long enough to know that lots of the people commenting here know more than I do. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.
D is from one of the 7 states with 0 students in Amherst’s most recently published class. So I figure that’s in her favor. I’m 90% sure there is at least one state resident who is a current student but I don’t remember where I saw that.
Her 32 is the average ACT for that class, which is where she is right now, hopefully she will improve a bit. They do superscore, so I think her odds are pretty good to be above average test scores, especially this year. I know this in and of itself isn’t a huge bump, I’m sure they reject 36’s every year. But I think at least it is neutral to slightly positive.
Regular admit is 10%.
ED admit is 36%. I’m going to take a rough guess and say that 60 of the ED’s were athletes, which drops the ED % to 28%. Even if you say 100 ED’s were athletes/Questbridge/Legacy/Donor it is still a 20% admit rate. I would think that would make 20% the minimum % of unhooked students they take during ED.
Wouldn’t it make sense to lump in in with other 20-25% acceptance schools if that is her ED choice? That would put ED at Amherst in the vicinity of Vassar or Colgate RD (23% RD acceptance rate).
Doing the same thing for Hamilton, it’s a bit easier to figure becase ED II has a 32% acceptance rate. I’m guessing most athletes/legacy/ect. are in ED (48%) not ED II. RD is 15%, but it seems more logical to lump Hamilton ED in with 30-35% RD schools, such as BMC and Macalaster.
Also re: Bates, I figured since it’s scores are a bit lower it probably gets more kids with lower scores giving it a shot. If you have a 28 ACT and were doing one reach, it makes more sense to try for Bates than Amherst if that makes sense. So I’m guessing they might have more “auto-reject” apps than some of the other schools with a similar acceptance rate. But I could be wrong.
Does this make sense? Am I missing something?
Also, I don’t know that it REALLY matters, beyond me wrapping my head about what her chances are.
But if her ED chance is closer to the RD 10% at Amherst and not 20-25%, maybe it makes sense tactically to ED to a school like Middlebury or Bates where they seem to REALLY love ED. Because as I said at some point, really she would be happy with almost any of these schools. If you told her you would guarantee her admission into one of her top 15 but she couldn’t pick which one, I think she would take your offer.
Earlier you mentioned applying ED to Amherst and Hamilton, and now you’re mentioning switching that ED to Middlebury or Bates. I don’t think she should ED anywhere there is not a clear favorite. Although these are all T15 LACs, they still have some differences, even if it’s simply in geography, curriculum, or student demographics. (For example, D20 loved Hamilton and Bowdoin, but didn’t understand the hype around Middlebury and scratched it off her list.) I would consider approaching ED a bit more thoughtfully.
[quote=“Lindagaf, post:63, topic:2097777”]
There’s a difference between a student’s stats being a match, and the CHANCES being a match. Your list is pretty good, but I agree that Williams and Amherst are high reaches. For the last three cycles, Bates’ acceptance rate has been in the teens, and last year, it was 12%. I think it’s a reach.
One issue is that schools like Bates admit a lot of the incoming class ED. You might want to check the ED rates at various schools.
/quote]
@Lindagaf makes an important point about Bates admissions. They take at least half of their incoming class ED between ED1 and ED2. Amherst and Williams only have one ED round, so they take a higher percentage of their class in the regular decision round.
My D20 was accepted RD to Williams, Middlebury, Haverford, Colby, and Vassar, but was waitlisted at Bates and denied by Wesleyan. (We had visited Bates and she had an alumni interview.) The Williams acceptance was the biggest surprise. She’s an unhooked student from an overrepresented state with strong grades, strong, but not stellar, scores, and pointy ECs. IME, admissions to SLACs are unpredictable, so cast as wide as a net as you can. Good luck!
I think as of today Amherst is a clear #1 and Hamilton is a clear #2. But she would also be extremely happy if Bates or Middlebury ( or Vassar one of several others) was her only choice. Maybe a 9.5 on the excited scale instead of 10.
My point was asking whether she gets the same ED boost at Amherst as at a school like Bates. Because if not, it may be a good tactical choice to ED to Bates (or elsewhere). The reality in the current application situation is that if a kid has a chance to lock down his #5 instead of hoping for #1 but maybe getting #100 it may make sense to lock down #5.
I think the idea of “only ED if you have a true #1” is being unrealistic about everyone’s chances in RD. If i told you that you had the chance of making $1,000,000 or $20,000 next year, or a guaranteed $100,000 some would roll the dice but others would take the $100,000. Both are rational choices. How lucky do you feel?
Broad brush, I think the interpretation that only 60 athletes were admitted ED at Amherst is a low estimate. In our D3 LAC experience, most recruited athletes on each LAC team were admitted ED. Amherst’s Common Data Set shows 186 out of 518 ED admits last year, about 35% acceptance rate. Since Amherst has more than 20 Varsity teams, I’d think that more than 100 of those ED admits were recruited athletes. And ED2 is used by a lot of athletes who got late “nods” by the coach whose recruiting plans didn’t pan out or who had received unexpected deferrals (or worse) from their original ED1 schools.
If it were our family, our working assumption would be that, for a non-hooked kid, ED at a top LAC is a bit of a Hail Mary and likely outcome is deferral to RD. For a non-hooked kid applying ED or RD to a top LAC, work on understanding campus culture and values, understanding how you contribute to that culture, and write an application which shows how you would contribute and why they need you.
I think there is a tendency to underestimate the number of hooked applicants in the ED acceptance rate for these high ranked schools. .
This shouldn’t be about using ED to get into the highest ranked school you can. Ranking is a terrible way to determine fit. And FWIW, your child would still get a great education if they ended up at a school ranked 100.
Unless your daughter has a clear first choice school, there is no need to apply ED for one ranked 1 / 350 with a solid ACT score from an underrepresented state.
It was late and I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t meaning ranking by US News or Forbes. I meant ranking by the student as to her personal preferences. So maybe 100 was a bit high of a number to use. But just using the list of 30ish i am currently working with, if you had her rank them all, she might opt for a guaranteed #5 instead of gambling between #1 and #30 if that was an actual option.
The rankings are being looked at, but not as the primary factor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hamilton ranked above Williams for example, and schools like Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Chicago and a host of others aren’t even being considered.
So I guess I meant kind of gaming the ED system (which I hate, but that’s another story for another day) to get her into the highest ranked school based on her personal rankings, which for example would place Hamilton over Williams or Dartmouth.
If the thinking is that more than 100 ED admits are hooked, what is the conventional wisdom as far as how helpful ED is? My recollection wthout looking anything up was that using the Harvard data SCEA was about doubling your choices. I know comparing Harvard SCEA to Amherst or Hamilton ED is kind of comparing apples and oranges, but until someone sues a small elite LAC that’s the best data out there.
I understand. I did not communicate my point very well. My larger concern is more general. It just seemed as if you were swapping schools in and out, as if they are interchangeable. That’s what I was cautioning against.
For the record, I’m not against ED. As I mentioned, D20 used it for Hamilton, and decided EDII to Bowdoin if that didn’t work out. Hamilton’s RD acceptance is 15% so D definitely wanted the bump.
This New York Times article discusses the impact of need-aware policies on college admissions and mentions several schools included in this thread such as Bates, Skidmore and Haverford: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/your-money/college-admissions-wealth.html.
Generally, NESCAC schools get 14 football slots, 2 for every other varsity sport. Some schools limit it more than that, like Williams.
Things can also vary (e.g., squash may routinely get more slots than golf, TNF can get more slots because of all the events, swimming and diving can each get slots), coaches make trades, and there can be special circumstances in a given year (such as lots of seniors leaving the team, or starting up a new team). There are far more athletes playing sports on the various teams than are recruited, because of walk-ons.
Amherst has 25 teams…so 14 slots for football, 48 for the rest, and your 60 is a good estimate. I agree the lion’s share of those go ED…but maybe not this year! There is also the concept of soft support at many D3 schools…I have no idea how many students that is each year.
The Bowdoin Orient did a multi article piece on athletic recruiting, and the EPHblog has had multiple athletic recruiting posts over the years too…some good reading in those if you are interested.
I don’t know how many other hooked candidates there are in the various schools, but it can be a lot…and you should look into that. For example, Middlebury has been taking 3 posses per year…that’s 30 students right there, all ED. Plus their 70+ athletes.
Questbridge matches (ED) can range say maybe 8-12 or so at the LACs, then these schools take more non-matched QB students in RD.
Then legacies and developmental admits. There’s a relatively high proportion of full pays in the ED round…which can be a hook too. I won’t debate need-blind, but there are many ‘tells’ that AOs use to determine financial status when reviewing applications.
Bottom line, I think there is an ED bump at the type of schools we are talking about here, but it’s not nearly as high as many think.
IIRC applying REA to Harvard tripled the chances of the same candidate getting admitted, and that was without Harvard admissions even realizing they were favoring REA applicants. We don’t have data for LACs but given the emphasis they put on ED it is likely at least that powerful.
If Wake becomes a top choice, you can game the ED system even more. Wake has rolling ED, so you can apply very early and if you get deferred/rejected still have time to apply ED1 somewhere else. Not recommending it, just pointing it out.
“So if she ends up at State U (or one of the local LAC’s where his less intelligent buddies are currently students) that is going to be a bitter pill. If she is at really anything on the list I did above they are different enough from what he has and prestigious enough I think she won’t feel like she is settling.”
How important is this compared to other factors? Assuming open curriculum is the most important, how important is prestige because if brother is at an ivy, there are not too many places that would be considered more prestigious by students. Adults can talk all day about how prestige isn’t important, but it’s pretty important to kids.
If open and prestigious are top, then ED to Amherst or Brown is your best bet. Hopefully she gets into one of those, for the sake of the family! If not, then there are lot of good suggestion on this thread but you have to get from her what colleges she’d consider settling. good luck!
Lots of great advice on this thread and I really appreciate it. I’m not going to comment on everyone, because I know that gets annoying when it’s a 4 page thread and 2 pages are just me. But do know that I really appreciate the comments. Especially the ones that question what I’m doing or other advice I am getting, to be honest. That’s where I am really learning things.
@theloniusmonk that’s a great question, and I don’t honestly know the answer. It definitely is a factor. Probably enough to keep Evergreen and Kalamazoo out of the running, but not important enough to put Stanford or most of the Ivies on it.
Painting with a broad brush, I think that there is a pretty easily articulable reason to pick most of the schools on her list over most Ivies. She hasn’t said it this way, but I think she wants to be able to explain her choice in a way that makes sense to the random relative or average person in her HS who is vaguely aware that her brother must be really intelligent because he attends an Ivy League school.
That isn’t to say that most people would choose Rochester over Princeton, but it isn’t hard to come up with a couple of reasons that for the right kid (her) it’s a better choice (openish curriculum, you can literally walk to your shadowing and volunteering opportunities, etc.). Or that Amherst is extremely similar to Brown, but I get smaller classes that aren’t taught by TA’s so I liked it better.
Now if she is at State U, that’s a lot harder to explain away. I’m sure she would come up with something (money, some program, whatever) but she will feel like people are assuming she just isn’t as smart as he is. That will be what is tough I think. Again, because even he would say she is smarter. But he is a high level D1 athlete and “smart enough”.
We all know what admissions is like, but I think the average person thinks if you get a 34 on your ACT you can just sit back and let Harvard and Stanford compete for your application.
Re # 78, “harder to explain away”…
When I was living in the midwest, a lot of people did not think like that where I lived. When my D1 graduated from there, the valedictorian of her private school (the “best” in the area) went to state U. As did many others from there. I lived in one of the wealthier areas there, and most of these kids chose state U. They thought state U was plenty good enough, even an advantage for networking if the kids wanted to stay in-area afterwards. Seemed like a large chunk of the physicians and attorneys there had themselves attended state u. The state professional schools certainly seemed to have local roots in their admissions criteria. That valedictorian was planning on becoming a doctor. I bet she is one today.
That’s the reason the east coast schools had relatively few people from your area, or from my former area, applying. A much smaller proportion of people thought it was worth it, including the people who could afford it.
The majority of the people who did seek private attended more or less equivalent schools that they could get to easier. The same kids who would have gone to Cornell if on the east coast went to Northwestern and Wash U instead . A number went West coast (direct flights to LA/ SF). But more went state U.
If your D attended the state U, she would have no harder time explaining it than that valedictorian did. Wants to be a doctor, save money for med school, possibly easier time getting the needed great grades competing in that pool, be sure to get in-state preference (though she would get that anyway…). It would not give her the desired class sizes, or the desired exposure to east-coast mindsets. But it would not be a bad move either. IMO.
MY D gave up a free ride to state U to attend an LAC elsewhere at full pay, because she didn’t want to stay in that community socially/politically. She did ok in the end, but who’s to say she wouldn’t have had at least equal outcomes from state U ? The school she chose did not turn out to be the utopia she’d hoped for. And we could use that money now…
It’s really not that hard to explain, especially given your Ds objectives. IMO. YMMV.