<p>Hi guys,
Sorry if I seem arrogant, nit-picky, or just plain annoying, but I was wondering whether high schools also suffered from Tuft Syndrome - something where a school waitlists highly qualified applicants because they know the kid will go elsewhere more prestigious, and do not want to waste their time.
I thought that I was a great applicant for St. George's (fantastic interview, good grades, good teacher recs, great SSAT's), but was waitlisted. I guess now I'm just looking for something to blame it on.
Please respond if you care - if you just want to diss me or start an online argument, don't even bother. I'm only 13 and already know not to get involved in that mess.</p>
<p>Well, this is my guess: it depends. They know what other schools you applied to. If you’re one of the best students they ever saw, you applied to some other very very prestigious schools as well as St. George’s, and you didn’t seem to show a lot of interest for St. George’s, then they’d probably waitlist instead of accept. This way, if you decline the other schools, you’ll be taken off St. George’s waitlist immediately, instead of St. George’s being rejected and having their yield lowered a little again.
Sorry, it’s a little confusing I know. Just my little meaningless theory.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with bs having the Tuft “Effects”.</p>
<p>I think my d might have run into this with Loomis. </p>
<p>It was truly her second choice out of 7. It was truly not a “safety school” and would have been tough choice for her…but they did not select her. She was selected to attend schools like Deerfield, Exeter, etc.</p>
<p>But with all that being said, I wonder if they just didnt feel that she was the right fit for them, that maybe another program/school would better meet her needs. </p>
<p>I honestly just wonder…hope that helps some.</p>
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<p>I think I know what Dapple meant. If you are waitlisted at a school you love, however, do not decline other acceptances in the hope that your dream school will accept you–unless you’d be happier not attending any boarding school next year. If you have been waitlisted, you have no guarantee of acceptance.</p>
<p>I think that there is a Tufts Effect at BS’s.</p>
<p>My son appied to 10 BS’s last year. Only one school asked him in his app to what other schools he was applying. He answered by listing all of the other nine schools. These schools included many top schools: PA, PEA, SPS, DA, THS, etc. Well, only one school rejected my son: it was that school demanding that we share with it the other BS’s to which my son applied. That school sensed that if any of these top schools accepted him, he would go there. Well, it was right. My son was accepted by one of these top schools and won’t have gone to this other school even if it had accepted him. </p>
<p>So I think that it is wise for some schools to adopt the Tufts approach to apps. Schools are smart enough to know which kids other schools will probably accept. If those other schools are top BS’s, then it makes little sense for a lesser school to chase these kids. It is better for the school to reject them out right and offer space to kids the school believes will enroll in that school.</p>
<p>Amongst the NYC day schools (which function in many ways like the prep schools), there are certainly some which operate this way. In fact, there is one middle-tier school that is well known to rarely accept students unless they send a first choice letter. Other schools will wait list students but as long as you are clued-in to what’s really going on, by either being savvy yourself or through your school’s placement person (if you have one), you know that the wait list is really an acceptance if you want it to be. My son was put on the wait list at his safety school (not the school I just mentioned), but because I simply “knew” and because we have a placement person at his N-8 private school, that wait list was really an acceptance for him if we needed it to be. Fortunately, we didn’t, so I promptly wrote a nice letter to the school saying we did not want him to remain on the wait list. The tone of my letter was as if I was turning down an acceptance. Everyone knew the subtext. The school was able to report better yield statistics and everyone was happy.</p>
<p>*Yes, I agree with bs having the Tuft “Effects”.</p>
<p>I think my d might have run into this with Loomis. </p>
<p>It was truly her second choice out of 7. It was truly not a “safety school” and would have been tough choice for her…but they did not select her. She was selected to attend schools like Deerfield, Exeter, etc.</p>
<p>But with all that being said, I wonder if they just didnt feel that she was the right fit for them, that maybe another program/school would better meet her needs. </p>
<p>I honestly just wonder…hope that helps some.*</p>
<p>I haven’t been following your situation closely, but if your daughter really wanted to go to Loomis and didn’t get into her 1st choice school, you can always call the admissions office. If you’ve run into the Tufts Syndrome and are clearly expressing genuine interest, the Syndrome should go away, and it will quickly be apparent what theire true feelings toward your daughter. Either they will realize that a high quality candidate who they were afraid wouldn’t enroll probably actually will and they will jump at the chance to get her, or they will treat her like a normal wait list candidate.</p>
<p>Yes, I believe this happens as well, based on our daughter’s experience.</p>
<p>So Lville Grad, where did your son decide to go?</p>
<p>My experience in NYC mirrors Lvillegrad’s. I will add a couple of things I’ve observed.
- if your current school works closely with a high school, they may be trying to place a number of candidates there, and at some point will inform the high school that some of the applicants are very interested and are likely to attend. They will not tell them that others are NOT interested, but the omissions will not go overlooked. The high school will then decide what to do about very qualified candidates which have not expressed a preference in their favor, either to take a chance and accept them or put them on WL. Most likely the latter; they will not reject them.
- while I obviously can’t prove this, it sure seemed like BS were more likely to discuss candidates with each other than the NYC day schools, leading to some unexpected WL decisions.</p>
<p>I think, in general, schools have some idea of what student profiles tend to get accepted where. Which is why interviews are important. Adcoms can tell if the student is casting a wide net, or if they are just mass applying to a number of schools.</p>
<p>Some schools can tell if they are safeties. Then again, some schools seem to bristle at lobbying hard and turn students down. </p>
<p>So really - it’s chance. I don’t think there is any “game playing” going on because if you look at the number of applicants to number of acceptances, there’s just too much competition for them to have to play those type of (will he or won’t he) games.</p>
<p>But I guess it’s fun to speculate.</p>
<p>Not in our case. Our good fit, “second tier” school, accepted our son with good FA, knowing he had applied to three others that were more prestigious. While on the interview, we made it clear why he was applying there, and it was for stuff that made that school unique. Don’t know if that made a difference–and I’m truly grateful they accepted him as he was accepted to only one other school and waitlisted at two others. We would have sent him there in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>*So Lville Grad, where did your son decide to go? *</p>
<p>Stuyvesant</p>
<p>Stuy is obviously really good school academically. Is your son enjoying the other aspects of his experience though? I was actually considering Stuy as well, but decided not to apply because the commute would be horrible for me.</p>
<p>Like prepclassof82 said, our placement person (and it sounds like his child’s also), talks to the admissions offices of several schools. We had a meeting with her in January during which we told her our attitude during all the private schools to which he was applying. All parents of students in the graduating class did the same.</p>
<p>laxislife1265: Stuy is obviously really good school academically. Is your son enjoying the other aspects of his experience though? I was actually considering Stuy as well, but decided not to apply because the commute would be horrible for me. </p>
<p>I have no idea! He’s still in 8th grade. :)</p>
<p>His commute, however, will only be about a half hour door-to-door involving one express subway line. So, that’s not an issue. I am a bit concerned about the culture shock considering that a typical class will be about 75% of the size of his entire graduating. class this year. However, this is what he wants and has chosen and Stuy certainly addresses his particular academic interests better than private schools do.</p>
<p>Yeah for me the commute would have been close to an hour each day. Also about the culture shock, Stuy seems to be extremely competitive academically so I would say it is a valid concern. I am currently going to school with a kid who transferred in his sophomore year and he said it was a ton of pressure. He actually pops pills as well (possibly his way of coping with the amount of work/pressure at stuy?). Of course I am not trying to discourage you from sending your kid there. I am just trying to offer a data point. I’m also curious as to how the social life is there as opposed to a very good BS.</p>
<p>I was really worried about this pre March10. It turns out that I shouldn’t have been, not with the nonHADES schools anyway. I’m starting to think that the HADES schools are more concerned about yield than the others. HOWEVER, we needed significant FA, so I don’t fault any school who WLed him so that another child who they KNEW would attend if accepted could get those FA dollars. </p>
<p>In case you can’t tell, I still haven’t decided how I feel about this “Tufts Effect.” The more I think about it, the more variables I see that can come into play in admissions. I defies meaningful analysis (by me anyway!)</p>
<p>Exie,
</p>
<p>Tuft’s effect is to make the yield look artificially high, even though they can fill those spots eventually with the many candidates available. So if the schools know someone is likely to not enroll, they would still WL/reject him/her and select other candidates. So competition has no bearing on Tuft’s effect.</p>
<p>How do we show the school that it is my first choice? I think I may have been affected by this syndrome also…I’m on Choate’s wait list and as pathetic as it may sound, it’s my only admission commitment as all the other schools have rejected me. </p>
<p>Should I send another email to my interviewer emphasizing that it is indeed my dream school?</p>