<p>“Haven’t I been saying the same thing from day one?”
Ah, Dad, how quickly we forget! The answer to this question is an unequivocal No!.
Have you totally forgotten your HYP and overall IVY obsession, and how you you were SOOO upset and disappointed that your D ONLY got into Stanford??? sheesh…</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your son’s friend Paperchase, it certainly will help put things into perspective for him.</p>
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<p>As I read these boards I’m constantly amazed at the things people have heard come out of the mouths of adcom. I think US News has made them all marketeers, determined to get as many applications in the door as possible.</p>
<p>There’s a part of me that wants to go on college tours and ask some detailed follow up questions to statements like this one, such as: then why do you seem to accept the kids who took all of the APs and won competitions rather than the ones in their garage tinkering?</p>
<p>I have to agree with hmom5 on this. If I have to hear/read one more time of “how we are looking at the entirety of the candidate, how the scores and numbers are not everything, etc”, I will have to throw up.</p>
<p>Go check their middle 50% range and GPA and ranking distribution. The top 10 schools are uniformly and extremely high in this domain.</p>
<p>What they really mean is, we want kids who are extremely well armed with incredible stats AND on top of that, well rounded, spontaneous, follow his/her heart, etc. For instance, there is this urban myth/mantra about Uchicago being quirky and not pay much a lot of attention to SAT etc. Yet, their middle 50% range is exactly where it should be: just slightly below those of HYP, MIT and Cal Tech, on par with those of the likes of U Penn, Columbia, stanford, Duke etc and higher than those of the lower Ivies and the likes of JHU and Georgetown. And then, there is U Penn which seems to be fixated on HS ranking. This is what their action says as evidenced by the admission stats they publish. Yet, their adcoms go on and on and on saying all sorts of things that give false hopes to students. </p>
<p>They are all playing ranking games. they know they should boost the number of applicants so that they appear selective. I believe that no adcom is allowed to scare potential applicants away and expected to keep his/her job. Doing this long enough, they may even convince themselves that they do mean it. The only exception is those kids who have hooks - legacies, athletes, URMs, and those with truly exceptional life stories (only 3.6 GPA and 2000 SAT but supported and raised 5 younger siblings by working full time while going to HS and living in a shelter after both parents were jailed for a drug charge - OK, I am exaggerating, but you get the idea).</p>
<p>For the vast majority of our kids without hooks, we need to be realistic. I was extremely ill informed and naive with S1. With S2, I have no illusion whatsoever. It’s a minor miracle that S1 got into Chicago without any gaming on our part and NO strategy whatsoever. The level of stupidity my whole family displayed last fall simply boggles my mind. His ancestors looked kindly upon him. Either that or he did some incredibly charitable deeds in his previous life. To be serious, S1 had some really incredible stats coming from an incredible high school that allowed him to squeak by with a dismal EC storyline - this is not the case for S2, and I will not make the same mistake again of being ill prepared. </p>
<p>I sense that there are parents on this thread who seem to nurse a hope that somehow adcoms are omniscient enough to see beyond and beneath those pesky Cs and Bs to discover how special, talented, and deserving our kids are. I remember reading about a parent who thought that Northwestern is a match for her kid who has sub 3.6 UW GPA with As in the art electives and such but without many As in the core subjects, because the kid has 2200+ SAT and is so smart. Well, at the top 20 level, they don’t have to spend so much energy to “decipher” our kids. There are ton of candidates who are just as special, quirky, and deserving as our kids and have incredible stats on top of that. Why would the adcoms go into the mode of mind twisting mental game to “discover” our kids???</p>
<p>Of course, we all hear some really amazing stories of Johnny without hooks who got into Harvard with mediocre stats. Well, it’s like winning a lottery. Of course, it happens, but would you build a retirement plan around the odds of winning a lottery?</p>
<p>UChicago did indeed not pay all that much attention to test scores in the Ted O’Neill era (what the new guy will do is unknown). They could have admitted a class with higher scores if they so desired. However, the student qualities they did value happen to be highly correlated with high test scores. This may be the case at other schools as well. Those qualities include, challenging one’s self with the most rigorous courses available, teacher recommendations, ECs that reflect a passion, and creative essays. My guess is that kids who do those also have the grades and the test scores. Once in awhile a test score or GPA may be a little on the low side (by comparison) while all the rest are excellent, and that student may be admitted. So, from the admissions counselor’s perspective they are looking at the whole applicant.</p>
<p>If I am a betting man, I would put my money on the odds that with this new guy, Chicago’s admission practice will become more “mainstream” on par with that of other top 10 schools.</p>
<p>That would indeed be sad, but you may be correct.</p>
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<p>That is exactly what it is going on. Counselors joke that HYPSM et al are vying to see who can get to a less than 1% admission rate first! The only way to do that is to encourage as many applicants as possible.</p>
<p>Bovertine posted a great link in #577</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pvpusd.k12.ca.us/penhi/collegeacceptance/collegeacceptance09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pvpusd.k12.ca.us/penhi/collegeacceptance/collegeacceptance09.pdf</a></p>
<p>I would encourage everyone to read the it. Very sobering. I think I saw only one student with less than a 3.9UWA get into a HYPSM, or even Chicago, Duke or Emory. There were plenty of kids with 3.9UWA who got denied or wait listed.</p>
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<p>If this is the guy who I met at RPI (I believe he was there before Chicago), I would not bet against you. My only hope is that he won’t last.</p>
<p>remember reading about a parent who thought that Northwestern is a match for her kid who has sub 3.6 UW GPA with As in the art electives and such but without many As in the core subjects, because the kid has 2200+ SAT and is so smart. Well, at the top 20 level, they don’t have to spend so much energy to “decipher” our kids. There are ton of candidates"</p>
<p>but I’m telling you, I personally KNOW unhooked kids like that at NU.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that colleges are trying their best to attract as many applicants as possible. This certainly does wonder to their admit rates and gives them a boost in the rankings. I did hear a few “if you don’t look forward to challenges, don’t apply” and “if you don’t a passion for math and science, look elsewhere.” But, these remarks don’t really serve as meaningful deterrent to mismatched candidates.</p>
<p>My last post on Mr. Schmill’s statement was meant to highlight a key criterion in MIT’s admission. Of course, you need to have the stats. We all know about how, if they want to, the HYPSM can fill their entire freshman classes with 4.0 and 2300+ students. The statement may be applicable only as a tiebreak, but then again, it may be more than a tiebreak. I’d rather think it is the latter.</p>
<p>As this thread went on, I find myself continually adjusting my expectation downward :(. I’m certainly less optimistic of DS1’s chances now than at the start of the thread. At the same time, I’m more knowledgeable about the process and the positioning than before ;). My hope is that this increased awareness will help my son get the most out of his stats and get to a good college of his choice, where he can “do what he likes to do” and make the most out of what the school can offer.</p>
<p>Btw, I agree with Pizzagirl. I also know kids like that accepted to other T20s.</p>
<p>The main effect this thread has had on my thinking is that I think my son should apply to a couple more schools in the 20-to-40 range and treat the very top schools as more like a lottery than a game of skill. My son’s list has changed only a little in the last two weeks:</p>
<p>Definitely Apply: Chicago, MIT, Rochester, Pitt, Rice, WashU, State U (financial safety)
Probably Apply: Tulane, Case
Thinking About Applying: Yale, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Northwestern</p>
<p>I’m thinking about prodding him to add a couple of Tufts/Brandeis/BC-caliber schools to this list. From the stats I’ve seen, they are matches.</p>
<p>Mantori, I wouldn’t consider Tufts (or Rice or Wash U) a match. Low reach, but not a match. Too many mega-score/GPA kids will use it as a safety. This is the dilemma – how S2 can convince this caliber of school that they are where he truly wants to be – and that they are not a second choice to him vs. an Ivy.</p>
<p>idad, I keep hanging on to the advice you gave me 2.5 years ago. Certainly worked out well for S1.</p>
<p>Fair enough. My confidence is fairly high with Wash U for a couple of reasons, but in general I’d have to say you’re right.</p>
<p>M.S. High confidence is a good thing. I just have one question:</p>
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<p>Is this your thinking or your son’s thinking? If it is your thinking, I say you missed quite a few of them - Harvard, Princeton, CalTech, Duke, etc. Why are you leaving these schools out? Are they not good enough?</p>
<p>WashU also the well deserved reputation for waitlisting thousands of top stat students. At my S’s private Hs, the counselors basically tell kids- don’t bother to apply to Wash U unless you’re applying Ed. YMMV, but you may want to take a look at the Wash U boards from last April 1. Wash U has managed to keep their CDS hidden- apparently they want to hide the actual # of wait listed kids because it is so huge.</p>
<p>DAd II,
I hope you post was tongue in cheek… Otherwise what prompted such a sarcastic question in 614 ? I thought you said you had learned in the last 2 years on CC.</p>
<p>DebbieS7, I took your advice and looked at the student-by-student listing of applications stats. I ended up getting sucked into the small dramas of who applied where. Saddest was the hapless student who didn’t get in anywhere. You could speculate on who got good financial aid from what school, see who applied to a huge number of name brand schools, and who had a well-balanced list. There were a few CTCL-type schools, but not many. Not the point of this thread, I know.</p>
<p>My hope with the race to a 1% admit rate is that more and more people will be using Naviance, or at least seeing Naviance statistics. Students would see that the odds of admission to the single-initial schools are XX% if you have a 3.95 GPA, but only 0.0X% if you have a sub-par GPA. That might dampen some of the admissions frenzy. Though maybe people will buy the HYP lottery tickets because of the payoff (free/cheap COA). Or grade inflation will produce an ever-larger number of 4.0 GPAs, enlarging the pool of kids who think they have a prayer of getting in.</p>
<p>^^^ I was intrigued by student 15, the 3.5 UW GPA, 30 ACT who applied only to Yale and got in. What’s the story there? Recruited athlete or superrich legacy donor?</p>
<p>^ Only 1 application? Got to be a recruited athlete. No doubt he/she had the Likely letter in Sept.</p>
<p>I thought that school’s data was WAY too specific for public consumption. Did the school publish this online? </p>
<p>To me, the beauty of Naviance is that you can see how kids from YOUR school did, given what the colleges know about your school’s program and difficulty. It is what gives me confidence about certain schools on S2’s list and why others of similar caliber weren’t even considered. I know a kid who was sal w/a 3.98 UW and just lost a scholarship at a Cal State. I know a kid with a ~3.7 UW (and not top 10%) who took graduate courses as a freshman at a T10. It’s the context!!!</p>