My daughter has been wait listed at American. She is a National Merit Finalist, has a 3.9 GPA, 2300 SAT score, several AP classes. She is involved in numerous extra curricular activities, plays 2 varsity sports, and is currently a captain of her lacrosse team. She has been a class officer for 3 years, plays in the school band and has received many awards over the last 3 years. Her scores are definitely higher than American’s average scores. Another student from her school has lower grades, lower SAT scores and she was accepted by American. Anyone have any clues for us as to why this has happened? My daughter has emailed 2 people at American requesting an explanation, and thus far has received no response.
It could be yield protection. Perhaps her gc can get an explanation. Does she want to attend there? She should only pursue this, if she really wants to go there.
They will not give an applicant an explanation of a decision. I would suggest that she talk to her guidance counselor and ask him/her to try to get feedback. If she doesn’t care about the acceptance to American anymore, I’d drop it. If American is her top choice she can email a letter expressing her continued interest in the school and (only if true) she can say “if accepted I will attend”
Yes, she does want to go there. She did receive a return email from the school. She was basically told “it is what it is” and there is nothing she can do but hope she will get an offer of admission from the wait list. It’s confusing because the school doggedly pursued her via email once than National Merit semi finalist list was released. They strongly encouraged her to apply for their Honors Program, also.
Yield protection.
AU is notorious for yield protection. Did your daughter visit, write the optional essays, interview, and do other things to show interest?
American is very clear that it highly values demonstrated interest. Did she tour, meet with the admissions rep when he/she came to her school, go to an evening session in your hometown, open all the emails they sent her?
I’m sorry this didn’t work out as hoped. On the off chance that you don’t know what is meant by “yield protection”: AU wants its statistics to show that a high number of accepted students choose to attend (the “yield” on acceptances). From AU’s point of view, your D was overqualified for the school, likely using AU as a safety, and unlikely to attend if accepted–i.e, a bad bet. If AU accepted every applicant whose credentials were at the level of your D’s, most of those students would turn down the offer, and AU would look like a school no one wanted to attend. At this point, the only option for your D is to assure AU that she will attend if offered a spot off the waitlist, but as a practical matter, she should move on to her next best choice.
But just to be clear … they will take high-stat kids if the kids show them the love. My ds2 did, with similar stats to your dd, and was admitted. But then he did what AU fears and chose Georgetown. I agree that they’re protecting their yield, and I don’t blame them. But one hedge against a kid using it as his/her safety is also only admitting kids who show that they really would like to go there, regardless of stats.
Schools sending emails to applicants is more of a a way to increase applications vs '‘pursuing’ a specific kid. Schools may actively pursue a top athlete, a development case or in some cases a URM, but most of the time they are not pursuing any one applicant.
Your D should send a strong letter of interest and also have her gc speak on her behalf. Her strong stats should make her stand out on the wl. Good luck
I was waitlisted too! Here are my stats, I sent in an update on how I started my own nonprofit adn how AU can help me build it, hoping to get off the wait list, I got waitlisted at GW and UChicago too
ACT 27, pretty low ik its the lowest point on my app
GPA UW 3.95, my transcript sent in 4.38 but it has increased to 4.698,
Classes; Ive taken all four years of French, one year of Spanish, AP Us, AP Lang, AP Lit. AP Chem, AP Gov, AP Euro AP Calc AP Physics and CP Econ
EC: 4 year cheerleader senior captain and multiple leadership awards,
3 year varsity Gymnast,
Class President Sophomore Junior and Senior year,
Student Council all 4 years,
Key Club (community service group) all 4 years public relations office soph. and junior year, president Senior year, through key club i attended a leadership camp then went back the next year and counseled at it
,Renaissance club 2 years,
Students Against Destructive Decisions all 4 years,
I interned with Ohio Senator Portman and one of my letters of rec is coming from this internship, interned with Children Hunger Alliance feeding inner city kids during the summer
Essays: my common app essay dealt with me wanting to change the inequality in the educational system, how my internship with Children Hunger Alliance helped that and how that led me to starting a BuildOn chapter in my schools.
@molly50 - American University is very clear that they value “demonstrated interest”. One clear way for a high stats student, such as your daughter, to demonstrate their interest is to apply ED (either ED1 or ED2). American accepts an extraordinarily high percentage (89% this year from the ED1 applicants) of the ED applicants. If you read through the American threads you will see many high stats kids who were denied or waitlisted. This year American received 19,300 total applications and accepted 25% of the RD pool.
None of this will make a student feel any better. Both of my daughters were denied admission or waitlisted from schools they were well qualified for (and were excited for). Candidly, it stinks. We allow them their disappointment, and then nudge them toward the good choices they have. Frankly, my girls have been rather pissed off at some of the decisions (both for them and their friends) and we find this helps them move on.
To what other schools has you daughter applied/been admitted to? With her stats and hard work I expect she has some wonderful options.
Best of luck to her.
Did she show a high level of interest? American University considers “level of applicant’s interest” to be “very important” (more important than any other factor besides high school course rigor and high school GPA):
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=475
It may be yield protection, meaning they don’t think she will attend. It may be that her essay on “Why American” was not compelling. it may be something else in her application.
Does she really want to attend or does she have other options? If she wants to go to American, it may be better to send a follow-up about why she really wants to attend and make sure those are valid reasons. Hopefully, she didn’t ask why the less deserving (in your opinion) kid from her HS was in and she was not. That would probably not help her chances.