<p>Being a Maryland student attending one of the number one high schools on the Eastern Shore (keep in mind, there are myriad Western Shore high schools that outclass every school on the Eastern Shore,) many students applied to UMBC and University of Maryland–College Park. Most students got accepted to UMBC and denied from College Park. College Park’s acceptance rate is close to 40% now…</p>
<p>For my school at least, which has traditionally sent many kids to the likes of HYPSM and many other top schools, this year was pretty bad for the top kids but relatively good for the lower ranked kids. For instance, the best students got rejected (very surprisingly) from HYPSM + other ivies and are now looking at going to our state school or their safeties. On the other hand, many kids looking at lower-tier colleges got into their reaches (USC, UT Austin, etc.) Of course several kids still got into good schools (Vanderbilt, Columbia, Harvey Mudd, UPenn, WashU, Rice) but it was definitely a disappointment.</p>
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<p>I wonder how much of that is from students finding the STEM classes too tough and how much is from incoming students having different choices than the recently graduated classes?</p>
<p>I will say the math and physics classes my son has taken at Brown can be brutally difficult compared with high school – 60-65% is a typical median test score, which is rather shocking when you consider nearly half the students in the class were vals or sals of their respective high schools.</p>
<p>Acceptance rates need to be parsed by major in order to be of value. S applied to engineering, ME to be exact. The applications to this particular area have doubled in some cases over the past 3 years. Specifically, the school he has chosen shows a general acceptance rate of around 45% with a yield of 20%. However, in the case of ME, there were 4000 applicants for 65 spots. And, historically, the COE has a higher significantly higher yield than the school of L&S. The COE representative spoke to the fact that in the past years, and this year particularly applicants to COE have been rerouted to L&S. And their office has been receiving a volume of calls from applicants who were not accepted into engineering at any of their schools.</p>
<p>S received on very surprising rejection. Surprising because the published figures on acceptances would put him in the 95% or higher. BUT…if you double click on engineering…again… an overwhelming number of applicants for a small number of seats. </p>
<p>So…did the student apply to European History, Psych, Communications or Gender studies or other softer major…or did they apply to CE, CSEE, ME or such? It makes a difference. THIS data is more important than…we got X in this year and X+2 last year.</p>
<p>PS…I am NOT, repeat NOT making a value judgment on the majors listed.</p>
<p>And…yes, probably the middle class, the ones who do not qualify for merit aid but can’t really afford the full freight are starting to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>My son’s high school has a short history- 6th class to graduate, but this was their breakout year- acceptances to Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Northwestern, JHU, WUSTL, Brown, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Emory, Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, UCLA, UNC, BC, Williams, Amherst, Davidson. We’re pretty proud of the kids- lots of potential for the future.</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to get into my first choice. I know many others going to safeties, though.</p>
<p>Had a lot of classmates that got into amazing schools. The only reason they’re going to their safeties is because of price.</p>
<p>My friend had straight As, extremely rigorous classes, 36 ACT and was rejected by HYPS. I’m not sure about his ECs. I know he’s captain of cross country. But he will be attending state u as it was his only acceptance. So in my opinion, yes.</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to get into my top choice school (and most others), but I have seen many of my friends not get in at places I thought were sure bets. My friend is a gifted artist who literally spends 4-10 hours a day drawing and has won national awards for her artwork – and she was waitlisted at RISD.</p>
<p>Another friend of mine is an extremely talented, highly-trained opera singer who also practices for hours a day, and studies piano to accompany herself. I try to be impartial with my friends, but hearing her sing is truly like listening to a professional opera singer – and she was waitlisted at Eastman. (Although she got into SUNY Purchase for opera, which admits ~10 kids a year.)</p>
<p>A third friend of mine is the valedictorian of our grade with a 4.5+ GPA, high SAT scores, extreme skill in playing the harp, leadership in 3-4 extracurriculars, and probably phenomenal essays to boot – and she was waitlisted at UChicago.</p>
<p>Naturally these are all very selective schools, and I’m sure I’m biased in my friends’ favor, but they are all so, so accomplished and incredible in their fields of choice.</p>
<p>It was a tough year for my school. Graduating class of 550 of which 120 are part of the IB countywide magnet. We usually have about a third of the magnet get into an Ivy/Stanford, but this year we had a lot fewer. We have 4 Stanfords, 4 Yales, 2 Harvards, 5 Cornells, 2 Penns, 7 Dartmouths, 3 Princetons and 0 Columbias, which is about a third of the usual tally for these schools. LAC acceptances and Vanderbilt, Wash-U, etc. acceptances were also low. A few top students got really surprising results. Definitely more safeties in play this year.</p>
<p>the title and actual op dont quite line up. I’m curious what schools people were using for safeties?</p>
<p>The question was whether or not this year’s results match up with past results. The answer for my school was no. Safeties were usually the University of Maryland (state school), schools like Tulane or good out of state schools which many inappropriately deem below them (UNC, Michigan, UVA, etc). The trend at my school is to apply to a bunch of Ivies and then Maryland. This year many more are going to Maryland.</p>
<p>Remember that schools make their reputations by rejecting perfectly qualified applicants. They LOVE rejecting applicants, and rub their hands with glee when they can reject one with so-called “perfect scores and GPAs”.</p>
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<p>Well, it’s nice to know that my son made some adcom’s day. ;)</p>
<p>Oh, yes, you added to their (a-hem) “prestige”. Your community would forget pretty quickly if your son was accepted, but the rejection will be remembered for a long time.</p>
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<p>College instructors do not seem to be bound by the high school convention that 60% = D, 70% = C, 80% = B, 90% = A. That means that they have no need to load up tests with easy problems that the C/D students can answer, with perhaps only one hard problem to distinguish between the B and A students.</p>
<p>What I remember in lower division courses was that the test difficulty often had an intended target median score of around 50% in order to get a wide distribution of scores to be “graded on a curve”.</p>
<p>That’s what they do in my classes, UCB. In physics, the midterm average was 46%. In honors math, the test averages are only around 60%. Now, the plus side is that if you get over a 75, you’ll likely end up with at least an A-</p>
<p>I have been discussing this with D2. Her school typically sends 3 kids in a class of 55 or so to Ivies, and a couple others to top universities. She has been accepted to the top schools she applied to – U Chicago/Swarthmore/Harvey Mudd, but there seem to be NO Ivy or Stanford accepances this year that she has heard of. Class val is likely to go to Carleton. D is NMF – the other 3 NMFs are apparently headed to Reed, U of MN, and Michigan Tech… One early decision acceptance to Northwestern (actually kind of surprised this kid was accepted) and one to Wash U. Really… that is about it. There is one kid I have not heard about yet who might end up with a pretty good option or two. But it seems to be a really off year for our school in terms of top college acceptances. I know at least a handful of kids were applying, just didn’t get in this year.</p>
<p>@redpoint and onesonmom: We are in the middle of junior year college search. We want to use this strategy but not sure how to research. Can you give us some direction?</p>
<p>“One strategy for students with great or even good stats is to apply to colleges which offer merit to those falling in its top 25% range. Those might have been academic safeties under other conditions, but I think they may have functioned this year as financial safeties. At least for us, they did. DS wasn’t likely to be competitive for many (if not most) of the meet-need schools, but he did qualify for merit $$ at many just below.”</p>
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<p>Of course, mini. Every time I repeat that story here on CC, otherwise strong-willed and confident high school seniors begin to tremble in fear as they submit their own applications… ;)</p>