<p>My school sends no more than 2 people per year to each selective private, and in most cases zero. Some schools include all of the Ivies (minus Dartmouth), Stanford, MIT, UofC, JHU, Duke, Vandy, and the Claremont Colleges. I don’t have precise figure for this year. However, many students end up in a UC school. Safety schools vary; for those going to top privates safeties were UCLA/USC/Berkeley, with the other UCs also being safeties. This is in a class of 750. One-third end up going to a local JC.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse – Yes, we went overboard on our reach school applications because we sought the best FA but to no avail. Classmates had similar experience. Hoping that my S makes his first prudent business decision and attends the school that offers the least debt. An 800 + club president + team captain + Govt officer + volunteerism means nuttin’ these days. Will change course and apply pressure on my younger sons to excel at sports as their hook.</p>
<p>Pomona88 - Here’s our version of the strategy I mentioned. You might want to build some sort of a format for the information; I used a Word table but others used Excel (well, actually, for a long time I had everything scribbled on the back of an envelope, but the search widened :)</p>
<p>First, you will need to located each college’s Common Data Set, which you can search for on Google (name of the college + Common Data Set). I recommend taking the time to get the information directly from each college’s site, rather than use the more convenient shortcuts you’ll find such as links to lists…you’ll want the most recent data. However, for researching purposes early on, there are sites such as Co ll e g e Na vi g a t o r that are good, just might want to confirm them in the fall.</p>
<p>You’re looking for data for the middle 50% range of their students, which is displayed as a number for 25% and a number for 75%: ACT and SAT scores, GPA if available. (It’s important to keep in mind that GPA is whatever that college says it is, meaning that this number is only useful if you both understand exactly how the college would convert your student’s grades to its own scale, and then complete the conversion using final junior year grades.) The most useful for us was the ACT score…you want to have a score that places you at or above the 75% score shown for the school…for both admission and merit $$$ purposes!</p>
<p>Also on the CDS you can see how important other things are for admission: interview, ranking, etc.</p>
<p>Last, note the dates: when the new admission year’s application opens, but especially the Early Action (EA) dates. Make sure you understand the distinctions between the nonbinding EA and SCEA (Single Choice Early Action), ED (Early Decision, binding), and rolling admission.</p>
<p>Another important set of dates are those related to financial aid applications and any for scholarships. Many private schools require the CSS form, which I believe becomes available October 1. I think it’s handy to note which are FAFSA schools and which are CSS schools, and get both ready to submit. Some privates also have their own financial aid forms.</p>
<p>We noted application details too: Common App, Common App with supplement, institutional app; letters of recommendation; etc along with application fees (they add up quickly!) with highlighted no-fee, no-essay, or automatic-admit schools.</p>
<p>The Common Data Sets yield a lot of other information as well, so are worth a re-read once you narrow your list a bit.</p>
<p>Also, if the merit or scholarship $$$ is important to being able to afford the college, be sure to make a note of the minimum GPA required to keep it…2.0 is better than 3.5 especially for a freshman year transition. If study abroad is important, check to make sure the $$$ applies.</p>
<p>Others will have their own versions, but this is what we developed as we went along.</p>
<p>Final advice: apply Early Action to as many colleges as you can, safeties + matches + reaches.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>
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<p>So you had THREE Ivy acceptances, not zero. Athletic acceptances count you know.</p>
<p>Yes this is so true. I only got into three schools (UCLA, CMU, and Allegheny) and I even got rejected from Berkeley and USC T.T. That along with waitlists at Rice and Cornell and rejections at Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, and Northwestern.</p>
<p>S13 got into 2 out of 3 reaches (huge reaches IMHO). And we had our 1st Harvard acceptance in a very long time.</p>
<p>@ onesonmom, thank you for the very informative post above! I appreciate the great tips. We plan to use such a strategy for our kids.</p>
<p>Interesting discussion. To answer the question someone asked about acceptances anywhere. D attends a top public school in Ohio. Just over 400 in the senior class with over 30 national merit finalists. Several with perfect SATS and 2 with perfect APs. Creates a stressful and competitive environment, to say the least. Lots of acceptances (double digits) to Michigan, Northwestern, many to UC, Wash U, Cornell, Penn, at least one to Harvard, Brown, Yale, West Point…one kid got rejected from Harvard, but got a full ride to Vandy. Told Columbia, who matched and offered him a full ride. Another kid got a prestigious full ride award to Emory. Lots got multiple acceptances…and of course many rejections. I will say that the kids I know from her school who have been accepted to these highly selective schools, they are academically brilliant, and have demonstrated not just leadership but exceptional initiative and creativity. They have won national awards, been invited to the White House, started international organizations, and are very hard working. These are the kids you hope go on to do something big for all of us. You hear about their accomplishments and just say, wow! But I know for every acceptance, there are many rejections for kids of similar qualifications and attributes. At some point the ad coms must be splitting hairs or throwing darts. On the other hand, some of these kids truly stand out as exceptional. We just happen to have a lot of them clustered into our senior class.</p>
<p>And one thing I will add, we are an affluent school district. Not all of the students are…but the district is, and so the students have access to lots of resources and opportunities. We fund mock trial, debate teams, science Olympiad, drama, etc. almost 20 APs offered, lots of guidance counselors, etc. What continues to be so troubling to me is the widening disparity in these types of opportunities…not just across the country but across the state. Ohio’s school funding system is one of the worst in regard to equitable funding across districts. Kids in neighboring districts don’t have a fraction of the resources that kids have in our district. It is a real shame…and perhaps one of the many reasons why the most selective schools still struggle to increase enrollment from lower income and underrepresented groups.</p>
<p>".one kid got rejected from Harvard, but got a full ride to Vandy. Told Columbia, who matched and offered him a full ride…"</p>
<p>So much for need-blind, need-based, no merit-aid policy. ;)</p>
<p>“why the most selective schools still struggle to increase enrollment from lower income and underrepresented groups.”</p>
<p>None of them are struggling. They get what they want.</p>
<p>Re: “none of them are struggling. They get what they want.” Agree 100%.</p>
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<p>UCLA/USC/Berkeley are too selective and have enough subjective criteria like essays to be truly solid safeties for anyone, although they can be considered match-level for some (i.e. not “reach for everyone” schools).</p>
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<p>Why spell it that way? It is not a prohibited link or word here:</p>
<p>[College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)</p>
<p>Neither is College Data:</p>
<p>[CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com)</p>
<p>Post#9 is correct for our family. D received letters from Ivies and top schools encouraging her to apply, but since we are very middle class, we focused on privates with excellent merit and a few safeties. We did not receive any FA, which is what we expected, so our strategy was focusing on merit aid. Select colleges are losing the entire middle class. Unless you want to apply for fun and then not attend, due to finances, why apply?</p>
<p>Sports work rather well - and every year, lacrosse is adding NCAA programs of all levels at a rather shocking clip!</p>
<p>Almost everyone in my senior class is going to community college for two years and then transferring to a state college. That being said, given the current economic climate, I really don’t see how Student A who has enough money to go to a private school will become any more successful than Student B who is going to have trouble getting tuition for state school. </p>
<p>I think the only effect it will have is increase the standards of state schools.</p>
<p>We also tried to focus on merit aid - problem is, we received 50% waitlist response, which eliminates the opportunity for merit aid in most cases. </p>
<p>My DS’s (highly ranked academically) public high school saw an overwhelming number of waitlists for their top 5 students. All of them received the constant “recruiting” mail for a year from the top schools, who then all waitlisted them. But we all paid our money for applications… Why do colleges solicit more and more applicants each year? Try 30,000 applications at $80 a pop for each school. That’s a nice $2.4M income per school. That will fund about 30 admissions staff for 5 months, and leave you $2M…</p>
<p>In hindsight, I can’t help but wonder of the biggest mistake we made at several schools was specifying a major. That would seem to make sense for all the waitlists instead of outright rejections. It’s all about program space.</p>
<p>@MaidenMom: I know of two kids who got into Harvard with Lacrosse-the boy had a 2.0 GPA low everything, and even flunked his freshman year of high school. (had to repeat it). But there is one sport, that if you are good at it, almost guarantees you admission: (drum roll) The sport is…</p>
<pre><code> Water Polo.
</code></pre>
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<p>At schools where the applicant’s major makes a difference in admissions selectivity, changing major into a popular major after enrolling is likely to require a competitive admission process, high college GPA, etc…</p>
<p>Getting into a school but not the desired major may or may not be worthwhile, depending on whether the student has another desirable but less popular major that s/he is willing to do.</p>
<p>In my senior class of 160, the acceptances are pretty average. Our school is just an average midwest school - suburban, predominately middle class with a few families being upper-middle class. Most students don’t leave our home state (Ohio), especially due to costs.
This is the typical distributions of acceptances:</p>
<p>Ohio State (me + 4 others)
Kent State (25+)
Various regional LACS (15+)
Case Western Reserve (me + 2 others)
Other various instate schools, e.g. Cinci, Dayton, OU (50+)
Northwestern (1, committed athlete)</p>
<p>And our 15-year old brain child was accepted to Cornell, CalTech, Stanford, and probably some other Ivies. A girl with a 24 ACT was horrified to learn she was rejected by UChicago. Another girl was rejected from all her schools (including Cornell, Northwestern, UChicago) except for Ohio State. The sad thing is that after the rejections came in she tried to rub it in my face I didn’t have a half-tuition scholarship at OSU. I simply replied, “You’re right. I don’t have a half-tuition scholarship, I have a full tuition scholarship!” ;)</p>