"We reject kids with perfect grades and perfect SAT scores every year."

Applying to College
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<p>For those of you straight-A/2400 people out there, do you feel targeted/offended/ticked/uncomfortable when an admissions officer running an info session says this? I've been to 4 so far (Pomona, McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Caltech) and each admissions person will brag that they reject perfect grades/perfect SAT every year.</p>

<p>So I'm wondering: why don't they rephrase what they say? I think we can all agree that the officers want to say that kids with a B here and there or non-perfect scores aren't automatically out. But why isn't that how the admissions people phrase that?</p>

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<p>Admissions officers are trying to speak to the greater misconception that those with perfect numbers are guaranteed admits and that those with imperfect numbers are guaranteed rejects. </p>

<p>In the relatively rare cases that an attendee at the information session is one of those students with perfect numbers, he or she would do well to remember that admissions officers’ point is not that such students are disadvantaged but merely that, because the process is subjective and thus unpredictable, they are not so different from, say, a student with 2300 on the SAT and a 3.8 unweighted GPA.</p>

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<p>Yeah, they’re basically just trying to stress the level of holistic review, since after a point, slight variations become almost meaningless. But just saying that doesn’t hit home so much as a hard statistic, which can be repeated. Plus, turning down X amount of statistically perfect applicants is both a point of pride, and shows that their view of the perfect applicant goes beyond stats.</p>

<p>Anyway, a school with a 20% admit rate saying “we reject 50% of 2400 SAT applicants” is also saying “we don’t reject 50% of 2400 SAT applicants.” So calm down.</p>

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<p>In these cases, assuming they are rare, what are the applicants obviously lacking? Can you ask them to elaborate? Is it possible that some of the applicants are repeated test takers?</p>

<p>I suspect that they try to encourage everyone to apply. Though test scores are not important they claim, there are only 25% of matriculated students scored below 700 in any section of the SAT for some schools.</p>

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<p>The answer is often that the applicants are not lacking anything other than the apparent reality that they failed to compel the admissions officers to acceptance. Applicants whose applications are objectively excellent may be rejected from top schools; it happens because the process is subjective, and it doesn’t mean (though in some cases it may suggest) that their applications exhibited salient weaknesses in other ways. </p>

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<p>Many students take the SAT and/or ACT multiple times. I see no reason that 2400ers would be disproportionately likely to have taken the test multiple times compared to other high scorers.</p>

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<p>Yes, that’s another motive.</p>

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<p>A lot of kids seem to have a sense of entitlement. They phrase it that way because kids come marching in as if they were the Messiah. Just keep them in their place. </p>

<p>I know I exaggerate, but that is why they do what they do. I bet countless parents and students complain every year to the admissions dean that the son or daughter with perfect scores did not get in.</p>

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<p>Not that this point matters, but I’d be surprised if this happened much more than once a year on average, considering the small number of applicants with perfect numbers who apply to a given school and then get rejected.</p>

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<p>I don’t think that’s the primary purpose behind the message. I interpret it more as an attempt to encourage undecided or discouraged potential applicants.</p>

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<p>They say it that way because they don’t want the people with perfect scores and GPAs to get overconfident and then be let down when they realize their numbers didn’t guarantee their admission. At the same time, they’re conveying the main point, which is that the process is about much more than just numbers.</p>

<p>It’s not that they’re trying to fight against some “sense of entitlement.” It’s that they don’t want kids convincing themselves that they’ll definitely get in to their reach schools, because (1) it’s nice to warn them in advance so they’re not let down; and (2) it reduces the chance that they’ll get these kids calling them up and ranting about how they had perfect scores and still got rejected.</p>

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<p>"For those of you straight-A/2400 people out there, do you feel targeted/offended/ticked/uncomfortable when an admissions officer running an info session says this? "</p>

<p>No. Why would that be offensive? It’s the truth. Perfect scores don’t make you more or automatically worthy of acceptance. But you know that.</p>

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<p>Not sure how much the complaining happens, but Stanford claims that if they accepted everyone with a 4.0, they’d need 3 Stanfords.</p>

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<p>I can see perfect scores being rejected in some of the Ivies since they don’t want to admit 1100 + perfect SAT and ACT scorers (I am guessing a lot of them do apply to several Ivies).</p>

<p>The reason some of the 20% acceptance schools reject them can be any of the following:</p>

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<li><p>Yield protection - it is not just perfect scorers but who can say 2300 or 33 are not good enough? So they try to gauge interest. I have asked the adcom of NW why applicants who don’t get accepted to HPME get waitlisted and the answer was they don’t show up and so if they are seriously interested, they have to say yes to waitlist.</p></li>
<li><p>Kids may not have paid the same level of attention to supplements to schools they consider match or below and that comes across in their applications.</p></li>
<li><p>The school may consider them disinterested and may not show up once admitted.</p></li>
<li><p>Things are getting really tight with a lot of schools receiving unbelievable number of applications. If you think 2300 or above and 33 are good enough scores, they need to look at the rest of the application (Case in point, check RD rate of 5.7% at Columbia and less than 20% at NW from much higher rates in the past.</p></li>
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<p>Regarding the suspicion that top schools just want to generate more and more and more applications: I can tell you that the ultra selective schools’ info sessions aren’t about generating quantity but quality apps. We’ve all see a doubling of applications over the last 12 years. It’s a double edge sword: we get to sift through more great students and get more choice but we also have to say NO to more great kids, each and every year.</p>

<p>When I give my info sessions, I thank the kids and parents for considering my HYP alma mater but at no time do I encourage them to blindly apply. I give a clear portrait of the typical admittee and even discuss admit rates. Then I invite them to consider all that alongside the benefits of my college – and let them decide.</p>

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<p>Adcoms say that because the kids with 2400/4.0’s are applying anyways. And the kids with less than stellar scores/gpa need to be encouraged to apply. This way, adcoms get the most money in applications from all types of applicants. They also get their % acceptance to go down, making their USNWR increase. </p>

<p>Who actually cares about education when you can make money?</p>

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<p>Brown tells us more than most elite colleges about who they accept, and who they reject. For their class of 2014, they rejected 77.8% of those scoring 800 on SAT CR; 81.8% of those scoring 800 on SAT M; 77.6% of those scoring 800 on SAT W; 68.1% of those scoring a perfect 36 on the ACT; and 79% of HS valedictorians.</p>

<p>Similarly, Princeton tells is that for their class of 2014, they rejected 78.6% of applicants in the 2300-2400 SAT range, and 85.2% of applicants with an unweighted GPA of 4.0.</p>

<p>They tell you they reject kids with perfect test scores and perfect GPAs because they do. And because if you come in with an attitude of entitlement based on your HS grades and test scores, it may actually work to your detriment. They don’t want a bunch of prima donnas who think they’re God’s gift to Brown or Princeton. They want interesting, engaged kids who will make the campus a more interesting, livelier, more diverse, and more intellectually, culturally, and socially vibrant place—and those aren’t always the kids with the best numerical stats. Overall, good stats help; they certainly don’t hurt. But in and of themselves, they’re no guarantee of admission to the most selective schools, and excessive reliance on them might suggest an unrealistic and self-important candidate who may be in for rough sledding.</p>

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<p>isk: your cynicism is sad. It’s obvious you’ve never been around education professionals and administrators whose lives are dedicated to educating students. While finances and business decisions are important to all, you have no idea about the primacy of the education mission at say, the top schools who really don’t give a flip about USNWR because they are confident of themselves and their rich heritage. They could deal easily with a halving of the applications and still be 100% confident of bringing in superb classes.</p>

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<p>The fact that you can quote exactly what they said really tells you why they said it…it got everyone’s attention, which was their intent!</p>

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<p>In addition to being a parent of [ now former ] college students, I was on the faculty of Brown University for 24 yrs</p>

<p>An Admission VP once said to me :</p>

<p>“Every Valedictorian who applies here thinks they’re an ‘automatic’ … well, there are 35,000 high schools in this country which means there are 35,000 Valedictorians , and they can’t ALL get into Brown” </p>

<p>But the biggest problem all these “perfect” kids have is admission “set-asides”</p>

<p>If you belong to one of several ‘special groups’, you go to head of the admission list, although you usually still need ‘good numbers’ to get in</p>

<p>These groups, which account for 2/3’rds of all admissions, are – in no particular order:</p>

<p>– Legacies … children / grandchildren of Brown graduates. And if there’s a, say, Professor’s Chair that’s named after your great-grandfather because he endowed it, Welcome to Brown !!</p>

<p>– Athletes on scholarship. No need for or expectation of perfect scores here</p>

<p>– Children of Brown faculty members … my kids are no academic stars – my son has never read a newspaper in his life, yet ‘somehow’ he got accepted here</p>

<p>– and the most un-PC group to discuss: minorities. This one is the most abused … minorities are admitted preferentially because they add ‘diversity’ … but how does an African-American son of an eye surgeon who grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood add more diversity than, say, the son of a Montana cattle rancher ??</p>

<p>BTW, the most sought-after minority category is Native-American. Some top-secret advice here: Admissions Officers won’t ask to see your Dept of Interior / Bureau of Indian Afffairs Tribal Enrollment Identification Card, so just write on your application that you’re a member of one the larger tribes – say, Navajo – and You Are IN !!</p>

<p>But lets’s say you are one of those ‘perfect’ applicants and want to get in the right way… taking into account all of the above, together with the fact that at any given time, there are ~ 6240 undergraduates enrolled here, you do the math on the likliehood of your admission</p>

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<p>^Being a new member with just this one post, I have trouble believing everything you say, ShannonEntropy.</p>

<p>to the OP, you mentioned why adcoms phrase it that way: to brag. That’s also why colleges send out letters to random high school students saying they should apply. they get money and a lower acceptance rate. which they can, again, brag about.</p>

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<p>“BTW, the most sought-after minority category is Native-American. Some top-secret advice here: Admissions Officers won’t ask to see your Dept of Interior / Bureau of Indian Afffairs Tribal Enrollment Identification Card, so just write on your application that you’re a member of one the larger tribes – say, Navajo – and You Are IN !!”</p>

<p>…wow this is quite irresponsible advice isn’t it? Kind of like parking in a handicapped zone…if the spots are filled by those pretending to be handicapped, there may not be any spots left those who truely are.</p>

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<p>T26: I usually agree with what you have to say - but here I think you’re clearly wrong.</p>

<p>University of Chicago - a “top school” in anyone’s book - has never been easy to get into. They have always turned away well-qualified applicants because they had too many well-qualified applicants for their size. So why do you think they are engaged in this insane marketing program, which is greatly increasing the number of applicants - and with very little regard for the qualifications of those new applicants.</p>

<p>My D, who is not remotely in the well-qualified applicant pool for U of C has received no fewer than FIVE mailings from them. A S of a friend, with a PSAT in the 170s, also received five mailings. It took some doing to convince the friend and his S that this doesn’t mean that he’s sure to get into U of C, and that therefore he doesn’t need to apply anywhere else.</p>

<p>A little over a year ago, I heard the immediate past director of admissions at U of C speak. He’s still at the university in a different capacity, so he was couching what he had to say somewhat. But the underlying message about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it was clear (as was the message that he heartily disapproved of it, which is I’m sure why he resigned as admissions director).</p>

<p>Northwestern is another example. They’re not as flagrant as U of C, but their applicant pool went way up this year. At least in their case, the profile of their admitted applicant also went up, so perhaps they are at least in part driven by something other than the prestige chase.</p>

<p>There may be some top-flight schools who are not engaged in this silly game - but I suspect they’re in the minority. Applicants drive prestige, prestige drives grants and donations, and grants and donations drive administrators’ salaries.</p>