<p>^ditto…</p>
<p>From what I have heard on the MIT thread, the colleges don’t seem to always know the PSAT scores but they target people scoring above a range in specific areas like reading or Math. So MIT might request the pool for people over 60 or 65 in Math while U of C might target CR scores of 60 or a combination of 120+ for CR and Math.</p>
<p>The PSAT scores are not actually visible to the colleges only people at a certain cut off.</p>
<p>Post 17 is a good example of why CC requires posters claiming to represent universities go through a validation process.</p>
<p>Like stressedoutt, I too simply do not believe that any reputable, highly selective university sets aside two-thirds of their acceptances for applicants who are admitted on something other than their qualifications. Prestige is what drives college administrators, and peer assessments are what drive prestige, and any college that was admitting that many low-qualification applicants would pay for it, quickly.</p>
<p>The published numbers also do not bear out the assertion that Brown is admitting huge numbers of low-qualification applicants; 93% are in the top 10% of their graduating classes, 99% in the top 25%. Only 15% of accepted applicants are in racial URM categories.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m sure that every college admits a few applicants for special reasons - athletes, children of major donors, etc - and most colleges have AA programs. But two-thirds? Hogwash.</p>
<p>For the record, I am not posting to defend Brown University, about which I know nothing other than what I found with two quick Google searches.</p>
<p>From Post # 19 :</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lemme tell you the most outrageous Admission Story I know of , csdad …</p>
<p>This friend of mine with absolutely no personal connection or pull with Brown U — other than knowing me — has this daughter who as a senior was one of the highest-ranked HS tennis players in the country</p>
<p>She was approached at a tournament by a rep of Brown’s AD who tried to recruit her and even assigned her an all-important “prospect number”. But while Brown is a D1 school, it’s not like a, say, Big 10 school, where you can get in and get a full ride based solely on your ability to, say, hit a tennis ball … you still have to get by ‘academic admissions’, whose decisions – as we’ve seen in my previous post – are not always entirely based on academics</p>
<p>Now, this young lady was not exactly Rhodes Scholarship material [ Aside = R/S is a kind of ‘inside joke’ here at Brown cuz the school is in Providence, Rhode Island ] So this scout offered to ‘help’ her with her application. When she reviewed it she was shocked, shocked! to discover that she was 1/16th Lakota Sioux … this girl has blond hair & blue eyes, so she couldn’t exactly walk into the interview and pretend to be Pocahontas !!</p>
<p>Well needless to say she got admitted and went on to a stellar collegiate career; turned pro and has since retired with her main ‘claim to fame’ being that she once knocked one of the world’s top-ranked players out of an early round at a non-Grand Slam event … i can’t tell you that player’s name or you’ll be able to figure out who I’m talking about </p>
<p>So anyway, csdad, don’t park in that handicap spot, and don’t do whatever it takes to get your kid into an Ivy … maybe you could send her to the Community College of Rhode Island … i hear with those perfect scores, she’ll be a shoe-in !!</p>
<p>p.s. re: "The published numbers also do not bear out the assertion that Brown is admitting huge numbers of low-qualification applicants; 93% are in the top 10% of their graduating classes, 99% in the top 25%… '</p>
<p>If you back and actually read Post 17, you’ll see that I wrote :</p>
<p>*" although you usually still need ‘good numbers’ to get in " *…</p>
<p>To OP.</p>
<p>I think it’s good that colleges say that they reject many students with perfect stats – ESPECIALLY if they do so.</p>
<p>Every year, you see a few stories of some student with perfect scores and perfect grades who got rejected by all the Ivy’s (or equivalent) they applied to, and now has no admittances.</p>
<p>You have to wonder how this could happen. I think that a number of these exceptionally talented students have never failed at anything, and assume that this success will continue. Perhaps (who knows) they didn’t take the admissions process as seriously as they could have, didn’t sweat the essays. Didn’t apply to a safety school (or if they did, didn’t take the time to prepare a good application), or thought certain schools were safety schools that really aren’t (Read the Wash U and Michigan threads – these schools are just not safeties’ these days, though they are thought of as such. Perhaps some of these kids are one-dimensional (no outside interests or ECs). There can be many reasons.</p>
<p>In any event, the take-away for someone with perfect or near perfect scores – take nothing for granted. You’ve worked so hard for so long, now is not the time to let up. Work as hard on your applications as everyone else. Research ‘back up schools’ and true safeties. And spend as much on your safety school apps as for the Ivys (that includes school visits – no admissions officer wants to think that you’re taking them for granted).</p>
<p>Final thought – How to choose a safety school. A number of schools, perhaps a level below HPYSM don’t want to be considered as safeties, and will reject top-stat candidates in favor of others who they see are better fits. Let’s take this as a given, and not debate it. So, how does a top student choose a safety school. There are a lot of ways, one nice one – put together a list of schools that offer SIGNIFICANT merit money. These schools are practically screaming that they want students who would otherwise go to higher ranked schools – they’re willing to pay you to reject such schools. They completely understand that you’re applying to ‘better’ schools, and might go there anyway, but they want your application. Just treat their application process seriously, and show them the love. Besides, if the worst happens, any you do need to go to a safety school, you might as get a break on the tuition. (that and it avoids the embarrassment – you can proudly say I went to XXXXXXXX because they offered me significant scholarships, these days everyone will understand that)</p>
<p>"So anyway, csdad, don’t park in that handicap spot, and don’t do whatever it takes to get your kid into an Ivy … maybe you could send her to the Community College of Rhode Island … i hear with those perfect scores, she’ll be a shoe-in !!'</p>
<p>…well she’s going to Cornell…and she didn’t even have to lie on her application to get in.</p>
<p>As the father of a kid with high SAT test scores myself, since when in this country did it become a “bad thing” for a kid to concentrate on his studies, and get good grades?</p>
<p>I understand that in the UK and Canada, they basically go by grades and test scores.</p>
<p>In America, admission is much more subjective. </p>
<p>Our universities should not be turning down top students for politically correct reasons.</p>
<p>floridadad55:</p>
<p>I assume Top-Tiered university university views its goal is to educate as many of the leaders (i.e., corporate CEO’s, Nobel Prize Winners, Presidents, Entrepreneurs), they want to do so because these people either will bring prestige to the university, or will have significant money to donate to it. This is probably the least politically correct reason I can think of.</p>
<p>If this is correct, I believe that a holistic approach to admissions, where well-rounded students who managed excellent (though perhaps not perfect) grades and scores are selected over some students with better statistics but who are less well-rounded meets the goal.</p>
<p>Just sayin’ …</p>
<p>Concerning U Chicago’s egregious mass mailings:</p>
<p>I too was on the receiving end of their very liberal batch of recruitment mail. Weekly: pamphlets, viewbooks, letters came in. My family, and I, were both growing a bit excited, we all knew it was a great school.</p>
<p>So, we paid the 60$ or whatever it was application fee, and I sat down and spent the additional HOURS necessary to complete their damn supplement. It wasn’t my first choice. But, I got rejected. Not terribly surprised from an objective, one year later perspective. But I was a bit angry. I wrote a long letter to the dean of admission (if anyone’s interested I still have it haha). It wasn’t a mean letter, thoughtfully written (I thought).</p>
<p>I understand now that all the top schools participate in such mailings. But I think most are still more targeted than UChicago’s and I still think it’s damn irresponsible to be doing that. Especially considering that kids who don’t read CC typically kind of have the mindset (and my parents did and it rubbed off onto me at the time) that if a school solicits THEM, then it’s almost a sure admit.</p>
<p>Had nothing but bad experiences with the admission department at UChicago…although I’ve heard nothing but great things about the university as a whole.</p>
<p>Members of the UChicago community I respect include Obama and of course Tucker Max!!!</p>
<p>annasdad: Perhaps I was too generalizing in my statement. Certainly I recognize that there is motivation for schools to drive up app nos. (like what it appears UoChgo seems to be doing according to this thread’s anecdotes). And I’m not in the meeting rooms of various college admissions offices. For my alma mater and some of its peer schools, I more often hear the lamentation of excessive nos of great applicants that need to be turned away. I don’t think it’s just canned PR for an alumni volunteer for me either.</p>
<p>Or perhaps I’ve sipped the Kool Aid and just blindly marching along … I can’t be sure other than what my gut tells me.</p>
<p>You know, if a school REALLY wanted to drive its applications up, all it would have to do is eliminate the ‘supplementary essay’ and go with the straight Common App. At least 2 top 15 schools (USNWR Rankings) have done just that.</p>
<p>“if a school REALLY wanted to drive its applications up, all it would have to do is eliminate the ‘supplementary essay’ and go with the straight Common App. At least 2 top 15 schools (USNWR Rankings) have done just that.”</p>
<p>Vanderbilt, Wash U, Dartmouth, Duke are good examples.</p>
<p>Wash U and Dartmouth were the two I was thinking of. Thanks for updating.</p>
<p>it just means that they look at the whole person. If you were a book nerd your whole life and did nothing to help your fellow man or whatnot they you do not need to go to a great school, you need to be thrown into a library or a online school.</p>
<p>ShannonEntropy: Your post about just writing Navajo on your app is partially false. I’m also somewhat stymied by the statement that you supposedly taught at Brown for an extended period of time (aging yourself somewhat), yet you use the word “cuz” online? </p>
<p>I don’t know of one faculty member at any decent college who writes like that. Also, the post about “no grades and no curriculum” stinks of institutional ignorance.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Such schools that use subjective evaluations of demonstrated interest or which reject highly qualified applicants who may be using them as a safety (“Tufts syndrome”?) would not really be safeties for admissions.</p>
<p>Public universities that go by numbers are probably better safeties for admissions in this respect (assuming that the applicant’s numbers are solidly higher than the universities’ thresholds).</p>
<p>Of course, a true safety has to be solidly affordable also. The “reach, match, safety” categorization can be applied to cost as well as admissions; only a school that is “safety” in both admissions and cost can be considered an actual safety.</p>
<p>We went to a summer open house at a LAC with 70%+ acceptance rate, and heard that same “perfect scores don’t get you in”. And I can wager why: “B/B+”-ranked colleges are very interested in their YIELD rate performance; so they accept those “B/B+” kids who are pleased to be accepted and likely to enroll rather than the A+/2400 student who’s applying as “safety” choice and not likely to attend. Schools want a relatively highish YIELD rate and a relatively lowish ACCEPTANCE rate. Plenty posters have referenced the LACs “seeking the love” from their applicants via enthusiasm, attendance at application events, interview, and repeated contact.</p>
<p>To ShannonEntropy, as a former Brown faculty member, would you be able to check out my profile to see if I have any chance of benig accepted into Brown (it is my dream school so I would appreciate the advice)? My profile link is as follows: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/1219784-do-i-even-have-chance.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/1219784-do-i-even-have-chance.html</a></p>
<p>Admissions can be a crap shoot. Just take a peak at the last couple of years of admissions and rejections from Ivies and Top 20 schools. Admissions to Ivies are holistic however, the high school student applying has to have top grades and SAT/ACT scores.</p>
<p>No one can predict who will be accepted or rejected from just grades and scores. Just ask silverturtle. He is not only one of the brightest young men but also quite accomplished. I have to repeat it is a crapshoot.</p>
<p>It’s meant to really emphasize that perfect scores only take you so far. You need more than that to stand out, and it’s in the school’s best interest to stress that, too, because they want an academic atmosphere that’s not just loaded with test-gunners. They want people who have good scores, but also have personality/something interesting about them.</p>
<p>There’s a difference in the message between “We reject ‘perfection’” and “We accept sub-perfection.” The idea is to convey that grades are a big part of the package, but they aren’t everything.</p>
<p>I do think it could be a point better elaborated on, since some people may interpret it to mean “If you don’t have a perfect score, don’t even bother, because even perfect scores get canned.” Most of the info sessions I remember, though, didn’t imply this. It was almost always within the context of holistic evaluation.</p>