<p>I've made similar posts several times before. :)</p>
<p>"Why would they reject a 2300 (assuming good grades) when it's above their 75%? Their yield is only 44%."</p>
<p>Wellesley's a little unique in the fact that it takes a lot of things into consideration other than SAT scores and GPA. While many schools claim to focus on non-academic areas... Strong academics generally determine acceptance or rejection. </p>
<p>Basically, Wellesley would accept an applicant with a 2000 SAT and 3.7 GPA who was president of several clubs in high school, highly involved in the community, passionate about world affairs, and a generally dynamic woman, over an applicant with a 2400 SAT and 4.0 GPA who didn't really do much outside of the academic realm. (That may be a little exaggerated of course, but you get the idea.)</p>
<p>This is great news for students (like me!) who have fairly strong academic credentials but generally define themselves outside of the classroom. It's not great news for students who were banking solely on their academic achievement to gain admission into college. While there are plenty of equally fantastic schools that would gladly accept the latter student, Wellesley just has a different agenda, I guess. </p>
<p>With that said, there are exceptions to that rule... Quite a few high scoring students are admitted. When you add ethnicity and geography into the mix, you get a pretty unpredictable outcome. </p>
<p>As far as social life goes, I think everyone else covered it pretty accurately.</p>
<p>LisaG said it well. Like most top LACs, Wellesley strives to admit a diverse, balanced class. It's not just a matter of achieving outside the classroom -- it's whether the school already has enough violinists or sopranos or ballerinas or oboe players (and I guess Wellesley gets plenty of those). I stress this because rejecting a top student who has in fact defined herself powerfully outside the classroom still happens.</p>
<p>"and most MIT men are not geeks (although, a few famously are - I remember a guy who literally came to a Wellesey mixer wearing a pocket protector, pens and calculator! Yikes!)"</p>
<p>From what I know of MIT, I think that kid knew full well what he was doing and thought it was funny.</p>
<p>I think Wellesley could maybe not serve as a safety (although, if you're a strong applicant, I don't think it's ridiculous as some others seem to), but it can definitely help you gauge you chances at other schools. Apply EE - Early Evaluation. Application is due at the same time, maybe a tiny bit earlier, and you still find out officially in April, but in February, they send you a letter telling you if you are likely, unlikely, or possibly to be admitted (and likely almost always means yes, unlikely almost always means no). It might give you some idea of what to expect in April.</p>
<p>cool, thanks for sharing that garrr. i think that's really helpful for stressed out seniors...but hopefully i will have gotten into my early school and won't need anything !</p>
<p>I was there with my D last week. It is a spectacularly beautiful campus. The tour guide we had was fine, not the best I've seen and not the worst. I was predisposed not to want my D to go to a single sex school; she loved it and, after seeing it for myself, I think she would have an excellent college experience there.</p>
<p>I'm sure somewhere in the vast reaches of CC there's a great discussion of what "safety" and "match" (and "safe match", etc.) mean. I don't know where it is. But I think people sometimes get confused by the standard data about admitted students' SATs, GPAs, class rank, etc., as well as the percentage of applications accepted. </p>
<p>College A and College B may both have a 25%-75% SAT range of 2150-1900, 80% of entering students in the top 20% of their HS class and 50% in the top 10%, an average GPA of 3.6, and a 40% admit rate. But that does not make them both safeties or even matches for a student with 2200 SATs, 3.8 GPA, and top 10%. One college may essentially admit everyone with a clean rap sheet that clears a certain set of statistical hurdles, and then pick and choose among applicants in the next band down; it could be a safety for an applicant who clears those hurdles. The other may pick and choose applicants from a much wider statistical band, and may also have characteristics that limit the number of applications received (thus reducing selectivity). At the first college, a student with those stats may have a 95% chance of acceptance; at the second, a student with those stats, or better, may still only have a 50% chance of admission.</p>
<p>You can see that really clearly on the scattergrams that float around here. On some of them, a simple regression would give you a set of SAT/GPA functions defining a 90%, 75%, 50%, etc. chance of admission. On others -- like HYPS -- the best you could do would be to define an area with essentially NO statistical chance of admission, but even applicants with "perfect" numbers are being rejected in droves. Then there are schools where a meaningful percentage of applicants are accepted, but it's clear that fewer numbers-based decisions are being made compared to the first group. The band at which 50% of the applicants are accepted may be relatively generous, but there may not be ANY band where 90% are accepted. I suspect schools like Wellesley and Barnard are in that category.</p>
<p>1MoreDad, I'd been a bit dubious about single-sex schools but then we visited Smith and the rest was history. D is now in her third year and I can't complain about anything except the payments and financing thereof. Wellesley was her #2 and Barnard her #3...funny the way things worked out.</p>
<p>We also visited Smith last week and it also made a very good impression on my D. She was at Barnard yesterday with my wife but I haven't had a report yet on that visit.</p>
<p>Barnard is interesting in that (combined w/ Columbia) it is both small and large, both single-sex and coed. My neighbor's daughter went there in the 1990s and was student body president.</p>