<p>cptofthehouse…at our high school (granted nothing like your HS!!) some of our top students (like top 5% of class) go to Colby and Bates.</p>
<p>URM doesn’t guarantee anything. People need to stop saying that. There’s a false assumption that a strong student who is a URM has got it made and get into almost anywhere. It’s not true. It’s sometimes better to be a legacy than a URM. It’s definitely better to be the scion of a big donor than a URM. And it’s often better to be an athlete than a URM. A legacy who is also an athlete and a URM probably has it made, but how many students who fit that profile? Two per college? </p>
<p>A URM alone provides little if any advantage.</p>
<p>I believe that at the top ivies, a recruited athlete gets the most breaks. Then come the URMs, and then legacy. The order is different depending on the school. There are schools that don’t give much leeway at all for athletes, and there are schools that really want URMs as lack of diversity is a big issue for them. There are schools, MIT, for example, that do not give legacy much of a boost. UPenn only gives legacies preference during ED. </p>
<p>But you are right that URM does not guarantee anything. Neither does being an athlete, nor being a legacy. I’ve seen highly qualified kids in any of those categories denied at schools.</p>
<p>Agree completely with cptofthehouse in post 163.</p>
<p>Swabridge: S’s friend who was admitted had never even heard of Bates until we brought him an application. He didn’t visit or interview or even make a phone call or look at a view book.</p>
<p>We brought him applications to Colby and Bates. He was rejected at all the schools he chose (except Stony Brook) accepted at those. He went to look at Bates after admission and was too lazy to go on and look at Colby. Haha. He loves Bates, so all is well.</p>
<p>We did the same thing with D’s friend – brought her a Bard application and shoved it in her hand. She applied and went.</p>
<p>D interviewed at Smith, and I swear that’s what got her wait listed. She did not mesh with the interviewer who happened to be the assistant director of admissions. She was accepted at Bard, Barnard, Mt. Holyoke, Sarah Lawrence, Binghamton, Skidmore, Brandeis, etc. so I think interviewing at Smith hurt her.</p>
<p>Had she not been accepted at Barnard, I think Smith would have been her second choice, so it was perturbing a bit, but all’s well that ends well.</p>
<p>I think she would have been accepted if she hadn’t interviewed, though I can’t prove that.</p>
<p>She did find Smith a bit of a cult, (I don’t think so Smithies), and I think a bit of her ambivalence was communicated to the interviewer.</p>
<p>I think when fit is very important some kids do emerge as too high powered for certain institutions because interviewers conclude that the kids won’t be happy there.</p>
<p>The point of this long-winded post is that interviews don’t always help.</p>
<p>Whew! On the other hand, the Barnard interviewer loved her and could clearly see it was her number one choice.</p>
<p>I was guessing that schools like Bates look at kids whose stats say they are applying to Ivies and assess probability that the kid will say yes. The fact that my son didn’t interview meant that he was a lower probability of acceptance if admitted so they decided to WL. </p>
<p>cptofthehouse, the GC didn’t have Bowdoin as a safety, just Bates. Bowdoin was match according to her. According to her, he had four safeties and got into all but Bates. One was an unlikely safety but he was doing research at the school, had a recommendation from one of the professors there, and we are close friends with the President.</p>
<p>Fair enough Shawbridge. I see your point, but the Brown/Dartmouth split also told me that the adcoms look at fit and not just yield. S is much more a Brown person than a Dartmouth person, though in some ways I think he liked Dartmouth better.</p>
<p>I guess Williams did a good job of somewhat straddling the line.</p>