MODERATOR’S NOTE:
As is the case for everybody who applies to these institutions with single digit acceptance rates. All of these schools reject 4.0/2400 candidates every year. The vast majority of applicants have the stats to be admitted. So it’s a case of what distinguishes one applicant from the other 30K+ that apply to that school. Unfortunately, nobody here with have the magic answer.
Agree with all posters. All Reaches, no Match or Safety schools equals a recipe for shut out,
Did you see his wealth of extracurriculars and his grades, scores etc.? This kid is AMAZING and he can get into an Ivy league school-it’s naysayers like some of these posters that will discourage him. Haters gonna hate.
2200 and 33 are not top scores (one of my kids had 2380 and 35, and there are plenty with scores like those applying to these schools). His ECs are pedestrian BY THE STANDARDS OF THE SCHOOLS HE IS APPLYING TO. (Sorry for the caps, but you don’t seem to be understanding this part). He is a great candidate for many schools, but the applicant pool at those schools is crazy strong, and he does not stand out from the typical applicant. I am sure lots of people around him are saying he has a great chance, but the bottom line is that they can’t see the rest of the pool and haven’t looked at the Common Data Set for these schools.
@KantFail Perhaps you are too new to this forum and is not very familiar with college admission yet. SAT 2200 or ACT 33 are great scores but only around admission average for these elite schools that have 10% or lower admission rate. In other words, the admission chance would not be too far off from the admission rate. When you are getting familiar with this forum, look at the admission result in the subforum of these schools and you will see most of the students with with high scores got rejected by these schools every year.
@billcsho you can’t succeed if you never try. As “The Script” says in the song Hall of Fame, “don’t wait for luck-dedicate yourself and you can find yourself.” I think the tendency on this site is to be a little pessimistic about people’s chances-I prefer to think with enough hard work, truly anything is possible.
@KantFail I think you are just too optimistic. The reality is the admission rate is low while the quality of applicant is high. We are not discouraging OP to apply. Otherwise, no one would apply to reach school. Just don’t put any expectation into it.
@KantFail, as much as people out here like to say so, admissions to those schools is not a crapshoot. There are definite patterns associated with a higher chance of admission. Wishing to have the qualifications to stand out in the applicant pool does not make it so. No one is telling the OP to not bother with any applications to some of these schools. But if these are all the schools he applies to, odds are high he will be attending his local community college next year, or taking a gap year to build a more realistic list. There are a LOT of very good schools he could attend, and he should spend time now finding matches and safeties that he would want to attend and can afford.
@KantFail, you had joined this site this month and perhaps are not that familiar with the types of kids who get admitted to ivys. I suggest you to go to those schools sites in CC and check the forums such as “Official 2019 admitted …” to read the qualifications of the kids who report back every year whether they were admitted or rejected. Then you get a better feeling about the whole think and perhaps can provide a better advice to kids without (unknowingly) misleading them.
@Crystal9ucla @intparent Don’t you realize that by telling people they can’t achieve something you’re increasing the probability that they actually won’t? I’m not trying to be rude or anything but honestly I just feel that there’s so much “you can’t do this you’re not good enough” rhetoric coming from some of the users on this site that-people won’t even try to get into schools they have a chance for. Also I never said I thought the OP was a sure bet to get in-I just pointed out that his scores were excellent and he had a chance.
Shoot for the stars and you might just hit the moon.
Spend all your time staring up at schools that you probably have less than a 1% chance of getting into reduces the time you spend making good choices for schools to apply to where you have a much better chance of admission, and a much higher probability of attending. A high school student has a finite amount of time to spend visiting and crafting applications, and a finite amount of money for app fees and test score fees. It is imperative that they keep most of their focus on realistic schools. Plus, most long time posters know that the schools the OP lists aren’t “all that”, at least for every student, and that there are many, many great schools for students who stop chasing prestige and look harder at fit. It IS damaging for the OP to spend too much time on these schools.
He asked for opinions, and got a pretty uniform set of feedback from posters with experience. Wishful thinking doesn’t make anything happen.
We could all say, “great app, you are sure to get in”. And you know what? He still won’t.
@KantFail I don’t think anyone here has been discouraging but rather trying to realistically let OP what the score is.
The plain and simple facts are that colleges like Harvard and Stanford admit 1 out of every 20 that apply, When you back out the “hooked” kids, it’s more like 1 in 40 because over half of the slots are given to hooked applicants. Anyone applying to these schools should realize that it takes a lot to be 1 out of 40. Hope for the best, but don’t expect it if you don’t have all of things the commenters in this thread wrote about going for you. Even then, there’s no guarantees.
The OP asked especially (though he did not have too) for “honest” answer (read his post title).
He did not ask for sympathy!
@Kantfail You better go back and read all the responses again. We, at least I, did not say “you can’t do this you’re not good enough”. We said his stat is in the range, but so as most of the other applicants. He needs something to be standing out from the crowd. Or someone call it the “wow” factor. You may view OP as a very qualified candidate by your standard, but it is indeed rather average for students considering these schools. It is rather common to have “good enough” students even with ACT 35, GPA 4.0, 800s in SAT2, nothing less than 5 in multiple AP exams, state level music award, top 1 % in class and yet got rejected by these schools.
@billcsho Something’s wrong with our system
^^ What’s wrong with the system? There are waaaay too many qualified applicants for a very limited number of seats. That’s it, plain and simple. If Harvard is looking at 20 very strong applications and his doesn’t somehow stand out from the other 19 then guess what? Someone else who does will get the nod. That’s what we’ve all been trying to tell OP. Find a way to stand out or be prepared for bad news. It’s not a black and white process, however, and sometimes kids get accepted for reasons only known to the adcom so OP might surprise us. Hopefully, he does!
Students are interested in certain schools primarily because they view them as elite and open to very few students. If you were to increase the number accepted they would be viewed as far less desirable. There are plenty of schools that are easier to gain admission to. They ave viewed as less desirable because they are open to more students. Students want to be the last one in before the door is closed to everyone else.
“^^ What’s wrong with the system? There are waaaay too many qualified applicants for a very limited number of seats.” Actually there are not too few seats. There are schools clamoring for students in May. They just are not the most elite-which almost by definition means that they are not open to all.
^^ I meant at most elite schools which this thread us talking about.