What are my daughter's chances for admission to an elite college in the Northeast? [NY resident, 4.4/1580]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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All schools are different, but they’re different in ways that may matter little (or a lot) to the student. We don’t really know what truly matter, or matter more, to this student, do we? IMO, the first step is to figure out what the student’s priorities are.

The adcom is going to assess “fit” from its perspective. It’s not necessarily (and often not) the same “fit” from the student’s perspective.

A student can boost the overall odds of admission if and only if

  1. she can maintain the qualities of all her applications; AND
  2. the probabilities of admissions to all these colleges have relatively low correlations between them.

The second condition means that their admission processes, their emphases on what they’re looking for in applicants, etc. are sufficiently different.

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Over 40 years ago, before “fit” was even a thing in college admissions, I knew exactly one person who transferred out of Brown. But I probably knew a dozen who were miserable, due to fit although we didn’t call it that.

One who needed to be in an overtly pre-professional environment (he had turned down Wharton because Brown felt preppier when he visited) and Brown’s econ major was highly theoretical at the time- i.e. not a substitute for Finance. One who missed California and couldn’t go back and forth as frequently as she had thought (at the time, Brown had finals AFTER Xmas, so it was an either/or for her-- what rational parent would pay for two tickets home within a few weeks?). One who did not get into RISD but did get into Brown, and spent four years trying to cultivate a social network at RISD while living in Brown dorms, eating in Brown dining halls, etc.

There are lots of reasons why a kid might hate BOTH Brown and ND-- which is why the plethora of choices (as confounding as it might be to sort through them) is so fantastic.

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If there is even a modest amount of conditional dependence in “elite” college admission decisions–and there is a lot of evidence to support that conclusion–then beyond a certain limited number of applications, additional applications to the same sort of college will not materially change the odds of admission to at least one.

Conversely, for reasons others have been discussing in this thread, adding a lot of additional applications might actually be decreasing the cumulative probability if it is lowering the application quality to each.

The optimization question then becomes when due to conditional dependence and this resource allocation issue the marginal cumulative admissions effect of another application goes from positive to negative. This is an individualized question, but the very experienced college counselors at our private HS with an excellent placement record tend to suggest 2 to 3 well-chosen schools in a given selectivity range is typically enough, and more than 4 to 5 is likely to be counter-productive.

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Excellent analysis.

And to anyone who thinks that the same essay that might work for Cornell’s Hotel School (perceived as an easier admit vs. Arts and Sciences or Engineering) is going to work at Princeton-- try again. And this is even more an issue at the alleged “yield protection” colleges-- Tufts doesn’t want to be sloppy seconds or tenths to Harvard, and CMU doesn’t want to be the perpetual back up to Stanford or MIT. Colleges actually want to admit students who want to be there.

Answering “why Tufts” actually takes some thought and effort!

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This is getting pretty nuanced, but I think this is the sort of situation where our college counselors would be OK with doing more than just 2-3 applications in a given selectivity range.

Like, I think a very common reason to do more than that in our HS is if the kid is potentially interested in both stand-alone liberal arts colleges and also the liberal arts colleges that are part of private research universities. There are a lot of overlapping values between such colleges, but also some differences, and it is at least possible that a given kid will do a little better with admissions in one or the other, even if the generic admissions stats seem similar.

OK, so a kid like that might, say, apply to 4-5 colleges with similar selectivity, some LACs, and some private research universities. Which is fine.

But that logic has limits. Like, our counselors would likely still say you should really be careful about choosing a range of LACs by selectivity. Same with the private research universities. And you should still watch the overall application count so you can do only very good applications.

So, maybe you end up with 3 likelies (one very likely public university, one likely LAC, one likely private research university). Then a mix of 4-5 LAC/private university “targets”, and a mix of 4-5 “reaches”.

That is still only 11-13 total, so that’s fine. And it is still a well-balanced list, meaning you have many chances at getting into at least one exciting opportunity that is different from your very likely public university.

This is just an example, but the point is you can be very deliberate about all this, and different people will end up doing different things. But rarely is a top-down, rankings-based, shotgun approach going to be a particularly thoughtful optimization strategy.

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The kid I know who was least happy at Brown was in a similar situation–she clearly was not ready to go that far away from home, and indeed moved right back to her home city when she was done with college.

Other kids cannot wait to go off for a distant adventure (I was like that).

But I definitely think these are all serious issues. And it is tough because some people imagine one thing, and then their experience is different, so there are no guarantees perceived fit at the time of applying will work out.

Still, given that there are so many great colleges to choose among, there is very little reason to knowingly go to a college which feels like a bad fit. It might be fine anyway, but why risk it?

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I agree with this. I will add…

  1. The only ranking that really matters is the one your student does. Our kids ranked their colleges based on the criteria list the kids made and how they matched potential colleges.

  2. I personally think it’s important to vet college applications before they are sent. I know some folks don’t agree with me, and feel this can happen after acceptances come in. But my opinion is…the student needs to make a list of characteristics they want in a college, with the most important at the top of their list. Then they need to look at potential colleges to see where the match is between their characteristics list and what the colleges have to offer. Then choose where to apply.

My sample of two kids…each had a short list of things that were extremely important to them. Their lists were very short…three or four things. They were not willing to compromise on these things…and really with 3000 colleges, there was no need for them to.

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With Tufts, it’s not only the “why Tufts?” essay. It’s demonstrated interest, which means attending a campus tour where you’ve signed in with the admissions office, contacting them multiple times by email, and essentially telling them that Tufts is your absolutely first choice, that you’ve slept in Tufts sheets your whole life, that their ----- program exactly fits your educational goals, basically everything short of applying ED, the ultimate demonstration of interest.

It’s not true that Tufts is the applicant’s first choice? They’re telling other schools, too, that their school is their date to the prom? Tough. When a college makes “demonstrated interest” a condition of acceptance in order to increase their yield, it’s absolutely fair game to tell multiple schools that they are surely the applicant’s first choice, short of an ED application.

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The prior questions on importance of fit for the student and shotgun vs rifle shot application approach have been well covered. On this last point, too many applicants/parents come into this process thinking their kid uniquely stands on academic achievement and certain EC’s. Unless there has been some well known national or international form of recognition, this is just not the case when it comes to the selective schools you are targeting. There are multiples of truly excellent kids in excess of the admissions spots that will be granted. The application really is a sales pitch as to why the applicant will thrive and positively impact the school community. An applicant is well advised to think through how they position themselves in this light to optimize their chances. Yale summarizes this well:

"As we carefully and respectfully review every application, two questions guide our admissions team: “Who is likely to make the most of Yale’s resources?” and “Who will contribute most significantly to the Yale community?”

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“Fit” from the college’s point of view may differ from “fit” from the applicant’s point of view. Examples:

  • Applicant to MIT thinks it is a good fit for CS. MIT thinks it gets too many CS applicants.
  • Applicant to JHU thinks it is a good fit for pre-med BME. JHU thinks it gets too many pre-med BME applicants.
  • Applicant to Brown thinks open curriculum is a good fit to avoid taking courses out of major. Brown prefers students who will use the open curriculum to explore other areas without constraint.
  • Applicant to prestige college considers prestige to be the main “fit” factor. Prestige colleges do not want to see that written obviously in applications.
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I’m actually really fascinated by the different “what we look for” statements at different holistic review colleges. There are obviously some overlapping themes, like that they pretty much all explain in some way that holistic review means not just choosing individual achievers, but people who they think will really add to the experience of the others in their community. Still, the exact way they talk about that sort of thing, where they place the emphasis, the personal characteristics that they specifically mention, and so on can all vary.

So that is definitely an area where to me it seems clear that really taking the time and care necessary to understand what each of these colleges is trying to communicate to potential applicants is effort well spent. And in fact, maybe then some will feel like a better match than others, which again to me is a good thing.

Because if you can truly think not just, “This is an elite college and I want to go to an elite school,” but instead, “Hey, this particular college sounds like it is looking for a person just like me!,” I think you are already well on your way to writing your best possible application.

And also to getting your best possible outcome, however it goes.

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I doubt a poor essay will get you into a school (Emory) with a 10% acceptance rate. Versus a school like Villanova with a 30% acceptance rate.

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Let’s return focus to the OP please. They, and they alone, are the ones that can determine fit. Nor is there any need to derail the thread with what a heretofore unmentioned college looks for in essays.

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Never mind

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Agree—for both of mine, they included one or more liberal arts colleges that overlapped with what they were looking for in a small to medium(5-10k undergrads) university(each had that as a primary goal). Even the one wanting engineering found an LAC which worked for her overall goals. I know others who focused on LACs and had a variety of them, but also had some small and mid sized unis to round out the list with academic fits.

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I think that this is common. My D has two groupings that she is focused on. LACs and smaller research universities. She finds enough overlap that both could be appealing.

She also says that just the transition into college and towards adulthood will provide enough new and enriching experiences that she is confident that she is sure that she would enjoy any of the various options.

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This.

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78

I wish I could pin this somewhere. Personally, I consider prestige as a valid “fit” factor and I also think “fit” is less important during the application stage so long as there is some “balance” and consideration of finances when it comes to the initial list of schools.

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I think a huge part of fit that is often overlooked and may be very relevant for this student is ECs. Your daughter has dedicated a huge chunk of her life to dance - and you don’t reach national levels without a ton of hours and a true passion for it. How important is dance in college? And what particularly is she looking for in dance if so?

I am quite sure a ton of people would think my daughter’s list was all over the map - several flagships that varied from rural to urban, midsized research universities with no location preference, some T10 names. After checking the box of strong academics and good research opportunities, strong ballet programs drove her list.

She would have been perfectly happy at big vs small, city vs rural, public vs private as long as she could dance and pursue her academics.

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