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Mini, my daughter hasn't met a single kid whose parent is a senator or congressperson. I would have no clue as to how many are developmental admits -- probably not many --the whole reason that they are valued is that they are few and far between. There are a LOT of athletes, but when we went to the local advising session for entering freshmen, there was not a single <em>recruited</em> athlete. There are also a LOT of dancers -- probably more of them than athletes. Based on common data set info, it look like about 60% of students are full pay -- a significant number of them are international students, as the school does not provide much aid to internationals but does have a significant number of internationals enrolled (Just trying to bust a stereotype here -- the rich kids are not all WASP-y northeasterners). </p>
<p>But the point is that my financially-needy kid with the mediocre test score didn't seem to have much of a problem getting admitted. The average need based grant at d's school is more than $25K ... daughter is getting something above average there. The ONLY thing my daughter "offered" the college fell into the "interesting person" or possibly, "filling a needed slot in an underenrolled department" slot. The fact that hooked applicants have an advantage getting in doesn't mean that unhooked applicants face a barrier to admission. So what I am replying to is the implication that those hooks are ALL that the colleges want, and that kids who don't have them are out of luck. And while I wish that the college could admit a higher percentage of financially needy kids, I am also aware that she is at a college that academically is one of the top schools in the nation, but which falls way down the list in US News rankings because their endowment is relatively small -- I am sure they admit the numbers that they can afford to subsidize.
Actually, the process of admission to highly selective colleges was far less competitive -- in terms of odds of admission - for my daughter than the typical auditions she attended as a dancer. I mean, maybe we are looking at one-in-ten or one-in-twenty odds..... but my kid has regularly been through experiences where the odds were much more like one-in-sixty (and if you want to see long odds, try taking your kid to an open-call movie audition.). </p>
<p>I'm not denying that the process is competitive, but last summer my daughter got a job at with a retailer affiliated with national chain. Later she told me that she realized she was lucky to be hired, because she found out that they had something like 300 applications for a couple of openings -- and she had pretty much been hired right off the bat after she went in for an interview. I shrugged that off because that is not an unusual situation in the real world hunt for employment. And my d. was well aware of that, because the previous year she had beat the pavement all summer long and applied to at least 45 different jobs, with no luck whatsoever. </p>
<p>So yes, elite college admissions is competitive..... but real life can be lot tougher. </p>
<p>I don't think its easy, but I think that the odds for a well-qualified unhooked applicant still make admission chances pretty reasonable. My own experience with 2 kids & 2 freshman admission cycles, no hooks - at least none falling under Coureur's list -- plus a need for hefty financial aid is: 21 applications; 1 rejection letter; 3 waitlists; 17 offers of admission. That's better than an 80% rate of success -- admittedly including a few safety schools -- but my d. was admitted to 4 colleges last year where her test scores fell at the lower end or below range, and my son had good grades and test scores but really terrible EC's (the kid sat on his butt in front of the t.v. playing videogames for the first 3 years of high school). It just doesn't look like the odds are stacked all that badly against us unhooked folks. </p>
<p>It's just that for some reason many people seem to view the competitive process as an entitlement, agonizing over the reasons for rejection, or wondering why some other kid who somehow is seen as less qualified got that kid's "spot." It's easy to rationalize that the unhooked kid's "spot" went to a legacy or a URM or a recruited athlete.... but there probably are a significant number of hooked applicants who would have gotten in anyway.</p>