<p>I am seriously wondering what is going on?? Is there a certain demographic makeup or regional quota that colleges/universities are recruiting for the 2011-2012 academic year? NONE of the IB students at my son's school (located in Hillsborough County, FL) have been accepted to ANY Ivy League schools this year!! Unfortunately, this includes my son. We've been told by 2 colleges (Princeton & Stanford) that they each had a "record number of applicants" but I'm still totally confused...we thought we were guiding our son in the right direction (and followed all of the suggestions of our school guidance counselor) but...where did we go wrong???....
...He is a National Merit Scholar Finalist
...He is ranked #6 in his IB class
...His GPA is something like 6.25
...He has completed a HUGE number of CAS (Creative, Action & Community Service)
...He participated in Marching Band, Concert Band & Jazz Band all four years & was a Section Leader his Sr. year
...He is a member of: National Honor Society, Science National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta (Math Honor Society)
...He participated in Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts since 4th grade & is steps away from earning his Eagle</p>
<p>He applied to the following Ivy colleges: MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton & Yale), and the following other universities: University of Florida, University of South Florida & Embry-Riddle and so far he has been turned down by all except UF, USF & Embry-Riddle - he was accepted by UF & we are still waiting to hear back from USF & Embry-Riddle.
Not that we expected him to get offers from ALL of them but he wasn't even deferred from ANY of them!
Any idea as to WHO the colleges are accepting or WHAT they were targeting for the 2011-2012 academic year?
By the way...our son is a white male.</p>
<p>May be a statistical anomaly. Non-IB students are having a rough time too. It may help if you provided your son’s SAT scores and somehow translate the 6.25 GPA to a X/4.0 scale. Hopefully UF, USF, E-R can provide other carrots such as scholarships, honors programs, etc. There could be an area quota and if you don’t have a hook into the Ivies, then you’re going to have a very hard time competing against those with a hook. 2-3 kids at my son’s school got into Cornell and my son didn’t even though my son has much, much better academic quals. But we had no hook and they did.</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply. You could be correct…could just be a numbers game.
His SAT score was a 2130. He also took a couple of the additional SAT tests…physics & calculus and scored over 700 on each of those so…not sure what exactly happened.
I guess maybe it could have been either his supplemental docs (essays) or like I said maybe he didn’t fit the demographic. I’m just at a loss as a parent…when you have a kid who has basically done everything you have ever asked of him, has NEVER been in any kind of trouble & is generally a “well-rounded” kid but yet none of that really mattered in the college application process…what the heck do you say to them now?!?</p>
<p>You say to them: congratulations on all your hard work, son. You are going to do so well in college and have so many exciting options ahead of you. I’m more proud of you than you can possibly imagine.</p>
<p>One thing I find missing in your listing - You only seem to have all reaches (most of them unpredictable even for people ranked number 1 and perfect SAT and ACT scores - you can check on a person named silverturtle who is well known on CC) and the others sound like safeties. </p>
<p>Did you not apply to any schools in between that range from 10 - 30 in rankings? If you had applied to some of them, it was possible to judge a little better. I can see that he definitely belongs to a school a lot higher than your state flagship and the schools you have nt heard back from should have already admitted him. Southern Cal would have even given him half tuition based on national merit. </p>
<p>Several of the people who felt they should have been at one of the schools you list, have gotten into schools like Chicago, Duke, Northwestern etc. Overall, this has been a bad year at the ivies even for people with perfect scores, ranked number 1 etc. OTOH, if your son was in Alabama or Alaska instead of Florida, who knows.</p>
<p>hawkjer, admission to the Ivies is more than a numbers game and IB does not have much to do with it either. Looking back, the problem seems to be that your expectations may have been wrong. The Ivies and other top schools look at their classes as a “mosaic” and expect each student to make a very *distinct * contribution. There are too many qualified applicants and this makes the process a little bit random as well. Your son stats are great, but his activities may have appeared as the laundry list that most students also have. I have friends who got into Harvard and were rejected from Yale and Princeton and the other way around. Others were legacy at Penn and Columbia and were rejected from both. </p>
<p>You are clearly very disappointed and you need to make sure that your son does not feel that it has been his fault. Being a “well rounded” kid was not going to guarantee him acceptance into the Ivies but that is besides the point now. He was admitted to a great school, UF, which has tremendous alumni support and a solid reputation. Your son will likely receive some scholarship money and be accepted into an Honors Program. I think it is time to look forward and make the best of the situation. After all, there is always time for grad school, …and better planning.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, don’t Tell your kid sh")$)" happens.</p>
<p>But realy tell them that it doesn’t matter what college you go to, as much as what you learn there.</p>
<p>Tell them what I tell myself everyday, it’s not where you go that defines hue you are, it’s what you came from, and hue you are that defines where you go.</p>
<p>And GEESUS!! you better tell them your proud.</p>
<p>hawkjer, If it makes you feel any better my son was rejected at some of the schools you mentioned and waitlisted at some of the schools texaspg mentioned. He was also full IB (CA private), with a 2230 SAT I, 2- 800’s on SAT II’s, 5-5-5-5-5-4 AP scores, comparable rank, 1000 hours of CS, Eagle Scout, 4-year athlete, etc. etc. Chalk it up to the competitive applicant pools at extremely selective schools. I do agree with texaspg, he was probably a little “thin in the middle”.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>MIT and Stanford aren’t in the Ivy League.</p></li>
<li><p>He made a grave mistake in only applying to 5 extreme reaches and 3 safeties he didn’t want to attend. There’s an enormous gap in selectivity between these two groups, and an enormous number of schools that exist in the no man’s land between the Ivy League and your state flagship. I am certain he would have been accepted to some amazing schools had he only applied to them, but c’est la vie. Such are the dangers of overconfidence.</p></li>
<li><p>2130 is not a great score for Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, etc.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t fault your son and try not to make a big deal out of his rejections/discuss them with him endlessly/dissect his application for weaknesses. Tell him you’re proud of him and that you support him. Try to put some distance between the two of you for the time being and don’t make this about yourself and your shock and disappointment. These are <em>his</em> rejections and he deserves to come to terms with them on his own; I imagine that dealing with your parents’ acute emotional response to something that is supposed to be about you must be pretty annoying. Just make it clear that you’re there for him if he needs to talk about it and that you’re on his side, and leave it at that.</p>
<p>We had the same experience. Daughter is valedictorian of her IB class, 2340 SAT, 34 ACT, speaks French and Spanish fluently, studied Hebrew, Arabic and Latin. Plays volleyball and soccer, varsity since freshman year in both. Wants to major in linguistics. Was denied from Columbia (even with the volleyball coach interested in her), Brown and Penn, Luckily, she loves UVA and was admitted there as an Echol’s Scholar. She’s happy; I’m happy. Much cheaper and only 2 1/2 hours from home!</p>
<p>MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton & Yale are extremely difficult to get into and reject overwhelming majority of impressive candidates. Anyone applying even with extremely high stats should assume chance of admission is no higher than 15% and usually less. Doubtful it had anything to do with being IB and doubtful it had anything to to do in his not being considered qualified. It is difficult to overcome the feeling of rejection but truth is he did not do anything wrong and needs to be assured he did not.</p>
<p>His “punishment” is that he may have to attend UF, one of the best public universities in the nation, and I assume he qualifies for Bright Futures and thus the actual cost will be readily manageable.</p>
<p>I have heard that UF often gives at least sophomore status, and merit scholarships to IB Diploma students, so perhaps that will lighten the pain.</p>
<p>Agree with ghostt; the SAT scores are not quite there, and kid should have applied to mid-reach schools as well. But when all is said and done, UF is a very good school and cheaper to boot.</p>
<p>iB students at our school did extremely well–at schools like UCLA, Berkeley, Wesleyan, Boston College. Not so well at Ivies although there is a Harvard-bound kid in the group. It is a small program–if you aren’t star-struck by the Ivies, those are great results!</p>
<p>OP said: “I guess maybe it could have been either his supplemental docs (essays) or like I said maybe he didn’t fit the demographic.”</p>
<p>Nope, it was pretending that applying to HYPed schools is anything but a reach for almost everyone.</p>
<p>example: Brown says “no” to ~89% of those with a low 700 SAT Critical reading; ~90% of those with a low 700 SAT Math, and ~91% of those with a low 700 SAT Writing; it rejects 89% of those in the top 10% of one’s class</p>
<p>So whoever encouraged the kid to expect that it was likely that the kid’d be accepted into one of the HYPed schools was wrong; sure he matches well with the “accepted” stats" . . . he also matches quite well well with the “rejected” stats</p>
<p>if that was you that encouarged that expectation, it might be a good idea - to the extent the kid is truly disapponted - to talk with the kid about your part in the application decision</p>
<p>In a corollary to the maxim “never attribute to malice what can be explained by cluelessness” . . . “never attribute to the IB program what can be explained better by reference to general trends”</p>
<p>Thank you very much to everyone for their responses…except the ones ranting about ethnicity, which came out of left field & had absolutely nothing to do with my original post…so shame on you!) All of the posts were very much appreciated and have provided me with some valuable insight.
I am EXTREMELY proud of my son and we are looking at other “mid-range” schools who still have rolling admissions now. He has a very positive attitude and the drive to succeed so I am not really worried & in fact, I’m happy that he did get into UF…it’s a great school.</p>
<p>Actually kei-o-lei…it wasn’t me who suggested to my son that he apply to the Ivies… It was his IB Guidance Counselor (based on the previous 3 years application & acceptance data for IB students at his school), so…in my opinion, in this case, the only thing worse than an irrelevant post is the arrogant posting from an individual who obviously jumps to conclusions and so freely offers his opinion of others without knowing all of the pertinent facts.</p>
