<p>onekingonelife: how is admit/defer/reject emblematic of everything wrong w/educations? RU serious? Consider Yale's perspective why dontcha?</p>
<p>Let's say 6000 EA apps come in. Of these 900 (15%) are shoo-ins -- even in the uber strong EA pool. They get admitted and the heavy wooing starts big cuz Yale doesnt want to lose them (even though their yield is around 75%). Amongst this pool, 3000 are not realistic given what the the other 2100 or other expected RD applicants. These 3000 are outright rejected. The 2100 are competitive but there only exists 950 more slots in total (they admit about 1850 or so each year). What to do?</p>
<p>Experience tells you some real gems come through the RD round as well. You DEFER the 2100 because 1) you have limited time to really see if they are IN/OUT and 2) you hedge slots for the RD & DEFERRED pool.</p>
<p>C'mon -- not that insidious is it? They are humans wanting to fulfill a difficult job -- not intent on causing chaos in the minds/lives of 20000 students each year.</p>
<p>and 3000 are not outright rejected from the EA round in the first place. They take out like 20% ~ 1000.</p>
<p>The admit/defer/reject is symbolic of how they are judging your application based on a numberical number and your awards and whatnot and just admitting people based on that. Maybe 100% is a bit overboard, but I do think if they took everyone who gets accepted this year and runs all the applicants through the admissions process again, more than 95% of them would be re-admitted. There is a way to get in, it's not like your college admissions is controlled by a random numer generating adcom that says, "AI 238, EC fine, personality fine, Essays of decent length and quality, if I generate a number between 1 and 100 that's above 91, they get in.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that they're looking for character that is shown in what you're doing. At the same time, this attitude about education (good, bad, fail) or whatever it may be obscures the individuality of certain people. </p>
<p>I know people who do illegal things all over the place(use your imagination). But you know what, if you get to know them you'll say they are really nice people. I think so and I think they would value me as a friend more than a person with a 2400 who likes to manipulate people. But to schools, the person with a 2400 is almost always considered a "better student" by the schools (college, high school, etc.)</p>
<p>oneking: my "900" was only an illustration -- I don't have the real numbers. No one is saying that Y admissions is scientific -- it's certainly an art. But I think that impugning some sort of maleficence to Y and their need to admit/reject thereby labelling people as good/bad -- doesn't ring true to me. </p>
<p>I can understand how unfair or even 'cold' this process may appear to applicants and their families. In my info sessions, I always applaud those who are willing to subject themselves to the Y application process -- it's not easy. But my experience is that the Y admissions people are really trying to be humane as well as dedicated to their Yale mission. My opinion only.</p>
<p>1) We need to see a little more of what you are doing academically- were you on the upswing? Did it continue?</p>
<p>2) We have a few questions about your application that we don't have time to follow up on during the ea round</p>
<p>3) You are a legacy and we don't like to reject legacies.</p>
<p>4) Not all of your information was available at the time we discussed your region</p>
<p>5) Though you have a good application, and we know you could be successful at Yale there isn't a compelling reason for us to take you over somebody else at this point...continue your hard work and show us how YOU will make Yale a better place</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with schools doing deferrals. Schools don't want to admit their whole freshman class solely from the early application students. They aren't able to do a true comparison of all the applicants applying to them. Is Yale continuing to offers early action yet having deferrals worse than Harvard and Princeton getting rid of their early application plans completely? In those two schools' cases, they get to look at every applicant at the same time. Those students, including my D, are fortunate to even have the possibility of hearing that they are accepted by Yale early, while Harvard and Princeton applicants can not. If D gets a deferral, so be it. We are crossing our fingers that it is not a rejection yet.</p>
<p>As to the original question, deferrals are an opportunity to know more about the total applicant pool before making the final cuts. EA rejections are just students that Yale recognizes would not be competitive in their RD application pool and are cutting them loose. The EA acceptances are students that they clearly would admit either EA or RD but the number acceptance is limited to the percentage of their freshman class they wanted admitted by EA. The EA deferred are either surplus clear admits, beyond the maximum percentage, or competitive students that they want to examine in the context of the whole application pool.</p>
<p>For anyone is so offended by a deferral, I challenge them to retract their application when the deferral comes it. They will have sent a clear message that they find this practice unacceptable while reducing the number of applicants in the RD pool.</p>
<p>It's supposed to be holistic but in a sense they have to be comparing you. Indirectly, really, but still. You have say 1500 spots for incoming Freshmen and you want a diverse class of athletes and scientists and musicians and writers. You can't take 500 kids whose main activity is cello and who want to become doctors. Even if they're not comparing you per se, their ultimate goal is still pretty much to accept the top thousand-ish applicants, and how do you know who the top apps are if you don't subjectively compare to an extent? </p>
<p>Basically, defer = you're not bad, but you could be just as strong as 5000 other kids in the RD pool. They're not confident enough that someone better won't come along. Sounds kind of bad if you put it that way though. :/</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Yeah, but wouldn't it feel bad to you if you knew in your heart that you only got in because of luck and not because you're good enough to get in as a person?"</p>
<p>LOL i already chalk it up to mostly 'luck' if i get in ;)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree with freesia001, too. I know that the admissions people go through a whole lot of trouble to pick the best applicants, but frankly if I got in I would assume that luck was my greatest ally in the decision.</p>
<p>And I think 2by2 made some really good points. I'm hanging on to #3 ;)</p>