Why do I keep getting rejected?

Applying to College
1

I have just been rejected RD at Northwestern, which I was a legacy at, and have gotten a “possible” at Wellesley, and deferred SCEA at Harvard. Is there any hope for me in the next two weeks?

SAT I (breakdown):2340 Composite, 780 CR, 800 Math, 760 Writing
ACT (breakdown):
Unweighted GPA: 3.92
Weighted GPA:
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 9/50
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP English Language (5), APUSH (4), AP World (3), AP Physics 1,
Senior Year Course Load: AP BC Calculus, AP Literature, Honors Philosophy, AP Chemistry, Honors Psychology, Art and Design (drawing)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit commended, 3 state piano awards, etc

Subjective:
[ list]
[] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Founded nonprofit for special needs (raised $30,000), special needs cheerleading coach, student senate dance committee coordinator, nhs vice president, concert pianist, private lessons
[] Job/Work Experience:
[] Volunteer/Community service:
[] Summer Activities: Harvard SSP
[] Teacher Recommendation: One from Harvard Prof, one from counselor (knows me well), one from Lang teacher (knows me well)
[] Counselor Rec: 10/10, Knows me very well
[li] Additional Rec:[/li]
[/list]

Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: yes
State (if domestic applicant): AZ
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Small, college prep (ranks 10th in country, 3rd in state)
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: F
Income Bracket:~100k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):

1 Like
2

because northwestern has a 5% acceptance rate

3

Did you apply to any safeties?

4

@Undercovermom1 I applied to my state school, University of Arizona, and got in. I just feel massively discouraged going forward, and for everything in the next few weeks. (ivies, Duke, etc.)

5

The schools you’ve mentioned are incredibly competitive. It shouldn’t be a surprise to be rejected from them for any applicant. Ivies are reaches for everyone.

6

Harvard and Northwestern are lotteries, so don’t be so hard on yourself. I know it’s a stressful time @cheerleader16. Wellesley may still come through for you. It’s not over for you yet! You’ll end up someplace fabulous. Good luck to you. :wink:

7

@Undercovermom1 Thank you:) I’ve just been really stressed out and kind of lost confidence lately. I just kind of feel like my Northwestern rejection does not bode well for me with everything coming up.

8

A possible and a deferral aren’t rejections, you are still in the running. You only have 1 real rejection so far.

9

You applied to a ton of schools that are reaches for virtually everyone. I hope you applied wisely and included some match schools that fall between Duke/Ivy and your state school in terms of admissions. And Asian is not a URM for the colleges you noted.

10

@happy1 I applied to some more match schools like Boston University and UCLA, I’m just really worried going forward.

11

Any college where the acceptance rate is 20% and below is a lottery/a reach for everyone. Hopefully you applied to a fair number of colleges with admission rates in the 20-30% rate and a few more in the 30-40% bracket.
Can you list all the colleges you’ve applied to, so that we can tell you more.
So far, your odds are 50-50 at Wellesley (one of the top colleges in the nation).
Did you apply to ASU Barrett at least? (I don’t know if it’s too late, but while ASU< UA, Barrett >> UA’s Honors college).

12

@MYOS1634 I didn’t apply to ASU at all because (as silly as it may sound) my father is a professor at ASU and absolutely does not want me to attend ASU. I applied to a lot of reach schools (larger financial aid packages available), such as all the ivies except cornell, CMC, Stanford, Williams, and some more match schools like UCLA and BU. Sorry to sound so frantic, I’m just really nervous going forward.

13

Hey, I think I’ve seen you around some threads and as someone who feels similarly discouraged as decisions continue to roll out, know that transferring is always an opportunity should you end up at your “safety school” and end up disliking it. But it seems you have quite a few decisions to roll out yet, so don’t be too discouraged as things move forward. A friend of mine was just rejected from Rochester Institute of Technology (57% acceptance rate) but accepted into Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (38% acceptance rate). So if you translate that into the world of super selective colleges like the ones you and I are applying too, I think the bizarre admissions statistics are only magnified. So don’t lose hope.

14

If you need financial aid you need to cross out UCLA (and probably BU). UCLA will give you no FA since you’re OOS and BU give you much won’t unless it has an agreement with ASU like “TE” (for faculty kids).
Did you check with your father about any faculty exchange (TE/tuition exchange for instance)?
It’s not silly from your father: ASU has a two-tier system, where a small group get excellent facilities and learning conditions (Barrett) and everyone else gets less-than-optimal situations that aren’t really a good reflexion of a state flagship fo the first two years in particular, but since authorities figure most students they admit will wash out during the first two years, or buckle down and start working despite so-so conditions, they don’t really invest much money in them. I suppose also he wants to take you away from the large party school environment and give you a chance at being exposed to other environments.
CMC, Sanford, Williams, Ivies, are all “reaches for everyone”.
It push comes to shove, you could always take a gap year, perhaps work, perhaps study abroad (YFU, Nacel, AFS have programs for just-graduated students). You’ll be okay. :slight_smile:

15

@Kasami @MYOS1634 I’m just wondering if I should continue hoping for the next few weeks, or if I should just plan on this point on going to my state school

16

Well maybe don’t lose all hope, but definitely try your best to fall in love with your state school. Maybe you’ll like it more than you think.

17

I think you should keep hoping or plan to take a gap year.
There are WAY better schools for your stats :slight_smile: so if you don’t get into any of your colleges this year, then you have another shot at crafting a list. Your state school’s not going anywhere, you can still attend in a year if your gap year doesn’t yield the desired results (but it should because you’ll have gained wisdom from this whole process).
I don’t think you should attend a college hoping to transfer, because as a transfer you lose any hope of winning the big scholarships you could win with these stats.
At top schools, it mostly comes down to 1° impressive success in one or two things you’re passionate about (national recognition is better, state recognition strongly recommended in at least something) 2° essays 3° letters of recommendations.

18

Think of it this way – the app fee that you paid to submit your apps to Stanford, the Ivies, and all of the LACs that you listed were somewhat like buying a bunch of lottery tickets.

In addition to those lottery tickets, you also applied to Univ of AZ.

@MYOS1634 Do you really think that she should take a gap year rather than go to Univ of AZ if she doesn’t get into any of her other dream schools? (This is not a hostile question, as I really respect your answers on this forum a lot – I’m just a little surprised.)

This is just my opinion and I’m certainly not an Admissions Counselor, but I think that your level of rigor might be a little low on the low side for some of the top tier schools that you applied to. Prior to senior year, you’ve only got 1 AP English test with a 5 and 1 AP History test with a 4. You took 2 other AP tests, but you only scored a 3 and a 1 on them – so they may look at those AP classes and discount them. You’re taking 3 more APs now plus a couple of Honors classes. I suppose if you’re acing your grades this senior year and you do something really impressive for a gap year, you might get a different result. Or, like MYO said, crafting a different list would certainly yield better results. But if you were my daughter, I probably wouldn’t lean toward taking a gap year in hopes of making it into one of your current listed schools next time around.

But it’s only a couple more weeks of waiting and then you’ll know (instead of all of this futile second-guessing). Any 1 of those schools could absolutely LOVE something about your app and voila! You hit the jackpot!! I know that I’m super impressed by your raising $30,000 to start a foundation for special needs kids! So hang in there.

19

Oh, I wouldn’t recommend taking a gap year in the hopes of getting into those schools the next time around! but rather, crafting a better list with more reachable reaches and more good matches, top honors colleges, checking into TE possibilities that ASU faculty can use for their kids, etc. Probably only 2-3 colleges from the original list would remain on the second list, but most of the likely colleges would be better than Arizona. At the very least OP would attend better Honors Colleges than the one at UA and would likely get excellent scholarships to boot.

20

I also got rejected from Northwestern and I really don’t think you should dwell on it. Plus, thats literally your ONLY rejection.