<p>they do tell a story and compose a picture. That picture is all-important, more than many hs kids understand. Many take the questions (starting with the awful, new essay prompts) literally and forget this is your 15 minute chance to show them you will contribute, thrive, etc, on a college level. Even brilliant and excellent have to step up to the plate. Don’t write about 4th grade, don’t assume your own special experiences make you more special than the other 15k kids with a 4.0 and decent scores, don’t mistake what leadership really is and means- to an adult who not only has life experiences, but reviews thousands of top stats kids every year. Etc.</p>
<p>OP also said the friend " visited Columbia and fell in love with the place." That’s pretty light. </p>
<p>Why can’t we just agree it’s a lottery w min requirements to apply? It’s not random like the lottery but since none of us can predict who will be admitted, that’s the best way to look at it. I do understand the frustration of not getting into Cornell. Be frustrated, but I encourage you not to look for answers bc as far as I can tell there are none. Consider my position… Mother of identical twin daughters w similar stats and same ECs. I can’t force them to be different people. They pursued what they loved and their aps look weirdly similar. The chances of both of them being accepted is like the mega ball lottery. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean by ‘athletically inclined institution.’ When the popular sports (e.g. football and basketball) are doing good, it’s a great way to increase alumni donations and bring together the undergraduate student body. That may not matter to you, but it does to a lot of other people.</p>
<p>The ironic thing about your rant is that, even if the focus was first and foremost on merit, chances are your friend still would have been rejected from these universities. As was noted by myself and others, they can fill themselves with students with perfect scores several times over. Would it really make a difference to you if your friend was rejected because others had better stats than because an adcom felt someone else was a better student for the university? They’d still be rejected at the end of the day.</p>
<p>You’re more than free to think that the lack of predictability at these colleges is unfair. Overall, I agree with what bclintonk said: they, as a private institution, reserve the right to set their own criteria for admissions; and you, as a private individual, reserve the right not to apply to them.</p>
<p>Look at it this way: While some students end up “loving their safety”. many others will try to “transfer up”, thus hurting the school’s stats. Those who are unsuccessful at transferring up will become the chronic complainers that you see so often here on CC. </p>
<p>In 2013, only 494 students scored a perfect 2400.
In fact, only 1,586 testers scored higher than the OP’s friend did (2360).
So no, they could not literally fill themselves with students with perfect scores several times over.</p>
<p>The 8 Ivies altogether must have something like12,000 freshman spots per year.
Only about 31K students scored even 2190 or above in 2013. So the 8 Ivies could fill themselves with students scoring 2190 or above a little more than 3.5 times over (if all of them applied). Suppose they made 2190 a hard minimum. Think about what that would do to the number of low income students or the diversity or interests and talents they could attract.</p>
<p>^My guess is that the College Board reports the numbers on a single-sitting basis, and the colleges report the numbers super-scored. Kids vying for the most selective schools will take the test multiple times if scoring below 2200 or thereabouts. So even if their single-sitting scores stay the same, the super-score is likely to rise, improving the school’s reported stats. Nonetheless, your point is well taken. </p>
<p>The element of chance is still a significant contributor to going zero for 4 or 5. As an example with this student, if we agree that he is a really solid candidate, perhaps his chances for acceptance aren’t the average 1 in 20, but something like 1 in 5 (4 times better than average). Even at that higher level, his chances of going 0 for 4 are 40%, and 0 for 5 are 32%- still pretty high odds of going “0 for”. </p>
<p>Yes, I realize this example assumes the process is purely random, and it’s not, but it does illustrate that the odds here are long no matter what.</p>
<p>While @tk21769 has an accurate assessment, I think that there probably were many applicants who were more academically impressive than the OP’s friend. Examples of this may include perfect scores on the ACT/SAT, multiple perfect scores on the SAT IIs, full AP or IB courseloads, success in upper-level coursework through a local college, national/international recognition for academics (ranked in math/science olympiads, Intel or Siemens, publication in a research journal, etc.), special aptitude in a particular subject (taking 4+ years each of two or more languages with AP scores of 5 for both, for instance), etc., etc.</p>
<p>This doesn’t take into account the students who have extraordinary extracurricular involvement, far beyond the “dabbling” of the OP’s friend. Northstarmom posted the following assessment in the “Chances” forum a while back:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>These are extraordinary/excellent ECs, and a student accepted to very elite universities would likely have strong academics and an EC or several that makes them stand out.</p>
<p>Northstar mom posted that in 2009 and got a lot of people who disagreed, including some a bit closer to the process than she. Don’t count on that list. While each is good, for Ivies none has a unique pull. They may- or may not- even be noted. Holistic for an Ivy or any single digit acceptance school really is about a sum impression. </p>
<p>But she does have a wicked response to the dumb chance-me questions about H.</p>
<p>The UCs do have/did have something vaguely similar, somewhere. Perhaps she got it from that.</p>
<p>@lookingforward, I wasn’t aware of that, thanks for adding. I completely agree that the list is imperfect and most certainly shouldn’t be used as a blueprint. But I would say it does give a little bit of perspective on the “bigger picture” of the many impressive college applicants competing for the same spots.</p>
<p>OP, did your friend have either one nationally-ranked EC or two state-ranked ECs or anything on the top half of Northstar’s list or something extremely unusual about his app or anything that showed that he would contribute to the campus in an unusual way – something beyond merely being captain of a varsity sports team or president of a school club? Every high school in America has a valedictorian and president of each club and a varsity captain of each sport – and there are 15,000 National Merit Finalists – so those things alone won’t make you competitive for the Ivies. Without a hook (athlete, legacy, URM, live in Alaska, etc.), you need to show that you’re among the very best in the nation at something or have an unusual hardship story or something else really unusual. Your friend sounds as wonderfully brilliant as the top kids at every high school – but, from what you’ve told us so far, nothing compellingly unusual.</p>
<p>WD, things change fast. I’d agree with you- you can get some perspective from that list. But some need to be deleted or explained. Many more would need to be added. A lot of high performing kids miss that adcoms are looking behind their words and activities, to see their judgment, maturity, perspective, energy, etc. How they chose what they chose and how they pull it together in some relevant way. What “shows.” That’s a big part of “fit.” </p>
<p>LF, it does seem that a lot of applicants overlook the “narrative” of their application in favor of an admittedly impressive laundry list of activities. I read a very interesting article a while back by a former admissions counselor about the role of character in the admissions process-- how some applicants seem to be very genuine, thoughtful, mature people who are concerned about the world around them. It’s not just about your resume, it’s about how you come across as a person. Would love to find the article again…</p>
<p>RE: "it’s a lottery " I agree. People push back and say, “no, it’s not a lottery, lots of consideration goes into the selection of each student, sometimes there are heated discussions about admissions, etc. etc.” The singular fact – FACT FACT FACT – is that your application will be read by two readers. How your essay strikes those two readers is a luck of the draw – by definition, a “lottery.” What if you wrote about golf, but the readers feel that golf is an elite sport for privileged country club kids and is immediately biased against you. You cannot get away from the fact that the applications are read by people who have their own predispositions and you can never know what they are. That, friends, is a “lottery.” There is no standardization. </p>
<p>I far prefer the Oxford/Cambridge process, where you have to have the academic stats and recommendations and then are rejected or accepted on this basis for the next stage, an interview. Three people interview you (in person or via Skype) and then collectively decide. Since so many URMs and athletes needed by the colleges wouldn’t make the first cut academically, US colleges don’t work on this rational process – they have to fall back on the whole “holistic” thing to justify a whole panoply of admits that are not academic admits: “development” “diversity” etc etc. Oxford and Cambridge just don’t care. They start from the proposition that university is an academic institution and not a socializing melting pot with some grades mixed in. On CC, of course, this debate is ancient and well-worn. But my point is that Oxford and Cambridge have NEVER been a “lottery.” The process is highly transparent, understood by all, and fair.</p>
<p>There are some surprising rejections, and OP’s friend may be one of them. I’d be curious to know whether he got into Hopkins or not. It should be added that there can be something negative in an applicant’s materials that can hurt him, and he may not even know about it. For example, if the friend’s recommendations all talked mostly about how hard he worked (something OP focuses on), that probably isn’t particularly helpful at the most selective schools.</p>
<p>The most likely explanation, though, is that he was one of a whole bunch of unhooked math/science guys, and there were too many math/science guys from his city or state with slightly better overall portfolios.</p>
<p>WD, you seem so thoughtful. So many kids, even top performers, really and truly think their stats, rigor and that fundraiser make them an auto-match for some most selective school. They forget to look into the obvious questions about what the colleges’ self images are, what they like in kids. They often don’t seem to know much more about the colleges than what they read in CC forums. “Concern about the world”- usually shows best in actions. Not just what clubs the hs offers and what they do with friends, once every few months. Not just proclamations. </p>
<p>As for FACTS- makenna, why would a kid wrote about golf for a college app? Unless it was a random supp question about ECs? (The old Common App EC question was deleted.) Some of the UC’s say they start with 2 readers, but the more competitive privates (and that is what we are talking here) go through far more than that. And frame their reactions in terms of what that college needs and wants. </p>
<p>I don’t play golf but I imagine a fair number of kids have some story to tell that is related to golf that also answers a CA essay prompt.</p>
<p>Not saying that’s a good or bad choice but given the prompts, a golf-loving kid could certainly choose to talk about something related to that to answer:</p>
<p>Oooh, those misleading new prompts. They don’t really want to know about your favorite spot or some failure in 4th grade. They’re really trying to glean a host of personal attributes. Does the golf (whatever) tale reflect your college level readiness and thinking? How you tackle challenges now, rebound? Maybe. Maybe not.</p>
<p>This is a very interesting thread with a good amount of insight and theories… and even some sage advice. But the simple and sometimes cruel reality remains unchanged. America’s elite colleges, and especially the Ivies, receive 10 times as many applicants on average as spots they can fill with acceptances. The selection methodology is likely unfair or at least perceived as such by those not hearing the response they were hoping for. I would suspect that roughly two-thirds of the applicant pool is generally qualified to succeed at these schools and that the colleges in question really struggle to decide who to ultimately accept. They may in fact consider as many as one-third or up to one-half of all the applicants as candidates deserving of an eventual offer. At most though, for the Ivies, that eventual admissions offer will only be afforded to somewhere between 7-14% of the total applicant pool.</p>
<p>Those are staggering odds anyway you choose to evaluate it. Moreover, these colleges are not simply trying to select among qualified applicants… they are also trying to craft a well-rounded freshman class - one which meets a host of perceived needs and wants. They want to accept applicants from every state and from as many different countries as feasible - within reason. They want to field successful sports teams, assemble various musical groups and allow for the staging of various theatrical productions, etc., etc. They want all of their majors/concentrations to continue with interested and willing students aiming to pursue such endeavors. It is likely a very taxing challenge to meld together an incoming class that covers all of the bases.</p>
<p>And it a daunting challenge as well to the student applicant. The danger is to operate with too much enthusiasm or confidence. The best course of action is to likely assume the worst while hoping for the best, leaving yourself a # of options in the process. It is exactly why my daughter applied to 6 solid reaches, 6 matches (albeit still competitive matches and possibly reaches) and to 4 colleges that she was confident about being admitted to. Like most applicants, she has her goal and wish list, but the ultra competitive nature of the process these days should be a cautionary tale for all candidates to these elite college programs. Hope for the best… but leave yourself some solid options. These colleges can pick and choose among thousands of qualified applicants… and that reality is not likely to change any time soon.</p>
<p>OP, a slightly lower-scoring/GPA student might simply be more interesting than your friend. Or, your friend may play the piccolo but they need a tuba player. As much as it hurts, it’s ultimately more about what the college needs or wants; it’s not about your friend. Or…might it be a character issue? Perhaps one or more of the teacher/counselor recommendations says something that is a turn-off to some readers. ptigers7, the Guys and Dolls analogy is not verbose; many people benefit from a more detailed explanation. I’d love to share that explanation with a teen audience so they can see it is in a way a crapshoot–or kind of like poker. You don’t know whether there’s another Nicely Nicely you’re competing against or not because you can’t see the adcom’s hand of cards. I like calling it a crapshoot because calling it a lottery implies you’ve won guaranteed success in life, whereas calling it a crapshoot means you do your best in your applications and high school life but can’t control the whole picture. The central problem, as others have noted, is that people put too much stock in the Ivies (OP referred to the ridiculous level of “HYP”)and a small number of other schools as though they had the market cornered on brilliance, teaching, research, etc. It’s what you do in college that matters more than where you go. I just hope that OP and his friend can see that there’s no magic formula or anything specific that he should have done that would have guaranteed a spot–it’s not an entitlement. In our house wh we’ joke and say, “Well, he hasn’t cured a single form of cancer yet, nor won the Nobel Prize” just to point out the extreme </p>
They don’t really want to know about your favorite spot or some failure in 4th grade. They’re really trying to glean a host of personal attributes. Does the golf (whatever) tale reflect your college level readiness and thinking? How you tackle challenges now, rebound? Maybe. Maybe not.</p>