Top schools are looking for a diverse student body. They seek athletes, musicians, actors and others who can enrich the student body. That makes the competition beyond what can be seen in academic statistics.
In terms of not getting into their state schools, the reasons are the same. Too many people applying for fewer spots. It’s not just state resident’s applying to state schools. More and more students are looking to leave their home state. They apply to selective OOS schools. Often the same high achieving students are applying to and being accepted at all of the same highly selective schools . They are basically reserving spots until they get all of their acceptances in hand , and often times waiting right up until May 1 to decline their acceptances.
Let’s face it. Elite colleges are selfish. They don’t operate on altruistic motives; they’re in the higher education business for enriching themselves by either money or reputation. When they admit a body of students, they do so from the perspective of human investment and the likelihood of return on their investment. This is what the “legacy” system is entirely based on, is it not? Likewise with athletes and artists and mega donors. If a student with perfect scores gets rejected, the reason for that, from the college’s perspective, is that they don’t feel there’s going to be a good return on their investment in this particular student. After all, having perfect scores is a great indicator of someone who’s an excellent follower but not necessarily a great leader or innovator. These elite colleges don’t want to invest in a bunch of perfect sheep; they’d much rather invest in a mediocre sheep herder in comparison if that means the return on their investment is likely going to be better. It’s like picking a mutual fund that they think is likely to yield the best return in its life time.
And that’s what they’re looking for in the student’s qualitative portion in the application, i.e., EC’s, essays, letters of recommendation, etc. What one thinks is a list of “great” EC’s might in actuality reveal a set of characteristics that just show what a perfect sheep the candidate is.
Someone I know is an admissions officer for an elite college. One question she asks the kids she interviews is “Why do you want to go to college?” (n.b., not “Why do you want to go to this college”.)
She says a surprising number of kids with stellar stats. and seemingly perfect resumes don’t have an answer.
There are many additional factors that go into selecting someone.
- Socioeconomic background - was a poorer person able to get similar academic achievements?
- Was this person also an URM?
- Was this person first generation?
- Does the person contribute to diversity in some other way?
At the other end:
- Sports recruit
- Legacy
- Special project whose parents donated a lot of money
And then there’s the 4.0 white girl from the Northeast needing significant financial aid.
I did the math a while back…you could fill the entire Ivy League classes with only Valedictorians and Salutatorians just from the US alone. There are considerably more really smart kids that did not finish first or second in their schools.
What kind of answer are they looking for? I’ve been in college for two years and I don’t have a better answer than “to learn and get a degree.”
I think it just means they applied to reaches and safeties but not matches. If these students applied to a few schools in (say) the top 50, they would almost certainly get into some. Maybe those were the safeties already, but in that case they don’t really have anything to complain about.
If you apply to twenty selective colleges versus ten, you have a higher chance of getting in somewhere, but it’s still not as high as people might think because college acceptances aren’t independent events. It’s probably not very common for someone to apply to a bunch of selective schools and get into exactly one. If you’re really good, you’ll get into multiple schools. If you’re not, you’ll get rejected everywhere.
A lot of them don’t apply to selective colleges, though.
It would be nice if there were some reward for all that hard work though, whether it was a product of the kid’s own drive or the parents’. Because, either way, the kid put in a ton of work and achieved great things at least academically. If the kid wants an elite private education, I think the kid has earned it with those types of gaudy stats.
Not to hijack the thread, but it would be nice if there were an application process to guarantee admission to one – not seven, not ten, but one – elite school. This would be for those kids who did score 2250+ on their SAT (or 34+ ACT) and did work hard to finish with a 3.85+ GPA and who are worried that they might get shut out because they might appear too “cookie cutter” or “handled/coddled” or because they are not a hooked applicant; or, they follow this path simply because they want an elite undergraduate experience somewhere and they wish to remove all risk related to achieving that.
Not all 2250+ SAT students would enter such a lottery, of course, so we would not have to ask the top 40-50 private schools to lend all or even most of their admission spots to the program.
This has been mentioned on at least two other threads and I think it merits research.
How it could be run:
- Kids apply for this program typically in the ED round. Obviously they must meet the 2250/34 and 3.85 requirements. It is hard to set minimum limits for qualitative achievements, so the program could stick to the test score and GPA stats for eligibility requirements.
- Each partner college or university (hopefully all of them would lend adequate admissions spots) receives all such applications and they deliberate over them.
- An officer from each school comes to a meeting at a central location, where apps are discussed and decisions are made. They decide which students go to which schools.
- Decisions are sent roughly the same time as the ED decisions. Schools offer standard FA packages.
You’d have to charge a pretty stiff fee up front, since so many schools would be spending time on your app – call it $300, maybe more. Summer job.
Of that $300 app fee, let’s say $125 goes to the school that admits the student, $100 is divided up equally among the rest of the schools, and $75 goes to the program administrators (the non-profit…).
Now, how “binding” should it be? Maybe it could be made binding against all other private schools. That might be enough of an advantage – yield protection – for the schools to take part in it.
If the number of applicants fluctuated a program administrator could “suggest” how many spots should be open at each school to meet demand for that year. The schools could bicker over that, trade spots, etc. – providing a bit of flexibility to the schools would be another way to help keep them in the program.
As for student fit/choice, while the student could not be guaranteed a particular school… the students could indicate a “top ten” and geographical preference on the application. There would also be an essay section, which would help the school representatives determine fit.
As for the schools, the program could simply include, say, the top 20-25 private universities and the top 20-25 LACs. (That is to say, we would pitch the program to them…)
@prezbucky Interestingly enough, Questbridge program works as a common ED application across many schools where the applicant ranks the schools. One just has to meet the low income requirement.
It could operate similarly, but this program (ideally) would have no restrictions, only the test score and GPA minima.
Selling it to kids:
If you scored 2250+ and achieved at least a 3.85, and you don’t want to risk being shut out, we (well, they…) will find you a spot at an elite private school.
Selling it to schools:
We’ll make sure they meet the test score and GPA hurdles and pay you $125 per admitted applicant, plus extra from the “group revenue” pot.
People are very bad at understanding odds. Our brains don’t work that way. That is why the same person who will continue fishing during a lightening storm will buy a lottery ticket. If you think you are pretty safe if you continue fishing in a storm (estimate of odds: one in a thousand), why would you think you stood any chance to win big at the lottery (estimate of odds:1 in 292 million)?
Considered a different way, 23,374 offers are made to Ivy League schools for a total of 16,620 slots. But that does not mean that 23,374 students are offered spots, Because the offers are not given randomly, the very strongest students can receive multiple offers. Many get a couple; some, as we read, will get 8. And, for reasons that will be apparent, those even slightly outside of the very strongest will get none. I guess it is safe to say that over 23,374 separate students get one or more offers.
Now consider that, in the US alone, there are approximately 37,000 high schools (graduating 3.3 million students/year). Now obviously not all valedictorians apply to Ivy League schools. But lets figure that one of the top 3 students in each school does apply to at least one. Well we already have a situation where 13,262 will be rejected. But it isn’t just one from each school. How many in the top 5% (in terms of strength of scholarship not necessarily GPA)? Now consider how many in the top10%. Well it is likely that on average (obviously there will be exceptions) nearly every one of those in the second part of the top 10% will be rejected from each school and nearly all from the bottom 90%.
If you look at the GPAs for the top 10% of students (using a random sample of -googled-“High School Profiles”), you will find that they nearly all have GPAs that are very high. For example, "Top Tenth unweighted=94.465 — 98.152; weighed= 98.151 — 103.891). And most of those students will have excellent scores too. The very top of the pool of rejected applicants are likely to have A or (weighted) A+ averages and top scores. After all, no matter what criteria you use, there are 330,000 students who are in the top 10% of high school graduates. There are 16,620 Ivy League slots. As they say, do the math.
As has been mentioned in previous posts, applying to 20 schools where your odds are almost nil does not result in 20 times the chance of being accepted. Look at it in terms of a coin toss, if you toss a coin 20 times, what are the chances you will land a red card? As you move those closer together your odds improve. If you toss a dice 20 times you still can’t pull a red card but you might get a 6. Ponder that!
And, while the numbers don’t include the flag ship and other top 20 schools, the numbers of applicants don’t either-or international students. As we move down the college rankings, in terms of selectivity, it is true that students with lower GPAs and scores are given offers but the same limitations apply. The same student will get multiple offers because schools within certain ranges select for the similar attributes. An astounding proportion of students have GPAs in the A range and the number of slots for the top 50 schools is comparatively small and the same principles apply. It’s a numbers game. Students with high GPAs and scores will be rejected.
prezbucky, there is already an award for all that hard work. It is called “an education”.
When did working hard in high school stop being about getting an education and start being viewed as a ticket to some kind of college? It is very perplexing and troubling.
Sorry guys I’m just a little salty. I know a lot of friends who worked very very hard to get into top ivy leagues, and ended up getting rejected by all (or waitlisted one or two). Yes, it is true they took many of the same AP classes to boost their gpa, but those classes that they took were the most difficult ones offered at my school. I just feel kinda sad that they are the hardest workers in our school in terms of academics AND often times in terms of extracurricular, yet they still can’t get into their dream schools. I understand that some of them don’t have as much passion as people who don’t care so much about grades; however, i’m still a little bit disheartened by the fact that people who work so hard to get into an ivy league can’t get in.
Also, I find it kinda annoying how Asians are stereotypes to have good grades/scores. This is a huge detriment to the asian student population as a whole. For example, an Asian with a 1800 SAT would have very very little chance of getting into an ivy league because his/her asian peers are expected to have good scores. So because of this stereotype, asians are kinda expected to get good grades and , thus, have less time to spend on pursuing their passions.
I guess a superstar student being shut out of elite privates could be seen as a valuable “life isn’t fair” lesson, sure.
But I think this is one area in life – admissions – that we could make more fair.
High GPAs are not uncommon, but high GPAs paired with 2250+ – now that’s a much smaller group. Setting arbitrary score and GPA limits, we can make the group of “elite” students larger or smaller, to fit the supply of spots at “elite” private schools – arbitrarily, 25 top private universities and 25 top LACs. Maybe we’d even add Cal-Berkeley, Michigan and UVA to the mix: I think most people would agree that they provide an elite undergraduate education.
Now perhaps there would be enough spots for all the high achievers, if there were a no-risk application solution for them.
“) will find you a spot at an elite private school.” Really? What?
When did every student in the top half of the class start believing that they somehow deserved a spot in “an elite” college. What does the word “elite” mean anyway? It used to mean rich, at least in terms of the schools regularly listed as, say, top 20. I don’t believe it means that any more. Each year it is less and less the case that “elite” is synonymous with “wealthy”. And I think that is a very good thing. In that way, I think education is moving in the right direction.
But, from my standpoint, “elite” should continue to mean that those schools are reserved for those students with the most promise for achieving at the very highest levels. And, I don’t mean that they have the highest GPA and have done all those things that result in a perfect looking resume. Rather, that those schools continue to find ways to identify the people who will benefit the most from those schools. And, just like I don’t think the value of top notch achievement in high school is getting into a certain college, I do not think the value of top notch achievement at one of the most “elite” colleges/universities is (or should be) about getting a certain kind of job. So I applaud the effort by these schools to screen out students (and their parents) whose college goals are focussed on using college primarily to nab prestigious future positions rather than to make use of (and contribute to) the education that they are fortunate to have access to.
I think there ought to be a way for outstanding thinkers to meet, study and achieve together and to work with the best minds earth has to offer. And that is what I think should be the purpose of the elite colleges and universities (not simply becoming more prestigious camps with cooler ECs). There are plenty of alternatives. And, some of the very strongest minds may not want to study at such a place. But places like that should exist as incubators for ideas. These are the places where the rigor of academics can start where some/most schools leave off. Let’s not bring the “all deserve trophies because all worked hard” mentality to the university system because the obvious result would be dilution of the intensity of the academics at the “elite” schools which would be fueled by complaints that the work is "too hard"by those confusing prestigious summer camps with scholarship. It is a losing proposition-for all of us.
" I think most people would agree that they provide an elite undergraduate education."
Not in the future if they adopt your ideas Prezbucky. What’s wrong with other thousand or so schools below the top 20? Why are they less appealing to you?I think you are carrying that “self esteem” movement mentality into the university system. Think out the ramifications of what you are proposing.
I’m not suggesting shutting out students as a life lesson. I am suggesting that the elite schools should be filled with the best minds. How to find those “best minds” is another question. But the answer isn’t to simply accept students on the basis of having certain GPA and certain scores. And, what ever is identified will be mimicked by those wishing to appear as if they have one of those minds. That is what all the tutoring and test prep is all about. But given the tutoring and test prep, grades and scores are no long the way to select the best minds. They have, to use a technical term, lost their validity as tools for identifying the best minds. I’m not talking about concurrent reliability, by the way, but validity. That is different.
yoyohi, the Ivy League schools are not like elite camps. I think elite summer camps should be rewards for working hard in school. The elite universities have a different purpose. I challenge you to familiarize yourself with the missions of each of the Ivy League schools. What do the schools view as their responsibilities to society. Why do they exist? What do they view as their goals in terms of dissemination of information, education and service to the community/society. How do the missions of the schools relate to the admissions practices?
@lostaccount getting into a top 50 school IS more appealing than getting into a lower ranked school in many cases. For example, I’m planning to major in business next year in college. I’m sure going to a better ranked school for business will help with job placements.
" I understand that some of them don’t have as much passion as people who don’t care so much about grades; however, i’m still a little bit disheartened by the fact that people who work so hard to get into an ivy league can’t get in."
It’s not about “passion”. It is about admissions identifying those students likely to continue to achieve at high levels once the grade game stops. And those who have achieved at high levels for the sake of “getting into a good college” and because their parents are really fueling their efforts… well they are less likely to pursue endeavors that don’t pay off for them. Those who achieve because they are inherently driven to learn about the world will continue to achieve when the grade game ends. And that is why schools go to great lengths to circumvent those whose academics are fueled by grades and parents.