I think everyone on this thread is getting confused with me and another commenter. I have no even applied to any colleges yet. I did not get into CMU
^^ I am the OP
However, they are not independent events, since the credentials being considered by the various colleges are mostly the same ones, and the criteria that the colleges use overlap substantially. For example, if the student uses the same counselor and teachers for recommendations, and they write poor ones, that would disadvantage the student at all of the colleges in question.
bahiablue, your description of your kid is great and exactly what I meant by what I wrote. I think it is very hard for people, even parents, who have not thought about these things to understand the differences I am trying to describe. You can sometimes tell when someone doesn’t get it by the questions they ask. About your son, they may ask 'well when does he have fun?" if he isn’t having lunch with friends. I hear that question all the time. Those asking don’t get it. He is having fun. And yes, he probably gets together with friends too. But for kids who are genuinely engaged in intellectual pursuits, discussions are fun. There isn’t a big divide between thinking and “fun”. And if you spend time at a college filed with such students, you get a good sense of that by seeing how energized they are when they are discussing issues or getting together to study or build or create things. It’s not drudgery that they have to get done in order to free themselves up to hang at the mall (for example). And if you were a professor, wouldn’t you rather have a bunch of them in your class instead of a bunch of students whose total motivation is to nab A’s?
OP, you have asked thought-provoking questions, as evidenced by the length of this thread. IMO, the most relevant posts on this thread are being made by @am9799 (#119), even if he did confuse you with another poster:-). I don’t believe that there are kids who make a balanced list and don’t get in anywhere (no doubt someone will post to refute my claim), because if you do your homework and apply to an APPROPRIATE range of colleges, you WILL get in somewhere. If you are sensible, you will find things that you like about your safety schools, even if they aren’t your top choices. It is really critical to ensure that the colleges you see as matches and safeties fit your stats, and that you actually like them. There are many threads on how to figure out what match and safety schools are.
You also need to express interest in your schools, especially safety and match schools. Using my own kid as an example, she applied to 12. 7 of those were matches and safeties. She interviewed for 9 of her colleges. She visited 9 of them, she met reps from many of them, she emailed some of them, and got on email lists to all. She was accepted to eight in total (one of those was just last week, a surprise acceptance off waitlist, with money!) and she was awarded merit scholarships at 6 of the 8. She is waitlisted at two, and was denied at two super-selective schools. She did well in the application process, and I believe it was because in addition to all the usual stuff, she showed interest. She has friends with similar stats who were denied at match and safety schools, or WLed, and we think it is because they showed no interest. Those colleges are beginning to deny people who they think are just using them as safety schools.
Anyway, I know you are asking about tippy top schools, and why high stats kids don’t get in. Interest doesn’t matter so much at top colleges, because they have many thousands of applicants. But then again, it does. Let’s say you decide to just go for it, and apply to every top 20 college, because hey, one of them ought to come through, right? (There are a zillion threads as to why it doesn’t really work that way, won’t recap them here…) Consider this though: everyone of those colleges will have supplemental essays, and quite likely mutiple essays. Researching what you like about colleges is difficult, and it’s espeically difficult when you need to think of something unique and diferent to say about all those 20 schools for the “why this college?” essay. The problem is, those colleges can tell who is genuinely interested in their school, and who is just trying to get in as a trophy. And all the other supplemental essays need to be great and genuine too. It takes a lot of effort and talent to pull off writing that many essays and doing it well. That of course is just another of many reasons why high stats kids don’t get into top colleges, but I do think if kids stopped applying to so many of them, and instead applied to the ones they were actually interested in, the result would be a lot fewer applications. Anyway, always keep this in mind: they are accepting a person, not just grades and test scores. They want people they like.
Of course it’s the latter @ClarinetDad16. I still don’t understand why you have taken issue with my use of elite = highly selective since that’s generally how the term is used here on CC. No one is saying that only the top 20 or so lottery schools are the only institutions that graduate excellent students and provide a top notch education.
What is your definition of elite?
@Agentninetynine you say elite equals selective, but then you say UChicago was elite even when they weren’t “selective”.
Thus my confusion…
No, I agreed with you that "the quality of their ( University of Chicago) education and the success of their graduates just as strong as it has been for many, many years. And really, does it matter how you or I judge elite or selective? I fail to see the issue here.