Why it's so hard to get into an under 15% acceptance rate school

Changing this mindset is one of the reasons that top colleges have been making it progressively harder to get in from preps for 2 generations

The causality also runs in the opposite direction. Suppose unhooked student A at a random public HS and hooked student B at Andover have similar stats, but student A has a 2% odds of admission at a particular college, while student B has a 20%+ odds of admission(maybe more with EA/ED) at that same college. Then, it’s completely rational for student A not to apply at schools where the odds of admission are trivial, but it would make sense for student B to apply. The number of students applying from Andover is driven by the Andover acceptance rate.

They have been playing a game of diminishing expectations for two generations. And later you use the word “downselling.” It’s not about cheating BS or elite prep kids out of their rightful place at a Tippy Top. Instead, it harkens back to identifying the right colleges for the individual kids. Dreaming of Harvard doesn’t make it the right choice for you. It’s part of CC myth that wanting is enough, that it justifies applying wherever. You could be a superb match for College X, it could be the place to empower and grow you. There, you could cement the education and friendships that lead to a great life. It doesn’t “have to be” Harvard. Elite GCs are generally good at finding match.

From an admissions standpoint the unhooked middle of the pack kids look better at the top of their public school class (where there is also less competition for ecs like varsity athletics, class president etc). Says who? (What “admissions standpoint?”) Being tops at an easier hs doesn’t make one tops in a national pool. This is more than, say, being val. That or stats are only a few data points in an app that covers extensive points. And you telling us getting to be class pres is easier in a 2000 kid hs? Or getting solid advice is easier where the GC has hundreds of kids assigned?

Different poster. But the there really arent any unhooked kids with anything like average backgrounds at ivys now. The keyword isn’t “unhooked.” The tippy tops aren’t looking for average kids with average records. They don’t need to.

And this does apply to hooked kids, as well. It’s not average or just squeaking by with ‘good enough’ (this insistence among many on CC drives me nuts. Athletic recruits are a different matter.) Many kids are out there doing impressive things (for hs.) Don’t assume their legacy, race or ethnicity is literally all it takes.

They have been progressively harder to get in to from all high schools for two generations.

School-level ECs are unlikely to turn an applicant into an admit at the most selective colleges. Athletics at typical public schools may be limited to common sports where it is most competitive to stand out (among the national applicant pool), not “preppy sports” that the elite prep schools offer and which are recruited by the most selective colleges.

In addition, the typical overworked public school counselor may not know enough to give the student a good idea of which apparently-reachy colleges are more likely to admit him/her, so that s/he can make a more informed application list than a “lottery ticket and (undesired) safety” list. The prep school student’s counselors may tell him/her that HYP are very unlikely, but that one or more of Tufts, Emory, Middlebury, etc. may be more likely to admit him/her than published stats may suggest (based on the more subjective match criteria of the colleges that the prep counselors are well informed about), so that the student can put those colleges on the application list – colleges that the public school student is less likely to find out about or get an idea that they may be more interested in him/her than published stats may suggest.

The prep school student’s recommendations will also be from recommenders who are well-practiced and coached in writing strong recommendations, and the highly selective colleges are likely to hold recommendations from the school in high regard. The public school student’s recommenders may not necessarily be as well-practiced and coached, and recommendation rationing at many public schools may keep the student from getting his/her best recommenders anyway.

Lots of good thoughts here.

The majority of kids aren’t at prep schools, and I doubt the majority of applicants come from prep schools. I think it’s probably fair to say that prep school kids have an advantage over most kids from public high schools when it comes to elite college admissions. It’s probably also fair to say that one reason super selective prep schools send a large proportion of kids to super selective colleges is because they are often great students to begin with and area very well prepared with all the resources to boot. And yes, prep school kids, if you want to distinguish them that way, cut into the numbers of kids accepted from regular public high schools.

I really love this comment from @blossom : I think the “magic”…is in getting the kid who THINKS he belongs at Princeton to fall in love with Middlebury, and the kid who THINKS he belongs at Middlebury to fall in love with Franklin and Marshall, and the kid who THINKS she belongs at Franklin and Marshall to fall in love with Muhlenberg.

YES, times a 1000. If you’re a student reading this, please consider that maybe, the place for you isn’t the tippy top you’re pining for. By putting all your energy into the “dream” school that really is going to just be a dream for you, please consider a school that you have a realistic chance of getting into. Read the rest of post #62 as well.

@AlwaysMoving , you can’t label kids “middle of the pack” just because they go to LACs, even if they are NESCAC’s. Our tour guide at my D’s LAC turned down Penn. LAC grads are going to top grad schools and getting jobs at investment banks just like kids from HYP. Maybe those kids never applied to HYP. Not every top student aspires to top 20 schools, or even top 50. We all know many top students are following the money, including students from donut-hole families.

Two generations ago admit rate from exeter/andover to harvard/yale was nearly 100%. A generation or so ago 40% of exeter kids went to hyp and Dartmouth. Now those schools place maybe 5 unhooked kids a year at hyp. World is just way way more diverse, and beneficiaries are lots of kids from public schools - and not just wealthy suburbs.

@minimickey , I don’t think anyone (who knows better) considers Duke, U Chicago, Stanford, UC Berkeley or U Michigan a poor second to HYP. Maybe there are more top choices now. There is certainly more widespread knowledge, thanks to the internet, and savvy kids at prep schools might be applying to colleges apart from HYP these days.

Anyway, why has this become so focused on prep schools?

My nice was told by an elite college AO that her GC recommendation letter was poorly written. Her normal HS did know how to help someone like her. Thankfully her dad was able to help because he was the chair of a Medical School admission committee.

I totally agree. That’s why I said “they are going to NESCACs or other quality LACs.”

The point was that the middle of the pack students from elite private or elite boarding schools don’t get into HYP, but they do get into very good schools. At high quality public schools the middle of the pack go to a state school. State schools are fine, I went to one, but there is a difference.

I too do not think anyone is disadvantaged in the college admissions process by being better prepared with an elite education than they would have been at a public school (and I am a public HS grad). The emphasis on writing and sheer quantity of written work required by those elite prep schools ensures the kids are very well prepared wherever they attend college. That is very labor intensive, costly, and difficult for public schools to replicate. Some do, but few.

A lot of prep school teachers attended elite schools, so they have a bit more insight than average as to what makes a good recommendation for an elite school.

One of my kids attended a not particularly elite boarding school and their recommenders were graduates of Wesleyan and Yale. Their college counselor had degrees from Bowdoin and Columbia.

@AlwaysMoving , it’s calling them middle of the pack that’s the problem. They are NOT all middle of the pack. Many of them are right at the top with the HYP admits.

Pretty spot on, ucb.

Don’t assume the “beneficiaries are lots of kids from public schools - and not just wealthy suburbs.” Just how easy do you think any of this is, today? You can’t generalize that just being public works special magic. Nor that what shows one’s value is all about gpa. (That’s the same attempt to game as taking easy courses for the easy A’s.) Nor a club title or two. A successful applicant has a lot more than that to show.

It depends on the student. For example, the study at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003804070507800401 analyzed 45,000 applications to 3 “elite colleges” and reviewed the effect of high school attended on admission decision at the “elite” colleges. The author concluded that attending a selective high school with a high concentration of high achieving students had a negative effect on chance of admission to elite colleges, after controlling for the applicant’s stats, number of AP classes taken, athletic & legacy status, race, and other applicant level factors. The author writes:

While the average effect was negative, I expect there is a wide variation among individual students. Using the terminology from the paper, some students thrive as the small frog in a big, resource rich, pond and get pushed to new heights, which often has a net positive effect on college admission. Others students struggle in the same environment on multiple levels beyond just academic, but thrive when they are a big frog in a small pond . A similar statement could be made at the college level, which has implications on which colleges are the best fit for a particular student.

There are also less direct effects that influence the controls, such as influencing chance of a particular student achieving a high SAT score, or chance of taking many AP classes. This can lead to colleges having different expectations for students from different HSs. The author notes admission officers were susceptible to context effects of HS reputation/prestige, but the influence of school variables was small relative to the characteristics of individual student. In short, it’s not a simple answer like “prep school kids have an advantage over most kids from public high schools”. Instead it depends – attending the HS may be an advantage for some students, and may be a disadvantage for others.

Linda- thanks for the atta girl. I have a couple of close friends whose kids went to prep schools-- and I think given that we’ve known each other for decades, we’re unusually candid with each other. Watching how the college process unspooled for them was really an eye opener. One might call it “more advantages piled on top of advantages” in terms of how the college counseling works- or just in awe of how deftly these experienced counselors are able to turn what could have been “sloppy seconds” in terms of kids admits into wins for everyone.

No, they aren’t calling Harvard Adcom’s and saying “you are taking this kid”. Harvard admits the kids they want to admit. No, they aren’t telling parents “well, little Chip is a triple legacy at Princeton so that’s game over”. They seem much more transparent than the public HS GC’s that I know can be when steering kids away from “the impossible dream” and doing it with a wonderful replacement dream to take its place. Anyone (at least on CC) can look at a kids track record and realize that it ain’t going to happen at Penn or Cornell. But selling the kid on the wonderful Classics department at Lawrence, or the deep bench strength in Computing/AI at Stonybrook, or the fantastic internships kids get starting in freshman year at American, or the great life sciences work at Brandeis- not as a plan B for med school, but for actual great jobs in public health or bioinformatics-- this takes hard work and a lot of elbow grease on the part of the counseling team. And the kids I know who have ended up at Macauley- a public honors college which is truly a “best buy” option for a family with big financial needs- all of them were private school kids, not public school kids. Because those counselors were out there looking for a high quality, high value education for the kids who weren’t going to get the generous need based aid from Princeton (because they weren’t getting in to Princeton) but still wanted to brag about going to their first choice college- which in this case, was a public U.

When I applied to college back in the dark ages, I got two sentences of advice from my guidance counselor. (There were over 1,100 kids in my graduating class, and the counseling staff was overwhelmed trying to get the non-college bound boys with bad draft numbers into ANY college so they’d get an educational deferment). Sentence number 1- “You aren’t getting into Brown” (which is where I went). Sentence number 2- “make sure you apply to flagship U early because that’s where you’re going so you might as well get used to the idea”.

Yes, things have changed (for the better). But I see some of my neighbors kids now- at our local public HS- much smaller than the one I attended in the dark ages, and their lists seem so crazy to me. So top heavy. Nothing in the middle. A couple of safeties at the bottom that the kid has barely researched so there’s nothing to get excited about. And the “bunching”- one year everyone is dying to go to Penn. The next year it’s Cornell. The following year it’s Dartmouth. But there’s the “it” school that the top 20 kids all have on their lists. That doesn’t happen at private schools, in my observation. At a minimum, the counselors work hard spreading the kids around the country.

@Data10 , notice that most of what I post contains mitigating terms. That’s not an accident. ? I don’t claim to be 100% authoritative.

What exactly is meant by selective high school? That isn’t just prep schools, right? That’s why kids take SHSAT and similar tests.

I think there’s little room for doubt that high schools which have particular relationships with elite colleges have more kids getting into those schools. As an example, our high school sends several students to Cornell every year. Whether it’s Andover or Horace Greeley, those kids generally have an advantage. (Our HS is not HG, btw.)

By “selective”, I meant high schools that have a high concentration of stellar students – magnets, selective prep schools, some non-selective publics in wealthy areas, etc.

Having a larger number of acceptances to Cornell does not mean those kids have an advantage. The point was you also need to consider things like how many highly qualified applicants applied and their hook status. A high school that has 50 highly qualified and/or hooked students apply to Cornell is expected to have more acceptances than a high school where 1 highly qualified/hooked kid applies to Cornell.

For example, I attended a basic, public HS in upstate NY. Being in upstate NY, many students apply to Cornell every year. Naviance suggests far more students apply to Cornell than to all over Ivies + SM combined, probably more applications than any other highly selective college. As such my HS gets several acceptances to Cornell every year, but there are few acceptances to the selective colleges where few students apply. However, this does not mean kids at my high school have an advantage at Cornell where many apply, but a disadvantage at HYPSM or other colleges where few apply

The high school I attended has an average SAT of ~1100, while Andover has an average SAT approaching 1500. As such, it’s a safe bet than Andover and similar selective privates HSs have a higher concentration of top test score students than my HS. If you control for scores, # rigorous AP+ classes, and hook status, I’d expect that applicants from my HS have a similar or higher rate of Cornell acceptances than applicants from the selective prep HSs you mentioned. However, there are far more kids with high test scores and large numbers of AP+ level classes at selective preps, as well as a larger number of hooked kids; so a larger number of acceptances may be expected at the selective prep, even if number of applications are similar.

But your school had the in state Cornell advantage, @Data10. Cornell favors NY applicants, just like Harvard favors Mass. A comparable high school in eastern Ohio would not get your results.

I mentioned that in my post. If NYS resident is a concern, Horace Greenly is also in NYS and was quoted in the post, so compare Horace Greenly vs my HS, rather than Andover. The same points apply.

A lot of people are controlling for items that are influenced by your HS experience. Saying controlling for “SAT scores… “ is an invalid control.