@ClassicRockerDad , you are right, it doesn’t matter. But students are asking. Even more will be asking on April 1, after they finish crying. These are plausible reasons and might bring kids some closure. Personally, I don’t think it’s very helpful to say “anything a CC poster says to you is just random speculation and the answer is simply that you had random bad luck.” Everyone who is rejected is rejected for a reason. Sure, we won’t know the reason, but a lot of kids will still ask “why?”
I’m just gonna throw this out there…my B+/slightly above average SAT/ACT students had very successful application cycles. DD2016 was 12 for 12 and DD2018 applied to 17 with 14 acceptances, 1 denial, 1 waitlist and 1 alternative admission. One of the biggest reason I think they were succesful…targeting the right schools, stat-wise and personality-wise (for lack of an easier measure - schools USNWR ranked between #50ish -#125ish); not assuming they were entitled to admissions, anywhere; tangibly demonstrating resilience, determination, passion and dedication. More and more, it’s not just about your great stats, you need to show schools that you are more than your great, or even phenomenal, stats; most students with above average stats are capable of succeeding, now it’s about why YOU are the better choice (what is the substance, not just the shine) and even then there are 100s and 1000s of other kids that are just as great as you. You don’t deserve it just because you got the best grades, it not just about the grades in the US.
Some time ago a senior CC member, I wanna say it was @PurpleTitan, posted statistics about the actual number of seats at the top 25 or so schools and LACs. The number was frighteningly small in comparison to the number “qualified” candidates. There are, literally, thousands and thousands of capable students. While you might stand out in your community, a hundred miles away there is another “you”! Hopefully, students will come to realize this and not take the rejections so personally. Not to mention, those B students are just as likely to be successful, productive, contributing members of a college community and, believe it or not, sometimes more successful and contributing.
@ClassicRockerDad My D is a sophomore in HS so this thread is very helpful to me and my D. I know you want to rationalize why your kid didn’t get accepted to certain schools but there is more to the story than simple bad timing or luck. If an applicant didn’t get in to ANY schools, there is a big problem and a reason why (as has been mentioned above). The information on this site and discussing college admissions with friends with HS seniors and older siblings has been extremely enlightening to me and really hammers home that college admission is a new game from when I applied to colleges 40 years ago! If you don’t like this thread, then don’t read it but for at least one family, this topic is invaluable.
@labegg, yep, that was me.
The top 30 (unis and LACs) don’t provide enough spots for even 1% of the total number of American HS grads (our top schools have relatively small undergrad student bodies and the US is a big country). Then when you take in to account that most now fill half their class with ED and roughly half the class at these schools are hooked and finally, holistic admissions means just being top 1% in stats isn’t enough, that means that if you are an unhooked applicant applying to these schools in RD, you pretty much can expect to stand no chance unless you are really exceptional (like nationally best in something; but that would make you hooked).
I wrote this post in 2016 about why it’s difficult for really great students to be accepted to very selective colleges. It ties in with the posts by @labegg and @purpletitan :
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1878059-truthful-advice-about-getting-into-top-colleges-for-your-average-excellent-student-p1.html
@mom2adancer I recently “retired” from college admissions (II helped middle-class and underserved students) so pm your contact information and I would be happy to share some of my handouts and resources.
@TomSrOfBoston You hit the nail on the head regarding discipline records. I always have my students come clean on their common application in the additional info section and then follow it up with an email, phone call or if they can afford it, a visit to the admission director to explain why it happened, what they have done to change and why it will not happen again. So far everyone of my students with a previous discipline issue has gotten into a great college (and some with merit) and really turned it around in college.
@ClassicRockerDad I do not claim to be a magician, but in the past when a high stat student with almost all rejections comes to me and I look over their submitted Common App, I can see exactly why they were in all likelihood not admitted. I am friendly with enough admission reps and have a good enough relationship with them that when I contact them about said student applicant, I am usually right about the application. It is my opinion and again I say my opinion, that based on my experience that if a student has really thought out their college list, college admission is not random. Having the luxury of time in the Spring compared to the Fall when students apply, I can show the student some areas of their application which could have been stronger and which they tell me makes them feel better. I always try to be realistic but positive with my students. I make sure to put them in contact with a student with a similar situation who is now happy in college so that they see that their line of rejections is not the “end of the world.” I believe high school students are truly fragile during the college admission process because it may be the first time they are not successful or do not receive the news that they are hoping for. The intention of my post wasn’t to hurt their feelings, but to give them some areas of reflection in reviewing their application. I once had a valedictorian in an IB program get shut out, when I showed her that she only put six things in the EC common app chart and that membership in a 9th grade Spanish Club for one year was listed as the most important activity on her chart, she felt better and realized her mistakes. She was able to move on and is graduating from a great college this May.
@labegg Sounds like your kids were very smart in putting together their college lists. I’m wondering if they had very good guidance counselors as well? My daughter’s friends all had similar experiences to your children. Even though they were all very good students, in fact some of them were stellar students with exceptional grades and test scores, they applied mostly to match and safety schools and very few reaches. Most of them got into every school they applied to, did a good job of choosing based on academics and fit, and all are now very happy freshpeople! 
My daughter was actually the one with the most top-heavy list and it was a little rough for her watching her friends get acceptance after acceptance. But ultimately she wound up at her favorite school on the list (which was actually NOT the most selective of the bunch).
I agree that there is some randomness to all of this, but I also agree that at least some of the recent “why did I get rejected everywhere?” threads show some risky assumptions or poor planning/advising. I don’t think the intention of the OP is to kick people after they’re down or tell them what they did wrong. It’s to help future applicants who might read this to go about the process in a way that hopefully won’t have such a disappointing outcome.
@socaldad2002 Since you have a sophomore, I will share this last tip. Be sure to apply to a safety that your child really likes that has rolling admission over the summer before your senior year of high school. (Some options are New Mexico, Montana, Missouri Science & Tech, Ole’ Miss etc and many have free applications). I have found my students believe that “no college will accept me” and getting that early acceptance just helps them relax and then do a better job on the harder applications. You can just see the change in their body language. Getting that yes helps them emotionally which I think is really important at this stage of their life. I also enjoy when at the end of the admission cycle, a student ends up going to that safety with the early rolling admissions.
P.S. I love the new chancellor at Davis- he is great!!
" freshpeople "
I like this and am totally stealing it.
@ClassicRockerDad The parents of Juniors are here and learning a great deal from these threads. I have certainly had my eyes opened and will act accordingly.
Yes! This! This is exactly what D1 did and it paid off in so many ways. We treated the safety exactly the same way we treated every other school. I have a real suspicion that it increased the amount of merit aid we were awarded. They had every reason to believe that if sufficiently enticed, D would attend. But that diligence was also important in shaping the way D viewed the school. When you spend time on campus meeting with other students and professors, touring the facilities and taking care when crafting your application, an acceptance feels like validation. When you treat the school as a prize to be coveted, it feels like one. D saw all the opportunities that school could provide, she saw others being successful and happy in her field, and when she was offered admission, especially with a big merit grant that we didn’t expect, it felt like winning. By that point, the selectivity of the school was meaningless.
I also think it would be great to have a sticky explaining what the admissions statistics at the upper tier schools really mean, especially at places where ED takes up a large percentage of the class. I’ve written about this before, but people with stats above the schools range feel that their chances are far greater then the average when that simply isn’t the case. If the school takes 50% from ED, bringing the RD admissions down to 20%, you have an 80% chance of rejection no matter how great your stats are.
@IBviolamom They had absolutely no help from a guidance counselor at their large public school (or from a private counselor), just an obsessive mom, who gleaned a lot of information from the internet, particularly here on CC! I am sure if we had been shooting for the elite schools we would be singing a very different tune!
The one bit of advice I wish were hammered home to college applicants…get over the notion of a “dream school”. Every school on your list, reach/match/safety, needs to be a dream school, one that you really, truly, want to attend. One that you would be excited & proud to attend. If it’s not, it needs to come off the list, period.
Another reason. It’s hard to stand out when there are 60,000 other applications competing with you, no matter how high your stats are. I see people lamenting a WL or rejection from BU or NEU frequently. They assumed because they scored in the top quarter of the range it was a safety. But both those schools got close to 65,000 applications! Even with perfect scores, the odds are not in your favor when there are that many applicants.
The number of kids applying from a particular high school also plays a factor. Especially if the kid is applying to a school that gets a lot of applicants. The school wants to attract the most students from afar, versus accepting all of the kids from the local area.
In our case, we live near BU and Northeastern. Our high school submits a lot of apps every year. Those schools definitely compare the students from one high school with each other, and they pick the best candidates for early admission and they defer the rest. They can’t admit 50 kids from one high school, even if the kids all have a compelling and worthy application. It’s pretty brutal, but the reality is the competition is fierce.
Then, to add on to that, those schools are all looking at how much financial aid a kid needs and factor that into their decision. The kids that are full pay have an advantage in these instances. The schools love full pay kids with decent stats. That’s just reality.
“Spring is in the air, and so is rejection for high school seniors”
Or, you did everything correctly – making none of the errors listed in any of these lists. However, in the end, the committee was choosing between or among actual equals, and they chose with respect to different (less represented) geography than yours, a more unusual (on that campus) academic specialty than your equally genuine specialty, or a different set of equally fine extracurriculars that this campus would benefit from slightly more at this moment.
Yes, @epiphany , that’s possible too. I wrote this post for students who might recognize their mistakes, which are often fairly easy to spot when they post their stats and college lists. Certainly what you describe can also be the case sometimes.
But that rarely leads to a shut out. (See “safeties”!)
Very few do everything correctly.
There is a recent thread in which the student is upset that he was denied at one of his safeties…NorthWestern!. Not being aware of the level of competitiveness of a college is mistake.
Someone who chose a safety which was actually a safety (not a super-selective like Northwestern, a level-of-interest seeker like CWRU, or an unaffordable school) would not be shut out.
Yes, but I didn’t make that comment; someone else did. My post was not assuming there were no safeties on the list. Mine was merely a comment on any particular rejection from any particular school, “high” or “low.”
I didn’t say anything about a “shut-out,” so I have no idea why anybody would associate my post with such an assumption, yet it’s happened twice now.