“i mean I was accepted into Cornell so it had to have been pretty decent.”
@MrElonMusk , it says in that post that he got into Cornell. Please don’t derail the thread.
@TomSrOfBoston @Lindagaf I’m sorry I didn’t read the post very carefully. Was not intentionally trying to derail the thread.
Here’s my take on “Why you didn’t get in.” Applications to all schools are on the rise, but the open seat colleges have are pretty much stagnant. Thus, acceptance rates go down. Also, waitlists allow colleges to retain students in case they need to fill those seats.
@ugh1234 “I applied to Syracuse’s college of engineering and was waitlisted. I honestly can’t wrap my mind around it. Please someone help me I’m falling apart.”
I posted a few months back that we did some mock college admissions with regional AOs from Syracuse (and few other colleges) at D’s high school and one of the things that stood out was that the SU AO stated that she would not recommend a certain applicant because he was “over qualified” and likely would not attend. While this was only a practice exercise, it opened my eyes to the strategy of some colleges where “Interest” and maybe “yield protection” was quite alive and well.
@MrElonMusk @socaldad2002 @TomSrOfBoston @HRSMom thanks for the support guys, I really liked Syracuse I guess I wasn’t aware of how qualified I was and the waitlist kind of came as a surprise
Also “she” got into cornell, just saying
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Several posts edited/deleted.
Cornell ain’t a terrible school, I hear. Especially for engineering.
Really, college admissions isn’t about racking up trophies.
“college admissions isn’t about racking up trophies” - good way to look at it.
To any kids who are reading this all the way through, go back and re-read the first post. You still have options, don’t discount them. You made a mistake, or the admissions officers at the place you applied made a mistake. Life will go on and life will get better.
As someone above said, or alluded to, some very accomplished, high achieving students have had very little experience with disappointment. Maybe there should be a HS class: “Failure 101 (and other life skills)”. Life for most is a series of successes and disappointments. Don’t mean to derail the thread, but there are many reasons a very deserving student’s application gets put in the recycle bin. It isn’t personal. It’s typically a combined business decision and a choice to build a class that the school wants/needs. A HS class on “life skills” should include dealing with disappointment, financial management and how to do your laundry. Any other suggestions for this class?
“You did not show intrest at your safety or match schools.”
"You didn’t visit your colleges or explain to the admission rep why you couldn’t visit
These are not reasons why you don’t get in to a top college, they know a lot of families can’t afford the travel so they do not track interest. I talked with an adcom at a very selective school and she said it would advantage wealthier families. There are hundreds of kids from the bay area that get into the ivies without visiting. They only visit on admit days.
As a couple of posters have mentioned, this is an unhealthy, blame-assigning thread but one other reason may have nothing to do with you - many students at your high school who got in at previous years didn’t go, or worse, one backed out of ED at a particular school.
For safety/match schools – which would exclude top 20 colleges and universities – showing interest, by visiting if is within about 4-6 hour drive for those economically able to swing that, going to the college fair in town and talking with the rep, going to the college rep visit at your high school, emailing your admissions rep about questions not easily answered from website – does matter.
So for a kid who thought, for example, Case Western or Tulane was a match, but simply submitted an application and had no further interactions with the school – that lack of interest will matter.
A school that does not want to be used as a safety (i.e. one that uses level of applicant’s interest) really should not be classified as a safety by an “overqualified” applicant in any case other than if it is actually the applicant’s first choice which s/he will apply ED (the strongest way to show a high level of applicant’s interest) to.
@jym626 "As someone above said, or alluded to, some very accomplished, high achieving students have had very little experience with disappointment. Maybe there should be a HS class: “Failure 101 (and other life skills)”
Yep, I have always said that there should be a required high school class something like “Real Life Skills 101” where kids learned how to balance a checkbook, understand healthcare options, apply for a credit card, how to open a bank account, how to pay utility bills, overview of college admissions, the importance of nutrition and exercise, basic cooking skills, drafting a resume and interviewing for a job, charitable giving whether its time or money, how to raise a family, early investing for retirement and most importantly for this site when and how to save for their future kids college tuition/other expenses.
Every single student would benefit from a class like this no matter if they go to college or not.
@RightCoaster What you said about the number of kids from a particular HS applying to a college makes some sense. My D was accepted as a somewhat “uneven” applicant to a top LAC, meaning her grades and academic rigor were excellent, but her standardized test scores were not quite up to par (at least in math), and her EC’s were not anything overly impressive. Howver, she was the ONLY student from her high school to ever apply there, as far as I know and certainly as long as they have been keeping records on this. Kids from her HS tend to stay in the NE or south and if they go to the Midwest, it’s for big state unis like Ohio State or Wisconsin or Michigan. I’m thinking that if they regularly got 50 or so apps from her HS, she may have been passed over.
I like what @gallentjill said about treating safety schools just like every other school. Perhaps too many students choose safety schools without truly getting to know the school, and because of that, they just don’t have anything to connect to. So of course if they are faced with the safety as their only option, they will feel let down. It makes it harder to see a safety school as a “lesser” school once you’ve seen their facilités, met with a professor, and sat in on a class - and you’ve liked what you’ve seen, because if you haven’t, then it’s not a true safety.
The bottom line for rejection is your application did not make a strong compelling connection with the particular adcom. This means had the adcom been a different person, your chances might have gone up. One thing for sure: this college admission process favors better writers. For the first time, I saw college (Stanford) application essays on reddit forum which were pretty amazing so that if I were the adcom, I would have accepted this kid no matter what his hard stats were as long as his interest area was related to writing. Is the yield protection the reason for some denials or wait lists? Undoubtedly.
In Stanford’s case they accepted someone who wrote black lives matter a 100 times. I actually think that’s a good way to show some risk, and would accept but it shows risk imo than writing. Also 18% of Stanford’s (2017) class was first gen, so it wouldn’t matter what adcom was reading your essay since that was one of the goals of the university and if you weren’t first gen, you had less spots to compete for.
There’s no shame in not getting accepted to any college. It’s a question of people not understanding that they needed a balanced list. People are looking for reasons to help understand what might have happened. There are many possible reasons provided in this thread, and NONE of them have anything to do with “blaming the victim.” If I was in the position that some students find themselves in right now, I would want to try and figure out what might have gone wrong. That is the sole purpose of this thread.
The only reason to figure out what went wrong is if you plan to either transfer or take a gap year and reapply. Otherwise, for these super reaches, as someone posted on here, you say no hard feelings and move on. It makes no sense to spend that much time on something you cannot change.
@websensation I would love to read those essays or any other good samples. Could you post a link? It would also be really informative to read some essays that didn’t work. Thanks!
It may not make sense, but given that there are many posts each year from people seeking answers, it seems that plenty of people will try to figure out what might have happened.
As has already been noted by evidence of comments, and like/helpful votes, this thread is serving its purpose. That is a good thing. Many of the additional comments have been really useful.
@gallentjill , Johns Hopkins has links on their website to essays that worked. Very enlightening. You can also Google bad essays. I highly recommend the book by Harry Bauld, On Writing the College Essay. Very good examples of all kinds of essays, good and bad.