A lot of times there is just no “why” in “why you didn’t get in” because AO’s picking one admit out of twenty is much like sampling twenty food dishes and trying to decide the favorite. A turkey sandwich could taste better than a ham sandwich to one person and vice versa for another person. And even for the same person the turkey sandwich can taste better than ham on one day and vice versa on another day.
I have known in this admission cycle someone who applied to ten tippy top schools and was only accepted to Stanford, arguably the lowest chance school.
Trying to figure out the reason for not being accepted is futile but applying to as many as you can manage is probably a good strategy for success.
I don’t agree with that approach at all @jzducol . That approach is one reason why kids are disappointed at the end! It is not a lottery. Buying more tickets is not going to increase your chance of getting in. Half of the threads from kids denied at all or most of their schools simply applied to as many tippy tops as possible. The kid who got into Stanford had what Stanford wanted. That kid didn’t get into the others because the others didn’t want what that kid offered. That kid’s app was NOT randomly drawn out of a hat. My opinion is that applying to as many dissimilar tippy tops as possible is a poor, and expensive strategy. Kids should apply to schools that they like and actually want to attend, regardless of prestige and rank.
Do you know what Stanford wanted? The problem is that no one knows what a particular school or an AO really wants. More often than not its the schools picking candidates rather than the other way around. Apparently, in the example I gave the kid is happily attending Stanford even though its not her top choice.
Actually, for most kids it is kind of random for tippy top schools.
I don’t work at Stanford, or any college, so I have no idea what Stanford wanted. But it wasn’t random. It is safe to assume the student you reference had great stats, at the very least, barring mitigating circumstances. The mitigating circumstances could be all kinds of things, as we all know, including hooks.
The post above by @19parent is interesting. It seemed random to him/her. To a trained admissions officer, it wasn’t random. They know what they are looking for, because they have a lot of practice. No doubt if we were all reading thousands of apps, we would start to recognize what we were looking for, too.
it seems random but the schools are only admitting a certain amount of each " type" of kid. They are selecting the best for their needs from each “type”.
So f you are a valedictorian t tuba player you might stand out, but if another similar kid applies that also happens to be a really smart award winning tuba player and who also happens to be from Tahiti, the kid from Tahiti probably wins out.
That’s how I see it. Appears random and unfair, but maybe not if you have all the facts.
A friend of mine just called yesterday to tell me her 13-year-old has decided he wants to go to Harvard and wanted to know what he needs to do to be in that 4.59% of students who get accepted. Now, he routinely scores perfectly on standardized tests and has all As and some fun extra-curricular activities (he’s an actor) but I had to explain that they turn away so many kids with perfect stats there is no way to “make sure” he gets into Harvard. I’m not sure she’s buying it-she kept telling me how unique her son is…
@Lindagaf @itsv I’m the mom of a junior and your original posts are helpful – thank you. I’ve been learning these cautionary tales but it’s nice to have these issues summarized. I’m curious about the “stealth candidate”, and what that means. I understand the value of demonstrated interest, at least for many schools, and the need to visit campus, speak intelligently to the issue of “fit”, etc. But I’m surprised to hear that it’s advisable to be in contact with a regional admissions rep. My D requested info in the winter of this school year from one of her top schools, a LAC, and did receive in response a welcoming email introducing her to “your admissions counselor.” I encouraged her to respond, as prompted, with a question. But then she got no response for a month so I nervously had her politely write again, and that email she did get a response to quickly, but basically with links to the website with answers. That made me nervous that oops, she’d asked a question seen as a “Well why didn’t you just look it up on the website?” question, although honestly it seemed reasonable for a high school junior to ask in January. My D thanked her for the response, added a comment about what she’d learned from the website, and that was it. Honestly this experience made me super nervous that she could basically handicap herself immediately out of the gate, since that was a very so-so experience. Could you illuminate what sort of contact with that local rep is advisable? And is it taboo for a parent to have contact as well? It seems like there is so little room for error, and that’s nerve-wracking.
@Lindagaf @jzducol @19parent
I also attended one of these “what colleges are looking for” sessions. It was multi day and very intensive and featured chief admissions officers from two elite LACs - Williams and Washington and Lee.
The CAO from Williams did state that are indeed searching for certain kids each year. In other words, some years they need a quarterback and some years they need an oboe player. Great.
Here is the paraphrased inside message he told us:
Less than 2% are sure accept or sure reject. Basically all but one or two percent of our applicants are qualified and could do the work here. I don’t even know how we differentiate them. I often think it would be more fair to put the names in a lottery and select that way.
In other words, @jzducol and @19parent are more correct than you think.
Agree that the shotgun approach is expensive and seems to lack something in the area of thorough research and a desire for fit. But it is also a justifiable response to the impenetrable process – the seeming randomness – that occurs in admissions offices with ridiculous acceptance rates. The Stanford example, I have to say, supports the lottery conclusion more than the notion that Stanford and only Stanford wanted what this student offered.
The “trained admission officer” is inevitably going to be looking at, as one person described it, not just apples and oranges but every other fruit, too. I’m just not buying that they’re looking for a particular rare berry, of a particular size and ripeness. The image that keeps coming to mind is not actually the produce section of a grocery store, but rather a giant bin of bingo balls. Instead of B-9 or N-23, the balls have the names of all the more-than-qualified students who applied, unhooked. A few names will roll out of the bin; lucky for them. One day we’re going to see a behind-the-scenes video of of some elite school AO, and they’ll be using the bin. It’d be just as fair and probably a lot more fun than the bingo equivalent currently in practice.
@SDCounty3Mom always have your D email admissions people, never a parent. Doesn’t mean you can’t write the email and ask your D to send it! 
Don’t get too caught up in impressing admins at this stage, and don’t be swayed by the beautiful and welcoming packages your D will be sent – they woo everybody. I would advise your D to research and visit as many schools as she can, really get to know the schools she likes, and then reach out Senior year. If her regional rep visits her school, definitely have her attend and follow up with a “thanks for coming to my school, I am very interested in attending.” type email.
@Emsmom1, why is he aiming for Harvard?
Why not Oxbridge? At least there, it’s more straightforward. If you blow people away in your knowledge, enthusiasm, and capability in a subject, you stand a strong chance. Or Caltech? Also more straightforward (blow people away in your knowledge, enthusiasm, and capability in STEM subjects).
@knowledgegood , there is a video out there of the adcom at Amherst discussing applicants. Assuming they are discussing only the students who go to committee, it really was about the merits of the applicant, and then a show of hands around the table for admit, WL, or deny. Sure, I suspect they trust their gut, but the process of getting to committee is not totally random. Maybe other colleges do things differently, and I am aware that not every application goes to committee. Try googling Amherst admission committee video if you are interested.
Another thought…even if they feel it’s random, doesn’t it say something that they DON’T pull names out of a hat?
@SDCounty3Mom , there are a lot of threads about expressing interest. My D had similar experiences to yours and gave up emailing, except for when it was necessary (as, indeed, it proved to be on a few occasions once she had submitted apps.) In short, our experience is that if you needed a response, they responded. If you didn’t need a response, it was hit or miss. Don’t bug them, but don’t take it personally. I don’t think they keep a little book of black marks for kids who email. On the other hand, if you become so annoying that they start remembering your name, that’s probably not good either:-)
The insiders (people in the college’s admissions office) know what they are looking for, and it is not random except at the margins. But outsiders have much less visibility into what the college is looking for, have no way to compare a given applicant or small number of applicants to the college’s entire applicant pool, and have no visibility into the subjectively graded aspects of other applicants (i.e. essays, recommendations (applicants often have no visibility into their own recommendations), and (to some extent) extracurriculars), so it looks a lot more random to them.
@Purple Titan- maybe because his parents are not college educated, but they know their kid is smart (he tested at genius level) and Harvard is for smart people? I couldn’t really get an answer other than they have small class sizes-which I don’t even know is true. I cautioned her about getting too hung up on one college so early in the process, though.
@SDCounty3Mom I agree that it’s best to have your child email admissions whenever possible, but I did reach out to a couple of reps now and then when I legitimately had a question - usually financial - and it didn’t seem to get in the way of D18’s admissions.
@Lindagaf @ucbalumnus
I think you are ready to assign deity status to these admissions officers. As if they had magical abilities to select the most wondrous of classes.
I still agree with @19parent and @jzducol that the selection process is more random, when comparing similar high achieving kids that look the same on paper. That being the largest category of applicants.
No, I assign them the status of being employed to do a job, @knowledgegood . We will have to agree to disagree.
I just discovered that my neighbor’s daughter - who graduated from a top 15 rated national university (USNWR) just last June - has been working as an admissions officer at that school in this cycle, responsible for reading 2,000 files. The primary attraction for the young woman is the ability to receive an employee discount (and possible preference in admissions) for a graduate/professional program at the university according to her mother. I believe she needed to make a two year commitment to the role.
I think race shouldn’t be on a application that is my gripe with current admissions. Too many “hookups” and too many “let downs” because one is a URM and the other a ORM…
@SatchelSF
Are you suggesting that she was chosen for the role because she obviously had other worldly powers. Or, are you casting doubt on the infallible nature of those who work in admissions?