No, they have an unmagical but fairly reliable understanding of institutional preferences, which outsiders do not have.
No, they admit based on criteria that are clear to them, but largely opaque to outsiders. Whether or not that results in “the most wondrous of classes” is different matter.
One of the major problem is more and more students are applying to more and more schools each year, may it be reach or not. Just the dilution of effort is prone to fail and that is probably why many were rejected by a match school as they thought. One should focus on a smaller and reasonable number of schools and learn about the schools thoroughly. Find out what each school offers and why they are a good fit for you. Then put all these info in the essay or reveal them in your application. A shotgun approach would be mostly a waste of money and time.
@Emsmom1, well, roughly 0.05% of the HS grads in this country matriculate at Harvard.
So I guess he has a shot?
knowledgegood wrote:
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.
Watch some videos and articles that admission officers had to wrote done on the margin of each applicant’s file on points to justify why one is on one pile and other is on another pile. Also went to one of the top school’s admission open house, when the speaker said the admission officers’ duty was to look for points of the applicants to get them in, and not the common perception of looking points of the applicants to reject them.
Most accounts I’ve read about regarding how college admissions work point out that applications typically get read by 2 people.
Finally made time to read this thread start to finish and was surprised at the number of people (parents I assume?) who find it “unhealthy”, “blame-assigning”, etc.
With a 2015 already in college and a 2018 headed to college after an ED admit (athletic recruit), I really have no dog in this particular fight. But I feel that there is a lot of wisdom in where Lindagaf started it all. IMO, there’s really very little reason for any kid to get shut out or feel like they don’t have appealing options at the end of the process. Sure there are financial constraints, but again, I think that has to be addressed by the parents up front. Have a “this is how much we can afford” conversation, if needed.
My 2015 was an NMF. According to the numbers, that put her in the top 15,000 or so SAT-taking seniors in the country. Yet we (and her CC) advised her to apply to a WIDE range of schools (ASU/Barrett anyone?)…of the schools she applied to, I’d say only 4 are considered “top-tier”/super-selective — and that represented just a third of the schools she applied to. That seems like a sensible ratio to me.
I actually agree with @jzducol on the strategy, even though I dislike the reality that an applicant has to apply to so many schools.
If the applications to all colleges are perfectly correlated (i.e. they use the exact same standards and methodology, and apply them in exactly the same fashion), then applying to many colleges wouldn’t increase the probability of admission one bit.
However, if the applications are perfectly uncorrelated, then applying to these colleges would increase the probability of admission, based the formula p=1-(1-p1)(1-p2)(1-p3)… where p is the probability of admission at any of these colleges and p1, p2, p3… are the probability of admission at college 1, college 2, college 3, etc. It can be shown mathematically p is always greater (and can be made much greater) than p1, p2, or p3, etc.
The reality is always somewhere in-between the two extremes, but applying to many colleges definitely increase the probability of admission since there’s no perfect correlation. It’d be to an applicant’s advantage to select colleges that are as uncorrelated as possible to maximize his/her chance of admission.
^ no. Try looking at the apps and supplements fall of senior year and writing really sharp specific essays for them, and you will see that the “apply to to many schools” fails. If the student is look for non competitive schools, that is another thing. Competitive schools are looking for apps that shine and mesh with the school. Good luck with that with 15 apps and 10 interviews.
A couple of points:
D’s BFF who is an above average (but not great) student 3.6 uw gpa, 27 ACT applied to 25 schools (1st gen so almost all application fees waived). Got accepted to a few good ones UW, Brandeis, UMass-Amherst, UCSC, SDSU, USD, UCD (wl) The shotgun approach worked for her and she now has many choices.
The other thing she did well is “packaged” herself. She applied as an Education major, wanting to be a teacher, and her last 3 years in HS she demonstrated her passion and commitment to her intended major with volunteering in middle schools classrooms as a TA, taking child education classes and seminars at local community colleges, etc. The twist to this story is once she enrolls as a freshman, she will be looking to transfer out of Education and into her new passion History as she has decided she doesn’t want to pursue education.
To summarize, even though she changed her intended career path before college application season, her private counselor helped “sell” her story to as many colleges as possible and discouraged her from applying directly as a History major with zero ECs to show her new found interest in History.
Had she left it up to her own devices, she might have applied to less schools and as a History major and probably would have had a lot less acceptances. Whether or not she can easily transfer from Education to a History major will be interesting to see, but so far so good.
@socaldad2002 If you can afford a private CC then you can afford to pay the application fees like the rest of us.
@socaldad2002, yes, packaging certainly could help.
But also, let’s just say that she’s not competing at the Ivies/equivalents level. At her level, sure, shotgunning (especially as an education major with education ECs) certainly could yield many favorable results. That doesn’t mean the same strategy translates as well when you’re playing at a higher level.
This is not addressed to only one poster, but it’s a myth or a distortion that I think gets perpetuated by the danger of “outside” perceptions: Acceptances at top schools are not evidence that the acceptees “played a game.”
If you apply ED to any of the selective colleges, you’re playing the game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing btw.
“There are people whose well-endowed brains drove them, from early childhood, to seek both intellectual satisfaction for those insatiable brains and to produce in other ways that their mental energy encouraged them to, almost “compelled” them to. There’s a real temptation to condemn or at least devalue high-achievers as being afflicted with a mild form of narcissism, hypocrisy, or some other character flaw, in contrast to one’s own (and similar “rejectees”’) supposedly more genuine, more sincere (and “healthier”) journey.”
Well, geniuses all have some kind of edge to them, that makes them who they are. I agree that character flaw may be too strong a word, but in science, math, music, all of the geniuses if you will have that in them. Steve Jobs the most visible example probably, then Einstein, Hawking, then to music - Beethoven, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, people who changed or created a genre all were not choir boys or girls. Now I don’t think anyone who gets into a top college is Einstein in terms of understanding the universe, but I see your point.
Re essay writing: steer clear of “pros.” I was told by an AC member early on that ACs can tell, and I believe it.
Re “major:” apply undeclared to liberal arts.
My two cents.
Well… UCSC does not have an education major, and SDSU uses only recalculated GPA and ACT score to calculate an eligibility index for admission (no essays or extracurriculars considered). SDSU’s liberal studies major (for elementary school teachers) is actually more impacted and difficult to get into than the history major there, though neither is that difficult to get into (liberal studies needs a 2.7 college GPA to declare, while history needs a 2.4 college GPA to declare – see http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/education/liberal-studies/pre-major-requirements.aspx and https://history.sdsu.edu/undergraduate_program/advising_faqs.htm#1 ).
Also, if she needs financial aid, UW (whichever of WA, WI, WY) and UMass seem like poor prospects for that, assuming that she is a southern California resident.
So it is not clear whether the game of pretending to be an education major when the real intended major was history was helpful. Indeed, it may have been counterproductive at SDSU, but she was evidently over the threshold for both majors despite applying for the more selective one.
@PurpleTitan “But also, let’s just say that she’s not competing at the Ivies /equivalents level. At her level, sure, shotgunning (especially as an education major with education ECs) certainly could yield many favorable results. That doesn’t mean the same strategy translates as well when you’re playing at a higher level.”
I would argue that that “packaging” and what some call the spike or …and? is super important as most of the applicants have great scores and GPAs. You need something else that is significant and you need to sell that narrative/story to the AO. I don’t think anyone is saying to makeup or invent ECs, but choose them wisely, demonstrate passion for the subject, make your application compelling, and weave your personality and interests into the essays.
@YoungOne4 “Re “major:” apply undeclared to liberal arts.”
And how does that help the STEM, business, or other impacted major who will have a very hard time being accepted to the program in 2 years? You might be accepted to the college as undeclared but might never be able to transfer in to the major of your 1st choice.
Obviously, there is no “one-size fit all” approach for college application. It depends on a lot of factors (student’s stat, target schools, area preference, financial situation, etc) when one decide what schools and how many schools to apply, However, just like EC, quality of the application is more important than the quantity. Your effort put into each application determined the outcome.
Rather than a ‘spike’, I think what they are looking for to distinguish one high stats applicant from the next is a ‘spark’. I went to one of those faux admissions panels at our school and we were discussing a fictional applicant with sky high stats. The admissions guy at one point referred to the application as ‘drone like’ . And most of the regular folk in the room, though impressed with the stats, couldn’t warm up to her. Colleges are admitting teenagers not stats, and the app has to show some degree of personality. This particular faux student had something on her app like she has no time for Netflix. So you’re thinking, this kid is a robot. Now I’m not suggesting that any of the kids mentioned on this thread are drones, but maybe the application did not have the same ‘spark’ as other equally deserving applicants?
" Colleges are admitting teenagers not stats, and the app has to show some degree of personality."
I agree with this but selective colleges definitely look at stats first, personality later. All these colleges have averages around 32-33 for ACT and 1480-1500 for SATs and around 750 on the subject tests. You can have the greatest personality in the world but if you have a 1200/20, you’re not getting in, unless you have a hook.
Recall the first screen that colleges use are stats/gpas, not personality or spike or whatever.