At McGill University on Montreal admissions is not holistic. For Canadian applicants it is based solely on high school grades. For Americans it is based on UW GPA and SAT/ACT scores. Minimum requirements are posted on their website and vary by program. There are no hooks. This explains their relatively high acceptance rate since there are no “Hail Mary” applications. If a student’s record puts them below the minimum they receive a denial letter within a few weeks of the application being completed.
Well one benefit of a “Likely to Reject” postcard would be the end of the relentless “Please Apply” postcards.
The CDS information may not tell enough of a story for applicants to be realistic about their chances. A 6% overall admit rate at a super selective school may not reflect that 3.3/25 applicants had a <1% admit rate, while 4.0/35 applicants may have had a higher than 6% admit rate (though still not high enough to be anything but a reach). Also, for colleges that admit by major or division, overall stats may not reflect the difficulty of admission for a given major or division.
The better thing would be if the schools could come out with an honest statement like: “If your GPA is below x and your test scores are below y, you will be rejected unless you are a recruited athlete, daughter of a President, or your family is rich enough to buy a building. Please consider this before sending applying.”
I do have to ask why the Ivies should be different from other schools? Don’t the vast majority of RD admissions come out at a similar time?
What a great idea! Really. It would save students endless months of fretting. And I know that the tippy tops say they try to interview everyone, but I just don’t believe that they are going to interview kids who have no chance. So it would also save kids a lot of stress wondering if they will get an interview. And surely, it would be better for the admissions office, who are probably inundated with calls and emails from kids worried that they didn’t get an interview appt yet.
"The better thing would be if the schools could come out with an honest statement like: “If your GPA is below x and your test scores are below y, you will be rejected unless you are a recruited athlete, daughter of a President, or your family is rich enough to buy a building. Please consider this before sending applying.” "
Some schools provide a breakdown which if people are honest with themselves pretty much says it.
eg. from Princeton. It would be nice if all schools would provide a little more detailed admissions info.
PERCENTAGE OF APPLICANTS ACCEPTED BY GPA RANGE GPA % ACCEPTED
4.0 9.4
3.90-3.99 7.9
3.80-3.89 5.5
3.70-3.79 3.3
3.60-3.69 2.9
3.50-3.59 3.5
Below 3.50 2.3
PERCENTAGE OF APPLICANTS ACCEPTED BY SAT RANGE SAT SCORES % ACCEPTED
2300-2400 12.8
2100-2290 7.6
1900-2090 4.2
1700-1890 1.9
1500-1690 0.0
Below 1500 0.0
No SAT Scores 6.0
@MurphyBrown , kids who are already shattered and get an early rejection from a school they had no business applying to in the first place need a rude awakening, quite frankly. These are nearly adults, and it’s time they face a bit of reality. I do think we coddle teenagers too much. Also, if a parent or GC is giving a kid proper guidance, then they probably wouldn’t have applied in the first place. I think the issue you touch on is more a problem of students today needing to have their expectations tempered, than the mean universities telling kids early that they will be rejected.
The most important thing is that kids should apply to a balanced range of colleges. If they have done so, they don’t need to have their dreams shattered.
I find breakdowns like the one above exceptionally helpful. I didn’t make use of them for my kid’s recent application process because we weren’t going after those tippy schools, and I sort of intuitively knew the drill, but when making the point to people who are delusional about their chances, they’re very useful.
I’m trying to find a polite way to share this information with someone I know…
@Lindagaf My college still randomly assigns potential interviews. Given the time constraints, there is no time to pre-screen the applicants. Once a file is complete, the name is sent to the local coordinators to assign to available volunteers. Unless we’re told differently (perhaps the kid is a highly recruited athlete or likely letter recipient), we go into the interviews not knowing if they’re shoo-ins or zero-chancers.
Believe me, I’ve interviewed both. We clearly and repeatedly tell applicants they will be interviewed if the number of volunteer spots allow it and calling the college isn’t worthwhile since they don’t determine that.
@porcupine98 There’s no way. It’s a lose-lose situation to try to avert someone determined to mindlessly send in a “hail mary” application, even if they’re convinced they are viable. Simply smile and nod.
This info from Brown’s site shows a similar pattern to the Princeton info, but is also interesting because they include the number of applicants they are getting in each category. Some people are ignoring the fact that these schools take a significant portion of their class from recruited athletes and URMs and that average stats of both these groups are on the low end of their admitted students. I’m not going to take the time to do this but it should be possible to estimate the size of both these groups and get some idea of where the real drop-off in admissions for non-hooked students is. Interesting that the vast majority of applicants are now coming from schools that don’t rank.
Rank in Class
Applied Accepted % Accepted Enrolled
Valedictorian 1,603 306 19% 118
Salutatorian 738 100 14.% 39
Top 10% 7,938 812 10% 382
2nd Tenth and below 2,426 46 2% 34
Number attending schools that do not provide class rank 22,026 2,157 10% 1,275
Distribution of College Board Test Scores (Critical Reading)
Applied Accepted % Accepted Enrolled % of Class
800 2,292 523 23% 241 21%
750-790 3,514 535 15% 271 24%
700-740 5,035 516 10% 292 26%
650-690 4,009 283 7% 172 15%
600-640 2,730 145 5% 95 8%
550-590 1,509 54 4% 42 4%
<550 1,492 21 1% 18 1%
Distribution of College Board Test Scores (Math)
Applied Accepted % Accepted Enrolled % of Class
800 3,615 570 16% 261 23%
750-790 4,412 604 14% 314 28%
700-740 4,068 443 11% 252 22%
650-690 3,654 266 7% 162 14%
600-640 2,293 135 6% 95 8%
550-590 1,252 46 4% 35 3%
<550 1,287 13 1% 12 1%
Distribution of College Board Test Scores (Writing)
Applied Accepted % Accepted Enrolled % of Class
800 12,059 414 20% 181 16%
750-790 4,681 690 15% 343 30%
700-740 4,667 497 11% 306 27%
650-690 3,988 283 7% 166 15%
600-640 2,289 110 5% 66 6%
550-590 1,469 65 4% 53 5%
<550 1,428 18 1% 16 1%
Distribution of ACT Scores
Applied Accepted % Accepted Enrolled % of Class
36 464 132 28% 53 6%
33-35 6,714 769 11% 414 50%
29-32 6,132 421 7% 267 32%
26-28 1,833 87 5% 72 9%
< 26 1,181 21 2% 19 2%
@T26E4 Hail Marys are fine. (Well, they’re not REALLY fine, but I can get past them.) It’s the people who are setting themselves up by focusing on reach schools, and not believing that they’re reaches. Because the GC “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Sigh. But yeah, nothing really to be done.
“3.60-3.69 2.9
3.50-3.59 3.5”
“Dad, Dad, I flunked my English final!”
“That’s wonderful, son, your chances of getting into Princeton just went up by 21%!!!”
:))
^Murphy Brown, I don’t see it that way. Firstly, these hypothetical rejection notices would probably not be sent to kids like your example student, because that student has good enough grades and test scores to merit further consideration. I reckon @T26E4 is thinking of the 25% of applicants who don’t have a snowball’s chance.
Secondly, if your scenario is the more accurate one, again, I don’t feel sorry for that kid at all. If that kid had good sense, they will have applied to other suitable colleges. Why would he change his already submitted apps if he got a pre-reject notice? I also don’t believe kids who didn’t get a prereject would have false hope. Surely every kid who actually scores an interview for the tippy tops has false hope anyway. Call me heartless, but I say, let 'em suffer. Yank that bandaid off nice and early. Then the healing starts sooner, too.
Here are the links. It’s certainly easier to look at with formatting intact.
Brown https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts
Princeton https://admission.princeton.edu/applyingforadmission/admission-statistics
I don’t have any others handy, but I haven’t done close to an exhaustive search. I did try to look at data for Cornell recently and they do not make it easy. I gave up searching.
I would not conclude that a 33 is considered the same as a 35 just because they grouped those scores in the data they provided. My interpretation is that the admissions is dropping more smoothly, not that there is a big gap between the score categories. But those are my assumptions.
One of the statements you can find thousands of times over on this site is that old SAT of 2250 is an informal cutoff for top colleges and above 2250 top colleges don’t care about scores. I think that’s a pretty questionable assertion if you look at this data.
I agree with you about the complete insignificance of a question or two. My point was just that I think because they chose to group 33-35 for purposes of presentation on their website doesn’t mean this is a category of equal scores they are using in making admissions decisions. They may not have wanted to list every possible score and make the web page so long.
I think everyone needs to keep in mind that the kids with the top scores are usually going to be very strong in other areas so it’s hard to say how much influence the test scores have. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of say 800 790 780 770 because I’d like to think that admissions wouldn’t attach any significance to a single question on a timed exam—or even to students who got the exact same number of questions correct but received a score 10 points lower or higher because the exam was curved slightly differently on that day–this often happens. From this data, though, it certainly appears that they do care somewhat about this.
As the scores get lower with more and more incorrect answers, then yes, I do think a real difference is being measured.
The simple answer… yes. Or it would be helpful if all elite colleges especially offered ED or EA. If your top choice(s) do not have an early application phase, you simply have no other option but to apply to many colleges and then wait until late March / early April with angst and anticipation.
And these colleges do not help with all of their mailings and emails about how you should apply… our college is affordable to everyone admitted, we are holistic in our admissions policy, etc., etc. It is almost like they are pleading with these kids to apply.
3 years ago, I then watched as my daughter was rejected by all 8 reaches and 4 out of 5 matches. And of course, ironically, those 12 rejections had come from schools that had contacted her scores of times… both before and after she had applied. The tone, usually false, is set that this school wants me… when in reality, they are just trying to raise their application # even higher.
But to the OP’s initial inquiry… yes - any way to alleviate the stress or help guide these applicants early on in the process would be a welcome change. I am going through the same process again with my younger daughter currently… who is applying to 13 schools - all because her top choice does not have an early option.
I think what would be the least stressful for the kids, and possibly most efficient for the colleges, would be to offer more EA options and fewer restrictions on them. My kid likes Brown, but I don’t think either of us are ready to ED that. Would be nice if she could EA the top few schools on her list and get some idea where she stands, and possibly eliminate other applications from ever happening (and kids who applied to a few reaches EA and were disappointed would be able to rethink and emphasize matches more on their RD). College say it’s perfectly ok and normal not to know what you want to study, even as a college freshman, but somehow you’d better be sure in October of your senior year you know you want to study whatever it might be at our school??
I agree with those in favor of more schools going EA. I feel fortunate that eight of D’s schools are EA (two reaches, two safeties and four targets). We are on the merit hunt and seeing what kind of offers she gets from the target schools may change her RD list and will certainly lead to a close check of her app. I’ve done my best to look for schools that will give her the merit we need. But if EA goes badly, there’s still a chance to fix things.