<p>I want to begin this discussion without my son's concurrence on the topic.</p>
<p>Now that all these kids have prepared themsleves for the top colleges and applied to SCEA/EA/ED or even are preparing for RD, wouldn't it be fair to know why they got "rejected" from the colleges if they do? Not only that will allow others to learn from the process, but the students will also get some relief knowing exactly where he/she fell short. I think it brings a closure to the process. Otherwise I would be wondering for the rest of my life why he didnt get in while a kid in next town got in the same college with similar stats.
I think the colleges owe us this kind of iformation.
Poor curious mind!!!
What do you think?</p>
<p>Once, and only once, in my entire life, I went to a teacher to question a grade I had gotten. It was my last year in law school, I had really liked the class and felt in command of the material, I had a track record of doing good work. I had gotten a B+ on the exam. I went to the teacher and said, in essence, “I’m not asking you to change the grade or anything, just tell me what you thought was missing. A B+ is a good grade, but it’s a something-important-missing good grade.” </p>
<p>He took 5-10 minutes and read over my exam again, muttering things like “I wanted you to discuss . . . oh yes, there it is.” Finally, he said, “This is a perfectly good exam. There’c certainly nothing important missing. Hell if I know why I gave it a B+. Maybe I read it right after L________'s exam [the top-ranked student in our class], and it wasn’t quite as clear or well-organized. Sorry.”</p>
<p>Colleges will never give answers like the ones the OP is asking for, because if they did many of them would come across like the one above.</p>
<p>Great idea! All colleges add the “pay an extra 50$ and get your personalized rejection letter” option onto the Common application.
First case: your kid applied to 7 reaches and was rejected for obvious reasons. Well, that"s only 350 down the drain
Second case: your kid is one of the 5000 rejects with perfect scores. Well, the letter states that unfortunately he is only a first Dan judo belt and they were looking for second dan judokas. He goes to his second choice and spends all year working on his transfer application and judo. Another 50$, another letter: 400 transfer students applied with second Dan belts (having also spent the year doing what your kid did), but the school is no longer interested as 3000 prospie freshmen are third dan judokas. Sorry, you should have tried karate!
Third case: the school admits that having agonized over choosing which 9% of the largest pool of applicants ever, they finally threw all the applications into the nearest pond and told the president’s golden retriever to pick.</p>
<p>If it’s obvious you know, if it isn’t you’re better off not knowing and moving on.</p>
<p>I do think this could be a money maker for admissions. For a fee, they could offer up some written reasons for the lack of accceptance. One could pay and sign a statement agreeing not to call or write etc, but to just take the letter or email for what it said. Now, one might not get what they were looking for for that $100. As was said above, you might find out that you seemed identical to 1000 other applicants for the final 100 slots, and it was difficult to pick from those 100. It is not realistic, but paying for an answer might be worth it for some. But some decision making processes are not for sale at any price</p>
<p>It probably seems much less important but it reminds me of a parents discussion of whether a coach should let a kid know why he didn’t make it onto a team in competative soccer tryouts. It seems a distinction was made between a coach who selected from a “cattle call”, and one who cut a kid he’d known awhile.</p>
<p>Building on Sunnyflorida and Lost, colleges could send out the same letter they do now, but charge for it. “The pool of applicants was the largest ever; it was the most highly qualified; yadda, yadda.”
As Lost suggests, it would not help to know that your student got passed over by another who had more dans to his judo belt if next year, the college chooses to go with karate (or fencing, or squash or water polo). It won’t help to know that your student who aced the BC Calculus exam was in the same pool as students who were on the IMO team. What can one do with such knowledge?</p>
<p>One of my roommates had an experience similar to JHS - she handed in a paper two weeks early. The prof told her if he’d read it later when the rest of the papers came in she’d have gotten a better grade, because it was actually better than most of them! (I really don’t know why he told her this since he didn’t change the grade. Talk about cruel!)</p>
<p>I’d love to be a fly on the wall, when my son’s admissions were being discussed. But the truth is we both knew perfectly well what the weaknesses of his application were as well as the strengths. Some schools may have rejected him because of somewhat lackluster essays, others because he was number 8 in the class instead of 1 or 2, others because he had narrow focussed interests. It doesn’t really matter in the long run - he’s not planning to change!</p>
<p>As others have said, colleges by and large aren’t rejecting certain students; instead, they are accepting certain students. There may not be anything “missing” in a rejected application, and even if there is, it may not be anything that actually matters (like, being from North Dakota, or being a math-genius girl who excels in rugby). </p>
<p>In the end, though, the college process isn’t something that you should be wondering about for the rest of your life. Just like any other admissions procedure, some people get in, some people don’t. There’s not always a clear rhyme or reason. A high school student is going to be facing admissions/application decisions their whole life; the best lesson to learn is to work hard, present yourself well, and keep on working hard no matter what happens. </p>
<p>Finally, Snowman, admissions offices should be respectful and honest to applicants, but they do not owe applicants the kind of service you’re requesting–something that would take a huge number of man-hours.</p>
<p>I don’t think they owe applicants such a service. In addition, since particularly the most competitive colleges admit students in a way to create a diverse class that’s well rounded in all areas, the admissions officers probably couldn’t answer why a particular candidate was rejected except for the relatively rare instances in which an applicant lacked the scores, grades or coursework that the college required.</p>
<p>Also, if a student is rejected due to a bad recommendaition (such as if a teacher or GC provided info indicating the student is a cheater), the college wouldn’t reveal such info as it would discourage recommenders from revealing applicants’ problems.</p>
<p>People apply for jobs all of the time and may put lots of work into their apps, but still get rejected. Companies don’t owe explanations any more than colleges owe applicants explanations.</p>
<p>I agree with Mathmom and Northstarmom. What difference would knowing make? Besides it’s not like the school is going to give you much more than some canned response about it anyway. They are not going to give a detailed analysis pointed towards improving your chances somewhere else. Bottom line is that the student isn’t being admitted and needs to move on.</p>
<p>It would be a nightmare for colleges to write up reasons. And it would only tick people off in many cases, possibly to the point of suing. And there is simply the luck of the draw–how can they explain that? E.G: girl from my S’s school who applied ED to a top Eastern LAC was rejected with a 4.8 and top scores and ECs. Her GC, who thought for sure she’d get in, called the school to ask why and was told that her application was in a particular pool down to the last minute, when it was decided that a girl from Puerto Rico with similar stats should get in to make for greater geographic diversity. Well, why not? They have a right to look for diversity. In any case, this lovely girl adores the equally fabulous LAC she got into. But that would just boil me–I would rather not know, frankly, and I’m surprised the adcom told the GC, but maybe did so to give no room for argument.</p>
<p>What can they tell you? We had a vote, 2 voted to admit, 3 to reject, so you didn’t get in? There were 50 other candidates almost identical to you, we only had 15 spaces for that type of student, and the decision was essentially random? For your class of student, we had an arbitrary SAT threshold of 2100, since you got 2090, and didn’t have the ECs to make up for it, you were put into the discard pile?</p>
<p>The real problem is obsessing so much about a particular college so that a rejection means so much to you. There are lots of excellent colleges in America, plenty of spaces for everyone.</p>
<p>I don’t think it would be practical to tell kids why they were rejected. That would be like asking a prospective employer why they chose someone else over you. It just isn’t something you do because it isn’t necessary. First of all, it changes nothing to know why you got rejected. There is nothing that such knowledge can change because it is only with regard to past experiences. The OP said that, without a reason, she would be thinking about why he didn’t get in. If you did find out, wouldn’t you spend that same time regretting why your son didn’t improve on the one little thing that may have pushed him over the edge for admission? In such a case, it would seem like ignorance is bliss.</p>
<p>Also, some rejections aren’t for reasons that a college wants you to know. At a school with 3 guys for every girl, if admissions reps have one spot left and two identical applications to consider, one male and one female, they may pick the female just because of the percentage. This is not a response a student would want to hear when asking why he or she was rejected. Sometimes, admissions reps just have a hunch about who will perform better out of a pool of candidates, and such conclusions may not always seem obvious through a simple comparison of stats. There is sometimes very little rhyme or reason in the process and, while sometimes it seems to make sense, many times it just doesn’t. This is something we just have to accept. Don’t waste your time trying to find out why you got rejected from a certain school. There is nothing to gain from it and it will only give you something to regret if you were to find out why.</p>
<p>The simple answer for selective schools is that there was another applicant whom they wanted more, someone who better matched the institution’s needs. Selective schools can fill their available spots two or more times with completely qualified candidates. They just end up choosing the ones they want the most, usually by filling various categories (re “hooks”).</p>
<p>If not finding out why your kid didn’t get into his elite school is the only unfair thing in your or your kid’s life, you should count yourselves as incredibly lucky.</p>
<p>Let’s try it this way. Fairness assumes something is being graded. It’s not the “top students” that get in. It’s the students they select that get in. Granted , you have a better shot with a 1560 and a 4.0 uw, but it’s just not a case where they are grading files and assigning an academic index value, then just looking at those AI values like some believe. Down to this cut-off we take the top students. Nope. It is, as has been suggested before, not a race but a beauty contest and beauty is in the eyes of the admission’s committee and changes year to year, school to school. All the kid can do is look at who they’ve accepted in the past and try to see if they fit the kind of kid who does well in admissions at that school. If you get rejected all that says is that they wanted somebody else more that year than they wanted you. Next year it may have been different.</p>
<p>Now if something IS deficient, EC’s, grades, Tests - that’s usually known at the time you apply, or at least should be known. I am speaking above about the kids with all bases covered.</p>
<p>If your child is going to a school where he or she is happy and doing well, why does it matter if they got rejected to their number one choice? It means nothing in the long run and there is no reason to worry about it forever, as the OP said. I didn’t get into my top choice, I am at my second choice and loving every minute of it. It is almost to the point where I honestly believe it was god’s blessing that I wasn’t accepted at my number one school because I wouldn’t want to give this up. It just isn’t something important enough to worry about.</p>
<p>I don’t want to know, and I don’t think either of my kids would either. All an adcom can tell us is their thinking, and they’re not infallible or necessarily desperately insightful.</p>
<p>Here are some of the things we might not say:
We care about our yield and we don’t think you would come
We’re choosing someone full freight over someone in need of financial aid
We are working to get our Math SAT statistics up
Someone here didn’t like the politics of your essay
You didn’t seem like you’d fit in with our frat culture
You didn’t seem like you’d fit in at our school without frats
We already signed ten flutists</p>
<p>etc, etc, etc.</p>
<p>Having gone through this process twice I have learned that admissions are capricious. Kids got accepted at reaches and rejected at matches.</p>
<p>All I can say is that both were accepted at the schools they were most suited for. I would rather have those adcoms explain how they did it.</p>