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CardinalFang
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Posted: Sat May 10th, 2008 09:29 pm |
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Mackinaw, the strategy that you describe (compose the palette of schools you like) sounds good to me, and indeed that is the strategy Fang Jr will be using. Moreover, it's fairly likely that he will end up attending a school that is not the most selective of the schools of the ones he is admitted to. Fit and community are important to him.
But for some people, prestige is important. If your heart is set on HYPS and you apply to all of them, you'll have a better chance of getting into one of them.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Sat May 10th, 2008 11:02 pm |
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I understand. Neither of my kids had any strong interest in applying to an Ivy. My son did apply to H as a true lottery pick but all other applications went to what were essentially "match" or "safety" schools (he was admitted to all of them). Because they were a palette, they weren't all alike -- UofChicago, Williams, Carleton, Reed, & UMich. He chose Chicago in part because it was in a "major league city."
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jocelynDAD
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Posted: Sun May 11th, 2008 02:05 am |
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Sorry but the logic that if you apply to schools with low selection rates that your chances increase %wise is not true.
If a school has a 20% or less rate, it stand to reason that students 'self select' which means that the vast majority perhaps as high as 90+% apply because they meet or exceed the profile of the 'accepted student'
Therefore each pool of student is competing against that pool only. What happens at other schools is irrelevant.
therefore some students get accepted at all or most of the schools and some students get shut out of all - It is an illusion that chances increase by more applications.
The only sure method is to have a variety of Reach/Match with a Safety or two.
As mentioned before, go on CC and do Audi or Audison. The lesson learned was tough, but Audison went the route suggested - all HYPS or similarly selective school and was rejected by all. After a Gap year, he was accepted at MIT and a number of other schools. HIs scores/grades/EC's were top flight. He just was unlucky and unaware of the possibilities.
Now some students do get multiple Ivy acceptances and more power to them, but the recommend approach is to have a good variety of desired schools. Think of it as a Trapeze artist flying without a Net, great if the catch is made, but oh how he/she needs the Net if she/he slips.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Sun May 11th, 2008 02:50 am |
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jocelynDAD wrote:
therefore some students get accepted at all or most of the schools and some students get shut out of all - It is an illusion that chances increase by more applications.
That's not what I see when I read threads over at CC. I see that of the students who apply to a bunch of top schools, some are so excellent that they get in everywhere, but others get in one or two and not the others. And, of course, some get in none.
HopelesslyLost- Accepted to Harvard, waitlisted at Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth
Dandemom reports that "all of her [daughter's] friends were accepted to only their top choice ivy and rejected/waitlisted by all others."
pommery rejected by Harvard, accepted to Stanford
starbucksaddict accepted to Harvard, rejected from Columbia
Puddly rejected by Princeton, Cornell, and Stanford; accepted at Harvard and Yale
bubblicious accepted to Harvard, rejected by Stanford, MIT, and Yale
ctheller accepted to Harvard (yet didn't get into Williams, Dartmouth, Cornell, or Stanford)
Et cetera, et cetera.
I certainly would not advise anyone to do what Andison did, and apply only to top schools. That's a recipe for disaster. But a lot of top students can improve their odds of getting in a top school by applying to six or eight or ten top schools. Those students should also apply to safeties.
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leftcoast
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Posted: Sun May 11th, 2008 03:54 am |
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CardinalFang, it all comes down the application, and anecdotal evidence is not fully representative, especially coming from the CC board, because people are far less likely to post details when they are rejected from all schools. (Who feels like posting bad news online?)
A relatively weak application remains weak. A student can have excellent stats and a weak application. I used to read essays for students, and I was not surprised by end results when I knew what was in the essay. I saw some very anemic essays from some students who had great stats.... and the worst part is, the students who were very sure that they had written a great essay were often the ones whose essays had the biggest problems. So the student who is taking a lottery approach to college admissions may not recognize the flaws in the application -- whereas the student who is focused on only a few colleges may be putting a lot more heart into the process. I am sure that the short-answer essays are also very important, particulary the "why this college" answer, and it is hard to fashion convincing, unique answers to a multitude of different colleges -- especially if the "truth" is "any Ivy will do, I just want to go to the most prestigious college that will accept me." Of course the student doesn't write that.... but that lottery-betting student is competing against students who are submitting highly targeted applications which show an awareness both of what the college offers and of what the student has to offer that might appeal to that particular college.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Sun May 11th, 2008 04:10 am |
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There were quite a few kids who were accepted everywhere, and many who posted that they were rejected everywhere (plus, as you note, leftcoast, no doubt many others who didn't post about their rejections everywhere).
But there were also some who were rejected at some, accepted at others. For those borderline kids, it was a good idea to apply to a lot of top schools. How does a student know s/he's borderline? Who knows? But it's smart to play the odds. You can't win if you don't bet.
Leftcoast, what are your recommendations to students on how to make a strong essay? Self-reflection is not Fang Jr's strong suit.
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Chedva
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Posted: Sun May 11th, 2008 01:39 pm |
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As mentioned before, go on CC and do Audi or Audison.
Just a minor correction - it's Andi or Andison on CC.
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 05:59 pm |
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More good news for waitlistees:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=523551
Can you say "ripple effect"?
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 06:15 pm |
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So Harvard is taking 200 off the waitlist.
I wonder how many college changes each of those 200 acceptances will cause. Five? Ten? Surely it'll be a lot, as the student who was going to Princeton now goes to Harvard, and the Brown acceptee now goes to Princeton, the Amherst acceptee changes to Brown, the Dartmouth acceptee goes to Amherst, now a kid moves up to Middlebury clearing out a space for a new Duke student who yields her spot at Penn who frees up a spot at Georgetown ...
A couple of schools are reportedly overenrolled, but there will be changes made all over.
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warblers
Member
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Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 06:22 pm |
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A collegiate version of musical chairs, eh?
All the more reason to get those housing forms in early. Housing at my school, at least, has been very confused the last couple years. 
Last edited on Tue May 13th, 2008 06:24 pm by warblers
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HijinksAndSue
Member
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 01:09 am |
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For the top students, it doesn't seem fair to limit the number of colleges a student can apply to. If a student is competitive for the top Ivies, but is not a recruited athlete, they have a small but not non-existent chance of admission. Students should be allowed to play those lotteries if they want.
When Harvard is accepting only 7% of applicants, people who apply to Harvard should be able to apply to fifteen other schools if they want to.
Since I THINK this may be a response to my suggestion list, let me clarify ...
I did not suggest that applicants should be limited as to how many schools they are allowed to apply to.
I suggested that those using the COMMON APP should be limited to how many schools they could apply to via CA. Since basically that is ONE application to umpteen schools, plus whatever extranous individual single essays here and there the individual schools require.
I think the CA has made the application process a lot more streamlined (read: simple) for less motivated students and has undoubtedly increased the number of schools many of them apply to (motivated AND unmotivated).
Back in the olden days, aside from walking 10 miles to school barefoot in the snow we also had to create individual separate applications to each and every school we applied to. More time-consuming, more thought-provoking, etc. If we wanted to fill out one or five or 10 or 20 we could. But I am betting the average number of apps per student pre-CA and post-CA has skyrocketed.
As a result, I suspect there are so many more of your so-called "top students" who now apply to 10 or 15 or even 20 schools via CA, and getting accepted to many of them, thereby keeping spots from whatever the next tier of students are that normally would have maybe gotten into those and so on and so forth in countless levels of waves.
Part of the reason the acceptance rates have gone down so drastically, I am convinced, is that so many more kids are applying to each school BECAUSE THEY CAN.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 02:11 am |
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CardinalFang, Leftcoast is right on the money about drawing any conclusions at all from ancedotal evidence given by students or parents, and not just on the internet.
I can attest that what is said in public by students and parents about their stats is often very different than reality. There is a huge fudge factor when students or parents reveal grades and test scores publicly, whether in a forum like CC (or this one) or in the school lunchroom. I've seen the "fudge factor" revealed many times when I ask to see the actual transcripts, test scores, and essays. All sorts of interesting things also come out in private that aren't revealed in public, many of which factor into admissions chances.
Unless you have the exact same information that the college admissions offices do, including the transcript, test scores, recommendation letters, AND, the actual application, it is a fool's game to draw conclusions from ancedotal evidence that may be missing critical facts. And, even then, you still don't know with certainty how institutional factors and needs of individual colleges factored into a decision. 
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 02:19 am |
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Carolyn, is it your experience that some students who apply to several schools of an equal level get in some of them, but not others? If that's true, then it would make sense for students to apply to several schools.
Is it your experience that some students who apply to several very selective schools get in some of them, but not others? If that's true, then it would make sense for those students to apply to a lot of very selective schools to maximize the chance of getting in one.
After all, Yale might be looking for the left-handed oboe player, but Princeton not, right? At some point, it's random.
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outwest
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 05:07 am |
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I have heard that although a lot of the top schools will be going to their waiting lists, a lot of the others are overenrolled. I heard Grinnell won't be going to their waiting list, for example and that Bryn Mawr College won't either, but Smith is. I also heard that Stanford won't be using its. Now, if Stanford isn't going to their wait list, but HYP are, what does that mean? And, why are the top little LACs seeming to get such a good yield?
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 05:21 am |
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| Maybe the top universities accepted fewer students than in past years, but the top LACs didn't? I know that Harvard wasn't sure about its yield because it stopped early decision (or early action-- whichever one it had), but the yield turned out to be the same as ever.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 08:31 pm |
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CardinalFang wrote: Carolyn, is it your experience that some students who apply to several schools of an equal level get in some of them, but not others? If that's true, then it would make sense for students to apply to several schools.
Is it your experience that some students who apply to several very selective schools get in some of them, but not others? If that's true, then it would make sense for those students to apply to a lot of very selective schools to maximize the chance of getting in one.
After all, Yale might be looking for the left-handed oboe player, but Princeton not, right? At some point, it's random.
I would be doing a grave dis-service as a counselor if I told students to simply "apply to more colleges to improve your odds of getting into one." In fact, that is the exact opposite of my counseling philosophy.
Instead, I try to get students (and parents) to make a realistic assessment of themselves, what they need in an educational environment to be happy and successful, and which colleges might be most interested in their admissions profile. It's not about applying to more colleges, it's about applying to a better list of colleges.
Of course, there is always going to be some randomness to the process, and no one can ever predict all of the variables perfectly. But, I have found that students who use the "target approach" (i.e., figure out what I have to offer, who is most likely to buy it, and then put together the best application for each school possible) tend to have better results than those who use the "dartboard approach" (i.e., randomly send out as many applications as possible hoping at least one will stick).
By the way, most of the students I work with end up applying to less than 10 colleges. I have never had a student (yet) who didn't end up with at least several good choices, including at those highly selective schools.
Last edited on Wed May 14th, 2008 08:33 pm by CarolynLawrence
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 08:38 pm |
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CarolynLawrence wrote:
Instead, I try to get students (and parents) to make a realistic assessment of themselves, what they need in an educational environment to be happy and successful, and which colleges might be most interested in their admissions profile. It's not about applying to more colleges, it's about applying to a better list of colleges.
Excellent advice. Fang Jr will follow it.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 08:40 pm |
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outwest wrote: And, why are the top little LACs seeming to get such a good yield?
By virtue of their "little" size, LACs need to fill less seats in the freshman class. Therefore, more the most part, they take fewer numbers off the waitlist in any given year than a larger school might. For example, if an LAC with an entering class is "short" five percent in a projected freshman class of 300, that's a very different number of seats that need to be filled than if a university with a freshman class of 1000 or 2000 is "short" five percent. Of course, it works the opposite way too - if an LAC is "over" in their prediction of yield, it can have different consequences than if a large university is "over" by the same percentage.
By the way, according to US News, last year Grinnell didn't take anyone off their waitlist either, if I recall correctly.
Last edited on Wed May 14th, 2008 08:56 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Deja
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 09:34 pm |
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A few weeks ago I attended a "junior parent college night" at the high school. The keynote speaker spoke of the confusing waitlist situation at colleges this year. He advised the parents/kids to only apply to 3-5 schools.
When I told dh that, he had the same reaction that I did -- "Right....let all the other kids apply to many schools and put OUR kid at a disadvantage?"
Of course the colleges would like kids to apply to fewer colleges, as that would make their jobs easier. I can't see that applying to fewer colleges is going to benefit my son. I saw what happened with admissions last year.
He may apply to as many as 12-15 different colleges. He doesn't have any special hook and he needs finaid. He does have good stats and good ECs (a two-time state debate champion). So the dartboard approach may be best for him.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 14th, 2008 10:11 pm |
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Deja wrote: A few weeks ago I attended a "junior parent college night" at the high school. The keynote speaker spoke of the confusing waitlist situation at colleges this year. He advised the parents/kids to only apply to 3-5 schools.
Three? THREE? That's ridiculous. Do they have any particular three to recommend to Deja-son? It's too easy to undershoot or overshoot with only three.
If colleges want to discourage applications, they certainly have a strange way of showing it.
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