University choice

[dunfree]

https://thehill.com/changing-america...e-on-students/

Attachment 429716

FSU is an elite public university? They have a fucking clown college.

[Brock Landers]

It’s the common application mouse click thing. Kids can apply to 30 schools and take their pick of the ones they get into. Colleges have limited spots to hand out to these huge increases.

FSU is in the same graph as UVA? And not because of sports conference???

[::: :::]

It’s the common application mouse click thing. Kids can apply to 30 schools and take their pick of the ones they get into. Colleges have limited spots to hand out to these huge increases.

FSU is in the same graph as UVA? And not because of sports conference???

the biggest deltas for admissions acceptance rate change

[fatnslow]

I think there's a lot to this--it's many cases it's easy for kids to apply to multiple schools with little more than a click of the mouse.

Been through it 3 times now and certainly the common app make it easier but the myopic unawareness of parents and kids thinking they're not doing right if they don't apply to 7-10 schools is prevalent these days.

[::: :::]

my dad bitd: "relax...remember you only need to get into one"

[teledad]

OTOH some of my kid's HS classmates just applied to the 3-4 schools they really wanted and didn't get into any. Gotta be realistic about your chances.

[dunfree]

the biggest deltas for admissions acceptance rate change

Thanks to us News using that as a criteria for ranking, some schools have encouraged unqualified applicants to waste money to boost numbers. What’s the applicant pool look like?

[bodywhomper]

University of CA has a pretty interesting guarantee program for community college transfers, https://admission.universityofcalifo...antee-tag.html

It excludes ucb, ucla, and ucsd.

[fatnslow]

University of CA has a pretty interesting guarantee program for community college transfers, https://admission.universityofcalifo...antee-tag.html

It excludes ucb, ucla, and ucsd.

My brother had a suite mate at Columbia that was a PHD student that went this route from San Jose. He has a 4.0 in the ealry 80's and DIDN't get into Berkley as a freshman so he went 2 years at a bay area CC and finished at UC-Berzerkley finishing at the top of his class for undergrad and went to Columbia for grad school through his PHD.

[fatnslow]

OTOH some of my kid's HS classmates just applied to the 3-4 schools they really wanted and didn't get into any. Gotta be realistic about your chances.

They must have stupid parents and counselors that are even dumber, it's not that hard to figure out real chances if you can do third grade reading and math. ALL median scores for admission is available for schools and if you can't figure out your choices using that you probably shouldn't go to college.

[teledad]

They must have stupid parents and counselors that are even dumber, it's not that hard to figure out real chances if you can do third grade reading and math. ALL median scores for admission is available for schools and if you can't figure out your choices using that you probably shouldn't go to college.

Except most schools are test optional now and a lot of the kids don't take the tests (except maybe PSAT). That leaves GPA (hard to assess across different types of high schools) and a bunch of "soft" factors (essays, extracurriculars, interview, etc.).

[hikesalot]

I know several kids who had great scores and > 4.0 gpa who didn’t get accepted to their top schools. The essay and extra curriculars / volunteering etc are important. Our high school has so many kids taking AP and IB that 15+% of seniors have a 4.0 or higher with great test scores. They won’t all get accepted to their top school choices. But most will apply to several top schools and several second tier choices as well.

[fatnslow]

Except most schools are test optional now and a lot of the kids don't take the tests (except maybe PSAT). That leaves GPA (hard to assess across different types of high schools) and a bunch of "soft" factors (essays, extracurriculars, interview, etc.).

That's where the upper middle class can really separate themselves by hiring consultants and writing coaches. The essay are more important than ever. I stand by my statement the kids didn't receive proper guidance if they didn't get into any school they applied to, even if it was only 3-4.

[bodywhomper]

My brother had a suite mate at Columbia that was a PHD student that went this route from San Jose. He has a 4.0 in the ealry 80's and DIDN't get into Berkley as a freshman so he went 2 years at a bay area CC and finished at UC-Berzerkley finishing at the top of his class for undergrad and went to Columbia for grad school through his PHD.

Yes. I also know plenty of extremely smart and intelligent people that transferred from CC system. Lots of positive from that route. Berkeley is currently excluded from that guaranteed transfer. But somebody can still apply as a transfer to Berkeley. The guarantee is the main thing about that pathway that I posted.

[::: :::]

I know several kids who had great scores and > 4.0 gpa who didn’t get accepted to their top schools. The essay and extra curriculars / volunteering etc are important. Our high school has so many kids taking AP and IB that 15+% of seniors have a 4.0 or higher with great test scores. They won’t all get accepted to their top school choices. But most will apply to several top schools and several second tier choices as well.

i do wonder how the top schools are making selections when they have a pile of 4.0/valedictorians to choose from
writing samples help, but still...they're looking at hundreds (& maybe thousands at places like stanford/princeton/UCberkely?) of highly qualified applicants

we got any uni profs here to shed light on this?

[MarcusBrody]

That's where the upper middle class can really separate themselves by hiring consultants and writing coaches. The essay are more important than ever. I stand by my statement the kids didn't receive proper guidance if they didn't get into any school they applied to, even if it was only 3-4.

Obviously it would have been smart to apply to a safety school in case of not getting into your top choice, but median scores can be really misleading once you start to get into the real upper echelon of admissions difficulty. As people have mentioned, at elite schools, there are plenty of students who are qualified, so the median scores for the rejected students probably doesn't look that much different than the ones for the admitted ones. The admitted students will include sports/activities admits, legacies, students whose parents the school hopes will make a donation, and members of groups that are underrepresented on campus. The scores of those students will be all over the place, but on average, they'll be lower than students from the general pool. If 25% of the student body ends up in that category, then the median of general admission portion is going to be notably higher than what is reported. So if the students don't fall into any of those categories, admission will be tougher than it appears for them.

Again, if you mean that someone should have told them to apply to a safety that they are slam dunk going to get into, sure. But judging chances of admission is tougher than people think, especially as admission rates trend lower due to the flood of applicants. It becomes a bit of a crapshoot. Those 3 or 4 schools might have been the proper level to aim for, they just should have either done more apps or applied down a tier or two.

[Buzzworthy]

My daughter is neck deep in the applications process as we speak. Narrowing down the list of where she really feels she has a good chance, what’s in the affordable range and after today it’s essay time.
She’s the AP/IB kid with a 4.0, after school activities and volunteering. Decent test scores. No sports.
I’m so proud of my daughter.

[406]

I always chuckle at the fact that I went to the lowest ranked public school, U of MT. I filled out application the day it was due and dropped it off in person. Did buckle down and get more on the ball after "getting in." Turned out fine :-)

[dunfree]

i do wonder how the top schools are making selections when they have a pile of 4.0/valedictorians to choose from
writing samples help, but still...they're looking at hundreds (& maybe thousands at places like stanford/princeton/UCberkely?) of highly qualified applicants

we got any uni profs here to shed light on this?

Stanford in the past would significantly deviate from standards for athletic talent or donor $. Princeton too. UCB not quite so much

[MarcusBrody]

i do wonder how the top schools are making selections when they have a pile of 4.0/valedictorians to choose from
writing samples help, but still...they're looking at hundreds (& maybe thousands at places like stanford/princeton/UCberkely?) of highly qualified applicants

we got any uni profs here to shed light on this?

I can a bit. First, I think it' only is an issue at the absolute top tier. At the "highly selective" liberal arts college I taught at, there was a clear spectrum of applicants (and admitted students) with less than the desired number taking up the "perfectly qualified group".

I did my PhD at Yale, but was only on a graduate admissions committee. I now do alumni interviews for Georgetown, which is less selective, but still at 12%, which is tough. So I have some sense of things:

So how do you get into Stanford/Princeton/MIT? Good question. Let's ignore athletics/band/legacy admissions. It's all about standing out, especially in local environments that are grouped.

1. Come from an elite feeder. Every year elite colleges are admitting students from a similar set of elite high schools. If you're near the top here, you're doing well.

2. Have been really excellent at something. The traditional things are having done incredible research for a high school student, winning a national competition, being an Olympian, etc., but I remember one kid in a class I taught at Yale had several commercially released whistling albums. A lot of students I met there had things that weren't necessarily related to what they were doing, but proved they could be really, really successful at something.

3. Be from a group that the school wants to bolster. Race gets all the attention (legal and otherwise), but schools want a diverse student body in lots of ways. If you're from a state/region/country where there are few applicants, you may end up competing only against those folks to get in.

4. Sell yourself well specifically to that school. All schools have their own vision of themselves, and if your essay/resume items lines up with that vision, you're more likely to get in than an equally great candidate who is a less good "fit".

5. Relatedly, you need to catch the eye/imagination of the admissions officer. This is largely luck, as you never know what's going to catch their eye in terms of essays, etc., but the better job you do the higher chance I guess. At some point, after all the above categories are filled, the admissions officers are going to choose the apps they found most compelling, but that's hard to plan for.

[::: :::]

thx for that, MB

[yeahman]

I always chuckle at the fact that I went to the lowest ranked public school, U of MT. I filled out application the day it was due and dropped it off in person. Did buckle down and get more on the ball after "getting in." Turned out fine :-)

Ha. That was the only school I applied to. Never visited, not sure I ever even bothered to find Missoula on a map. Parents told me to apply to the U of Minnesota (home state) just in case. Ignored their advice. Come September I got in some stranger's truck with all my stuff and waved goodbye. Worked out well for me too.

[Hood26]

i do wonder how the top schools are making selections when they have a pile of 4.0/valedictorians to choose from
writing samples help, but still...they're looking at hundreds (& maybe thousands at places like stanford/princeton/UCberkely?) of highly qualified applicants

we got any uni profs here to shed light on this?

They are actually now looking for examples of kids overcoming challenges.

[dunfree]

Ignoring legacy/athletics/band is ignoring what 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 for some schools?

[MarcusBrody]

Ignoring legacy/athletics/band is ignoring what 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 for some schools?

Probably a 1/4 at the schools we're talking about here, though we'd have to disentangle legacies that play sports. In the Ivy League, teams are given certain numbers of students they can request to be admitted in different tiers of academic qualification. So they can't just request the players they want regardless of status. You only get a very limited number of requests for players who very clearly wouldn't get in otherwise, whereas you get many more for students who statistically match the admitted students profile, but might not otherwise standout enough to make the cut. The cut points between tiers are slightly different at the different schools. They are highest at Yale/Harvard/Princeton and lowest at (I believe) Cornell. The idea is to make it a bit harder for the 3 most famous schools to cherry pick all the best players in each tier.

But I said "Let's ignore legacies/sports" because it's clear what the processes are there and ::: ::: was asking how schools differentiate all the extremely qualified academic applicants.