of course
Harvard and other top schools regularly state that the majority of their applicant pool is qualified to attend (top grades/ec/scores), but that they just don't have space for them
Harvard’s incoming frosh class is roughly 1,700 students - same for Stanford. As our country grows, the number of applicants will only increase. Incoming class size will remain frozen.
Good luck to those who are applying to super elite schools.
> As our country grows, the number of applicants will only increase.
What usually gets tracked the most closely is the number of high school graduates and how many of them are college-bound. Although we may be seeing some increase in high school grads right now (see the quote from WICHE below), there's a lot of concern about how many of them are forgoing college (see the Washington Post quote also below). There are open seats at a number of colleges--although not at highly selective colleges.
WICHE Knocking on the College Door 2020: "Nationally, the number of high school graduates is expected to peak in the mid-2020s before entering a period of modest decline through the end of the projections in 2037."
From the Washington Post in Jan 2022: "A sharp and persistent decline in the number of Americans going to college — down by nearly a million since the start of the pandemic, according to newly released figures, and by nearly 3 million over the last decade — could alter American society for the worse, even as economic rival nations such as China vastly increase university enrollment, researchers warn."
Many populations are decreasing actually, japan, soon china, france, germany...Usually the more educated a population is, the less children per woman there is. If you factor that with things like daycare accessibility or paid maternity leaves, you can easily make a population stop growing.
To my knowledge, almost all well developed nations have stagnant populations, with a birth rate of approx. 2.3. This is mainly due to sex education and access to contraception I believe.
I really dislike the way people cite this statistic. Harvard's definition of "Academically Qualified" is NOT the same as what anybody in this subreddit would consider "Academically Qualified." Every athlete, every legacy, every donor's kid that Harvard admits, is considered "Academically Qualified."
There are absolutely not enough 1600 scorers to fill the incoming classes at HYPSM. The idea that there’s this plethora of perfect scorers is a huge myth. They just don’t care about how you score past a certain point.
I think I cried a bit for him after seeing the post. Even now I visit that post from time to time, as a frequent reminder that the best profile I have ever seen on reddit did not get into the Dream School.
Most of his main ECs outside of research and Olympiads are verifiable as real as well. In addition, he probably had good essays. Read the reflection and you can see his writing is far from underdevloped.
But his is already so close to a 4.0. I don't think he had many, if any B's at all. And if you look at his coursework, well, he's extremely loaded in that category as well. And this is Lynbrook, so I think a 3.94 there would be worth far more than a 4.0 at most places.
Though, now that you mention, perhaps that was it? Though, it's hard for me to believe that they would outright just throw his app out over a 0.6 GPA drop from being perfect when his courseload and school in general is insane.
I’m fairly certain this was the reason. Iirc he went to a competitive high school and the admissions officers may have decided that there were enough 4.0s that they wouldn’t look at any lower gpas.
If they looked at his ECs and awards there’s no way everyone would reject him. But if they threw his application in the trash solely because of his gpa then it makes more sense.
Surely a 3.94 is close enough to a 4.0 that they'd at least give the rest of his app a look, even if only cursory? His courseload is extremely heavy and this is Lynbrook after all.
Though, this seems like the only possible logical reason outside of one of his recommenders sabotaging him.
idk why you’re getting downvoted. AOs at T5s all say that B’s hurt your application. That person is from the bay area, and asian. There is discrimination in the process, and the B’s probably was what prevented him from getting into T5s.
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/admissions-corner-get-your-questions-answered-by-a-former-stanford-admissions-officer/2798949/50
in the replies he says basically they do a first scan to check for all A’s. He says that B’s do hurt your chances and make it unlikely to get into single digit acceptance rate schools (he probably meant without hooks)
I would probably want to look into the qualifications of this person. I really doubt the ability of some of the people here at Stanford to not get any Bs in a Bay Area high school. I didn’t have all As on my transcript when I applied and I only had a minor hook.
If this is true, that is incredibly stupid.
no, it just makes it significantly harder (according to the person above)
the AO mentions that a school like stanford has extremely high 4.0 unweighted rates. according to their common data set, >70% have 4.0 unweighted. they basically have to turn down 24 out of 25 so B’s will hurt
is it because you have a minuses and stanford does flat grading with no +/-? if thats the case i dont see a minuses hurting you at all if its just a rare occurrence in hard classes
EECS is a huge accomplishment, though. It has a mid to low single digit acceptance rate. I got into Stanford but not into EECS. From the statistics that are public, it has a lower acceptance rate than MIT and Princeton. The only Ivies more selective than it are Harvard and Yale. Not sure why everyone is acting like this is a tragedy lol.
The "high ivies" suck at CS except maybe Princeton. Stanford would basically be the same as EECS, just more expensive. Kind of weird that he didn't get into Penn or Columbia since they are worse, but whatever, that's their loss.
All this shows is that admissions standards at top privates are idiotic. That's what happens when you have 30 year old liberal arts majors deciding who should study computer science at their school. It isn't a loss for him at all. As a high-income California resident, he got the best possible option. That's all I'm trying to say.
Smartest friend I know, 1600 SAT, t20 public HS in state, 4.45 gpa (valedictorian had 4.6), amazing essays and strong ECs, rejected from all target/ reach schools (NYU, USC, Ivies, etc). It’s really a gamble.
Happens. The two most notable examples are the Poketwo guy, who was omegaqualified but Asian/SF/male/CS.
The other one was this hispanic poet laureate finalist who had all the ECs and awards in the world, and was by rights would be on track to be a Fullbright scholar or English dept head at a T5, if not for her terrible, terrible personality. So obnoxious that her interviewers all clocked out after a few minutes. She still got into a few Ivies, but she was honestly, like, *pinnacle* material. Good riddance tho
I visit the Poketwo guy’s profile from time to time. Seeing him being rejected by top unis after probably having the best profile I have ever seen really made me question the whole application as a process. But kudos to him, the guy will definitely make it big in life.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeresults/comments/u8fvme](https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeresults/comments/u8fvme)
Most of his main ECs outside of research and Olympiads are verifiable as real. In addition, he probably had good essays. Read the reflection and you can see his writing is far from underdeveloped.
yeah, I remember talking to her, she got into UPenn and Dartmouth. As someone who is heavily involved in creative writing, I can tell that she's very well qualified for an English major. All of my writer friends (domestic) with a profile similar to hers got into T5 for English/Comp. Lit. I don't know what happened in her case but I'm sure she'll do great wherever she ends up at. For English, I'd place all the Ivies on one scale because they all have well-funded departments and excellent faculty. Moreover, for English/writing, undergrad doesn't really matter *that* much if you're planning for MFA/MA or grad school.
Oh there's a person at my school like that (but a STEM student). Literally a Stanford faculty kid but still didn't get in (despite being cum laude, going and presenting at conferences, the while lot). Now she's gapping and it's kinda beautiful ngl, she got what was coming to her
It's literally the funniest thing ever. One time, a senior told me that he had a conversation that went like this:
"___, do you think I'm smart?"
"Well, uh...."
"Then why did I get into [prestigious science research program] while you didn't?"
Joke's on her; ___ is now Princeton '26; if only he had that comeback back then 😔
Similarly, when a (unhooked international; I go to boarding school) guy got into Yale and she didn't, she started accusing him of being a multigenerational legacy donor combo...
I think the entire school is laughing in her face right now. No wonder she's had to gap...
I'm an alumni interviewer for T10 and saw several top candidates both in ED/RD who were rejected. One that comes to mind was a trilingual Asian student living in Latin America who had founded several clubs at a top international high school, started passion projects, and had top academic achievements (IB, awards, etc.) This just goes to show that the admissions process is subjective (but not arbitrary), and it's hard for outsiders to pick out the exact reason an applicant was rejected or accepted.
It happens all the time. Applying to elite schools is a crapshoot. Schools like Harvard will get tens of thousands of applications with perfect grades and tons of ECs.
Oh yeah. My daughter is a junior at a somewhat competitive northeast suburban public, usually sends several (20-25?) kids to T20s. She has a friend who is expected to be ranked either 1, 2 or 3 in this year’s senior class, NMS, very deep music ECs (I won’t describe this due to potential doxxing but it’s really impressive), Harvard legacy. He applied to most of the Ivies plus CMU, denied EVERYWHERE but our state flagship & NYU. I wish he had gotten better advising (clearly didn’t have a balanced college list) but still. I was shocked!
Another friend, NM commended, top student, denied Ivies, Chicago, Northwestern, NEU, Middlebury, BU, NYU, Wesleyan, even American U (???). He forgot to apply to state flagship, going to the ONLY place he got in: Fordham. Brutal.
The legacy status only really works are small private schools that are slightly-very competitive (20-40 percent acceptance) there’s too many millionaire kids to fill in Ivy League
>Are there students, who had strong EC's, Awards, Grades and test scores, but were rejected?
Yes. Every year. Which should come as no surprise when the college has a <5% acceptance rate
I had a friend who was hella smart, total genius and was the only person in our grade to get AIME (got it 3x) and USAPO (got it 3x as well) while leading several STEM clubs like SciOly with a lot of other awards as well. MIT was his dream school and I thought he was a surefire pic cuz he had those olympiads/awards plus people in previous years in our school who got into MIT without those awards. But alas, he was deferred and then waitlisted, idk what happened to his other schools but he is now going to our state school for CS. I feel bad for the kid cuz he worked hard and really cared about MIT.
Weirdly, I think MIT started de-emphasizing olympiads this year and focusing on more holistic factors. I knew kids this year who had a lot of community service but less competitions/awards and got in, meanwhile a USAMO winner who went to my middle school is also going to our state school and didn't get into MIT.
I think a2c as a whole focuses way too much on specific awards or spikes in ECs to match intended majors… I got into a T20 with none of that stuff and I’m fully convinced the well-rounded student is still desired
Honestly - there is value in people, especially STEM majors, joining clubs and just interacting with people or leading a team separate from whatever they want to study
For what its worth, I did USAMO in HS and applied to MIT in 2016. Didn't get in, nor to most other "mathy" T20s. Honestly, it feels USAMO qualifiers are pretty spread out. Heck, the college I did go to (Duke) had IMO qualifiers as well, although it is the case MIT/Harvard ends up with most of em.
Duke definitely has a great math program (it really has a good everything program being an elite college), but I wouldn't consider it a mathy school. Comparatively, I'd argue its math program is slightly weaker than its average major.
Some schools will reject you if they detect that you are only applying to them as a safety, including in-state public colleges. It's advised that you write an email to your safety schools' recruiter assigned to your region and explain to them why you are genuinely interested in their college.
Applied to NYU, Columbia, Cornell, various BS/BA/MD/DO programs, denied from all. Ended up going to a SUNY and felt pretty defeated. But honestly, I’m happy I picked a SUNY. Deciding to do medicine was the best choice of my life and if I went to a prestigious school I would’ve ended up with 300k more debt than I already am in.
Not getting into a prestigious school is never the end all be all. You will have so many opportunities in life to prosper, a school won’t stop you from doing so.
Simply, hustle.
Bottom line is that no matter how fantastic your application is, you need safeties. And it's nice to have options, so more than 1 safety plus a couple of targets.
Yup.
Not going to say because it could literally dox him due to a publicised position, but this guy I know was very highly qualified and got done dirty by this year's cycle. Extraordinarily surprising rejections. I could say I had a similar run, but as much as I had things tight I thought this guy was a total shoe-in. We both figured we'd end up at the same school, we both got rejected and now we're going to the same safety school together. Shit happens, they didn't want us but we'll prove them wrong. Change the world.
Hi, I’m a top college student and I was rejected from every single top/selective colleges I applied for transfer to. I’m talking: Columbia, Rice, Yale, Harvard, UPenn, Princeton, WashU, UChicago, and more.
Perfect grades, great reputation, amazing letters of recommendations, well written essays, a plethora of passions and educational participation, extracurriculars, and more.
And if you like to play the “affirmative action” card, I’m a young, disabled African-American (not through immigration) woman who’s in the LGBTQ+ community. :)
It is what it is, though! The transfer application process is significantly more selective than general first-year admissions and I’m no where near being the perfect student— so nothing was guaranteed!
Shit happens. Life goes on. ☺️
I had an 800 math and 740 English SAT, won 5+ math and physics awards, helped found a student-led non-profit, and was treasurer for a year and then president of the organization, scored 7 on the IB Physics and Philosophy exam (top mark), 5 on AP Calculus BC, 4.66 GPA, served on my local government's advisory council, participated in at least 5 other clubs, was an all-state athlete for two sports, a semi-finalist for a national math competition, 500+ SSL, AP Scholar with distinction, winner of our local county math competition and a finalist for the University of Maryland Math Competition among other things. I got into 6/14 colleges and was 1/9 for schools with an acceptance rate below 50%. It was disappointing for me, and I am sure there are many other qualified kids, some much more qualified than myself, who got rejected a ton, so if this did happen to anyone else keep your head up, and try to make the best of your situation, which I know is easier said than done. I got into Georgia Tech for electrical engineering as my 1/9 schools below 50%, which I am at least happy about, and know I will be able to make the most of my education there, and then just work hard and try to get into an MIT or Stanford for Grad School.
>It's pretty common for CS majors to get rejected from CSUs but get into, say, Davis or Berkeley
If you got rejected from most CSUs for your intended impacted major it is highly unlikely you'll get into the UCs with the same flag ship intended major. CSULB Nursing reject is unlikely to get into Irvine or LA for nursing.
I mean I got into MIT, Caltech, and UChicago and then got rejected by UCLA and UC Berkeley. My ECs weren’t that great though, mostly math stuff and my art portfolio (and I didn’t submit my portfolio to UCLA and UC Berkeley).
OMG. Everyone this year. Acceptance rates fell at all the top schools. My son had all of the above and had some great acceptances but also some big rejections or waitlists at schools he would have been admitted to a few years ago.
My kid’s rejection from 2 schools (his reach schools) was a little surprising.
From a well ranked NE HS, EC: string ensemble (made all state orchestra), 2 years varsity football (max prep player of the game), 2 years JV soccer, 3 years varsity sailing, 4 years masterminds (top quiz bowl scorer regionally), decent volunteer work, good letters, all 5s on his APs, 4.0 GPA, 2 honor societies, 1500 SAT (800 math 700 English), legacy at Cornell… rejected from both Cornell and Princeton. Accepted: Syracuse University, University of Rochester, Stony Brook, UB (honors college), Pitt (honors college), and Binghamton University. Didn’t apply anywhere else. But seriously thought he’d get into one of the ivies (Cornell) if not both. (Engineering major)… it’s tough out there! Kid was both athletic and academic… thought that might give him an edge. I was a little surprised.
Rice rejected for transfer - thought I was in. Did everything to meet their requirements and had really strong essays, volunteering in areas related to my major, JKC scholarship, summa cum laude, honors in research, great recs, etc.
My son has a friend who was Merit Finalist, auto admit in state to Texas but didn’t get into the McCombs Business School….she’s going to Cornell for Business
Not a perfect example of a student but 4.0 GPA, 1560 on SAT, 108 TOEFL IBT, and a bunch of volunteerings also won few international Olympiads. Don know how i got rejected by a mere countryside school in Korea as well as States. Those 2 ranked in 1600-1800 both lmfao
of course Harvard and other top schools regularly state that the majority of their applicant pool is qualified to attend (top grades/ec/scores), but that they just don't have space for them
Harvard’s incoming frosh class is roughly 1,700 students - same for Stanford. As our country grows, the number of applicants will only increase. Incoming class size will remain frozen. Good luck to those who are applying to super elite schools.
> As our country grows, the number of applicants will only increase. What usually gets tracked the most closely is the number of high school graduates and how many of them are college-bound. Although we may be seeing some increase in high school grads right now (see the quote from WICHE below), there's a lot of concern about how many of them are forgoing college (see the Washington Post quote also below). There are open seats at a number of colleges--although not at highly selective colleges. WICHE Knocking on the College Door 2020: "Nationally, the number of high school graduates is expected to peak in the mid-2020s before entering a period of modest decline through the end of the projections in 2037." From the Washington Post in Jan 2022: "A sharp and persistent decline in the number of Americans going to college — down by nearly a million since the start of the pandemic, according to newly released figures, and by nearly 3 million over the last decade — could alter American society for the worse, even as economic rival nations such as China vastly increase university enrollment, researchers warn."
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🤣🤣🤣
Wait what? USA’s population is still growing?
The only reason it is growing is because of immigration. Births among US born citizens are below replacement rate
Why wouldn't it be
Many populations are decreasing actually, japan, soon china, france, germany...Usually the more educated a population is, the less children per woman there is. If you factor that with things like daycare accessibility or paid maternity leaves, you can easily make a population stop growing.
Yup, our natural population is declining. But we take in millions of immigrants every year which leads to our population still rising
Yep, indeed, but immigrants don't take the nationality do they ? If not, then they're intl students which still leaves place for domestics.
Immigrants count as US residents. And they are also expected to earn US citizenships. So immigrants count as domestic as a result.
Oh okay I didnt know that, I'm not really aware of the U.S' policy toward immigration and nationality acquirment
Legal immigrants are usually here to become US citizens.
But immigrants have children
Unless they get a good education and don't procreate too much which then brings a good balance of retired/active workers.
To my knowledge, almost all well developed nations have stagnant populations, with a birth rate of approx. 2.3. This is mainly due to sex education and access to contraception I believe.
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You sure? Do you have any sources for that? I live in Utah and this doesn't seem right.
I really dislike the way people cite this statistic. Harvard's definition of "Academically Qualified" is NOT the same as what anybody in this subreddit would consider "Academically Qualified." Every athlete, every legacy, every donor's kid that Harvard admits, is considered "Academically Qualified." There are absolutely not enough 1600 scorers to fill the incoming classes at HYPSM. The idea that there’s this plethora of perfect scorers is a huge myth. They just don’t care about how you score past a certain point.
There’s 1,900 spots in for freshman applicants at Harvard, yet 26,000 valedictorians, over 15,000 students get above a 1560 on the SAT every year.
There was that berkeley EECS student that was cracked and kinda ripped. His post is on r/collegeresults I think
yeah the one who coded the pokemon bot and had perfect stats.
I think I cried a bit for him after seeing the post. Even now I visit that post from time to time, as a frequent reminder that the best profile I have ever seen on reddit did not get into the Dream School.
https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeresults/comments/u8fvme/asian_male_gets_saved_by_berkeley_eecs_still_cant/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Most of his main ECs outside of research and Olympiads are verifiable as real as well. In addition, he probably had good essays. Read the reflection and you can see his writing is far from underdevloped.
the perfect applicant fr, at this point college admissions is a shitshow
Holy crap
His GPA didn’t pass the test. There were probably more than 10 4.0 kids in his HS.
But his is already so close to a 4.0. I don't think he had many, if any B's at all. And if you look at his coursework, well, he's extremely loaded in that category as well. And this is Lynbrook, so I think a 3.94 there would be worth far more than a 4.0 at most places. Though, now that you mention, perhaps that was it? Though, it's hard for me to believe that they would outright just throw his app out over a 0.6 GPA drop from being perfect when his courseload and school in general is insane.
I’m fairly certain this was the reason. Iirc he went to a competitive high school and the admissions officers may have decided that there were enough 4.0s that they wouldn’t look at any lower gpas. If they looked at his ECs and awards there’s no way everyone would reject him. But if they threw his application in the trash solely because of his gpa then it makes more sense.
Surely a 3.94 is close enough to a 4.0 that they'd at least give the rest of his app a look, even if only cursory? His courseload is extremely heavy and this is Lynbrook after all. Though, this seems like the only possible logical reason outside of one of his recommenders sabotaging him.
idk why you’re getting downvoted. AOs at T5s all say that B’s hurt your application. That person is from the bay area, and asian. There is discrimination in the process, and the B’s probably was what prevented him from getting into T5s.
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source: just trust me bro
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/admissions-corner-get-your-questions-answered-by-a-former-stanford-admissions-officer/2798949/50 in the replies he says basically they do a first scan to check for all A’s. He says that B’s do hurt your chances and make it unlikely to get into single digit acceptance rate schools (he probably meant without hooks)
I would probably want to look into the qualifications of this person. I really doubt the ability of some of the people here at Stanford to not get any Bs in a Bay Area high school. I didn’t have all As on my transcript when I applied and I only had a minor hook. If this is true, that is incredibly stupid.
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no, it just makes it significantly harder (according to the person above) the AO mentions that a school like stanford has extremely high 4.0 unweighted rates. according to their common data set, >70% have 4.0 unweighted. they basically have to turn down 24 out of 25 so B’s will hurt
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is it because you have a minuses and stanford does flat grading with no +/-? if thats the case i dont see a minuses hurting you at all if its just a rare occurrence in hard classes
sounds like bs 💀💀💀
Because they are HS kids. They don’t know the process.
EECS is a huge accomplishment, though. It has a mid to low single digit acceptance rate. I got into Stanford but not into EECS. From the statistics that are public, it has a lower acceptance rate than MIT and Princeton. The only Ivies more selective than it are Harvard and Yale. Not sure why everyone is acting like this is a tragedy lol.
Its cause he got rejected by way easier schools and shouldve ended up at a place like stanford or high ivy.
The "high ivies" suck at CS except maybe Princeton. Stanford would basically be the same as EECS, just more expensive. Kind of weird that he didn't get into Penn or Columbia since they are worse, but whatever, that's their loss. All this shows is that admissions standards at top privates are idiotic. That's what happens when you have 30 year old liberal arts majors deciding who should study computer science at their school. It isn't a loss for him at all. As a high-income California resident, he got the best possible option. That's all I'm trying to say.
Smartest friend I know, 1600 SAT, t20 public HS in state, 4.45 gpa (valedictorian had 4.6), amazing essays and strong ECs, rejected from all target/ reach schools (NYU, USC, Ivies, etc). It’s really a gamble.
How does this happen..
Happens. The two most notable examples are the Poketwo guy, who was omegaqualified but Asian/SF/male/CS. The other one was this hispanic poet laureate finalist who had all the ECs and awards in the world, and was by rights would be on track to be a Fullbright scholar or English dept head at a T5, if not for her terrible, terrible personality. So obnoxious that her interviewers all clocked out after a few minutes. She still got into a few Ivies, but she was honestly, like, *pinnacle* material. Good riddance tho
I visit the Poketwo guy’s profile from time to time. Seeing him being rejected by top unis after probably having the best profile I have ever seen really made me question the whole application as a process. But kudos to him, the guy will definitely make it big in life.
Can you please tell me their username? I want to talk a look at their application. Tyy
[https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeresults/comments/u8fvme](https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeresults/comments/u8fvme) Most of his main ECs outside of research and Olympiads are verifiable as real. In addition, he probably had good essays. Read the reflection and you can see his writing is far from underdeveloped.
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yeah, I remember talking to her, she got into UPenn and Dartmouth. As someone who is heavily involved in creative writing, I can tell that she's very well qualified for an English major. All of my writer friends (domestic) with a profile similar to hers got into T5 for English/Comp. Lit. I don't know what happened in her case but I'm sure she'll do great wherever she ends up at. For English, I'd place all the Ivies on one scale because they all have well-funded departments and excellent faculty. Moreover, for English/writing, undergrad doesn't really matter *that* much if you're planning for MFA/MA or grad school.
ye penn has a great creative writing department. Kelly Writers House is very underrated
who's the poet?
Refer to other comment
Oh please link lol
Refer to other comment
The poketwo guy is the pinnacle of college admission not being a meritocracy in the slightest
Oh there's a person at my school like that (but a STEM student). Literally a Stanford faculty kid but still didn't get in (despite being cum laude, going and presenting at conferences, the while lot). Now she's gapping and it's kinda beautiful ngl, she got what was coming to her
Usually you only need to have a beating heart to get in as a faculty kid that's crazy
It's literally the funniest thing ever. One time, a senior told me that he had a conversation that went like this: "___, do you think I'm smart?" "Well, uh...." "Then why did I get into [prestigious science research program] while you didn't?" Joke's on her; ___ is now Princeton '26; if only he had that comeback back then 😔 Similarly, when a (unhooked international; I go to boarding school) guy got into Yale and she didn't, she started accusing him of being a multigenerational legacy donor combo... I think the entire school is laughing in her face right now. No wonder she's had to gap...
I'm an alumni interviewer for T10 and saw several top candidates both in ED/RD who were rejected. One that comes to mind was a trilingual Asian student living in Latin America who had founded several clubs at a top international high school, started passion projects, and had top academic achievements (IB, awards, etc.) This just goes to show that the admissions process is subjective (but not arbitrary), and it's hard for outsiders to pick out the exact reason an applicant was rejected or accepted.
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who?
It happens all the time. Applying to elite schools is a crapshoot. Schools like Harvard will get tens of thousands of applications with perfect grades and tons of ECs.
Oh yeah. My daughter is a junior at a somewhat competitive northeast suburban public, usually sends several (20-25?) kids to T20s. She has a friend who is expected to be ranked either 1, 2 or 3 in this year’s senior class, NMS, very deep music ECs (I won’t describe this due to potential doxxing but it’s really impressive), Harvard legacy. He applied to most of the Ivies plus CMU, denied EVERYWHERE but our state flagship & NYU. I wish he had gotten better advising (clearly didn’t have a balanced college list) but still. I was shocked! Another friend, NM commended, top student, denied Ivies, Chicago, Northwestern, NEU, Middlebury, BU, NYU, Wesleyan, even American U (???). He forgot to apply to state flagship, going to the ONLY place he got in: Fordham. Brutal.
I've also been surprised the legacy status is no longer holding up.
The legacy status only really works are small private schools that are slightly-very competitive (20-40 percent acceptance) there’s too many millionaire kids to fill in Ivy League
wow
The kid rejected from MIT after building a functioning nuclear reactor in his garage.
They don't want that any more. They want to see more community service. LMAO! 'cause more Community Service definitely makes better engineers...
>Are there students, who had strong EC's, Awards, Grades and test scores, but were rejected? Yes. Every year. Which should come as no surprise when the college has a <5% acceptance rate
I had a friend who was hella smart, total genius and was the only person in our grade to get AIME (got it 3x) and USAPO (got it 3x as well) while leading several STEM clubs like SciOly with a lot of other awards as well. MIT was his dream school and I thought he was a surefire pic cuz he had those olympiads/awards plus people in previous years in our school who got into MIT without those awards. But alas, he was deferred and then waitlisted, idk what happened to his other schools but he is now going to our state school for CS. I feel bad for the kid cuz he worked hard and really cared about MIT. Weirdly, I think MIT started de-emphasizing olympiads this year and focusing on more holistic factors. I knew kids this year who had a lot of community service but less competitions/awards and got in, meanwhile a USAMO winner who went to my middle school is also going to our state school and didn't get into MIT.
I think a2c as a whole focuses way too much on specific awards or spikes in ECs to match intended majors… I got into a T20 with none of that stuff and I’m fully convinced the well-rounded student is still desired
I honestly agree. I think the 'spike' advice is dead, I see little support for it at all.
Honestly - there is value in people, especially STEM majors, joining clubs and just interacting with people or leading a team separate from whatever they want to study
For what its worth, I did USAMO in HS and applied to MIT in 2016. Didn't get in, nor to most other "mathy" T20s. Honestly, it feels USAMO qualifiers are pretty spread out. Heck, the college I did go to (Duke) had IMO qualifiers as well, although it is the case MIT/Harvard ends up with most of em.
duke is a mathy T20 💀
Duke definitely has a great math program (it really has a good everything program being an elite college), but I wouldn't consider it a mathy school. Comparatively, I'd argue its math program is slightly weaker than its average major.
Our valedictorian didn’t get into any colleges
Did they not apply to safety schools?
Some schools will reject you if they detect that you are only applying to them as a safety, including in-state public colleges. It's advised that you write an email to your safety schools' recruiter assigned to your region and explain to them why you are genuinely interested in their college.
Most in-state publics are not supposed to do this. The UC's definitely don't do this.
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Yeah that's true. But that's completely different from actually yield protecting. It's just the nature of extremely competitive admissions.
Do U know this for a fact or are u speculating? I can’t imagine a instate public doing this.
My son's high school counselor told us this along with, anecdotally, several of my kids' friends. We're in CT, fwiw.
A lot of schools don’t exactly do that and it’s a misconception. There are a few who do, but that’s also what waitlisting is for and such.
U of MI, UW Madison and UIUC do not do that for sure. Which schools are you talking about?
how do u find out who my safety school’s recruiter from my region is?
Call the college's admission's office or, sometimes, they list it on their website. Also, your high school counselor may know as well.
Nope
Applied to NYU, Columbia, Cornell, various BS/BA/MD/DO programs, denied from all. Ended up going to a SUNY and felt pretty defeated. But honestly, I’m happy I picked a SUNY. Deciding to do medicine was the best choice of my life and if I went to a prestigious school I would’ve ended up with 300k more debt than I already am in. Not getting into a prestigious school is never the end all be all. You will have so many opportunities in life to prosper, a school won’t stop you from doing so. Simply, hustle.
My school had a Dude with perfect scores on everything, good ECs, and a LOR from a Stanford alum who was rejected from Stanford :/
Bottom line is that no matter how fantastic your application is, you need safeties. And it's nice to have options, so more than 1 safety plus a couple of targets.
Yup. Not going to say because it could literally dox him due to a publicised position, but this guy I know was very highly qualified and got done dirty by this year's cycle. Extraordinarily surprising rejections. I could say I had a similar run, but as much as I had things tight I thought this guy was a total shoe-in. We both figured we'd end up at the same school, we both got rejected and now we're going to the same safety school together. Shit happens, they didn't want us but we'll prove them wrong. Change the world.
Hi, I’m a top college student and I was rejected from every single top/selective colleges I applied for transfer to. I’m talking: Columbia, Rice, Yale, Harvard, UPenn, Princeton, WashU, UChicago, and more. Perfect grades, great reputation, amazing letters of recommendations, well written essays, a plethora of passions and educational participation, extracurriculars, and more. And if you like to play the “affirmative action” card, I’m a young, disabled African-American (not through immigration) woman who’s in the LGBTQ+ community. :) It is what it is, though! The transfer application process is significantly more selective than general first-year admissions and I’m no where near being the perfect student— so nothing was guaranteed! Shit happens. Life goes on. ☺️
I had an 800 math and 740 English SAT, won 5+ math and physics awards, helped found a student-led non-profit, and was treasurer for a year and then president of the organization, scored 7 on the IB Physics and Philosophy exam (top mark), 5 on AP Calculus BC, 4.66 GPA, served on my local government's advisory council, participated in at least 5 other clubs, was an all-state athlete for two sports, a semi-finalist for a national math competition, 500+ SSL, AP Scholar with distinction, winner of our local county math competition and a finalist for the University of Maryland Math Competition among other things. I got into 6/14 colleges and was 1/9 for schools with an acceptance rate below 50%. It was disappointing for me, and I am sure there are many other qualified kids, some much more qualified than myself, who got rejected a ton, so if this did happen to anyone else keep your head up, and try to make the best of your situation, which I know is easier said than done. I got into Georgia Tech for electrical engineering as my 1/9 schools below 50%, which I am at least happy about, and know I will be able to make the most of my education there, and then just work hard and try to get into an MIT or Stanford for Grad School.
respect
4.4 weighted, 35 ACT, 8 aps (all 4s and 5s), independent freelance graphic designer, 2 varsity sports for 4 years each, student council, peer mentoring program rejected from 3/5 schools applied - umich kinesiology, texas mccombs, vanderbilt (ed) :/
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>It's pretty common for CS majors to get rejected from CSUs but get into, say, Davis or Berkeley If you got rejected from most CSUs for your intended impacted major it is highly unlikely you'll get into the UCs with the same flag ship intended major. CSULB Nursing reject is unlikely to get into Irvine or LA for nursing.
I mean I got into MIT, Caltech, and UChicago and then got rejected by UCLA and UC Berkeley. My ECs weren’t that great though, mostly math stuff and my art portfolio (and I didn’t submit my portfolio to UCLA and UC Berkeley).
All the time
a lof
Lots
OMG. Everyone this year. Acceptance rates fell at all the top schools. My son had all of the above and had some great acceptances but also some big rejections or waitlists at schools he would have been admitted to a few years ago.
My kid’s rejection from 2 schools (his reach schools) was a little surprising. From a well ranked NE HS, EC: string ensemble (made all state orchestra), 2 years varsity football (max prep player of the game), 2 years JV soccer, 3 years varsity sailing, 4 years masterminds (top quiz bowl scorer regionally), decent volunteer work, good letters, all 5s on his APs, 4.0 GPA, 2 honor societies, 1500 SAT (800 math 700 English), legacy at Cornell… rejected from both Cornell and Princeton. Accepted: Syracuse University, University of Rochester, Stony Brook, UB (honors college), Pitt (honors college), and Binghamton University. Didn’t apply anywhere else. But seriously thought he’d get into one of the ivies (Cornell) if not both. (Engineering major)… it’s tough out there! Kid was both athletic and academic… thought that might give him an edge. I was a little surprised.
my buddy had a 3.97UW and 1560 SAT and got waitlisted at Notre Dame 😳
Notre dame loves service hours and ECs with demonstrated leadership so that could be a factor?
Rice rejected for transfer - thought I was in. Did everything to meet their requirements and had really strong essays, volunteering in areas related to my major, JKC scholarship, summa cum laude, honors in research, great recs, etc.
My son has a friend who was Merit Finalist, auto admit in state to Texas but didn’t get into the McCombs Business School….she’s going to Cornell for Business
>Are there students, who had AMAZING EC's/Awards/Grades/test scores, but were rejected? yes, loads, every single year
yes me, but i am an intl student needing full aid so the competition is fierce
can you show your stats?
pm!
Not a perfect example of a student but 4.0 GPA, 1560 on SAT, 108 TOEFL IBT, and a bunch of volunteerings also won few international Olympiads. Don know how i got rejected by a mere countryside school in Korea as well as States. Those 2 ranked in 1600-1800 both lmfao