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My friend, a senior in high school, is valedictorian, captain of the track and soccer teams, an AP Scholar with Distinction and was Treasurer of the Junior Class. Everyone assumed that he would get in to his first choice college (Stanford) easily, but he was turned down to Stanford and MIT, and waitlisted for Princeton and Yale. Thus, he'll end up going to Berkley, by no means a bad school, but not one of his top four choices. My thinking is, if he can't get in, who can.
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It's so hard to judge without knowing much, much more. I wonder if the letters of recommendation were confidential?
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You'd be surprised. There are several things that could get him turned down, including a bad recommendation, but the most likely thing is an issue with his essay. The essay is probably the most important part of a college application to a highly competitive school, once a certain (high, but reachable) standard has been reached.
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There is also the fact that we really never know what all may be on another student's record, even a that of a friend. Many things are confidential for good reason, and school and medical records are among them. There may have been stuff going on that your friend didn't feel comfortable talking to others about.
Although I agree that the essay is a biggie. And even if it is a spectacular essay, it could have hit just the wrong person just the wrong way -- i.e., reminded him or her of an ex-boyfriend, for example. You never know.
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I hate to say it, but he sounds pretty normal for an Ivy Leaguer.
They look for the brightest, of course, but that's a given for a lot of their students and then they look to extracurriculars, personality, unique traits, recommendations, diversity, exceptional accomplishments etc. That's the subjective part. Maybe he didn't stand out to the admissions committee, but who knows?
No matter, Berkeley is a great school! He should be proud of himself.
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Those colleges get tens of thousands of applications. Now, one quality that you definitely want in your student is luck; unlucky students are more likely to drop out of classes, get pregnant, get sick before important exams, get caught while drunk driving, lose important matches, and other stuff that reflects badly on the school. So before you start looking at the applications in detail, you drop half of them in the wastepaper basket. Those students are not lucky.
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: My friend, a senior in high school, is valedictorian, captain of the track and soccer teams, an AP Scholar with Distinction and was Treasurer of the Junior Class. Everyone assumed that he would get in to his first choice college (Stanford) easily, but he was turned down to Stanford and MIT, and waitlisted for Princeton and Yale. Thus, he'll end up going to Berkley, by no means a bad school, but not one of his top four choices. My thinking is, if he can't get in, who can.
Eh, there are just too many people like that for them all to get in. I was valedictorian, AP Scholar w/ Distinction, National Merit Scholar & highest SAT in my high school's history -- but I still doubt I'd have been accepted at MIT. I couldn't afford to go to those schools, so it was a moot point. And frankly, in light of how crummy my grades were at a state college, I probably wouldn't have liked that level of competition anyway.
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quote "So before you start looking at the applications in detail, you drop half of them in the wastepaper basket. Those students are not lucky. " Am I crazy or does that make TOO much sense?
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Pelegius: Your friend shouldn't neglect that he got waitlisted from Yale and Princeton. Granted, it helps to have friends in high places, but he should write those schools a letter about how much he wants to go to those schools and then follow-up a few weeks later promising to commit to the schools and talk about new interests, developments, progess etc. Maybe even visit.
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My sister once interviewed an admissions officer (not related to trying to get in) who made final decisions. He said that by the time the applications got to him, he could switch his acceptance and denial stacks and no one would ever know.
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quote:Although I agree that the essay is a biggie. And even if it is a spectacular essay, it could have hit just the wrong person just the wrong way -- i.e., reminded him or her of an ex-boyfriend, for example. You never know.
I doubt this because he was not accepted into four different schools - meaning he would have had to hit four different people the wrong way, presumably with four different essays. My guess is that there was something consistent about his applications that suggested he was just your average overachiever, and couldn't demonstrate that uniqueness that these schools would really want. Or it's possible he didn't come across as someone who wanted THAT school specifically, rather than someone just fishing for the best school he or she can get into.
I don't think this is "wrong" though, even if he is just as good or better as the people who got into those schools - because ultimately it doesn't really matter. Unless there was some specific important reason why he preferred Stanford over the others, Berkeley will be just as good. I seriously doubt Stanford educates its students significantly better than Berkeley does. And while people often make a big deal about the name recognition of the school you go to, it is a pretty minor factor when it comes to careers later in life.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I doubt this because he was not accepted into four different schools - meaning he would have had to hit four different people the wrong way, presumably with four different essays.
Of course. I didn't mean that it was necessary a factor in every rejection or waitlist shuffle, just that it can factor in sometimes. From my understanding of how these things work (admittedly limited, but I worked on a medical school admissions committee), the acceptance lists will differ from school to school.
That is, if 400 people apply to the same five different schools, there will be some overlap in the sets accepted at each school, but it will not be complete. Individual variations happen, sometimes for related reasons, sometimes not. *shrug
It isn't fair, but there it is.
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I have been told by my Uncle who worked in admissions at U of Michigan that they often rejected applicants that they saw that dabbled in everything but shone in nothing. The theory was that if you were involved in everything it was surface level. They actually preferred someone who was really devoted to one or two activities and perhaps did a few more smaller things. I don't know if this could have been one of the factors. I know I got accepted to a school that some of my friends with better grades didn't. My best guess is that it was a state championship in public speaking that pushed me over the edge. Its hard to guess though for sure. At elite schools, there are a lot of excellent students who all want to go and only a limited number of slots.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: You'd be surprised. There are several things that could get him turned down, including a bad recommendation, but the most likely thing is an issue with his essay. The essay is probably the most important part of a college application to a highly competitive school, once a certain (high, but reachable) standard has been reached.
Yep, stanford could accept all valedictorians who are all scholar athletes every year. The essay is thus the big variable in the equation.
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