good dolphin wrote:
Telegram Sam wrote:
Jaw Breaker wrote:
Thought about posting this in the Student Loan thread, but my oldest child just found out he didn't get into Notre Dame. This despite being in the top 1% in every academic metric. Took every available AP class/test. National Merit Scholar semi-finalist (the highest you can get, as they haven't announce the finalists yet). Tons of extracurriculars, played varsity sports as an underclassman. My wife is an ND alum/legacy. Did the early admissions application.
I'm taking it harder than he is, though I know he has plenty of company. His childhood friend, a girl he's known since they were 6, has literally PERFECT everything...and she just found out she didn't get into Stanford.
My Brother-in-Law is an alum. He's not insufferable about it (or maybe he is -I don't spend that much time around him) but he grew up in a rough area of Detroit proper, and he's a later-in-life converted Catholic, I know it's really important to him. He and my sister have 4 sons, I know he will be more crestfallen than they will if none of them a.) want to go there or b.) get in.
You have to set your expectations appropriately early in the process. The difference between acceptance and denial at all of these schools is razor thin these days.
Yep, though the thing that irks me the most is my kid wasn't even waitlisted... in their eyes, he wasn't even projected to be a "maybe." When you break down the number of available spots, I guess I should have expected it. Let's say they have 2,000 openings. I'm guessing a couple hundred of those are set aside for athletes. Then you divide in half for male/female. Then you take a certain number of disadvantaged/minority/foreign/etc kids. Then look at the requested major (business, humanities, engineering, etc). And then, unfortunately, there is probably the donation factor. My son was probably vying for one of only a couple hundred spots, or less, for his demographic.
It's such a different world now. Northwestern has always been a good school, but as recently as 2008 the acceptance rate was over 25%. Now it's under 10%. Twenty kids from my son's school applied last year (many with 35 and 36 ACT scores) and none got in. When I was in high school, a 28 could get you in.
There are more kids applying than ever before and each one of those kids is applying to more schools than ever before. That results in these insane acceptance rates. It makes the kids mental as it is rejection. The truth of it is that a good chunk of the kids rejected are every bit as viable of a student than the one's accepted.
My boy got deferred at Georgetown this weekend. I was pretty impressed he made it to a second review given the rates of acceptance. The good thing about wanting to go to school in DC though is that there are several other schools offering good programs in politics and unlimited internships. You can make a case that any school in DC is fungible if the student is diligent about pursuing the internships. I'll be perfectly happy if he goes to American or GW. Georgetown does open doors though. A place like ND doesn't really have a comparable.
On the good side he is currently at 5-0-1 with Dr. Ken's letter of recommendation pushing him over the top at ILL.