22 replies to this topic

[SoLR]

Dear Sophomores/Rising Juniors of the Class of 2011 AND Juniors/Rising Seniors of the Class of 2010:

Your college research and application process has not yet formally begun, but a conversation with a parent indicated that there is some interest in the college statistics for the just graduated Class of 2009.

CAREFULLY REVIEW the two attached Excel files below.

The first file is the Summary Acceptance Data for BOTH the BTHS Class Years of 2008 AND 2009, sorted by college name.

The second file captures the FULL college acceptance, rejection, and other data for the just graduated BTHS Class of 2009, also sorted by college name.

The first file is easier to follow, the second is far more detailed: Use both.

All this data is drawn from Naviance, a resource you are also URGED to utilize to help guide you. When you conduct a college search on Naviance for any one college, you will be able to access the specific BTHS data for that one college as well as other data, including scattergrams that can-- if we have all your data uploaded-- show you where YOU fall in the admissions range for that school. But even WITHOUT all your data you can still make good use of this feature and the Naviance research tools.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GPAs SHOWN ON NAVIANCE ARE NOT WHAT YOUR COLLEGES WILL SEE AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT YOUR MOST RECENT CUMULATIVE GPA ON SCHOOL RECORDS. You all received transcripts in March and just received your final Spring report cards: use the transcript cumulative average x 3 (for Sophomores) or x 5 (for Juniors) + the June cumulative report card average and divide the sum by 4 (for Sophomores) or 6 (for Juniors) to get a simple but fairly accurate estimation of your final cumulative average through the end of this year.

Enjoy your Summer!

Attachments:
2008 and 2009Summary Acceptances by COLLEGE.xls
2009Admissions ResultsCOLLEGE DATA by COLLEGE.xls


Message by SolR: I recommend that everyone starts using Naviance, there's a lot of very important messages being constantly sent through it.

Edited by CollegeAdvisorBTHS: To make the letter apply to BOTH rising Juniors and rising Seniors since SolR felt free to post my message here before I got around to it.

Edited by CollegeAdvisorBTHS, 02 July 2009 - 08:16 PM.

[blackmanor1000]

Wow. This pretty helpful, actually, even for me in the class of 2012. It shows me what I should aim for, generally, for grades since I've still go 3 years left. I wish Naviance would send more of this stuff. I actually check my naviance account but I never get anything interesting...

[Noldi]

Wow...not even my gpa is high enough for some ivy league's

[blackmanor1000]

My GPA is within some of the ranges, but I could still boost it up hopefully.

[Noldi]

It only gets harder from freshman year.. it's quite a feat if you have a 99 average then, but still surprisingly not good enough for the ivy leagues. Some people still got rejected with 99, not to mention near perfect SAT's and like 5 SAT subject tests. I mean look at Princeton, everyone rejected.

[SoLR]

You have to understand that most people applying to schools such as Ivys are already expected to have high averages and test scores. It's the essay and the ECs that also play a large role in determining who gets in.

[CollegeAdvisorBTHS]

blackmanor1000, on Jul 4 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

Wow. This pretty helpful, actually, even for me in the class of 2012. It shows me what I should aim for, generally, for grades since I've still go 3 years left. I wish Naviance would send more of this stuff. I actually check my naviance account but I never get anything interesting...

While some Guidance Counselors and I use Naviance as an effective communications tool and to provide you with information, it is ALWAYS available to every registered student to conduct college and scholarship searches. But you need to log-in and access these resources and not simply sit around and "wait to get anything interesting." The resources are there, but you need to actively seek and use them.

As far as the Ivy League issue... anyone who is a rising Juniors or younger should learn now that there are many other fine colleges and universities out there that need to be explored and considered. Most of you-- whether from Tech or elsewhere-- simply won't gain admission into this caliber of school because the competition really is that difficult... even for the "best" among you. So while you might include SOME schools of this range among your college applications, you need to break out of the thinking that you can only succeed by attending one of these hyper-selective schools.

[leo2car]

IVY ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE.

[ionosphere]

What I find really weird about the data is that there are some people that are just denied in a cluster of accepted students. For example in CUNY Hunter people with 86.93-98.58 averages were all accepted except for one particular person who had a 90.37 avg and pretty good SAT scores. How did this happen?

[SoLR]

ionosphere, on Jul 10 2009, 03:10 PM, said:

What I find really weird about the data is that there are some people that are just denied in a cluster of accepted students. For example in CUNY Hunter people with 86.93-98.58 averages were all accepted except for one particular person who had a 90.37 avg and pretty good SAT scores. How did this happen?

Because while grades/scores play a big role in admissions, things like recommendations, ECs, and your admission essay play an equally important role. The 90.37 student mightve just had that good SAT score and no ECs, poor recommendations, or a poor essay. While the other students mightve had very powerful ECs, with excellent recommendations and a great essay.

[banapopy]

Is all the data completely accurate?
I have a question about the "Stony Brook University Scholars for Medicine Program"...
According to their website; http://www.sunysb.ed.../scholars.shtml
You need to be admitted into the honors college in order to be in that program...
It also says the minimum you MUST have a UNWEIGHTED 95 average and combined SAT of 1350..
How come on the college admission data, there is an individual whose stats are a 85.59 GPA and a combined SAT of 1330?
They don't show up on the "Honors College" rows either (although it might have been omitted because it would be redundant)
Whats up with that?

[CollegeAdvisorBTHS]

Regular CUNY admissions-- non-Macaulay Honors-- are based strictly on cumulative GPA and SAT scores... no other factors play a role in regular CUNY. As an educated assumption, I believe the rejected student might have applied to CUNY very LATE... not ever expecting to want or need CUNY... and by the time the application was processed the available seats for Hunter were assigned. No way to know for sure, but this does happen for those students who dismiss public universities until late in the game.

All the other factors-- recommendation letters, essays, extracurricular and internship and volunteer activities, outside learning opportunities, etc.-- DO play a role for most private schools and for any Honors programs within a public or private school. The MINIMUM standards an Honors program establishes (or the minimum admission statistics) are just that... the minimal expectations of a potential candidate with no guarantee for admission for any student who meets that minimum. And yes... programs like Scholars in Medicine or WISE at Stony Brook are very competitive. Do not make the mistake of thinking that public university = easy admission.

For further insight, read this:

A very astute Junior noticed that there is some "irregularity" with the admissions results.

By this she meant that many students who seem like they "should get in" do NOT, and others whose achievement seems to not earn admission do, in fact, get in.

This is part of the unfortunate reality of the college admissions process:
1. It does not always make sense, or perfectly follow statistical expectations.
2. It is frustrating because you can never know the real answer "why" a student was accepted or rejected. Every student is different, is more than a set of numbers, and is evaluated separately from other candidates.
3. You can do little about it other than making CERTAIN to have a varied range of colleges among those to which you apply, perhaps 25% safety/50% match/25% reach though this can be flexible. Do not aim exclusively high as this may result in excessively negative outcomes.
4. Disappointment is a part of this process, as will be success. See #3 to minimize disappointment.

You should all note, however, that exceptions are relatively RARE and that the majority of students who earn admittance to a given school fall within similar academic achievement ranges. Do not look to the exceptions too much for guidance as this will skew your perspective. And do not forget to check the national statistics as well.

At the end, ALL of you who want to will go on to college... and most of you to four year schools.
You may not always earn admission to your first, second, or third choice-- or may not always be able to afford the ones you get into-- but you WILL have choices IF you conduct the necessary research and develop a list of varied schools.

[ionosphere]

I feel REALLY sorry for that guy with the 90.37 average. A person with a 64 got in and he didn't. Also, what's the difference between the CUNY Hunter (Macaulay Honors College) and the regular one?

[Greencontainer14]

The biggest difference I can think of is that CUNY Macaulay honors offers free tuition and the regular one does not. You can always go to the CUNY site and read all about it.

One thing I want to say regarding the college process, is that you have to know how to sell yourself to a college. I've been told this and it has worked for me and other people I know. As you all probably can see, colleges don't have a set formula for choosing their students. You may even say the whole process is a bit random. I think it kind of is. Basically, there has to be something about yourself that you think will impress a college. It doesn't have to be something special about you, just something that will impress them, or that they're looking for (i.e your ethnicity, your economic background, your family history, your trials and tribulations, etc) .You should sell it by mentioning it somewhere in your application. This is just what you can do to make yourself stand out if you already have a high gpa and good extracurricular activities, which aren't the only things that are going to get you into a college.

[SoLR]

ionosphere, on Jul 11 2009, 04:14 AM, said:

I feel REALLY sorry for that guy with the 90.37 average. A person with a 64 got in and he didn't. Also, what's the difference between the CUNY Hunter (Macaulay Honors College) and the regular one?

If it makes you feel better, the person with the 90.37 average got into SUNY Stony Brook.

[tycoonboy388]

Just out of curiosity, is the College Office working on a list of the schools that the Class of 2009 will be attending? I know that there have been attempts in the past, in my year it did not seem to succeed, but the College Office has seemed to make great leaps in tracking student statistics since my graduation.

I feel like that information, coupled with the acceptance lists, would be very useful for rising Juniors and Seniors, because it helps paint a picture of where Tech students end up. Some people might be intrigued to see how many students actually accept the seats they have been offered, and it might help illustrate the need for other information, like scholarship awards and financial aid information, in helping prospectives deciding which schools to apply to.

[CollegeAdvisorBTHS]

tycoonboy388, on Jul 13 2009, 08:51 AM, said:

Just out of curiosity, is the College Office working on a list of the schools that the Class of 2009 will be attending? I know that there have been attempts in the past, in my year it did not seem to succeed, but the College Office has seemed to make great leaps in tracking student statistics since my graduation.

I feel like that information, coupled with the acceptance lists, would be very useful for rising Juniors and Seniors, because it helps paint a picture of where Tech students end up. Some people might be intrigued to see how many students actually accept the seats they have been offered, and it might help illustrate the need for other information, like scholarship awards and financial aid information, in helping prospectives deciding which schools to apply to.

Something MORE than the two files that open this topic? Well... nearly 400 students from the Class of 2009 volunteered to make their contact info and attending college info public, and this file was e-mailed to registered Naviance Juniors/Rising Seniors as an additional resource for information. But something that publicly lists each college students chose to attend? Not really useful, in my opinion, since the REASONS for those choices cannot possibly be gathered and listed (and the reasons are more important). Otherwise all you have is college names and number of students who chose to go there, and that does not provide substantive information to current students. Hope that answers the question?

[tycoonboy388]

It essentially answered my question. I had a silly reason for asking anyway, I saw that one Senior got into Tulane (out of 4), and was curious if he or she would be attending in the fall.

But I think its information that benefits some people, to see where their classmates are going, beyond acceptances, because as you said, it might help illustrate parts of the school (like a lack of financial aid or something to the sort).

[leo2car]

There is a college list on facebook by each college the name of people going there. Navice has the data for the class of 2009 in it already.

[gqismyalias]

www.mycollegestat.com