April Fools: You're Waitlisted at Stanford

No, it's not as mean as the title suggests. Apparently Stanford and a bunch of other major universities (according to Greg) announced that they would publish application decisions on April 1st, and then sent them out a day early as an April fools prank. So yesterday Greg received this:

March 31, 2009

Gregory Matthew Cobb

Dear Greg,

We have just completed our review of applications for admission to Stanford for fall2009, and I am writing to offer you a place on our waitlist. Although we cannot offer you admission at this time, I want to assure you that any student we place on our waitlist is someone who has shown great promise, whom we would like to admit if space becomes available...

This is a good accomplishment for Greg and I'm very proud of him. Stanford put 5% of their applicant pool into the waitlist so this means Greg was in the top 12% -13% -- a nice accomplishment. We're both realistic about the chances of eventually being admitted there (slim), but that doesn't take away from the the positive recognition that this represents.

Unfortunately the same day as Greg was accepted at UVA, he was not accepted at Duke. This brings the final scorecard to 3 admits (Georgia Tech, University of Illinois, UVA), 1 waitlist (Stanford) and 1 'sorry/no' (Duke).

Admissions Notifications Going Online

We're getting close to when admissions decisions are announced (roughly the start of April). MIT recently announced that they'd be publishing their decisions a couple of weeks early this year (for a very clever reason) and "exclusively on-line". Clearly this is the way all schools will communicate decisions in the future.

Greg heard from University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign several weeks ago. That acceptance was posted online, followed a week later by the 'big envelope'. Just today Georgia Tech rolled out their online notification system for the first time. Fortunately Greg was accepted there as well. He's now into both of his 'safety' schools. I wonder how we'll hear from the other three?

Update: I checked their admissions sites and here's how "the other three" seem to notify applicants:

• Stanford: will send an email to applicants after 5pm PT on April 1
• UVA: Traditional letters and status available on your personal application status page on their site.
• Duke: It seems like they email you with instructions for how to check online

Update II: ...and here's more detail from the UVA Admissions blog on when and how to see your decision.

Where did Greg Apply?

As long time readers of College Admission Forum know I've been sharing various aspects of my son Greg's college admission process over the past couple of years. Well, since it's late February of his Senior year we're almost at the finish line!

Greg ended up applying to five schools: Georgia Tech, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign, University of Virginia (UVA), Duke and Stanford.

Georgia Tech and Illinois were his 'safety' schools -- colleges that he'll almost certainly get into. In fact he already received his acceptance notification from Illinois about a week ago. Hopefully we'll hear from Tech (in our backyard here in Atlanta) in the next couple of weeks. He took a Calculus II course there last semester and attends a science and technology magnet high school that has a close association with Tech, so chances are good that he'll be accepted there as well.

Between then and the start of April the tension will build. Stanford and Duke are definitely 'stretch' schools -- ones where Greg's (and in fact most everybody's) chances are slim. I just saw the other day that Stanford's applications are up 20% this year and that Stanford's expecting only a 7% acceptance rate. UVA fits in the middle -- a school Greg should have a good chance of getting into based on his credentials.

Compared to the common advice I've read, and recent trends, Greg applied to fewer schools than is typical. Most would advise applying to 2 or 3 mid-range schools, for a total of 7 or 8. But the other wise advice I've heard is to only apply to schools that you'd actually want to attend. And in Greg's case that was these five.

Colleges May be Visiting Your Area This Fall

(updated with several additional schools including Northeastern, Rutgers, SMU, Tulane & Washington U. in St. Louis)

I just noticed a link on the MIT admissions site with their Fall travel schedule. MIT shows up here in Atlanta in mid-October. Here's MIT Admissions Director Matt McGann's overview of what will be covered. If you live near a major city it's likely that many selective colleges will be visiting this Fall. Check the admissions sites for colleges you're interested in to see if they'll be visiting your area. As another example, here's Carnegie Mellon's Fall travel schedule.

College Travel Schedules:

MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Vanderbilt roadshow schedule -- a 56 city blitz.
Duke
Stanford
Johns Hopkins
UVA
Cornell
Drexel University
Northwestern
Princeton
Purdue
Penn
Harvard, Princeton & UVA
Dartmouth
Columbia
NYU
Northeastern University
Rutgers
SMU
Tulane
Washington University (St. Louis)

Upcoming Duke Engineering & Rice Admissions Activities

If you're interested in Duke's Pratt School of Engineering or Rice University there are a couple of upcoming admissions activities you should be aware of.

The Pratt School at Duke is hosting "In Focus" on Saturday October 4, from 8:15am-4:00pm. Click on the link above for a full agenda. Unfortunately this is happening on the same day as the SAT (who planned that?!), which Greg is taking, so we won't be flying up to Durham to attend.

Rice is hosting "Discover Rice", a general admissions program aimed at interested students from outside the Houston area. It happens the next day, Sunday October 5, from 1pm - 6pm in Houston. We may take this trip. Greg's interested in Rice and it seems like a good fit. His main concern is that it's located in Houston. So since he's never been there a good way to see if it's worth applying to (and possibly attending) Rice is to experience the campus and the city first hand. If we're going to do a campus visit before applications are due this seems like a good opportunity. Of course between the day trip to Houston and the SAT, it will be one busy weekend.

Early Decision?

Greg & I discussed whether he should apply for 'early decision' yesterday so I spent some time looking into it. Here's what I'm thinking/have concluded at this point:

• If there's one school you really have your heart set on, there's no downside to applying early decision (assuming they offer it). The obvious benefit is that if you get in there, no more admissions effort!


• If there's more than one school you're interested in, then the downside of going 'early decision' on one is that you can't choose early decision on the other(s), and if you get in to the school where you applied 'early', you're obligated to go there. When you apply 'early' you are asked to affirm that you're only applying early to one place, and most early decisions are binding.


• If the financial aid package is critical for your decision, and you need to compare it across schools, then 'early decision' is probably not for you. There are a couple of variants of early decision (early action and restrictive early action) that provide some leeway for folks in this situation.

Some other factoids: Early Decision application deadlines seem to be around Nov 1, with decisions published mid-December. There are three possible outcomes: accepted, denied, deferred into the regular decisions process. In some cases there seems to be a slightly increased chance of acceptance if you apply early (see Duke below).

Here's what Stanford and Duke say on their admissions sites about early decision/action:

Facts About Stanford’s Restrictive Early Action Program
Stanford’s Restrictive Early Action program is a program for students who know, at the time of application, that Stanford is their first choice – and not a program that should be used as a strategy for admission. This is the design of a Restrictive Early Action program versus a more open Early Action admission program offered at other institutions. Because a student's financial aid offer is often a critical factor in making a final college choice, Stanford's Restrictive Early Action program provides time for families to consider financial aid awards from multiple schools before making a final commitment to enroll. Applicants must agree to only submit one Restrictive Early Action application. Applicants are allowed to apply for Regular Decision admission at any number of other colleges and universities.

Duke EARLY DECISION
This option is suited for students who are sure that Duke is their first choice among college options; who have established strong and consistent academic records throughout secondary school; and who will have completed all the required standardized testing by the end of October. About 10 percent of our applicants apply under our Early Decision plan. There is a slight advantage in the admissions process to applying Early Decision. Early Decision candidates must be willing to attend Duke if they are accepted in December. Students admitted under this plan may be released only for compelling financial reasons and may not reapply to Duke under the Regular Decision Plan.

Campus Visits, Same ol' Same ol'

Greg and I have done 6 campus visits over the past year. Starting last summer with Emory and Georgia Tech, then on to Princeton, Vanderbilt, Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. We did Emory and Georgia Tech to kick-start the process, because they were in our back yard (and Greg will apply to Georgia Tech). For the others we happened to be in the area and they were schools he might consider.

Our main conclusion... If you just take the standard student-led campus tour, sit through the hour long admissions director's canned powerpoint, and walk around the campus a little on your own, they all seem the same. Same high academic standards, same selective admissions, same awesome students, same pretty buildings and amazingly, multiple acapella groups (no lie, four of the six tour guides showed us the cupolas and arches under which they performed).

So Greg isn't finding these tours all that helpful as a way of sifting through the colleges and has resisted investing the time visiting more. That said, we've convinced him to go on one more college tour in the waning days of summer, before school starts. Next Tuesday we head to Duke, Virginia Tech and UVA, all schools on his 'long list' and here in the southeast.

The thing I need to figure out, between now and then, is what we should do differently this time to make these three tours more informative and helpful than the last six were.