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Post by WilsonBlvdHoya on Jan 28, 2005 21:50:13 GMT -5
Class of 2009 looking even more competitive just from Early Admits: Avg. admitted SAT - 1450, avg. rank in class - top 3%. And 3200 of projected 15200 apps already with SAT Verbal >= 750; apparently not all apps have been processed yet which means that figure will undoubtedly go higher...... www.thehoya.com/news/012805/news4.cfmShould we show these stats to the Nova folks?!
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 1, 2005 17:38:09 GMT -5
My interviewee last night has a 720 in English and 800 in math. Think she will get in? I guess it is not definite, because I have seen statistics that indicates GU turns down students even with these scores. I am not sure why, maybe rank in class (an underachiever)?
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Feb 1, 2005 18:52:15 GMT -5
My interviewee last night has a 720 in English and 800 in math. Think she will get in? I guess it is not definite, because I have seen statistics that indicates GU turns down students even with these scores. I am not sure why, maybe rank in class (an underachiever)? Nevada, it is my understanding that GU wants somewhat of a cross-section of talents. We don't just take the top SAT score/GPA combos and move on, like UC Berkeley. So if you take the group of people in the 1300-1600 range, even then, we're probably only taking 30% of those people! Someone has to not get in.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Feb 1, 2005 19:04:31 GMT -5
My interviewee last night has a 720 in English and 800 in math. Think she will get in? I guess it is not definite, because I have seen statistics that indicates GU turns down students even with these scores. I am not sure why, maybe rank in class (an underachiever)? As in all universities, acceptance also reflects the admissions office's best estimate of who will be likely to attend if they were accepted. In the case of your interviewee, they may decide that he/she is more likely to attend a Penn, Princeton, or Stanford, so she may ultimately be rejected for that reason.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 2, 2005 17:07:25 GMT -5
Do you think they make a conscious choice to exclude those, whom they think will turn GU down? Of course, this is one of the rating points in the US Today survey (yield), but how can you know a priori that some student will turn GU down. Does GU get a list of the school they have applied to and if they have Harvard listed and their combined SAT is 1600, then GU excludes them?
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tgo
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Post by tgo on Feb 2, 2005 17:30:39 GMT -5
i always ask where they applied and why, mainly to see if they took time to consider their applications and if GU is right for them given what they are looking for. i use this in my reports. if the kid doesnt know much about the schools he applied to that will count against him, just like applying for a job you have to do your homework not figure it out after you have the offer.
The admin office will tell you they dont deny people who they are sure are going to harvard or MIT but i am sure it is at least a thought in the back of their minds if not more, yield is of course very important.
i had an interview last week with a kid of over 1500 SATs but he did not get a great review from me since he was just an average nice kid, nothing special.
of course i dont know if he has perfect grades and great essays, his parents going to GU should help him also but I dont think he should get in given the kids who we turn down on a regular basis, we will see.
this kid btw, did not apply to any other schools on GU's level so it would seem he would go if he gets in.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Feb 2, 2005 18:03:43 GMT -5
Simply not true at GU. Many schools take part in this nefarious practice known as interest-based admissions, but Georgetown has no policy of trying to predict who will attend in making their admissions decisions. If you reject or waitlist the top students in your pool, then you have no chance to enroll those students, and you end up with lower quality student body for the sake of manipulating a phony yield number that everyone knows is phony. If Georgetown was concerned with manipulating yield statistics there are many ways it could be done, such as Early Decision or tracking contacts with the university, but the adminisitration has chosen to keep competition for places in the class pure in order to get the best student body possible.
So if you see students with over 1500 on the SAT and in the top 5% of their class who are not admitted, it is because competition is strong, not because Georgetown does not think they will come. Many subjective factors do come into the decisions, so there will certainly be cases where admitted students will have lower scores than many students not admitted. Over the years, with no concern for future yield in the decision making process, the university has had a yield rate between 40% and 50% for many years and more accurate measures of student choices such as the recent Avery revealed preference study place Georgetown in the top 20 colleges and universities in the country, ahead of Duke among others.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Feb 2, 2005 18:49:52 GMT -5
Anyone else get the feeling that we might have a harder time getting in to GU if we were competing with today's applicants? A 1450 average SAT? jeez.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 3, 2005 14:04:38 GMT -5
KC, of course, all the SAT scores were re-normalized several years ago, so if you were admitted before this process, add about 50 points to each of the English and Math to get your current score. It was my thinking that this was the case. Saying that, I believe even Jack DeG. questioned whether he could have gotten into GU under the present admissions standards. He said he was talking to some other university presidents, and they indicated the same. Oftentimes in an interview, the interest in GU comes clear, and I tend to put a stronger weight on this interview, and consequently a higher score, to that person, who has great enthusiasm for Georgetown, especially if other elements in the interview are consistent with this enthusiasm. On other interviews you can sense that the student just applied to GU, maybe not for a "safe" school, but somebody mentioned that you should apply here; not much interest or research on GU. One such student came late for the interview and in sloppy clothes (his father was an MD); he did get admitted, but I do not believe he accepted. Maybe my score was not low enough (maybe 5 or 6); I never saw his rank in class and SATs, so those scores must have been high. My last interviewed student had high scores, but not really any enthusiasm for GU, so this was like the student that tgo interviewed. However, I am sure my student applied to some top schools (like Duke, where her sister went...aargh).
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Feb 3, 2005 16:49:38 GMT -5
One thing the admissions office asks of its interviewers every year is not to try to ascertain whether a student has Georgetown as their first choice. It is a tough question to answer and no matter what the response it is not particularly helpful. If the student says yes, it is, there is no way of knowing that is the truth. If they say no, Harvard is, there is no way of knowing that they will get in there and that they would not grow to love Georgetown even as a second choice.
That is not to say interviewers should not care whether a student has made a thoughtful choice in applying to Georgetown- it is certainly appropriate to ask about their college selection process, even other schools they may be considering in an attempt to gain background on their choices. There is a difference between a student who has Georgetown as one of many possibilities and a total disinterest in the place, and interviewers are asked to try to understand that. Ultimately, if a candidate is very strong and the only thing standing in his way is a lukewarm interview report based on a sense that he might go elsewhere, the student will still be admitted. That might not be the surest way to fill the front row of the student section, but it is the fairest and best way to bring the strongest students to Georgetown and provide some level of predictability to the high schools sending applicants to the Hilltop every year.
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Post by WilsonBlvdHoya on Feb 3, 2005 19:39:43 GMT -5
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 4, 2005 16:51:55 GMT -5
Anybody know what Georgetown's legacy admit rate is?
I know of only one direct comparison between gaining admission to GU and getting into Penn. One student that I interviewed got waitlisted at GU, but was accepted by Penn, where he finally went.
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Post by reformation on Feb 5, 2005 12:51:30 GMT -5
agree nevada, would love to know how gu's legacy admit rate compares to other schools
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 6, 2005 15:18:21 GMT -5
I am interested in our legacy rate, because I have heard about former classmates' being upset with the GU admissions policy, since their kids, presumably good students, did not get in. Consequently, their giving in the annual fund went down.
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hoya4ever
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Post by hoya4ever on Feb 7, 2005 22:13:08 GMT -5
for those of you interested in admissions, i have studied this extensively. Georgetown doesn't know which schools you are applying to unless you apply Early Decision somewhere and get in. Our legacy numbers were in the mid 40% two years ago, but less legacies were applying and/or attending. (maybe we need to be top 20 again?) GU doesn't let legacies get in easier, my brother tried but unfortunatly failed to get in. You also have to consider that if you are the kid of a legacy then you probably had access to a somewhat better education... which might give you the advantage ergo the higher admission rate
Oh, and for those of you interviewing people, I have tried to get the admissions office to make interest in GU a bigger part of the application. Other schools, like Emory or Miami in Florida, keep track when you visited, when you called, and whether you ordered a free info video. unfortunately, interviewers are our only line of defense in this one. try to see how excited the kid is about going here. The worst thing that can happen is not that they turn us down but that they come and become ivy-crazed students, eager to transfer, not participating in athletic events...
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Feb 8, 2005 11:34:41 GMT -5
If you have not figured it out by now, I have worked with the admissions process for several years. I do not know where hoya4ever gets his information, but he is not correct when he says that there is no favorable consideration for legacies. He is right that many of them are already among the top students in the pool, but there is still extra consideration for those who have been most involved with the university community, and it translates to legacies being admitted at nearly double the overall admit rate, or somewhere around 40%. What is confusing to some is that the family's involvement with GU is as important as the student's own record once you get past the top cases. So a student who is in the top 10% of their class with a 1400 SAT and a parent who attended Georgetown but has never been involved as an alumnus is in no better position than a kid with no Georgetown ties and the same record.
Also, we continue to refute the interest-based admission model practiced by many of our peers and wannabe peers such as Emory as a disingenuous policy designed only to manipulate statistics and having no bearing on the quality of the student experience, and our student satisfaction, retention, and graduation rates continue to bear out that belief, with well over 95% of students returning for their sophomore years. Georgetown has never tracked contacts, asks alumni not to consider whether GU is the first choice, and discounts interview reports that make an issue of it, and I would not have it any other way.
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Post by reformation on Feb 8, 2005 14:09:24 GMT -5
Jack, you probably know this, but why does GU seem to continue to show a high degree of favoritism to kids from certain high schools, it seems that we seem to prefer second level candidates from some schools vs first tier from others. This type of "legacy" might have made sense when top candidates were not widely dispersed, but doesn't seem to make sense today. --Does GU track how kids do by HS--it would be interesting to look at.
Anecdotally, I did not go to a gtwn feeder school, but almost all the kids from my hs who went to gtwn did extremely well at the school and afterward. A couple of nearby, hs' that sent large #'s to Gtwn-these students did not do anywhere near as well as the students from my hs--purely anecdotal stuff I know, but I seemed to notice the bias continuing throgh years of alumni interviewing.
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tgo
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Post by tgo on Feb 8, 2005 15:13:37 GMT -5
I think that interest in the school can be a tool to evaluate the student when taken in context. If you have a student who has thought through his choices and done his homework he should win the tie with someone who hasnt, much like in a job interview, if you and another candidate are equally matched but you had some good questions and knew a lot about my company then i would hire you over the other equally qualified candidate. I dont think that has to translate into the numbers game where we weigh heavily those who have GU as #1 so that our yield is higher. I also think where a student applied and why tells you something about them and their level of maturity.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Feb 8, 2005 23:40:47 GMT -5
Reformation- It is hard to give an answer that will satisfy every situation, as much of the evidence you cite is anecdotal and a more systematic look at the entire pool would show patterns that make more sense, but I suppose the first point I would make is that some "feeder school" type relationships exist because those schools continue to attract the top students and in fact have much more diverse student groups than they did when they first gained their reputation. Prep schools like Andover and Exeter send the largest number of applicants to Georgetown every year and their students do get in at rates higher than average, but they also do a phenomenal job of attracting diverse, national, international, talented students, the type of students we strive to admit at Georgetown. Those schools are like one stop shopping to find kids from rural Kansas and Harlem alike, and they are better prepared than the kids who have stayed in those areas for high school.
As for tracking of how students from particular high schools perform, we have not done that, at least not recently. It is an area I am interested in exploring if we ever have the time and access to the data, but it speaks to the year-round nature of the admissions process and the overly bureaucratic set-up of the university when I say that I don't know if it will ever happen. I would like to know more about how admissions decisions translate to Georgetown success, but I also would not want a relatively small sample size of one or two students enrolling every year from most schools to prejudice the decision-making process too much.
I imagine this answer is not completely satisfying to you, but I don't know how much more specific I can be in responding to your general concerns. I would be happy to talk more off-line if you want to send me a PM about the particulars of your situation. I hope it will suffice to say that yours is not an unfamiliar refrain and it is something we take seriously, but there are also some good reasons behind the decisions that are not readily apparent to the outside observer.
tgo- You are absolutely right to ask about the student's thought processes in applying to college. We certainly appreciate students who have made thoughtful applications and we are not interested in admitting students who do not know anything about our community or who hold Georgetown in low esteem. My comment was only to say that the admissions committee typically discounts comments from interviewers to the effect of "He seemed more interested in Princeton" or "She had never been to campus so I don't think her interest is that serious." Those highly subjective statements that try to read minds are not helpful.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Feb 9, 2005 13:55:54 GMT -5
This is something I've been wondering about since I got accepted: I applied early and since GTown was my #1 choice, my counselor said that he'd tell the admissions people that I would go if admitted (effectively making it an early decision admission). Supposedly, he's well connected enough that they believed him (my school sends around 3 kids each year-out of 100). I've never really been able to decide whether or not this effected my admittance (My gpa/sat/resume were pretty solid). I'd love to hear whether this would actually have any effect.
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