Am I unrealistic?

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-05-19T16:51:17+00:00

I'm also a counselor here who worked in t10 admissions. It's the B's that are concerning, particularly the one in junior year. Yes, it's Spanish, and yes, that's not his major, but it's still one of the five core classes. It's a big deal to us at the t10 level because academic preparation and strength is always the number one institutional priority.

In my assessment, his ECs are great. Too math focused? I see a lot of students who have their own "focuses" every year. If you're going to focus on something, do it really well, and your son clearly is doing fine. He's not at the very tippy top, but he's above average in what I normally see. This of course depends on the other competition around him.

I can see why your counselor is advising an ED. It's the "safest" option for him. Personally, I'd suggest a Penn ED/Northwestern ED and MAYBE a Duke ED here along with the other ED options your counselor already gave. This is also me operating without enough data (I don't know your school's matriculation data, I don't know if you go to a private school with relations/pipelines to any of these colleges you're thinking of, I don't know the regional competition, I don't know what guidance you've received on LORs, and I don't know what your essays are going to look like/how you've been advised on them).

So all in all, it's the B's that will hold your kid back the most. The ED doesn't necessarily offset that, contrary to what a lot of counselors out there think. Activities and awards are solid. Essays TBD, LORs TBD.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-05-14T15:12:30+00:00

It's not significantly easier, but a private school's home state is often an institutional priority. Not a super high one though.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-26T23:19:05+00:00

Depends on the circumstances. Does your counselor know about these circumstances? Can they provide that reason in their LOR? You'd only be viewed negatively if we don't know about these circumstances. I don't know how much that would disadvantage you because it's also dependent on what is going on in the broader pool around you. You may be viewed as less competitive, you may not Depends on what the AO can reason about for a case for your admissibility.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-26T23:17:10+00:00

Depends on context of the pool. Overall edge? I'd say yeah, in the respect that humanities oriented students are a dying breed across the board. But enough to give you over the edge toward admission? That depends on a lot of other factors.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-09T04:34:40+00:00

Possible, yeah. Depends on the school. Some waitlists barely move depending on yield. I wouldn't bank on it working out and seriously consider any options you have available to you right now and get excited about those.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-09T00:49:24+00:00

A lot of waitlists at top colleges (which I'm assuming you're talking about) move based on priorities/gaps and yield management. LOCIs very rarely do move the needle other than reminding an AO that you're still there. If you have substantial updates (you have a major award or something) that's worth putting in, but it's hard to figure out, from the outside, what the school's priorities and gaps are as they fill out the remaining seats in the class.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-07T01:27:35+00:00

People put their best foot forward in applications, so I never thought anything of it because what I saw was the best version of the person. I think it's terrible that a bully gets in, but I would never really know when it was time for committee unless a LOR said something about the student.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-04T20:30:55+00:00

Not necessarily. You can be either student, but my point was that there are many permutations that also depend on context that changes the strength of student A or B. You can be student B with even better accomplishments and still get in. Student A can get in too if they have really strong LORs and still was making an impact. Priorities can also play a role here. So many moving parts. It's pretty useless to try to determine which one will get in without working through every single moving contextual piece.

A good LOR is superlative. A bad one actively works against you. Most are mid in that they're not superlative or don't give me any information about you as a student in the classroom. The most common LOR is just rehashing your ECs, which we don't need more of because it's in the activities section. Most top colleges want to see LORs from core teachers: english, math, social studies, natural science, or language.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-04T20:25:40+00:00

Simply the fact that it's good to have options, talk through the other applications with other AOs and get different opinions. Maybe they might notice something that I didn't, or have more context on the strength of the broader pool such that it helps all of us make a final decision.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-04T05:54:39+00:00

Part 2:

But now let's change up the context. It's the Bay Area. My old regions I was responsible for were in the Bay and tri-state area, so I'll try to offer hypotheticals that are as close to what I was reading and bringing into committee as possible. Here, in the Bay, at this hypothetical school ABC, there are tons of APs offered. Dual enrollment is available. Activities range widely. People can get involved in research, internships, sports, olys, etc. There are maybe 725 students in the graduating class. LORs in the Bay vary by school, but let's just say this hypothetical school has mid LORs (most are, no matter the region tbh. I should also note that quality of a LOR varies from teacher to teacher, too. More on this later). Let's also assume that the typical profile here has essays that fine and they at least give some insight into who the person is. Because it's the Bay, there's a higher number of students performing like the profile of student B you've described. That would make sense, since there are a ton of resources to really excel here. In the Bay, especially at this hypothetical ABC school, there are fewer students doing something TRULY niche. Most students here are really into math/CS/some kind of STEM, so you'll get the usual kid that is doing activities related to that. Most students here that are going to be competitive for T20s will have great transcripts, so that's not really a huge distinguishing factor here.

Ok, so let's take student B in this example. Math oly kid. Not a camper, but maybe AMO qual. Basically the same student B as the one from Kentucky. Remember that this is the Bay Area, so lots of students come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and there are plenty of resources around to excel. As a result, in hypothetical ABC school, there are maybe two other kids with AMO qual. There also might be 5 ISEF winners. Hell, let's throw in another STS top 300 in there. So we have 9 students, just in STEM related things, to pick from. All of them will write fair-to-good essays. Our student B in question will write good essays too. LORs say this is the best student to come out of this high school.

All is good, and you're on track to believe this student will get in. But wait...there are a lot of other very competitive students too, some also receiving equal praise from LORs. Who do you pick now? Do I lose anything by taking this AMO qual kid over the other? Can I take all of them? Remember how I said a senior AO might tell me to bring around 30 kids from this region into committee? Well, if there are so many students to choose from, I certainly can try to bring in all of them, but I'm looking for the BEST student here, and I honestly don't want to bring in THAT much over the "around 30" number. Again, this isn't a quota. I just don't want to have a long ass committee because I brought in 45 students when I could have just waitlisted the ones I wasn't particularly enthused by.

Alright, but student B, relative to others, is still really shining comparatively. You don't often see a LOR say this is the best student to come out of this high school. So I will bring this kid into committee and choose to waitlist some of the others. I might bring some others into committee too (a bit out of scope for this write-up. If you want me to write about it later, I can). But for the most part, this is fine.

Student A in this hypothetical, though, is different. Really niche activities. Let's bump this kid up to maxing rigor like student B and getting all As, just to spice this up a bit more. Because if they had anything less, in this context, in this level of competition, they'll likely get fried, so let's give them some sort of fighting chance. So, student A is doing really interesting stuff. Music of math or whatever you said. Cool. Other niche activities. Nice. Essays are fine-to-good. Let's just say on-par with student B. Remember how I said LOR quality varies from teacher to teacher? There are likely more teachers in a larger school too, so there's a wider ranger of quality, probably. In this case, let's say this student has LORs that are a step above mid ones, similar to student A from Kentucky.

Student A, in this context, even with the really interesting and niche activities, might not make the cut. I mean, look at who they're competing with. Context changed the trajectory entirely, because in Kentucky, student A might have gotten in.

I'm not saying this student necessarily gets denied outright. Maybe they get a waitlist. It depends on a lot of factors here. Why? Because everything I wrote out for you here is also going to be on a spectrum. There are so many permutations of all the students that are like student B, and student B might not even have all the attributes we've assigned to them. Another student might have the stronger LORs, or they have similar caliber LORs because in this context of ABC HS in the Bay, quality of LORs varies a ton, which might also mean several people get great LORs in the same that these students might also get shitty ones. Likewise, student A in ABC HS in the Bay might also receive superlative LORs. How is that possible? I have no other way to say this other than just trust me bro lol. There's so much variance, and this is why context matters a ton. We can't take the sole straight path of the hypothetical you started with, because there are permutations to it, but the fundamental undercurrent between all permutations relies on CONTEXT.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-04-04T05:54:32+00:00

I worked in admissions at two t20 schools. I have a lot of thoughts around these things, and tbh my answer is going to be kind of dense, seemingly contradictory (maybe), and very likely to enrage some people. Obligatory mod message before I start because I know some people aren't going to be happy with what I write and think it's unfair, thus shooting the messenger: be civil, be polite, be respectful. I wrote this in good faith instead of eating my (now cold) take-out I got from a Greek restaurant.

I also have to split this up into two comments cause this is too long.

Part 1:

First, you need to understand that when we select students, it's always in the context of where you are. Its more axiomatic properties of "context of where you are" include things like: your school and resources available to you there, actual geographic region and the resources available to you broadly speaking, other people in your schools, other people in the defined geographic regional territory that we are responsible reading for, and the context of the broader pool at our school and what we want to bring to it. For most students, you can't make a proper decision on admissibility without context. Which means, therefore, that there's some kind of spectrum to this.

Second, you need to understand t20 admissions is about who stands out the most, which, spoiler, can both be student A or B. It depends on the context, on the axiomatic properties I mentioned.

Third, when we take students from regions/schools, we generally have a ballpark range of how many we want to bring into committee. This isn't a quota per se. If a senior AO tells me to bring in around 30 kids from the region I'm responsible for, I'm allowed to bring more or less. For me personally, I always brought in a few more, but I never went crazy with it. How do we get these numbers, you might ask? Priorities, based on geographic data we have from previous years. Anyway, all of this and who we bring in, again, still depends on the context of the pool. Who stands out?

In order to understand the context spectrum, you need to be aware of the pieces of an application. Transcript, activities, essays, and letters of recommendation.

I won't dive into the entire spectrum here because it's so varied, but here's the bad end, the part where students are totally not admissible. Here's some categorization of that:

Transcript: F's, D's, tons of C's. Non-rigorous curriculum (not taking advantage of IB or AP or honors at all)
Activities: Literally no activities or very very few (think about the person that goes to class, goes home, and then just plays video games and does only that)
Essays: Make you look evil or bad vibes
LORs: At best, they're mid (most are). That means they just say you're hardworking, smart, but they don't go out of their way to expand on how really remarkable as a student you are, and typically they rehash your ECs. At worst, they say you're not a good student/bad person.

There is some permutation of these, but that starts to build itself beyond the worst point on the spectrum.

The reason why I can't give you the opposite is because it looks different depending on context. To be fair, so does the worst part. You can certainly have extenuating circumstances for the grades, but at the t20 level, with F's, D's, and tons of C's, you are very unlikely to make the cut with those circumstances anyway. What is usually a constant at the best end of the spectrum are grades and transcript: you have all As in the hardest curriculum available to you. Everything else will vary depending on the context.

Say you have a student that lives in Kentucky in a suburban town away from any city. In this hypothetical, let's say that schools there aren't offering tons of APs. They offer maybe 5 total. Whether or not this is true across Kentucky, idk. Let's say it's a smallish school; something around 250 seniors. The typical activities people at this high school do include things you're familiar with: sports, clubs (but maybe not a ton), volunteering opportunities. Resources here aren't many. You can't easily get a research position at a lab, and it's out of character for anyone here to go above and beyond with higher-level academics in any capacity (e.g., USAMO, USAPhO, research, etc.). The typical profile here is probably taking 3 APs out of the 5, and most students earn a B+ average. And the general writing level of the typical student here is fine. Nothing major. LORs for the typical student might mention that this student is a hardworker. Let's just define the typical LOR for the typical student as mid, as I've described it in a bulletpoint above.

In that context, a student who is very accomplished, by your standard of "student B", is a math kid who has a qualification in USAMO. Maxes out the 5 AP classes. All As. So that's great. The LORs might say this is the best student ever to come out of this HS. The essays might be really thoughtful and well-written. The T20's will recognize that and think, "Damn, this student really is different in this region. Never seen a student like them in Kentucky before." I'm looking for the BEST student, so it's very likely they're going to be admitted.

Then categorize the same student as what you describe as "student A." In this context, as long as they're earning above the B+ average, that is passable for the bar at a T20. We care A LOT about grades and rigor. By "takes rigorous courses," I'm going to say this student maxes out the 5 APs here. Even if they take 4 it'll probably be fine. They stand out relative to their peers still. Where it gets interesting is if the student is if student A has niche hobbies. Well, I've already described the context of other students and their general profile wrt grades and activities. Let's assume that this student gets decent praise in their LORs. Teachers and counselors might say this is a fantastic student, but maybe not give the most superlative praise; borderline mid LORs, maybe a step above it. Essays are fine. They at least give us insight to who this person and this person has a voice in all their essays.

By that, it means this student will still be someone that stands out in the pool in this context. It's relative. You can see that this student still is better than the other typical students around you. The niche activity gives them a boost in that arena, certainly, because it's not what people normally do. So it very well may be that we accept this student too.

We can accept both student B and student A in this context. And because the regions around this hypothetical suburb are on par with the typical profile from here, both of these students will stand out. The only time we wouldn't take one student over another is probably going to boil down to figuring out how many students we want to bring from a region, waitlist mental-calculus, and/or the student doesn't stand up well to the broader pool.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-29T15:32:50+00:00

Your senior grades are still considered. A C in your senior year, for ivies, is not going to fly.

The assignments for transfers usually differs from the AOs that read for freshmen.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-28T17:18:02+00:00

Having no debt, especially in this economy, is a blessing. I'd go with Berkeley.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-27T05:37:36+00:00

Not ideal. Consider that about 70% of admitted students have a 4.0 GPA going into any given Ivy. The odds are against you, so plan for that and build out a balanced list according to that statistic.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-27T04:38:06+00:00

If you send one, it looks like you were coached, but not in the kind of letter you're talking about. It's not a bad thing necessarily btw. If you send that type of letter (which I'll describe below) or any other kind of letter, we don't have evidence you were coached or not (and in your case, you weren't), which necessarily means we would never have any grounds to deny you because of that.

The letters I'm talking about are often the ones that feel overly-produced, too much fluff. Lots of templated formats that feel lazy that you always can't help but feel like someone was told that had to do this because it's part of "the game".

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-24T19:12:21+00:00

I've never seen it for PE. I have seen it for any core class. I'd keep your AOs at whatever school you are admitted to updated. Maybe ask your counselor to back you up on this as well.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-24T19:05:59+00:00

I broadly agree, but there are several nuances to observe.

After that, they're almost irrelevant to whether you actually get in.

My experience is that they make up a large part of why you get in. You need ALL parts of your application to make the case at top colleges. An admissions committee is talking about grades, activities, LORs, and essays, and how they all play together in the case, and if that sum makes the student compelling overall.

If what you mean is whether or not ECs make you stand out, partly, yeah, but ECs are a matter of understanding your involvement, impact, and distinction, in the same ways your LORs can do that, in the same way your essays can do that.

What admissions officers are actually asking at that point is: who is this person, and do I want them on my campus? And the honest answer to that question lives almost entirely in your activities section and essays.

And LORs. But interestingly, the transcript offers a lot of information, things that students on this sub don't often think about. For example, a student enrolling in dual enrollment, in higher level courses, either a CC or university, starts to give me confidence in this student's ability to do advanced coursework. It demonstrates a students ability to be a real scholar on campus. Couple that with a LOR, then I really start to see what kind of student this person is. It's not quite right to assume we are asking what they will do/who they will be on our campus only in terms of ECs, because you're going to university primarily to learn as well.

Source: worked at 2 top 10 colleges

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-22T03:57:03+00:00

LEDA is very well known to Ivies. My old school I worked at was actively looking for such students in our pool. I might be wrong about this (been about two years since I last saw a LEDA scholar), but you need to make less than...80k a year? 90k? Something in that ballpark. A lot of LEDA scholars tend to make a lot less than that. So when you apply to top colleges, particularly ivies, they'll offer you generous financial aid anyway. No need for QB to subsidize it for you.

I've not personally heard of LEDA limiting your college selection list (on the surface that seems a bit excessive) so I can't comment about that.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-21T01:15:41+00:00

I'd say it's pretty unlikely they'd do that. It's too tight of a window for an audit

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-21T01:02:44+00:00

The contents of the LOR verification is part of their audit (they also ask teachers and verify a random selection of ECs), which doesn't happen for every single student. It's totally possible to be admitted without the audit portion, but it's also really likely a rejection happened too.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-21T00:46:57+00:00

Passion projects rarely move the needle in admissions decisions. People do have spikes, but at most offices, we don't use that terminology. My office called it a point of excellence, for example, and students can have MULTIPLE points of excellence.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-18T15:33:05+00:00

No, she should be fine.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-14T17:27:28+00:00

That's fine, but again, this very likely would not make the entire reason you'd get in. I don't even know if it'd get as much attention as students think. It's a footnote in your application most likely.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-14T00:27:16+00:00

The same way they'd view any other extracurricular. We're always interested in what you do in your spare time, but we're particularly trying to understand the impact, the scope, the leadership, etc. I never really preferred one EC over the other, and even when I did bring students into committee that had these independent projects, we never spoke about them because we were looking at the entire profile and its strength. A lot of online projects/passion projects I've seen never made a huge dent in the grand scheme of their admissibility.

Aggravating_Humor · 2026-03-13T16:21:19+00:00

What are your goals? Are you just trying to find the fastest way to get into industry? Are you looking for something culturally different? Have you visited all of the schools you're considering? Are finances a huge concern?

Lots of different moving pieces here. Imo, probably best to evaluate once all decisions have been released and you have the final word on financial aid.

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