Greenhill vs. Hockaday admit (Austin, Arlington: school, pool, suburban)

[walker1977]

Originally Posted by debtex

About half don't get in. And of those that do, they're not getting in to the competitive majors that they want. That's still better than the overall average at UT, but I know of many kids with straight A's, amazing extracurriculars, sky high test scores who are capped/declined at UT.

Admissions at UT are brutal.

You can drill into attendance numbers at https://reports.utexas.edu/spotlight...as-legislature

If you look by Congressperson it shows attendance by high school. Doesn't show admission numbers, but it gives you some direction.

This is correct…roughly half of (SM/GH/Hock) seniors who apply don’t get in to UT. Many of those will still get into to other top private schools. The current acceptance rate at UT if not auto admit is 10-11%. So 50% isn’t that bad. I’m surprised HP had 55 kids attending UT. That sounds way higher than I would think.

[FarNorDFW]

Originally Posted by walker1977

This is correct…roughly half of (SM/GH/Hock) seniors who apply don’t get in to UT. Many of those will still get into to other top private schools. The current acceptance rate at UT if not auto admit is 10-11%. So 50% isn’t that bad. I’m surprised HP had 55 kids attending UT. That sounds way higher than I would think.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but it gets more complicated with the general admission pool: as came out in the Fisher case, the “general pool” is also used for special situations, VIPs and unhooked general admissions candidates. If there are any schools that could also have a substantial number of kids coming from important UT donor families … it is SMS and Hockaday. I am NOT saying that every Hockaday or SMS UT admit is coming from VIP donor families, but some of them likely are.

The general pool is just so opaque that I think underwriting how to get into UT coming out of these schools is nearly impossible.

[Luka4MVP]

Originally Posted by FarNorDFW

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but it gets more complicated with the general admission pool: as came out in the Fisher case, the “general pool” is also used for special situations, VIPs and unhooked general admissions candidates. If there are any schools that could also have a substantial number of kids coming from important UT donor families … it is SMS and Hockaday. I am NOT saying that every Hockaday or SMS UT admit is coming from VIP donor families, but some of them likely are.

The general pool is just so opaque that I think underwriting how to get into UT coming out of these schools is nearly impossible.

Agreed. The general admit pool still makes up 25% per Fisher, so there is a lot of room for non-auto-admits—which is where top privates excel. The high numbers for these schools are still somewhat skewed by the high proportion of donors/legacies, though

[serger]

Originally Posted by Luka4MVP

Agreed. The general admit pool still makes up 25% per Fisher, so there is a lot of room for non-auto-admits—which is where top privates excel. The high numbers for these schools are still somewhat skewed by the high proportion of donors/legacies, though

There are no legacy admissions at UT or A&M

[TeamLynn]

[quote=EDS_;66555858]ETA - I hate it when quotes get garbled. My response is generally to TeamLynn.........

1. HMMM.....at the undergraduate levels none of the Ivies have offered merit based free rides in many years. Less well off qualifiers receive 100% need based aid on a diminishing scale as family incomes increase. Those above a certain income pay 100% list price.

This kids were all from low income families. They all told me they got full ride. Not sure what that means or where the money came from, but I expect it didn't mean loans. Can't imagine any of these kids or their parents would have taken on $200-$300-$400,000 worth of student loans. Maybe, but I doubt it. They were getting support and money from somewhere, they didn't detail it out for me and I didn't ask. I expected it was facilitated by the schools, but I don't know that. They were smart and motivated kids, great students and top of the class. Maybe they spent the summers filling out scholarship applications from 3rd parties.

One was a Viet girl, who did not speak a lick of English when she came here. I mean not a word. More or less 4 years later she graduated top of her class. I liked at their house they had a study room. Some people refer to it as a game room, but they called it their study room. Her job was to come home and study there for 4-5 hours a day and weekends. She was at what I would consider one of the tougher DISD schools.

[JTC Mom]

[quote=TeamLynn;66582347]

Originally Posted by EDS_

ETA - I hate it when quotes get garbled. My response is generally to TeamLynn.........

1. HMMM.....at the undergraduate levels none of the Ivies have offered merit based free rides in many years. Less well off qualifiers receive 100% need based aid on a diminishing scale as family incomes increase. Those above a certain income pay 100% list price.

This kids were all from low income families. They all told me they got full ride. Not sure what that means or where the money came from, but I expect it didn't mean loans. Can't imagine any of these kids or their parents would have taken on $200-$300-$400,000 worth of student loans. Maybe, but I doubt it. They were getting support and money from somewhere, they didn't detail it out for me and I didn't ask. I expected it was facilitated by the schools, but I don't know that. They were smart and motivated kids, great students and top of the class. Maybe they spent the summers filling out scholarship applications from 3rd parties.

One was a Viet girl, who did not speak a lick of English when she came here. I mean not a word. More or less 4 years later she graduated top of her class. I liked at their house they had a study room. Some people refer to it as a game room, but they called it their study room. Her job was to come home and study there for 4-5 hours a day and weekends. She was at what I would consider one of the tougher DISD schools.

If they are low income the likely did get a free ride, but it's all need based - not merit. For low-income families the Ivies do an amazing job of meeting need. Most if not all of them offer a need-based "free ride" for families with income under 60K and "typical" assets. Princeton offers a full ride for families up to $100K. All of them meet full financial need (as they define it. Generosity varies by school - which can still be a stretch for some). Most Ivies guarantee full need met with no student loans below a certain income threshold.

[JTC Mom]

Originally Posted by walker1977

I’m surprised HP had 55 kids attending UT. That sounds way higher than I would think.

Yes, it's a high number for sure! Higher than I would have thought too. The slides are shared with the HP community at graduation but not "public" . However, you can look at the IG page for HP from 2023 graduates and of the 178 posts, 31 students posted that they are attending UT. All 31 of those are girls, so that number does not include any of the boys attending UT from HP. It's also on a fraction of the total class, which is about 550. The numbers seem similar this year (for girls) based on posts so far on the HP 2024 IG page.

[debtex]

Originally Posted by FarNorDFW

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but it gets more complicated with the general admission pool: as came out in the Fisher case, the “general pool” is also used for special situations, VIPs and unhooked general admissions candidates. If there are any schools that could also have a substantial number of kids coming from important UT donor families … it is SMS and Hockaday. I am NOT saying that every Hockaday or SMS UT admit is coming from VIP donor families, but some of them likely are.

The general pool is just so opaque that I think underwriting how to get into UT coming out of these schools is nearly impossible.

I believe that for UT by legislative mandate they fill 75% of the class with auto-admit and 90% of the class must be in-state. So only 15% of the class can be filled through what they refer to as "holistic admissions" - where you'd find in-state donor families. 10% for out-of-state and internationals.

[texstout]

Originally Posted by Aggielina

This makes me sad. I was first in my family to go to college (A&M), and I had minimal exposure to careers and options. I didn't know what I didn't know, and my parents didn't have the background to know I needed help with this. I was General Studies until I was forced to pick a major because I just wasn't sure (except that it wasn't going to be in the sciences.) I ended up in Liberal Arts after all but what if I had chosen business and was told it was too late? Not everyone knows exactly what they want to do or study at 18, especially kids from underprivileged backgrounds.

Yeah - while I am a proud UT alum, I only recommend it for kids that know what they want to major in and are pretty sure they won't change majors.

[FarNorDFW]

Originally Posted by debtex

I believe that for UT by legislative mandate they fill 75% of the class with auto-admit and 90% of the class must be in-state. So only 15% of the class can be filled through what they refer to as "holistic admissions" - where you'd find in-state donor families. 10% for out-of-state and internationals.

I don’t think in state has to be 90%. Every year 12-15% of the incoming freshmen class is from out of state or out of country. UT is intentionally opaque about it, but that leaves 10-13% of the incoming class spots for holistic admission. On the high end that’s around 900 seats for in state non-auto admit applicants. BUT every in state student who is not an auto admit has to fit into that bucket. Football alone is going to take around 20 of those spots each year. Men’s basketball will take a few. Other teams and departments will get a few set aside spots. Do key faculty members get preference? They also use the holistic pool to help increase enrollment of students from under represented minority groups. The whole thing is wild and I for one would love to know the actual numbers.