My husband and I attended our 30th college reunion not long ago. We were struck by how few of our classmates children attend our alma mater. And within that small group, not everyone was happy or thriving. We came away grateful that are daughter is happy and successful at her own college.
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Thank you - this is exactly what I was getting at.
If she decides my alma mater isn’t for her, that’s fine! But what I worry about is that she does really want to go there and either a. doesn’t get in (which, well, we’ll be sad but that’s life) or worse b. against the odds, she does get in, but we simply can’t afford to send her there.
I grew up in a low-income household and received Pell grants and generous aid to attend, so my student loans were big but not soul-crushingly big. But with my current income level, I know my kid won’t qualify for significant financial aid, and my alma mater costs nearly three times what it did when I was there (!). We do have some saved for her but not nearly enough to put a dent in that kind of cost.
It’s one of those things where you know that college is expensive, but until you look up the actual costs and what kind of aid you’d qualify for that it really hits you just how expensive it is.
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I don’t see how parents would help a kid get on a top10 track. After going through the roller coaster of admissions twice in 3 yrs(mine did end up T10s), and seeing how it panned out for them as well as all the other kids in our area or kids of other alums (of top10s and otherwise ), I do not think parents can do anything specifically to help a kid get into a top10 (or 20 or whatever). I have heard some who wish they’d made their kid get into this or that hard AP, or do a fancy EC, or prep more for SAT, thinking their pushing would have helped. But I dont think that’s the case: the kids have to do it, and have to want that type of intellectual challenge to be in serious contention. Even then, many who are self motivated and ready don’t get in.
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Biggest factor is to do the financial planning starting early enough to increase the chances that the desired colleges are affordable (after any applicable financial aid).
For many students, their achievements with respect to college admissions are secondary to the financial limitations when it comes to which colleges will be available to choose from.
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It seems that the help you got in college did what it was intended to to - got you to a higher SES and now your family doesn’t qualify for aid. It’s still the case at most of the top schools (and at many other schools too) that there are full pay students and full aid students, but not as many in the middle class.
Most middle class families just don’t have the same choices for higher education that others do, and it’s because of the finances. They aren’t lesser choices, just different. I know a lot of kids who were looking at NYU, Georgetown, ‘somewhere in California’ and when it came time to pay the bills, they went to the state universities.
Would you have changed your life and lifestyle if you knew your daughter/children would have more college opportunities if you’d earned less over the years?
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Absolutely! Yes I should have qualified my remarks
I’m in a similar boat as you.
I’m an Ivy grad, and despite being an MD being married to another MD, we STILL couldn’t comfortably afford** to send our two really high-stats kids (one a NMF, the other the class val) to same school that I attended. We didn’t even let them apply to any highly selective full-pay private schools (including my alma mater). We were also very transparent about their budget from day one.
**We COULD have afforded it, but not without making some sacrifices that we knew that would all have regretted some day. Some of the best advice I ever received was to ‘not count other people’s money.’ It’s nobody’s business why we couldn’t/wouldn’t pay >400K for two kids just for undergrad.
After LOTS of initial drama, resentment, and tears, our D is now a rising junior and is very happily receiving a fabulous education at a much less prestigious school. I honestly don’t believe that she’s missing a thing by not attending a more expensive school. (Read my previous posts if you want the full saga.) Our son just graduated from HS so I’ll have to get back to you in a few years on his outcome ;).
My advice to you is to read Frank Bruni’s book, “Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be” and watch or read Malcolm Gladwell’s talk on “Why you shouldn’t go to Harvard”. And just keep reminding yourself that the price of the top colleges has risen so much higher than inflation that it’s truly become a luxury item that only the top 1% (or so) can reasonably afford.
Finally, learn to smile and nod. I guarantee you that many of your kids’ classmates who are supposedly going to really expensive schools will magically be attending your state flagship come May 1st of their senior year. And they’ll all be equally happy and successful in the end.
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Yeah, that’s the billon dollar question.
How many APPLICANTS submitted test scores is interesting data but the real number everyone wants to know is how many ADMITS submitted test scores. What % of your freshman class went test optional successfully?
We all have a guess on who isn’t submitting but without data our guess is just worthless speculation.
If ~95% of Columbia undergrad admits are submitting tests, it tells you that those 60,000 applications a year they get are primarily bulk junk from mostly unqualified students rolling the dice thinking a miracle will happen.
But if ~55% of their admits are submitting tests it tells you they have a proprietary holistic way to weed out the high achievers from the insane number of submissions they get which is actually really impressive.
I am also 100% ready to believe the average parent or student sees test optional as “great news, we don’t care about the SATs any more” rather than “okay folks show us a spectacular candidate without relying on just a single test score to convince us.”
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I have been dinged for citing this (because it is a self reported survey, not data, blah, blah) but according to the Princeton '26 survey, the vast majority of non-submitters were athletes. I think it was something like 50% of athletes to 20% of non-athletes.
Admit rates appear to be consistently higher for test submitters. If you account for hooked applicants (and at many of these schools the number is quite significant), I doubt an unhooked applicant has much of a shot without a score.
This seems like a fair summary from that link:
While the presence of scores may correlate to higher admission rates at some schools, it can’t be said that sending scores will automatically lead to better outcomes. High scores are also associated with better GPAs and other measures of success. Score submission, though, remains a means for students to distinguish themselves from other applicants.
I think an interesting question would be to try to figure out whether test scores were always helpful controlling for all else, or mostly only helpful for people with marginal grades/transcript/school combinations.
I think test scores are probably valuable when assessing students from little known schools. Take APs scores for example. I know many kids with As who get 3s. At our school they sweat for a B+/A- yet 5s are the most common score and pass rate is over 90%.
Wether they are test optional or not, schools care about the data it provides and several are trying to make up for the lack of this information by adding optional schoolhouse.world certification to their application. Take Wash U’s statement:
“Certifications from Schoolhouse.world are just one way for you to demonstrate your academic achievement and showcase your mastery in math. While these certifications do not fulfill official requirements like transcripts and letters of recommendation, they do help us better understand your academic preparedness and fit for WashU. Schoolhouse.world certifications can be a great opportunity for students who wish to learn or show competencies in subjects not offered as part of their school curriculum.”
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Of course, it also depends on how high the score is.
What I meant by “get kids on the T10 track” is making the moves in middle school age that the kids would have no way of knowing they needed to do — choosing a school/district move if needed, making sure they are on the accelerated track to take Calc BC or beyond, getting them more opportunities to really further themselves in certain ECs or athletics, to ultimately get into top national camps/institutes/competitions etc. If parents are not dialed into this by 8th grade, it’s very hard to get kids to the rarefied T10 level of achievement in time.
“In my day” I got into a T10 from an average unknown high school offering only 2 AP classes, with average ECs aside from top state honor in music, I attended no camps, no national honors etc. Probably was the music hook and NMF that got me in. But I don’t think I would be admitted now.
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You can do all that and still be shut out. It’s a sad commentary on college admissions that people normalize curating their middle schooler’s activities in hopes of an eventual T20 admission.
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Since when was math progression beyond calculus BC necessary for even the most selective college admissions?
Also, in terms of tasks for the parents, all of the careful scripting and curating of the kid’s academic progression and achievement opportunities will be for naught with respect to highly selective college admissions if the parents fail to do the financial planning to ensure having enough money to pay for college, or if they have an acrimonious divorce that results in giving their kid’s college fund to their divorce lawyers and excluding the kid from financial aid at many colleges due to non-cooperation on financial aid forms required of both divorced parents.
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I disagree that it needs that level of parenting management. If the kids are ready for whatever the advanced math path is, the school will place them in it(the vast majority of the time). No extra work or tutoring or finagling should be done, in my opinion. They are either ready for that path or they arent(whatever the top path is in your chosen school system). Kids are compared to the school they are in, based on the opportunities for top rigor there. There are lots and lots of ECs kids can do that will make for meaningful applications, provided the kid really has a true interest and can speak/write eloquently about it. We didnt do any of the things you suggest, nor did the other kids we know who have had success getting admitted to top schools, and worked out. I did not read the MIT applying sideways post until my first was already knee-deep in junior year—but it happened to be the basics of what both of ours were already doing.
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I was just telling a friend who has a 7th grader to pay attention to the math curriculum and make sure it’s the right fit for her daughter.
My daughter didn’t test into “advanced math” in 7th grade by 2 points. And when she started in regular math, she was bored silly. I had to fight to get her moved and I probably was labeled “one of those” parents. But I was fully vindicated when she got As with no tutoring in 7th, grade, and successfully completed AP Calc AB with As senior year. She is a humanities student with a knack for math, and benefited from terrific teachers, too.
This is all to say that I fully agree that kids shouldn’t be pushed beyond what they are ready for, but if I hadn’t been told that it was worth a nudge into advanced math in 7th grade, she may have not had the opportunity to shine and she also didn’t have to double up later, either. So, it’s worth paying attention at middle school and seeing if what’s happening to your kid is what is best for them. 8th
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My suggestion is don’t believe everything you read from certain parents on this subject.
The Harvard lawsuit information indicated there are lot more just normally outstanding HS students attending these colleges than some parents seem to believe. Just to begin with, there are actually not that many applicants who, say, have near perfect grades in the hardest courses at their HS, very high test scores, and were also varsity team captains or debate team captains or other such top student leaders in their school’s most important activities. And then the way those folks were cut down to an admissible pool size was mostly about personal characteristics. A few people got in with merely generally positive personal ratings but some sort of truly special academic or activity qualification, but it was incredibly hard to impress Harvard enough to make that work. Mostly you needed a very good personal rating, and then the other stuff could also just be very good.
From my perspective, the parents who are trying to sculpt their kids into the perfect T10 applicants starting in middle school are often neglecting that personal dimension. Or doing it the wrong way. And then it feels to them like their kid needs to be even more special in some way, which is true because they are implicitly trying to make up for their kid not having been given a proper chance to develop into the sort of person who might do very well in the personal part of holistic review. So they have put their kid on the harder path, and because it is harder they push their kid even harder, but also because it is harder most of those kids will end up not making it anyway.
I guess my point is although there are so many parents out there telling each other this is the way to get a kid into an Ivy or the T10 or whatever “prestige” class they have in mind, all those parents are basically making a serious strategic mistake. And if you actually listen to AOs, and experienced college counselors at high schools with good placement records, and so on, they will repeatedly say in various forms that these parents are making a mistake.
But these parents basically tell each other those AOs are lying, that they are concealing the real secrets to admission, that it is these parents who know the real secrets to admission–and the cycle continues.
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No. My kids are not me. They followed their own path.
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But I wonder if some kids see the school as their parents’ school, not theirs. And it is too familiar/want to strike out on their own. Or maybe they are just worried their parents will visit too much. 
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