Lottery winner in the original article has not visited ANY of the schools. She lives on Long Island - seriously, how hard would it be to catch a train to NJ/MA to visit to make a more informed decision?
@scipio - so your saying that your D applied to the 5 HYPSM schools in hopes of going to ONE. So it didn’t really matter to her where she went as long as it was one of the “prestige” schools? That doesn’t exactly disprove my point…
Look, I completely understand the chances of admissions at any of these school is low so you cast the net wide hoping to catch one. Absolutely kid’s are flexible and can “grow anywhere they are planted”. I get it. But there are PLENTY of non-Ivy schools - USNRW top 50 that are very strong in any given major that provide substantial scholarship/merit money. So if you are applying to only Ivy 8 (or even the additional 4 that this particular girl applied to) I still don’t believe that someone isn’t looking for the “prestige” r trophy hunting. It may not be 50%+ of the factor for applying but it certainly is a substantial factor.
To quote the article:
She proposed the idea of applying to all eight universities to her counselor at the start of the school year.
“I actually encouraged her,” the counselor, Sanju Liclican, said, “because I knew she could do it.”
If GC counselor was so confident in this kid’s chances of being admitted to all 8 perhaps she could actually have done her job and counseled the kid and chosen a list a bit more judiciously.
Clearly all of these sweeps winners are bright/talented/outstanding students, most have overcome some overwhelming difficulties and they all deserve to be congratulated on their accomplishments. But, so far, IMO, of these high profile sweeps winners, only the boy who turned them all down and went to Alabama Honors has demonstrated that he wasn’t looking for the “prestige”.
@labegg, what’s wrong with prestige being a part of the equation? And what if these kids see elite universities for more than just prestige, but for the opportunities that they provide - internships, alumni network, labs and grants, etc? Yes, after examining the Ivy’s, one kid thought that UA was the right fit for him. But what if these other kids visited the Ivy’s and felt one of them was just the right fit? If someone chose Dartmouth over Harvard, would it convince you that the kid based a decision on something other than prestige?
If my daughter decides to apply to any of the Ivy’s just to see if she can get in (though I won’t encourage her), I won’t stand in her way. But I won’t take her there until she is accepted (and maybe even then) so that she won’t fall in love only not to go there - either because she doesn’t get in, or we can’t/don’t want to pay full price since we don’t qualify for FA.
You don’t see anything wrong with applying “just to see if you get in”?
There is nothing wrong with prestige being part of the equation. But the repeated implication that only “elite/prestige” universities are provide outstanding opportunities is bogus. Drexel doesn’t provide phenomenal internship opportunities, or TAMU doesn’t have an awesome alumni network?
Unpopular opinion: Instead of being impressed by this, I think she wasted a ton of time in a selfish pursuit of vanity. And the thing is, I bet she’s showered with attention every day at school. Sorry, it rubs me the wrong way. And I’d bet she used fee wavers for each of them. Uncouth and tacky.
@labegg, frankly, i don’t. If she gets rejected and is ok with it, knowing she’s in good company, it’s only an application fee and time spent on preparing the application. If she gets in, it’s a great self-esteem booster.
For example, my daughter is 6’2 at 12 years old. I think she is beautiful, but like most teen/pre-teen girls, she is not happy with her body, her hair color, etc. Every now and then some stranger tells her “you should be a model,” just like the smartest kids at school hear from their relatives, etc. “you are so smart you should go to Harvard”. Most female models are under 6 feet, so my daughter is out of their range. Not to say she doesn’t have any chances, but it’s unlikely. Thankfully, neither she nor her parents want for her to become a model. This being said,if a modeling agency approached me and offered a try-out, and my daughter wanted to do it, and I was sure their rejection won’t hurt her, I would have said yes. The boost in self-esteem would be invaluable.
“@scipio - so your saying that your D applied to the 5 HYPSM schools in hopes of going to ONE. So it didn’t really matter to her where she went as long as it was one of the “prestige” schools? That doesn’t exactly disprove my point…”
Sure it mattered to her which one - in the sense that she favored some of her reaches over others. In fact she had a ranking of them in order of preference from top to bottom. But as you said “cast a wide net.” And HYPSM along with Pomona and Wellesley were simply her reach schools. She also had a group of match schools and another group of safety schools. If no reach school came through she would have worked her way down the match school list and so on until she came to the school she liked best that also accepted her.
I don’t see this thinking as way out of line. And if some kid in making up his school list prefers to use the 8 schools of the Ivy League as a reach list instead of the HYPSM + Pomona & Wellesley,I’m not going to sneer at him for it.
I think that applying to all the Ivies is a bit over-the-top, but I also think “fit” is getting as overrated as prestige is. Happiness is self-created to an extent, and trying to base it on a college’s weather, dining hall, or relative dorm size is kind of shallow as well. (And since we’re talking about the Ivies, relative prestige is irrelevant.)
@typiCAmom - why - would you apply to a university that you have no intention of ever attending? So glad that you are only thinking about the self-esteem boosting of you own kid - rather than the opportunity that your kid perhaps took from a kids who TRULY wants to attend. The apply just because you can mentality is ratcheting up the admissions arms race, it is a huge factor in why these elite schools have become lottery schools.
But whole point of why people point out the weirdness of applying to all 8 is the fact that no one will write an article about the kid who gets into HYPSM + Pomona & Wellesley. No one will hear about the kid who got into Stanford, CalTech, Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Williams & Amherst or any other combo of 8 of the top 25 institutions in the country, and any rational person can easily see that getting into all 8 ivies is no more or less impressive than any other assortment of 8 elite institutions.
@labegg, I am sorry, no sarcasm intended, could you please explain to me why is it a zero-sum game? Wouldn’t her spot go to a wait-listed kid anyway, once she rejects? And by the same logic, wouldn’t applying to a number of safeties that the kid doesn’t plan to attend deny a spot for someone else?
@scipio - it doesn’t matter to me (or more accurately my kids) if someone wants to apply to 20 prestige schools, at least not directly - we are not in that game. But what does matter is that the sheer number of schools that kids are apply to is having an impact on the admissions process and it does have larger ramifications. I am not “sneering” at anyone I just believe that the majority of people applying to all 8 Ivies (not all, I will concede, lol) have a more than the average interest in prestige.
@typiCAmom - what I am saying is don’t apply to a school, a reach/match/safety, if you are not 100% sure that it is a school that you would be happy to attend, 100% happy to attend even if it was the only school you applied to, not just because you didn’t get into your dream school. Sure her spot may go to a waitlisted kid…but it might not. Kids shouldn’t be be applying to a “bunch” of anything, be it reaches, matches or safeties.
I have no room to talk, my D16 applied to 12 schools. In retrospect, that was too many schools. My D18 will not be applying to 12 schools.
We constantly hear, on CC, complaints that the acceptance rate at Stanford and the like is 4% and it is practically impossible for anyone to get it. The “apply just because I can” and “looking for prestige” and the “desire for more” mentalities have contributed to that admissions rate.
I bet volleyball and basketball teams get into fights over her. My D was not that tall, but very tall especially when she was younger, and she got a lot of attention in those sports
@labegg, I can’t imagine a spot at HYMPS going unfilled from WL. As for your D18 not applying to 12 schools - what if that’s what she wants? How many apps will you limit her to - 3, 6? And what if she doesn’t get into any matches - do you seriously think she’ll thank you for not giving her a chance to cast a wider net?
"I can’t imagine a spot at HYMPS going unfilled from WL. "
Some times colleges wont even go to the WL, if the yield of acceptances is higher than was calculated.
Stanford and Columbia ran into this problem in recent history- too many kids said "yes"and the colleges had to scramble to find housing for extra students.
And this year Stanford accepted several hundred fewer students than last year, because they are yielding a higher % of acceptances every year.
“But whole point of why people point out the weirdness of applying to all 8 is the fact that no one will write an article about the kid who gets into HYPSM + Pomona & Wellesley. No one will hear about the kid who got into Stanford, CalTech, Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Williams & Amherst or any other combo of 8 of the top 25 institutions in the country, and any rational person can easily see that getting into all 8 ivies is no more or less impressive than any other assortment of 8 elite institutions.”
The “all 8 Ivies” stories are aimed at the general public, not at the the admissions cognoscenti here on CC. It may sound weird to us (to me applying to all 8 doesn’t sound quite weird so much as it sounds “over the top”). But like it or not the term “Ivy League” is a well-known brand name in the minds of most of the public. It’s a brand whose recognition significance goes well beyond the “it’s only an athletic conference” mantra that detractors like to repeat here on CC.
To get into all 8 has a “he ran the table” aspect to it that a random collection of 8 other equally elite non-Ivy schools lacks. That’s the hook to the all-8 news stories that getting into say Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Pomona, Williams,Vanderbilt, Amherst, and Northwestern just doesn’t have…
Regardless of whether Harvard’s engineering program is mediocre, or whether Dartmouth is located out in the middle of nowhere, or whether Cornell is not quite so super-selective as the others,“Ivy league” is still a shorthand term for academic excellence that, rightly or wrongly, the public buys into. Saying that your star scholar ran the Ivy League admissions table has the same sort of instant understanding and recognition as saying your star football player got full-ride football scholarship offers from every school in the SEC.
@typiCAmom - our experience has been (limited as it is) that thorough research and honest evaluation will help to craft a successful application list (D16 was accepted to all 12 of her schools). How many will I limit D18 too? Probably no more than 8. (I am confident she will not want to apply to more than 8, as she said the 12 that her sister applied to was too many, lol). If she doesn’t get into any matches? Than she will be happy to attend one of her safeties because the school won’t make the list if she wouldn’t be 100% happy to attend it. If she doesn’t get into any safeties?Then we didn’t do our research accurately and we will have to start over and re-evaluate, a gap year or semester never killed anyone. It’s not exactly all about what my D18 wants - she wants to go to NYU - I am not willing to fund that adventure nor do I think that she is likely to be a successful candidate for NYU. At this point it is my job and the guidance counselor’s job to help her to craft a list that is realistic and will be successful in some part.
My limited experience would tell me to advise you that you may want to rethink the not visiting a campus until your D is accepted…it helps to craft the application list AND some schools really do place a lot of value on demonstrated interest, just saying.
