<p>“Do you doubt that there are an appreciable number of high stat kids who come from either backgrounds or parts of the country where Harvard (et al) just simply isn’t on the radar screen, and who are laboring under outdated assumptions that Harvard is for rich kids, snobs, and not “kids like me”?”</p>
<p>Or who just don’t care about Harvard.</p>
<p>It happens, at least in California. But more importantly, my D got mailings from schools she had never heard of, that might have been great for her, and for which she would have been a decent match.
Okay, I may have lost sight of the original post, but I think mailings and outreach are good things.</p>
<p>Well, if someone is so turned off by the marketing and direct brochures that Harvard (et al) does, they are certainly free not to apply (or have their kid not apply). There’s sort of a lack of putting one’s money where one’s mouth is on this topic, it seems – “I really hate how they market far and wide, but don’t ask me to give up MY app.”</p>
<p>Exactly, Shrinkrap. Some of the hs students on CC talk about the “shock and awe” that top schools have in their peer group. And I don’t doubt it, at all, that their fellow students have sudden intakes of breath when they hear that so-and-so got into MIT or Duke or Cornell. (Ok, maybe not Cornell. I JEST.) But they are assuming that such shock and awe reactions are universal. Plenty of high schools in this country where Harvard et al just isn’t on the radar screen, just isn’t something that the kids care all that much about - might as well be Saturn for all they are concerned. In that milieu, getting into Harvard doesn’t even necessarily elicit “shock and awe” - at most it might be a “well, that’s good for you” accompanied with a bit of puzzlement why anyone would want to go anywhere other than Good ol’ State U. Well, Harvard et al wants some of those kids from those backgrounds. And why shouldn’t they? After all, it’s more transformative to take the kid from that background than the kid who’s been prepped for Harvard since birth. Of course they’ll take plenty of the latter, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want the former. Personally, if I were an adcom, I’d be more excited by the former, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>For the record, I personally couldn’t care less about the Ivy’s, nor could my kids, given that she turned one down. However, acting as if a kid who wants that is somehow “less than,” is just rigamarole.</p>
<p>Harvard has plenty of applicants from all walks of life, as do all the rest of the top 50 schools in the rankings. But, acting as if kids could not have been blindsided by a long list of rejections this year and as if there aren’t kids who were is disingenius and not very intellectually rigorous, or honest.</p>
<p>Instead of the “boy are people stupid for wanting to go to a selective school” agenda, why not ask the real question, “why are top kids being turned down by the top schools?”</p>
<p>Frankly, I think it’s the fact there just ARE more top kids right now, due to the size of this generation. AND, I find it hillarious the way these schools trumpet their acceptance rates as if those are not just a matter of there being more kids.</p>
<p>This all doesn’t just happen at the elite level, you know. A couple of years ago I was on a mission trip with some folks and one of the women had a daughter nearing the end of junior year in high school. We started talking about colleges and I told her about my interest in the process, CC etc. She told me her daughter’s stats (not good) and how “SMU and Baylor already wanted her.” I gently tried to explain to her about the marketing letters and she got very offended. I think the kid wound up at UT-Arlington or something.</p>
<p>She told me her daughter’s stats (not good) and how “SMU and Baylor already wanted her.” I gently tried to explain to her about the marketing letters and she got very offended. I think the kid wound up at UT-Arlington or something.</p>
<p>And this family may have mistakenly thought that these “love letters” were hints that their D would get a very favorable aid pkg.</p>
<p>But how about this. In my kids tiny “Christian” school, I do not know one kid who applied to an Ivy. Going to a “Christian” school was what most aspired to. Can you wrap your head around that? The kid with the 2360 SAT went to Liberty. </p>
<p>For some CC folks, that is a different perspective. At my kids school, shooting for “top privates” was a different perspective. My son seemed to think a Jesuit school was practically for sinners! But he went. Last night he said he now understands why I seemed to believe in evolution.</p>
<p>quote from poetgrl:
Instead of the “boy are people stupid for wanting to go to a selective school” agenda, why not ask the real question, “why are top kids being turned down by the top schools?”</p>
<hr>
<p>Answer - People are turned down because the short list of schools that some kids apply to cannot possibly accept them all - no novelty there.</p>
<p>In my mind, the question should be, “What alternate universe were kids/parents living in that they thought a list of lottery and high reach schools only made any kind of sense?”</p>
<p>Of course kids want to go to these schools. Of course many high and highish stats kids are going to take a shot at one or several or many of these schools. What’s at issue is what level of indignation is warranted if/when they are denied? Of course kids are disappointed when a door closes and their life takes a turn in a different direction. However, disappointment is different than anger, disbelief and incredulity. At some point the magical thinking needs to give way to a practical plan and hopefully that happens before the application window closes rather than these “I was rejected at all ivies, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Northwester, Duke, WASHU, and USC and all I have to show for my life is one crappy acceptance to Berkeley” threads.</p>
<p>Poetgirl, I think you mean religious, but not “Christian”. When I enrolled my kids at that school, I thought it was the same thing. And I went to Catholic school for 13 years.</p>
<p>The problem with this discussion is that everybody is partly correct. Schools do need to cast a wide net to reel in a few “diamonds in the rough.” But is it worth catching several hundred carp in order to do so? I don’t know the answer, but I wonder if the rough diamond out there would do just fine anyway, and yet the carp are left floundering. We’ve had enough bad analogies already. I do know that many people - even those who may be worldly in other facets of life - are very taken with college mailings and the thought that an elite college wants them. My SIL - an east coaster, ivy graduate, just told me that Yale is “going after” her daughter, a current junior. I tried to explain that colleges send mailings to a broad swath of students…and her eyes started to gloss - she did not want to hear it. I have little doubt that my niece will be heartbroken next year.</p>
<p>I really do believe these kids are getting very bad advice.</p>
<p>They only apply to college once, and I’m wondering what way there is to get better advice to them.</p>
<p>Becuase it’s not only the ones applying to top stat schools who are running into this problem, it is also kids who have been advised not to worry about money, that the money will appear if they are accepted. And these kids REALLY end up in a bad situation.</p>
<p>My daughter has worked her tail off since Kindergarten and applied to 13 schools. She was waitlisted or denied at almost ever school; Occidental, all the Claremonts, Boston College, Swarthmore…good thing she applied to the UC’s, she was accepted there. She’s an excellent student, with an SAT of 2300, 11 AP classes, Girl Scouts for 12 years, swims, National merit Scholar, S&D, theater, Academic Decathlon, etc. What the heck are these schools looking for kids who have already discovered the cure for cancer. And for all of those that think that being a first generation Latina is an automatic in…You’re wrong.</p>
<p>"They only apply to college once, and I’m wondering what way there is to get better advice to them.</p>
<p>Becuase it’s not only the ones applying to top stat schools who are running into this problem, it is also kids who have been advised not to worry about money, that the money will appear if they are accepted. And these kids REALLY end up in a bad situation."</p>
<p>In my community, at least for the most at risk, it is a local effort. As much bad press as fraternities and sororities get, just getting more kids to apply to college is a major goal of national pan hel. But I don’t know anybody who was told don’t worry about money. </p>
<p>poetgrl: very true, however I have been to the same district sponsored college prep nights as other parents in my “set” (twice!) and gone to the same range of talks on how to choose, finding the right fit, financial aid, etc. Just the other day several of these parents were still saying things like “FAFSA didn’t give us any money”. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Somehow they weren’t listening, or processing or I don’t even know what, but it’s not because the information wasn’t there or spoon fed to them year after year.</p>
<p>I don’t think being an “anything” is an automatic in, anymore. I’m glad she applied to the UC’s. At least she has sense to go with all of those brains. Good luck to her.</p>
<p>I’ve been promoting her book all over CC, and don’t know if I’ve already done so here, but Neurotic Parent actually wrote a book and I have to say, there is a lot of really good advice in it and accurate in a tongue in cheek kind of way. But it does outline just how insane the process has become. I think it should be required reading. I also think college visits should begin SOPHOMORE spring break so kids can realistically see if they can even come close to meeting the stats, let along the rest of it. I honestly think this was the only thing we did right with S. We took him to see some great schools over the summer before his junior year. He saw what he wanted and worked incredibly hard to get his ducks in a row. While he was ultimately rejected from his first love, the fact that he had put in the time and truly knew the odds of being accepted kept his head out of the clouds, for the most part. He landed some awesome options but all I really wanted for him was a choice.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for kids’ disappointments, especially when it’s a case where he or she really did match what that college looks for (remember, that’s more than stats, how long and hard a kid worked- or how this is the dream college) but he was the umpteenth applicant from that area, the nth wanting that major, or the LoRs failed. Those things are beyond a kid’s control. Admissions to top privates is not a lottery, not a case of taking every 10th or 12th kid and the rest be damned. But, there is some “luck of the draw,” there are some things our kids cannot control. </p>
<p>My argument is about what they can control. This is primarily in how they research a college and their fit, how realistically they asses that fit, how they convey who they are and what sort of kid they are, what they are likely to add to that campus, etc- all through the Comon App and any supplements. </p>
<p>I can’t come up with a nice way to express the failings in so many CA’s. And, it belongs on a “before you apply” thread. This isn’t, imo, the fault of the GCs. Good ones give advice, great ones undertand fit and can suggest schools. But, the kid has to come through, do his part. And, that’s the app. I know they are young. But, they are the ones who are applying, who hope to reap the prize. And, to some extent, it is a family rite of passage. Go ahead, read your kids’ essays- did he answer the question in a mature way, on topic? Does he show why he wants to major in STEM and note a few relevant experiences? Or write all about how he spends his free time reading fantasy fiction? When she is asked to list her extracurrics in order of personal importance, did she put babysitting at the top and forget to mention a regional math prize?</p>