<p>D2 had all 10+ applications ready in case she didn’t get into her ED. I read her essays for those schools, all I could think of was how good she was at spinning. Her essays for Barnard, Colgate and Yale were so targeted for those schools, and they were very different schools.</p>
<p>D2 is an excellent writer, in comparison, D1 is weaker in that area. If you read their essays, with similar stats, I think adcoms would admit D2 over D1. I think sometimes even for STEM schools, kids who could write better have a leg up on others.</p>
<p>I share your suspicion of new posters who show up out of no where to post in the middle of the thread, with some sort of improbable fact scenario … but I would point out that we often do not have the whole story with any representation of “stats” or accomplishments on CC.</p>
<p>For example, the parent who listed the daughter’s SAT score, the AP courses, array of activities, and ethnicity forgot to mention the kid’s GPA. </p>
<p>We also are not privy to essays submitted or letters of recommendation – so we don’t know factors that exist for individual kids that might make a strong case for admission for a kid with seemingly weaker than average stats, or send up red flags for kids with seemingly strong stats.</p>
<p>Calmom- I agree, although at this time of year CC does get a lot of new members as students/parents are looking for info in order to make the final decisions. Many are legit but some are not.</p>
<p>Here are the admission results for 2 kids from the same high school</p>
<p>Candidate A accepted UNC-CH, Virginia and Michigan. SAT 1900, rank 46/915 4 AP classes. Not an athlete</p>
<p>Candidate B accepted UNC- Wilmington, Asheville, NC St, and George Mason SAT 1800 rank 26/915 4 AP classes Not an athlete. Did not apply to UNC-CH, Virginia or Michigan but would not have the slightest chance at acceptance</p>
<p>I do not recall the GPA but the rank indicates which candidate had a better GPA.
Colleges look and need different things in determining what their class will be. Candidates need to realize they compete against sub sets of students like them- different categories of students have tougher categories. It is life.</p>
<p>That TED talk is great, Swattiechick! Thanks! The kids are all exactly what we want at our college. There are 100 of 'em for each available slot. How do we make this a just process? How do we make this fair? Just because two kids are equally qualified and have worked very hard, they should both get what they deserve. But. Only one seat is available. There’s the rub. It is not possible for the colleges to give each deserving student a seat.</p>
<p>I can imagine a top Uni doing something like this: We have enough applicants to make up 10 entering classes. So let’s assign each potentially successful applicant to one of 10 classes. Each of these 10 classes will be balanced - the right number of oboe players and chess players and writers and mathematicians. Then at the end of the process, we’ll put 10 pieces of paper in a hat and pull out the successful group. Class number x will be our admitted group. </p>
<p>Yeah. That’s probably how it is done =). As Barry Schwartz says in your TED talk link, we need to understand and appreciate the importance of luck in our lives. This might help us to be more compassionate. People do not always get what they deserve.</p>
<p>Life is not fair, it is not supposed to be “fair”. Not in the specs. Complaining life isn’t fair is like complaining that grass isn’t orange.
But compassion can be demonstrated. Work for truth, fight for justice.</p>
<p>Let’s stipulate that this year is a particularly brutal year for “top” students getting shut out of “top” schools. (Isn’t every year the most brutal ever?) What I don’t hear anyone saying is that the kids being shut out of X number of top schools are bereft of options for getting an exceptional education. No one’s saying that because we all know that’s not the case.</p>
<p>BTW, for the purposes of this post, I’m equating “top” with “any school someone didn’t get into” and “chopped liver” with “any school someone did get into.”</p>
<p>For students, the best way to combat this “problem” (imagine me air-quoting to indicate my belief that it is not a real problem) is to apply to a good mix of schools based on your qualifications. Don’t get hung up on the idea that you deserve to get into any school. For sure, don’t go down the rabbit hole of comparing yourself to other people. Doing that is both boorish and boring. Make sure you find safety schools that will allow you to pursue your interests. Have interests that extend beyond getting into a particular school. Really smart, interesting and engaged people don’t have much trouble finding their way through life, regardless of where they go to school. Do some schools offer distinct advantages over other less selective schools? Maybe. Probably. So what? If you don’t get into one of those schools even if it seems your numbers make you a competitive candidate, move on. Take your Ivy-level game to one of your match schools (or, gasp, one of your safeties) and knock everyone’s socks off.</p>
<p>An interesting support for the above post comes from this source – a Polish student I had at community college. Although her English wasn’t perfect she wrote the best essays on Shakespeare I have received in my thirty year teaching career.</p>
<p>I asked if she was going to pursue literary analysis and/or college teaching as her career, but she answered that she wanted to work in a hotel. Why had she come to the US to study? Because she wasn’t qualified for a place in Poland. There were so few places that her academic credentials weren’t enough to get her one.</p>
<p>That was an eye-opener that speaks to the point that most folks in the US who want an advanced degree can obtain one.</p>
<p>"Notwithstanding texaspg’s clever comment, my suspicion is that the explanation for itsacrapshoot’s D’s shocking result at Occidental is more prosaic. To wit: It’s probably not true. </p>
<p>Swimming, academic decathlon and Girl Scouts! No one appreciates her gifts! And she does it all without a tail!</p>
<p>Now let’s see if itsacrapshoot comes back with his or her third CC post all righteous indignation at my implication that he or she is a ■■■■■."</p>
<p>OMG, someone might be mocking the self righteous indignation of a bunch of helicopter parents? We need to put an end to this immediately.</p>
<p>I started the college process with my D 2 years ago. She had been churning out straight A’s since 8th grade so H and I finally thought to ourselves - hey this kid is extra special and deserves to go to the best college we can afford to send her too. I didn’t find CC until very late in the game and didn’t discover this great parent’s forum until she had already received her college acceptances and rejections. I pretty much winged it but I think we did some things very well and others not so well. </p>
<p>But here is what I did wrong IF I were set on my D going to one of the elite schools. I should have started in 8th grade. I should have made sure every class she took was honors level and I should have insisted she took a 3rd year of language. I just didn’t know she needed it. My dumb! We didn’t do that. We let her indulge her passion for theater and music. We let her take straight science classes - not honors - because she just didn’t enjoy science that much. </p>
<p>But here is the thing. She applied to 6 colleges and got into 5 of them. The 5 out of the 6 didn’t require the 3rd year of language. The 6th was Stanford which we all knew going in was a huge stretch because of those weaknesses in her record. She was rejected by Stanford (no huge surprise) but is going to her ‘dream’ school which ironically is Occidental.</p>
<p>She too had 12 years of Girl Scouts, including a Bronze, Silver and Gold award.
She rec’d 2220 on her SATS
She maintained an UW 4.0 throughout high school.
She ‘sacrificed’ her Senior year - giving up her two loves - theater and music - to concentrate on major academics. This was after we toured Oxy and were told point blank by an admission’s counselor that seniors can’t slack their senior year.
There were tears but I will give my D huge props for demonstrating some remarkable maturity and without me even know went to her HS counselor and swapped out her musical theater class for AP Stats and dropped her vocal music class to accommodate AP Physics. She has a brutal senior year schedule - 5 APs. I was sure her 4.0 was history but she pulled it off again and kept the 4.0 through first semester. </p>
<p>I notice that “itsacrapshoot” doesn’t mention D’s gpa. I just don’t think we have the full story. The one thing I remember best about sitting in Stanford’s orientation is the admission counselor saying, “The thing we look at most closely, in fact go over with a fine tooth comb, is the high school transcript.” Yes they look at EC’s and test scores and want the ‘diverse’ student body, but at the end of the day, the transcripts are the make or breakers.</p>
<p>I’m not sure itsacrapshoot is a ■■■■■, but I always wonder about missing info and there is some pretty key missing info in her post.</p>
<p>This is what I don’t agree with. It is the children who are drawn to, and voluntarily, without volition and without goals of a particular college, take the most demanding class schedule that should be going to an elite college. Not those that were pushed towards a certain course schedule. D pushed herself such despite our protestations. S pushed himself just enough to get that weighted 4.0. Both worked themselves to the appropriate college level for them. D could and realistically be accepted at an elite school and S could realistically be accepted to the state flagship.</p>
<p>ahnelk - sounds to me like you swapped out your D’s dreams for your own and wish you had done an even better job of it. I hope she is able to reconnect with her music/theater passion.</p>
<p>Never mind - I see that she is continuing in theater - glad to see it.</p>
<p>My son did not take AP science. At his prep boarding school it was not encouraged to take APs across the board. The regular curriculum was challenging enough, and the students took AP classes in their areas of strength and interest. He only had Latin as a language. He didn’t take AP calc, either, although he did take regular calculus. He graduated cum laude from Penn, so I guess he wasn’t too far behind.</p>
<p>absweet- Let’s stipulate that this year is a particularly brutal year for “top” students getting shut out of “top” schools. I’ve worked with kids before who were top top the game, good activity descriptions, balance, solid essays- and still got rejected from schools they theoretically deserved. But, I agree this is the most brutal and odd year of results. Out there, something is changing.</p>
<p>As for what any adcoms says in public or to someone he/she is not personally aquainted with: I call it admissions-speak and you need a fine-tooth comb to get past that, as well.</p>
<p>Ahnelk wasn’t necessarily wrong about what priorities in senior year. But, you still need good essays and etc. And, there won’t be scores reported for the overload of APs in sr year- only mid-senior grades. Btw, Stanford will check transcripts closely, but I have long believed this isn’t simply about rigor and grades. They claim to like an “entrepreneurial spirit” about your academics.</p>
<p>That does not always help. Honestly, we did this, not because of Ivy/elite colleges, but because DS showed interest and we did not want him to be bored and lose interest in CS, math and sciences. He has a 3.99 GPA, 4.8 GPA weighted. Will graduate HS with an associates in Math along with his HS diploma. </p>
<p>However, as we looked at colleges, a few things became apparent.
The biggest one was that our kid is NOT the smartest fish in the pond (LOL)
College is much more expensive than we were lead to believe 15 years ago
He would not “be able to go to any school he picked” and colleges would NOT be “fighting over him”.
The process of applying and waiting for the lottery to happen was not apealling.
Merit scholarships are non-existent at top schools.
“top school”/ “Tier 1 school” means different things to different people.
going to an elite scool does not guarantee job placement/pay/ or satisfaction. </p>
<p>So we looked for merit that he would qualify for at schools that would provide the major he needed with the ability to then pursue advanced degrees.</p>
<p>I refuse to believe that the only point of hs is to get into college. Kids need to take challenging courses in a variety of areas to get a good, well-rounded education - 4 years of math, 3-4 of language, 4 of science, 4 of english, 3-4 of history, etc. But beyond that they should be able and encouraged to take electives that they enjoy - art, music, wood shop - whatever they like and something that uses a different part of their brain. They will or won’t get into college based on doing their best in challenging core courses and doing well on SATs, and participating in depth on THINGS THAT INTEREST THEM. And whether they go to a top-20, top 50, top 100 or regular-old-college, high school should be a rewarding experience in-and-of-itself.</p>
<p>I think an outstanding musician, athlete, writer, artist who skimped a bit on the most rigorous courses is going to have a leg up in admission in many schools if there is enough commitment, talent and product there.</p>
<p>And why should a committed actor who wants to act necessarily want Stanford anyway?</p>
<p>The four years of language is something else because not only is that requirement of many schools, language needs reinforcement to stick.</p>
<p>As for AP’s vs. honors: This depends a lot of the school culture. My kids took AP’s to be in their peer group. Got to go. Kid home. More later.</p>