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<p>I agree except if you don’t have stats for you subgroup, it is not possible to know what is reach or how reachy. Before we saw the breakdown of admit stats according to gender at Vassar, we considered it as almost safety, well not quite, maybe low match for our D. Luckily, Vassar is a good institution and publishes the stats saving us disappointments.</p>
<p>That is true Iglooo, but again, that is where you need to know the school, and do the research. There are a number of places to get many of the stats. IPEDS is one, and if all else fails, call the school.</p>
<p>In addition to selecting safety schools on the basis of fitting into their published stats, a student must take into account the overall admissions rate for those schools. </p>
<p>In other words, if one fits into their 50-75% range, but the admit rate is only 20%, your chances are much lower that at a school with similar stats with an admit rate of 50%. There are many other applicants with stats just like yours (or better) who also applied.</p>
<p>I think this is a major factor in those sad stories of high stat kids who were denied to all their choices. For kids applying to super-selective schools, the odds are not good. If the admit rate is 20%, then 80% of the applicants (just like you) will be rejected.</p>
<p>My comment about starting in 8th grade to plan for college was sort of tongue in cheek. However the point of my post was it was the farthest thing from our mind. It wasn’t until my daughter was regularly bringing home the straight A’s through 10th grade that we sort of stopped and thought to ourselves that she possibly had the potential of something beyond the normal. I have 3 much older children who all graduated from UCs (Irvine and UCSD, one with an MFA.) This was sort of the norm for our family. There was never money for expensive LACs. With this 4th D - our ‘baby’ thanks to a generous MIL who set up a 529 at her birth suddenly a new world opened up to us. We were naive enough to think that with her extraordinary work ethic, her exemplary GPA, her unique EC’s, that she was available to take a different, more ambitious track and we even started whispering the ‘S’ word (Stanford) to ourselves. But this is where WE fell short. The counselors at her school weren’t helpful at all and we didn’t do the homework necessary to understand what being considered for Stanford really required. NOW WE KNOW! And seriously, although i am under NO illusions that my extraordinary (to me) daughter would have been admitted to Stanford even if we did everything perfectly, I do know that a few more honor classes and a couple more years of language really were important and could have made a difference and really would not have caused her much more stress.</p>
<p>I never put my dreams before hers and I most certainly never made her ‘give up’ her passion to try to achieve an unobtainable dream. My only dream for her is that she be happy in life and that she is given every opportunity to fulfill whatever potential she might have. </p>
<p>She did achieve her college dream by following her passions. She was accepted to Oxy with an excellent merit award and she plans to double major - theater and math - her two loves. </p>
<p>No one gave up dreams. But all I was trying to say was, we came late to the game and she did have to scramble a little her senior year because we didn’t really start paying attention until late in the game. Knowing what I know now I don’t even know we would have done anything different - except possibly have her take an easier language (she took Japanese for two years and just didn’t really enjoy it and balked at the third year) and not allow her to drop honor sciences for regular classes. She was the top of her science classes, head and shoulders above others, so she should have been in honors classes. Sometimes parents need to be parents and sometimes they need to let their kids make the decisions. It’s never black and white. </p>
<p>There are no regrets in this family at all. I think my D is extraordinary. I would support her wherever she goes or whatever path she chooses. We worked hard to find a school that had an excellent theater department, yet provide her with a major that IN HER CASE offered more realistic expectations. Oxy fit that bill. If she had been rejected there she could have thrived at any of the three UCs she was accepted to or even at our local Cal State or community college. </p>
<p>Bu what I did do for hours and hours was study college sites, look at stats and college data and I had very real expectations of where she could expect to be accepted and where she was really reaching. She applied to 7 schools (counting her local Cal State.) I would consider 2 of them safeties (CSFullerton,Chapman, 4 targets (UCSD,UCLA,UCSB,Oxy) and 1 a reach (Stanford).</p>
<p>RE: Post #400 [School</a> of Engineering at James Madison University](<a href=“http://www.jmu.edu/engineering/]School”>JMU Engineering - JMU)</p>
<p>However – if they were looking for an engineering program that would focus on a particular sub-discipline (ie. mechanical, electrical, etc…) JMU would likely not be a suitable choice. [School</a> of Engineering at James Madison University](<a href=“http://www.jmu.edu/engineering/faq.html#type]School”>http://www.jmu.edu/engineering/faq.html#type)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Page 17 bookmark</p>
<p>Ahnelk:</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds amazing and it is pointless to second guess what could have been done differently to improve her chances to get into a school with a sub 7% admit rate. For future parents I have some concern with the statement:</p>
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<p>This is always a red flag for me as an interviewer when a kid tells me they had to cut back on their senior year extra-curriculars because of the increased demand of senior year coursework. I interpret this to mean that they are starting to work at their limit and once confronted with the work load at Yale, they may not have much left in them to add to the community. </p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter who is happy with the fit at Oxy.</p>
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<p>YaleGradandDad, do you have a child who is or has been heavily involved in music and theater?</p>
<p>Yes - school orchestra, regional orchestra (by audition), and private lessons. Rather than guess the point of your question, I’ll let you explain.</p>
<p>I think ahnelk did well- researched, considered, weighed- and the dau had a happy fallback position. Some lessons learned- true for all of us.</p>
<p>I also think YGD has a valid point. Don’t tell your interviewer your life ended because the senior workload is too demanding. You’d be surprised what kids reveal.</p>
<p>The whole CA and supp can offer more context and offer a broader view of the kind of commitments the kid did up with. Eg, it’s not uncommon to see a kid drop his 3rd sport or quit the pie club because he’s now doing science research. Or has some larger role on a community project.</p>
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<p>However, need blind is only an admissions process. </p>
<p>There are a number of ways that a school can meet your demonstrated need. You can get a package that is light on “free money” (grants/scholarships) and heavy on work study/loans. </p>
<p>The vast majority of colleges do not meet 100% demonstrated need. There is also no set formula from school to school. At our house, D applied to an was accepted at 7 need blind meet 100% demonstrated need schools that required the FAFSA and the CSS profile. You would think that with each school receiving the same information, the packages would be similar. There was a 12k gap between the “best” and the “worse” package. The “best” package, did not come from the highest ranked school.</p>
<p>Financial aid departments are vastly different regarding how they treat assets, home equity, non-custodial or stepparent finances. Some schools will give preferential packaging to students that they really want to attract. I would recommend going over to the financial aid forum to read the number of threads that are essentially admit-denys because while the student was academically admitted the package is not financially feasible for the family.</p>
<p>As a warning, do not sacrifice anything for academics. Opposite, show that you can have your straight As and still participate in everything, sport, social life, newspaper, art, music…these kind of kids will have easier time later, people with great time management skills and wide interests who keep themselves engaged.</p>
<p>Well, I guess there will always be people who live their lives according to their own lights and there will be other people who do everything possible to live their lives according to what someone tells them is right. The former are leaders. Most of them do not go to tippy top schools. But even the tippy top schools are looking for the former. Live your life and find the school that fits your style. Then bloom where you’re planted. Yeah, that’s the ticket.</p>
<p>If anyone ever wanted to purposely develop flop sweat anxiety over their child’s chances of going anywhere in life, they should read this entire thread when their oldest is in fifth grade.</p>
<p>What always stands out to me on these threads is the use of the following phrases:
I think
Perhaps
It seems
I interpret this to mean
Possibly
It may
It’s not possible to know
In my opinion
I assume
It appears</p>
<p>Etc…</p>
<p>We don’t really know anything, as parents who don’t work in admissions of … Any college. We make guesses, and they may be educated guesses, but the are based on standing in a snow bank looking through a window. Our experiences are tiny data points, which lead some of us to expound on how it all works based on the out comes of the few kids we personally know. </p>
<p>(I’m positive that the adcoms at every college in the country take that giant pile of “merely qualified” applications, throw them off a balcony, and admit the ones that land on a bullseye they drew on the floor. I’m also positive that sometime in May, after the dust has settled, they have a party to celebrate the end of another admissions cycle. At the party someome does a stand up comedy routine which involves reading CC application and advice posts aloud.)</p>
<p>Tongue firmly in cheek while writing this.</p>
<p>I would not have wanted my son to give up music and theater to do more academics before college admissions. Or give up free time either. He still was accepted to 10 colleges, picked one and graduated.</p>
<p>My view on this issue in general has changed since I first started lurking on CC in 2004. (Why I am still here is a story for another time.)</p>
<p>I read a lot of posts from students who had worked extremely hard in high school (and from their parents), disappointed that they had not been accepted by any “top” school, so their outcomes were the same as those in their high schools who had worked much less.</p>
<p>At the time, I found it sort of irritating. Years and years ago, I actually chose to go to a large, public research university rather than to an Ivy or MIT, largely for financial reasons. From my viewpoint, arriving at a large public university after working hard on academics in high school is actually <em>not</em> the same outcome as arriving at it after working less. The courses a student is prepared to take initially are quite different. Also, being accustomed to thinking hard about class topics permits a student to move along rapidly from the entry point.</p>
<p>When I first stumbled upon CC, QMP was a high-school freshman (how I arrived here that early is also a story for another time). As QMP went through high school, my view about things shifted somewhat. The amount of down-time that top students have seems to me to be less than it was a generation ago. MiamiDAP’s posts, for example, often leave me gasping for breath. At QMP’s high school, the grading compression near the top of the scale meant that an unweighted GPA that put QMP’s father fourth in a class of > 300 would have put QMP out of the top third of the class. Since being out of the top third would tend to cut college options significantly (although a really strong willed person could have selected the learning and blown off the “stupid-work,”), this puts strong pressure on the students to do whatever the assignments are.</p>
<p>So, I think that it would be great if high school teachers realized the current admissions scenario and adjusted their assignments so that they pay-back in learning equals the required time investment. It seems to me that there are a lot of projects–clearly a kick that the ed schools are still on–that don’t generate as much gain in understanding or capability as the time they consume. I was amused/irritated to learn that one of the most awfully time-consuming projects in the 8th grade curriculum here has gone optional, just as the teachers’ kids are reaching 8th grade (or perhaps just after the first of them did). I have to throw in a note of extreme gratitude to the HS Latin teacher who actually taught–wait for it–Latin (!), with a “no macaroni maps of Italy” philosophy. </p>
<p>Also, whether EC participation is relaxing and–dare I say it–“fun,” depends a lot on the personalities and expectations of the adults running the show. I had a HS debate coach who made debate something to really look forward to, even on the Saturdays when the team overall was going 3-3 or 2-4, or on one rotten occasion 0-6, and my half of it went 2-3, 1-3, or 0-3. I’ve met debate coaches who are so intense that participation seems like a grim slog. You’re lucky when your child can find a really enjoyable EC. (To ward off comments from Tiger Mothers–I’m happy to acknowledge that some EC’s are more fun for the person who is more skillful and that working on them can develop the skills to make them more fun–but somebody has to draw the line at the forced work that makes a person bite a piano!)</p>
<p>Short version of my post #416: To high school teachers out there, or those who can influence them: Please think about the returns of understanding and capability that come from doing your assignments. If the assigned work pays off in itself, there will be a lot fewer students thinking “all that work for nothing,” if they don’t get into their top-choice schools. And to people running the EC’s: actually, it is supposed to count as fun for the participants.</p>
<p>When it’s phrased as “giving up” something or sacrificing, that can be misleading. Why can’t we look at this as paring or prioritizing? My older was deep into drama and chose to convert from lead to tech in senior year. It freed up three afternoons/week. Loved the new perspective, even wrote about it somewhere in the app or a supplement. Other dropped All State, but picked up two other musical opps at the school that totaled very few hours but were a satifying new experience.</p>
<p>quantmech…I would become really irritated anytime my son needed glue sticks or a shoe box for a HS assignment. Macaroni would have sent me bouncing off the walls! </p>
<p>and I could not agree with you more about EC’s. </p>
<p>And I dont even want to get started on the false notions of the HS National Honor Society! LOL</p>
<p>DD had to give up her commitment to ballet. By 16 this is a seven day a week, all day on weekends level of commitment that is really a professional level of commitment. SHE had a choice to make, and she made it and attended a very competitive school. Many of the girls did not go to college but went straight into dance companies or full time conservatory dance programs. There are so many stories in the big city. YaleGranddad (sic) painting with too broad a brush oversimplifies.</p>