I was actually kind of hurt because my kid goes to Brown and I suspect the granddaughter got something from them and just ignored itš. As his sibling often reminds him, to most people Brown is nothing more then the color of poo.
Agreed, but I think inflation is an aspect of rigorā¦
In my view, that is why we have things like CC, to partly āeducateā folks about how the game is playedā¦ On the other hand, that and $1 will get you a bus ticketā¦
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The reasons so many students at our school have 4.0 or greater:
- Our scale goes up to 4.5 for a regular A+.
- Honors and AP are weighted an extra 1.0, so if you get an A+, thatās 5.5. Even if you get a B, it counts as a 4.0 in your GPA.
Most parents donāt seem to know this, and they donāt understand that colleges will take that 4.7 and put it in perspective, by looking at rigor and weighting. To their credit, the guidance counselors try to get people to be realistic, but sometimes thatās no match for the āpersonalizedā mailings, the awards their kid is getting, and the sound of a 4.7 GPA.
One friend of Dās who is the child of immigrants applied ED to an ivy where she had done summer research. Her parents had everything prepared for a surprise celebration when the results were sent out. She didnāt get in, was devastated, and later found the balloons and merch upstairs. I know itās not a tragedy, but it sure felt awful to her 
. She didnāt come to school the next day. (She is okay nowāgreat kid, and very loving parents who just didnāt know about vanishing acceptance rates.) The heartbreak seems so unnecessary.
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My kids never checked any boxes (that I know of) and they still got a ton of stuff in the mail. It was fun to look at some of the brochures even if they were schools my kids had no interest in attending.
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Besides bringing awareness to those who might not know about a school, these emails also help the colleges track if students are interested. One of my children received a scholarship from a school that they werenāt all that interested in. When touring the school and talking to an AO, they told me the number of emails that my student opened through the years and that my student actually filled out one of the āsend me more infoā prompts. I was shocked.