@citymama9 Applying and getting into schools today is so different from when we were kids. It is really a lesson in humility going through the college application experience. When my oldest first applied to schools, I scoffed at the thought that someone I knew was having her daughter to apply to Queens College. But these days, it is a lot harder to get into, not only Ivy League schools and schools like Stanford, but state schools and other "lower tier"schools that were much easier to get into when we were kids. My state flagship was an automatic admit when I was a senior in high school-- not so now. You would be very surprised to learn that schools that you think “aren’t good” are much harder to get into than you think. Most people can’t afford the "top schools"these days plus there are lots of foreign students applying to schools that weren’t applying umpteen years ago-- what this means is that super competitive kids are now applying to what some consider to be “lower tier” schools and state schools- thus making admissions much more competitive. Take a look at what you consider “below average” colleges and you might be in for a happy awakening.
Any other parents of Sophs and Juniors feeling discouraged and nervous based on what they are seeing
The one thing I took away from this site when my D was going through this last year was that, even with her stats, there are so many kids out there that are soooo much more accomplished. This is no slight against her - it’s just the reality of sizing up the competition for spots in colleges. Once the rose-colored glasses are off, you and your child can formulate a realistic list of schools with the right balance of: safeties (slam dunks based on her/his stats), matches (because, duh) and reaches (because, you never know). Otherwise, you wind up with less than optimal results:
- all acceptances: your kid played it very safe by not applying to anything beyond safeties (and maybe will wonder "what if") OR maybe your kid really IS a genius :D
- all rejections/waitlists: your kid overestimated his/her academic fit for these schools and didn't apply to any safeties (cross your fingers that there are still spots at colleges with rolling admissions; otherwise it's community college or a gap year if the waitlist schools don't come through).
D applied to 10, accepted at 6, waitlisted at 2, rejected by 2. We felt it was the perfect balance - she stretched enough to see if she could measure up to 4 of those schools, and had some very solid acceptances that included a couple of reaches. Wound up at UC Berkeley, which was a great choice for her and our pocketbook.
As everyone says, there are so many schools that would love to have your child attend. Just be smart about assessing what your child brings to the table (and what you can afford - can never forget that component!) before the applications go out and there shouldn’t be many ugly surprises.
I love the wisdom that is being shared here. As someone mentioned, it’s all about perspective, and it’s easy to lose perspective if you spend a lot of time here.
I think I do a good job of keeping things in perspective, and I hope to help my child do the same. I used to buy into the idea of a dream school when I was young. When I didn’t get into mine, I was pretty devastated at the time. I don’t want that same experience for her. When she talks about wanting to go to xyz school, I am kind of like, “That’s great. Keep working hard towards that goal, but realize that school accepts less than 10% of it’s applicants. So it’s good to keep options open and not bank on just one school. There’s a bunch of really good schools out there.” Also, I remind her that people with perfect, or near perfect, stats get rejected from there, so there’s no shame in not being accepted to a “tippy top” school.I always talk up our state flagship too because, if she does end up going there (which is a possibility), I wouldn’t ever want her to think that I think less of it or would be disappointed in her (which I wouldn’t be.) 
It is NOT imperative to ED. Don’t be bum rushed into assuming that.
Having just gone thru this with son17, and having son19 not too far off now, I am not looking forward to starting the whole process over again.
Some things I learned. Test scores are really really really important in terms of acceptance rates and merit. Class rank is also important to some schools because they award merit based on test scores/gpa/rank. If one of those categories is low you might not get considered for any merit awards.
With son19 I’m going to encourage him to select only 1 or 2 true safeties, and will try to find some schools where his stats are at 75% percentile or above.
It seems his major, mechanical engineering, has gotten very competitive for a normal smart, white kid from the burbs.
I’m also going to have him send some apps to schools out of the New England region.
For my son17, he had 3 or 4 slam dunks safeties, got into a few matches, got into a couple of slight reaches, and was waitlisted at 2 match/slight reach school. So he did pretty well.
My son was one of those awful stories - top notch student shut out of all the ivy and top “reaches”, waitlisted at a match, and accepted to 3 safeties. He ended up going to the one top LAC that was left that appreciated him. Spent 4 wonderful years there and loved it. Ended up with a really good job.
My kids are still too young to be thinking about college. But when the time comes I’ll be having them look at the state schools and area LACs. The USNWR/Ivy madness is optional and doesn’t benefit kids in any way, in fact, from what I’ve seen, quite the opposite.
@snarlatron: Well, they may want to get away from home.
But even if they do, there are so many hidden gems at in-state prices or close to them.
I’ve already mentioned NCF and William Jewell’s Oxbridge program.
There are all sorts of LACs that almost nobody has heard of (outside the local area) where kids can get a stellar education and personal attention. There are various good options overseas if you can handle the format difference and can pay (though with many being 3 years and much more reasonably priced than American privates at list price, they may come in at total COA at an in-state or close or even below).
There are schools that are renown heavyweights in certain fields (UCincy in design; MSU in packaging engineering, among others) where a kid with stats that make them competitive for the Ivies/equivalents can attend at in-state prices or below thanks to scholarships.
CC is terrific for making me aware of all these opportunities (which many kids with top stats don’t even look at even though they may turn out to be terrific options for them).
@PurpleTitan Absolutely. I’ve worked in education for years and am a big believer in the CTCLs, and LACs in general. What my kids won’t get from me is pressure to attend a prestige school.
My advice is to be realistic but not pessimistic. Recognize that for smart kids aiming high, events and outcomes may not add up to a smooth path to the to school of their dreams. A disappointing from rejection from Very Big Ivy U. may well happen. It certainly happened to us.
But as long as you guide them to apply to a balanced list of good schools, come.Acceptance Day they will have many fine schools falling all over themselves vying for your child’s attention and affection.
One thing that was really satisfying about my daughters’ college application cycles was seeing the shoe instantly shift to the other foot once the results came out. After months and months of the girls working so hard to impress the colleges with their apps,essays, ECs, and recs, once the acceptances went out the tables were immediately turned. And it was the schools’ turn to try to impress the girls.
@dustypig - you are so right. Kids these days are applying to so many schools because of the Common App and other electronic forms of applying. Back in the day when I was applying (1978), I did four applications. They took forever since I had to type them on my typewriter which wasn’t even electric. Between the apps and the essays, 4 apps took forever. But it also made you really think about where you applied. I ended up getting in three of the four. This process now is insane and my D is about to go through it again for law school/grad school. I’m barely recovered from the fall of 2013 application season.
The same thing happened when my daughter applied back in 2012. Lots of kids got rejections from top schools. It’s what the top schools do - they reject almost everyone who applies.
My daughter didn’t have stats for the top schools (33 ACT, 3.8 GPA), so we weren’t in that rat race. She applied to a few state flagships she liked, attended one with a full tuition + scholarship, had a great experience, graduated with honors, continued on to graduate school for a masters, and will graduate in a little over a month with a job waiting. I’d call it a success, even though she would have been rejected from those tippy top schools in a heartbeat.
As others have sort of said in their own way, I think that the main point is to try to help our students keep things in perspective. They don’t need to go to an ivy league school or equivalent, and most of them probably would hate it if they did go to one. There are a lot of very good universities and colleges out there (some in the US, some outside the US). There should be a very good fit for nearly any high school senior who wants to go to university. Very few students are going to find their very good fit in the ivy league.
The postings that I have seen from students who are suffering primarily come from kids who either are in a bad home, or who have the idea that they have to go to a “big name” university. If they get over that last point, most students seem to do quite well.
I may be lucky in that my high school senior daughter has a good perspective on this process. The piles of advertisements that we have gotten in the mail I think have helped to show her how broken the system is. The prices of US universities (except for our in-state system) are crazy and she sees this. Admission at US schools seems rather random. The focus on extracurricular activities just adds more stress on our kids. I think that my daughter sees all of this and has been looking for an alternative. She found several very good alternatives and in the end the hard part of the process came down to choosing between three very good and very affordable choices.
The more that I read on CC, the more I am coming to the conclusion that USNWR rankings and the ivy league and equivalents are not helping our students (something that I will remember during two universities’ annual phone calls asking for donations).
We are just competing the cycle for our twin Ds 17.
We found the website Prepscholar to be very accurate. It has a GPA and SAT calculator. Put in your numbers and it gives you a feel for your chances. For every school that my girls had 50% or higher according to their calculations…they were accepted.
It was also a tangible way for them to see their chances in a numerical form. I think it made the reaches more concretely reaches.
I have to also agree with others who have said that test scores are incredibly important. For the twins, one had 70 points higher on the SAT. But worse grades 4.0 to 3.6; and fewer ECs. Hands down she got more merit, more honors, and more acceptances than her sister. It made no sense to even her because she knows her sister is truly the better student.
@flute1298 Did your daughter’s apply to the same schools? It probably speaks more to school choice, than academic and EC attributes. My guess is that if they did apply to the same schools , that high stats daughter would’ve probably received similar offers. Which just goes to support the idea that there is a school for everyone and that school choice matters tremendously during the applications process.
@carolinamom2boys -They applied to all the same schools. The one with higher SAT score was accepted at 8/9; the - other -7/9 (one was a a waitlist). We saw the discrepancies mainly in the merit/honors awards. The girl with the higher SAT (70points) got far more money and honors acceptances, at almost every school, than the one with the 4.0 and tons of EC with leadership -…we just kept thinking “its only 70 points, could it really make that much difference”? But we can’t explain it any other way. A friend who works in Admissions believes that the lower SAT kid just didn’t meet some minimum number for which they consider awards.
Just to give you an idea of schools: both accepted at BU, Fordham, George Washington, Syracuse, American, Pace; both rejected at Northeastern. Higher SAT- in at Penn State, other waitlisted.
My lesson to anyone concerned for next year, if your kid only has one place to expend time or money…put it in getting the highest SAT scores possible.
@flute1298 Completely agree. I can’t tell you how many threads where people have said " my son or daughter has a 30, they refuse to take the test anymore. That’s a good enough score" FYI, going from a 30 to a 32 got my son twice as much merit and acceptance into honors programs that he wouldn’t have gotten into.
@citymama9 Everyone’s advice on here is terrific. Just figure out the path for your child, and your child only, and go for it. Don’t be afraid to let your path look different for others. Comparison only leads to envy or pride so it’s not worth it.
Because we had researched and had lots of discussions and visits, by the time it was time to apply, my son was clear where he wanted to go, we totally agreed it would be a great fit, and it made great financial sense for us. Having received a provisional acceptance (a reason to send all test scores to your colleges!), he only applied to the one school. At first I felt the pressure that he should be applying to at least 8 colleges like the guidance counselor suggested, but then I realized that he wasn’t interested, and it saved lots of stress and money. He then focused time on test prep and scholarship applications in the pursuit of special programs at that school and and more merit money. This is what made the most sense for our kid. We will do things a little differently for my next child to suit her.
Assuming the school is a good fit, college will be what the kids make of it when they get there no matter where they go.
@Baxter126 thanks! what do you mean by “send all test scores to your colleges”? I thought you just send the best ones. Still have much to learn about testing.
Admissions have definitely gotten more and more competitive. Californians, like my family, are going to have to start looking at a broader range of schools. I know many kids in the top 5-10% of their graduating classes shut out of UC’s this year. I do believe there is a college out there for everyone, for my younger kids that may be expanding our horizons a bit. Being here on CC this year has helped me know what’s out there, I’m more confident I will be able to find appropriate schools for my children to apply to and you should too.