<p>AnudduhMom, I think you have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick. </p>
<p><em>I</em> know that there are kids whose desire to attend elite non-technical schools is a result of their desire to study the humanities at a high level. <em>I</em> do not think that that wish is "limited to science education." </p>
<p>To rephrase what I said above, it seems to me that people on these boards frequently criticize kids who apply to very selective general universities and LACs, claiming that they do so mostly because they are concerned with prestige and trophy-hunting. There are entire threads devoted to that topic. Kids who apply to technical elites, on the other hand, don't seem to get the same kind of criticism. This is a personal impression. I am not claiming to have conducted a scientific study. And I am certainly not agreeing with such opinions!</p>
<p>As I said, I do not understand why so many people seem to readily believe that a science/math/engineering student is motivated by a desire to study at a high level, but seem to have a hard time believing the same thing of a humanities student.</p>
<p>If the purpose of your preceding post was to defend the intellectual vigor of humanities students, you chose the wrong target. Reread the paragraph in question.</p>
<p>Is anyone else confused? Is the guy with the backwards baseball cap on actually one of the admissions officers? I'm a little concerned by this . .</p>
<p>I didn't see anyone with a backwards cap, but I got the perhaps-inaccurate impression that the two guys opening envelopes were students who were hired to help shuffle the paper. </p>
<p>One hopes that they are not deciding who goes where, but my H claims that he read in some newspaper article a few years ago that some schools hire kids to do an initial screening of applications according to set criteria. I devoutly hope it is urban legend.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a parent I know, when questioning his son's rejection from a school that would have appeared to be a safety, was in fact told "We didn't look at anyone with a C." Since his kid had chosen to take more-challenging honors classes in which he got a few Cs, they apparently screened out his application without bothering to really look at it. Horrifying, but as far as I know, true.</p>
<p>Momzie-BBall cap guy is most likely a student hired by Admissions to sort the paperwork.</p>
<p>My 2 cents: I think the article gives a fair depiction of the environment our kids find themselves in and I'm glad to see some of the major publications covering our plight. Hopefully this will help draw attention toward finding solutions to the situation. My idea would be to have some of the big name and well-funded schools adopt some smaller lesser-known colleges as satellite programs. Maybe offer dual diplomas like Barnard/Columbia and allow students to take classes on both campuses. To me, this is a win-win. The big name can accept more top students into their mix, get some good PR and the adoptee will benefit from the resources and prestige of the big name. With all the public-at-large focus on the big names, many smaller, lesser-known schools are suffering from lack of qualified applicants and skyrocketing costs.</p>
<p>While I think the Western states would greatly benefit from a new university, I'm concerned that by the time it would be built, the baby-boomlet would be over.</p>
<p>My daughters and many of their friends cast a fairly wide (but not overly so) net with their college applications for several good reasons. First, although all would be competitive applicants at top-tier schools, there are just so many other competitive applicants vying for the limited number of seats in these institutions. You really don't know if the Admissions officer will love the essay you wrote or how well you play an instrument. Second, kids change very dramatically between the time they send applications in October, to when they have to send their deposit by May 1st. It's very wise to have a mix of types and sizes of schools to choose from...the kid who wanted a big school in a big city, suddenly wants a small school in a small town...trust me, from experience it does happen! Finally, third a student needs to cast a large net if financial aid is necessary. Unfortunately, financial safeties need to be part of the mix for many.</p>
<p>April will be a very interesting this year. Not only to see how admissions are affected at the top schools by the elimination of the ED, but also state flagships like UF who did away with their ED program this year (in the past, their admissions decisions have been a bit unpredictable).</p>
<p>Something lost in this discussion is that at one time (for instance, when I applied to college in the 1960s), those of us not living in the Northeast had excellent, affordable state U options. Back then, most of us thought U. Mich, U. Ill, Colorodo, UCLA and many others were the educational equivalent of the best in the land, including Harvard and Stanford. </p>
<p>We tend to forget that the strength of some private schools, especially in New York and New England, resulted partly from the weak state of the state universities in those same states. Those residents did not have the state U option that those of us in the midwest, mountain and west coast states did. (don't know about the south back then...)</p>
<p>Flash forward to now. Many parents who graduated from these same state Universities want their kids to attend something better. But, are the elite private colleges "better"? Don't know. With faltering state support for higher ed in many states, they may well be so. But it is also possible that our perception of "better" has changed, not the underlying reality. We have certainly been conditioned to believe that more expensive is better, that more in demand is better.</p>
<p>But is it? Personally, I don't know. Of course, when my D faced the decision a few years ago between the inexpensive state U route and the expensive private school route, she chose the latter with our support. But was it the right decision? Is this the right decision for most kids? Don't know.</p>
<p>This subject is being discussed in a thread entitled "You get what you pay for" or words to that effect. </p>
<p>As usual, it comes down to "it depends on the kid and it depends on the school."</p>
<p>newmassdad, I think that you raise an important point. I often find myself in conversations with parents from California, for example, who don't seem to realize how extremely limited the state school options are for some of us. If we lived in California, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Virginia--just to cite some examples--things would be different. Unfortunately, for an OOS student the cost of their wonderful flagship state schools is in the neighborhood of $30K, with pretty much no need-based financial aid. The only financial aid sufficiently large for us would be a few extremely competitive scholarships that he may or may not have a realistic shot at. Since we can expect to do much better financially with "need" schools--<em>if</em> he gets in, of course--and our state U is not strong in his likely areas of study, applying to state schools doesn't make financial sense for us. (And in addition to that my S really doesn't want to attend a huge school.) </p>
<p>I think you have it slightly backwards, though: many of the elite private schools in New England were there long before publics existed...so I think the relative weakness of the public systems resulted from the existence of the privates, not the other way round.</p>
<p>As a high school senior who's finishing up the last of his college apps, I'm what you might call a prestige whore</p>
<p>I applied to a total of 11 schools, all VASTLY different, all very upper-end... from top private universities to top state universities to top liberal arts colleges</p>
<p>Now let me explain some of my reasoning for this buckshot approach to college admissions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I do NOT have a clue where I'll get in or what type of school will like me best. I know this is true for everyone who applies to competitive schools, but it's especially true for me. I chose a very different route to high school success, so my application will rely largely on human bias or college idiosyncracies. A state U honors program may reject me for my not-perfect GPA, while a liberal arts college might like my quirky, but risky, essays. Harvard may reject me for my complete lack of leadership positions, but Chicago may accept me for my self-directed activities like my online business.</p></li>
<li><p>I do NOT know enough about myself. I've lived in an upper-class suburb, with 2 parents, a 2-story 4-bedroom house, and a fairly but not overly competitive public school all of my life.</p></li>
<li><p>I do NOT believe in the concept of picking "perfect matches". Let's be real here. I read that 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Staying at a college overnight and talking to professors will only give you a superficial, if not sometimes misleading, overall view. Ultimately, it's the details that rule our lives, and these details are either too various to be explored, too complex for a final judgment to be made, or are completely up to chance.</p></li>
<li><p>I DO believe that I can succeed almost "anywhere", as long as it's an intellectually stimulating environment. I'm not bragging about my adaptability.. but it's not like I'm choosing between UPenn and Beijing U. In the end, all these top colleges, though I do admit they have their own "personality", are historically established institutions that reside in safe communities in America. </p></li>
<li><p>I DO acknowledge the subconscious, but ever-present, prestige or "excitement" factor. I'm a very malleable person, what can I say?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Nothing wrong with honesty! I've seen far worse justifications for choices. :)</p>
<p>Truth is, your adaptability is probably similar to a lot of your peers. I think a lot of kids would be happy at most colleges, with due consideration to the outliers like Chicago, Reed and a few others that do have real "personalities". </p>
<p>there is also a saying that I believe to be true:</p>
<p>Almost all kids love the college they end up going to, whether it be their first choice or last choice. Why? Because anything is better (in the mind of an 18 year old) than 4 more years at home with the parents. :)</p>
<p>The fact that the VAST VAST majority of students like the college that they end up going to pretty much nullifies the necessity of applying only to perfect match school</p>
<p>Hopefully, when I get my decisions back in the spring, my choices will be narrow enough to make a REAL decision (i.e. deciding between 4 colleges instead of 400 colleges)</p>
<p>you raise a good point: should one invest a lot of time visiting and evaluating a college before one gets accepted, or after? Wit the daunting odds of admissions for a lot of schools, it is easy to argue that the real evaluation should take place after acceptance.</p>
<p>The problem is that there is so little time to do so, at least among that group that replies around April 1. Some are earlier, so allow more time, of course.</p>
<p>That's true, but I still felt uneasy about making emotional attachments to schools that will almost never turn out as you expect them to, and furthermore have a 10% admit rate!</p>
<p>Our D used EA to cut down on her number of applications. She applied EA to her favorite match school and was accepted, and then applied RD to only two reaches, only one of which she's sure she'll attend if accepted. That's just three apps, whereas her older sister applied RD to 13 schools to be sure she got a spot she liked.</p>