<p>...i'm sure you all have some but mine - as a mom of a senior - are the comments by adults my age. That is, "I got into Georgetown...I"m sure your daughter can." or "I had to choose between Princeton and Yale and it wasn't as hard to get in as people make it out to be." And i want to say, "You're in your 40s. When you went to school X, it was a completely & utterly different experience. If you were applying today, you would have <em>zero</em> chance of admission."</p>
<p>Yes, i know they mean well.....but going into an elite school in the 1970s or 80s...there's no way to compare the two....</p>
<p>Vent away. Grandparents very often get in on this and don’t understand why Susie and John aren’t applying to every Ivy. Siblings who have recently gone through the process with their kids either don’t understand why your kid is thrilled with your state flagship, or they think you’re nuts for considering anything but the state flagship. Or, my personal favorite, their child didn’t get into ABC U so your child won’t.</p>
<p>This year is our last and I will be glad to move on from this chapter.</p>
<p>My MIL doesn’t understand why we would pay to send anyone away to college when there’s one in the next town over. Apparently her other children failed to save for college so that’s where their kids are going – so that makes it the only logical, rational decision.</p>
<p>Yeah, there’s a certain private school in Los Angeles that you could get accepted to by fogging a mirror when I was in high school, but now it’s super competitive. There’s a public school in San Diego that I felt I was above applying to in the late '80’s because it was for partiers who didn’t care about school. We jokingly called it the Harvard of the West. Well, my DS was wait listed there—wait listed!! He’s a college freshman now and very happy with his ultimate choice but, wow. Times have changed.</p>
<p>That’s too funny! I meant the other public university in SD, but I forgot that I’m on CC, where UCSD is considered a safety school Honestly I don’t think kids today could manage the social life I had in college (plus working to support myself) without flunking out. Everything just seems so hard now. They’re so serious–at least my kiddo is.</p>
<p>Ah, I was referring to a college guidebook that I found in my school’s library from the 1980s. It said that UCSD was easy to get into, had a great party scene, although the sciences were quite difficult. </p>
<p>And don’t worry, I was initially waitlisted at SDSU so not all posters on CC are 2400 or bust. Also, San Diego State is still considered a massive party school in the same league as Chico State and UCSB (or as a friend who goes there calls it, University of Cannabis, Sex and Beer).</p>
<p>“Yeah, there’s a certain private school in Los Angeles that you could get accepted to by fogging a mirror when I was in high school, but now it’s super competitive.”</p>
<p>What a life those UCSB students have. The school is literally right on the beach. We drove through Isla Vista when DS visited there. DH joked that we might see a couch on fire on a lawn. Well, we drove down Del Playa and what did we see? A smoldering couch! And a lot of hung over kids :-)</p>
<p>The corollary to OP’s frustration with parents who think it is easy for kids to be accepted to highly selective colleges today is the parent who believes that HIS child would have been accepted - if he had chosen to apply.</p>
<p>“Billy had a great ACT score [28] and two AP classes. Since he was also played JV baseball for two years, his uncle told him he was a shoo in for Harvard if he wanted it. But who wants to live in Boston for four years? We wouldn’t allow him to apply”</p>
<p>I think what i’m really struggling with is that i’ve always wanted my kids to think big…not to be held back…it’s cool if they don’t make it, but i don’t want them to feel like I don’t support the try. Ya know what i mean? But as my daughter and I flew back from NYC college visits this week, she said to me, “Mom, I think we may be overreaching here.” And it’s made me pause.</p>
<p>Parents can be a real PITA when it comes to college or prep school admissions. I have lived through my fair share of private day school and boarding school admissions cycles. I am about to embark on a college admissions cycle with one of my children. My approach has been to make myself scarce during those months. I also caution my children not to initiate conversation about the topic and to deflect intrusive questions with a “I’ll be happy to share where I am going with you when I know”.</p>
<p>Well, it should make you pause and maybe it’s time to reevaluate. Whose dream are the schools you are looking at, hers or yours? And what’s the reality for your situation, what are your odds, not the rest of the world’s odds?</p>
<p>I sometimes think CC is unreasonably pessimistic about chances of getting in some of the top schools. Sure, the numbers say 14 or 18%, but that’s not for your kid. Your kid might be near zero, in reality, a waste of an application fee, while others may be more realistically 50%. That’s a coin flip. Apply to 8 coin flips, and what are the odds of you losing all eight? One in 256!. That means you win 255 times or of 256! Even if you only apply to two schools with those odds, you still win 3 out of 4 times!</p>
<p>Let’s be a little pessimistic, and only match you to schools where you have double the chance of the average Joe (or Jo). One in three odds. Eight schools and you lose one in 25 times, you win the other 24. Even if you have average odds, 1 in 6, with eight schools, the entire Ivy League, you’ll still get in one about 77% of the time.</p>
<p>Here’s the key for any parent and child, what are YOUR odds. Realistically. Cold hard facts, an honest assessment, what does a professional say. If you’re not at least at the average odds of getting in, you’ve probably got unrealistic dreams, but I would venture a guess that if you fall in the 25-75 range for any given school, you have better than average odds. Those ranges are for people who got in, not every kid who ever applied.</p>
<p>Odds of getting in any one particular elite school - slim. Odds of getting in an elite school - better than you think.</p>
Honestly I don’t think kids today could manage the social life I had in college (plus working to support myself) without flunking out. Everything just seems so hard now. They’re so serious–at least my kiddo is.</p>
I don’t even talk about my son’s school choice to avoid comments like you mentioned.</p>