If you prick an admissions officer, do they not bleed? If you tickle an admissions officer, do they not laugh? If you send them your application, do they not lose it? And if you wrong them, shall they not add you to the waiting list?
I’m not an admissions counselor but after 15 months here at CC, I could play one on TV.
here’s the biggest thing i’ve realized (and i’m a mom whose kid got into great schools but was rejected from both Ivys she pursued and would have been rejected from all 8 if she had tried – there are great colleges out there who will love your daughter…you just have to work at seeing the worth of those colleges…and understand that it’s okay for some colleges to reject her…a carefully crafted list (which folks can help you do here) can solve that.
But the bigger thing that I’d point out is that many of the kids who do make it into many of the self-proclaimed "top’ schools really are amazing kids who had well-rounded lives and didn’t kill themselves studying (well, no more than any top 20% student)…they just have a spark…my D’s classmate was accepted to brown, cornell, berkley, dartmouth, and received full 4-year offers from colleges such as Duke and Vanderbilt. he’s a happy, kind, well-adjusted kid…who’s a superb scholar (a 2400 on his first SAT), a fine athlete and a good citizen. he’s just what many schools are looking for…he’s happy now and he’ll be happy there…
Totally agree with you, OP. I recently had a friend talk about her dd missing the chance to cheer on her HS team in a big playoff game because she had homework, like I would understand. I told her my kids always picked the game.
The reason people here aren’t quite responding to what you’re saying is because they want you to know that it’s hard out here for an applicant and that it’s not your parenting style that will potentially cost dd a spot at a top school but that it’s just a numbers game. I think almost everyone on here would applaud your non-hyper attitude, but they also feel compelled to make sure you understand how difficult it is for everyone and so you have to do due-diligence around having realistic expectations, creating a good list, etc. I think you and dd are going to be just fine.
We tried to raise our Ds the same way - enjoy learning. The solution is to apply broadly and have a safety you can afford, your D is assured of admission, and that she will be happy to attend. Everything else is gravy.
One you thing you said stood out to me. You said “It is upsetting to me to think that so many college admissions officers might not even consider my daughter”. The truth is she is a good applicant and they will consider her. The challenge is that every other student they consider will also be students that are highly capable to be successful in their universities within a similar range of stats and varying strengths and interests. Don’t be upset. 95+% of the schools she can apply to will be matches or safeties for her.
It can be a bit of a shock to really good students (and their parents) when they realize that their qualifications as bright, well-rounded, genuinely nice kids are insufficient for consideration at many elite schools. Some competition comes from “study robots” but more often it’s kids who are supremely talented in one area and extremely talented in several others – and based on the kids my D knows who got into multiple tippy-top schools, they are often genuinely nice kids, too.
Once your D takes the ACT and/or SAT next year, you will have you a better idea of her options. If she’s visited schools that she likes, and her scores (and other stats) put her in range for admission, then great. If she’s fallen in love with an elite that will require additional test prep, higher GPA/class rank, etc., for her to even have a shot, then you can help her to decide whether that makes sense.
Early in my D’s junior year we visited a top 20 that I thought was perfect for her (on paper)–until we actually visited. She really disliked it, and I realized that the main thing that appealed to me was the prestigious name (and I am one of those people who typically scoff at fancy labels on clothing and cars). What a wake-up call!
I let my D take the lead from that point forward (although I helped with research, running NPCs, and online scheduling of visits). We visited a number of schools and she settled on several that fit her stats and interests and our financial parameters. None of them were “elites” but all were very good schools that seemed like good fits. She applied early action to all and had five choices by Christmas. It was a pleasure to see how relaxed and happy she was. In hindsight, I was glad that I did not encourage her to take the ACT again, or try another round of SAT 2s, so that she might have a shot at a really highly ranked college. She was happy with her options, and therefore so was I.
It sounds like you are willing to NOT push your D to make too many sacrifices (sleep, fun, friends, music) to develop the credentials that would put her in the running for certain elite schools. That’s great! Just drive her around this summer and let her see what schools appeal to her. If she wants to knock herself out for a particular option, she’ll let you know.
One last thought for your violist: If she’s not interested in majoring in music but definitely wants to continue playing in college, make that one of your primary research items when deciding where to visit. A number of highly ranked schools with music schools/conservatories do not allow non-majors to participate (although some have a separate, non-majors orchestra). Also most LACs have orchestras, but sometimes they are rather small and perhaps not at the level that she’s accustomed to / interested in.
IBviolamom, I am standing and applauding you right now. Who in their right mind would “despair” over a 95 instead of a 98? I’d much rather have the well-rounded child that you appear to have, one who is interested in many things and good at a lot of them. Bravo to her!
That moment you find yourself looking at the crazy admissions games playing out around your child, and are able to think, “I feel so sorry for you all,” is incredibly freeing.
The process and the results just don’t need to be so fraught with negative possibilities.
Become a bit deaf to the chatter around you, and open yourself to the many, many colleges and universities in this large country that would be perfectly wonderful matches for your child.
I say that, but I also have experienced the ridiculousness of other people’s reactions to my own kids’ choices. Some people are overly impressed by name brands. Just lately, the snob down the street pretended not to have heard of the perfectly nice college my youngest will be attending in the fall…
So grow a thick skin, if you opt out of the admissions rat race. That, and smile and nod.
Lol, it’s like everyone on CC with a 95+ and a 2200 SAT are in orchestra and work at nursing homes. Colleges don’t want 2 dimensional clones, they want diversity. Harsh, but the truth. Your daughter is very smart, but that’s not enough to get her into top schools. But I guess being smart is a “hook”
Is there a CC forum hall of fame? Because @Gator88NE’s post #20 needs to go there.
This year Berkeley reported 78K freshman applicants, UCLA reported 93K. I’m sure they have lots of super student applicants. I vaguely remember reading an article a long time ago that quoted I think it was a Princeton admissions officer stating that they had received 20K ish applicants and if she threw all the application files off a building, she could go down and the first 3K she randomly picked up could be accepted as all the files were pretty much same (ie from super students). So that’s in part the kind of craziness you have out there especially at the top programs. On the one hand fortunately colleges aren’t just about smart kids. Otherwise you’d only need classrooms, libraries and dorms. On the other hand colleges have different depts., each with their own needs that can vary from year to year. Your D is a musician, let’s just say she’s a viola player and she has great stats and applies to UCLA. Music chair puts in his/her request for upcoming year which includes need for 5 viola players. Admissions finds 250 viola students with requisite stats, including your D’s app. In trying to meet needs of music chair (and all depts.)., diversity, limited number of seats, etc , hard decisions will be made and so just being one of thousands and thousands of other great applicants isn’t enough and an applicant who is otherwise qualified like your D may lose out. It’s just the way it is…
Fortunately, just like they say there is someone out there for everyone, there are many, many schools where your D can gain admittance and thrive. As has been mentioned above, start with safeties. It will require some work and effort on both you and your D’s part to find them, hopefully along with counselor’s input. But a bright well rounded kid like your D should do just fine in admission process. So yes good enough can be good enough. Good luck.
Well to be fair, some parents are trying to keep the craziness out of their kids lives, but the kids egg each other on and probably make things more stressful and competitive than they need to be.
I had two very different kids. One was pulling me all through school - complaining of boredom and we got as much acceleration for him as we could persuade the school system to give him. He had top scores and top grades. He ended up with a strong interest in computer programming, got some state level awards in some school based ECs, but he got 8 hours of sleep every night only doing things he liked doing. He got into Harvard, rejected from a bunch of (slightly) less selective schools, had merit offers at two smaller tech schools and attended Carnegie Mellon.
Younger son was more easy going with a B+ to A1 average and lopsided scores that were 100 points apart. He had some school based ECs nothing earthshaking. He got interested in origami and started selling his earrings, but he was not a driven type of kid at all. He ended up doing much better in admissions than we ever would have dreamed possible. I think in his case people liked him, recognized his potential and he really put a lot of effort into his application essays making the most of his modest activities.
Both my kids thoroughly enjoyed their high school years and got into colleges that fit their needs and desires very well. I think chasing the notion that there are only 20 good colleges out there is silly. There are hundreds.
D chose not to apply to any Ivies and I encouraged that. She was top 5% of her High School, School president and lead in the school show. So she was a successful HS student and might have gotten in. But the truth is that she would not have been happy studying/ working all the time–and she would have had to in order to keep up in an ivy environment. She would not have been satisfied with just getting by, because by nature she is competitive. Ultimately I think she would have been stressed all the time. Instead she applied and got into Brandeis, Binghamton, GW, NYU, Muhlenberg, American and Barnard. Going to an Ivy would have meant her going full pay, and instead she had lots of merit aid offers. She is a 2012 graduate of NYU and felt challenged, but not overwhelmed. She was able to study musical theatre, English and business. She had a lot of internships throughout the year. In the end, she was happy with her decision.
So many helpful replies, thank you! Glad to know I’m not alone in my “balanced” attitude. I appreciate people taking the time to respond so thoughtfully (and humorously!).
@0br0123, calling someone’s child a “2 dimensional clone” is very rude. Either say something supportive or disagree in a respectful way, isn’t that what a forum like this is for?
Bravo to nearly all the responding posters, too.
The quality of the college education isn’t the Usnews ranking or impossible selectivity. It’s the offerings in her major or other subjects she explores, how profs inspire and interact, the other opportunities to stretch and grow. Plus make friends and have fun. Nowadays, you can find that at so many schools.
Her 95 is an A and will likely be looked at that way. What significantly helps is to know the schools as she starts to refine ideas. Check the courses, activities and campus doings, and the flavor. Its part of matching herself and will help with applications.
Liked the El Capitain analogy.
Piling on to all of the above, with one tiny addition: you are not as alone as you think. True, valuing HS for the time that it is in your child’s life is a minority sport- but there are more of us out there than you realize. It’s just that we aren’t the ones whose voice you hear over the crowd - in a line, at an event, at a party. We aren’t even talking about college at all, usually deflecting incoming queries with a vague answer and changing the subject or leaving. We aren’t the one jumping in with unsolicited advice at every turn.
(ha! do you like that from a CC poster?!)
But on CC it is solicited advice, and more importantly, if you look about you will see that some of the great, frequent posters put up, they tend to fall into 2 camps: either factual information (this is how you do X, yes, you can appeal W, no, Y always means this), or encouragement towards balance and realism. Like michagandermom, above, when she says “The hard part is for the student to choose the very very small pool of schools - that she can afford, and that she likes, and that she has varying degrees of likelihood of getting into - which she deems worthy of her interest.”
My D, as a rising senior, was told by her GC that her decision to take a general science elective instead of AP chemistry would jeopardize her chances at some colleges. D had had no ‘electives’ during her entire HS career up til then, but this science course was famous in her school b/c of the teacher. She told the GC that she would never have another chance to take a course with that teacher but that she could easily take intro chemistry at any college, and that if that single course option- despite her schedule for the year already including AP Euro, AP USHistory, and AP Calc- was enough to make them not want her then she probably didn’t want them. In the end she had a wonderful year in that elective, and indeed got into her first choice college. When she told the GC, the GC sniffed that it wasn’t that surprising because she had chosen a ‘target’ school, not a ‘reach’ school as her first choice. The last laugh goes to my D who is simply blooming at her ‘target’ school
Like @eastcoascrazy, we took ourselves out of that race. As a full-pay family who cannot afford full-pay, we chose to look for merit opportunities (another plug for the Colleges that Change Lives consortium) rather than tippy-top prestige, especially since my D wanted to attend an LAC rather than a large state school. My D applied to 9 LACs and 3 instate CSUs (so whe would have a choice). She was awarded enough merit/talent scholarship money that her school won’t cost much more than the CSUs. We are so thrilled to be able to send her to a school she loves that loves her back. Who cares what the prestige-mongers think? To use another analogy: sure, I’d love to live near the beach, but living further inland, I can have a house three times the size and half the price of the one near the beach, and I can afford to send my kids to college to boot. What’s wrong with that?
Absolutely agree. Mine did go crazy on EC and that was her down time. Same with college, she didn’t have to go with tippy top either.
I think there was an article from WSJ about colleges. If I remember correctly, it’s not the right college but it’s what happens in college, the perfect trifecta for doing well after college is have a teacher that cares about teaching, a teacher who makes you excited about learning and a mentor. If a student finds the trifeca, which is rare, only 14% achieved that, they will do well after college. In that sense, both of my kids have been lucky in the college admissions.
@IBviolamom My son is one of those who has the UW4.0 and 2300 SAT and considers it “pretty good” but not good enough. Notice I said my son and not me. I think he is doing fine but the reason he has made this distinction is because he has looked at the stats of the schools he is interested in (schools like Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and Pomona College) and he sees the average stats of admitted students and knows that in order to be “very good” he needs a slightly higher CR score on his SATs. He currently has a 700. He feels he can get a higher score so he is “pretty good” for now.
I am grateful that he has chosen not to apply to any east coast ivies. He has chosen some of the top schools in the west but with the exception of Caltech they admissions are slightly higher - OK they are still bad. I am encouraging him to add some more SLACs with higher acceptance rates and (another plug for colleges that changes lives) some other schools where I think he would really be happy. He is also adding UCs and a CSU for which he has guaranteed admission.
I think the notion of whether your daughter is only “pretty good” or is on the mark, will depend on her interest in specific colleges. For some, her stats will not be good enough, for others her stats will be great.
Perhaps you should take some tours. Touring completely changed my son’s opinion about what kid of school he was interested in. When she knows what she is looking for she will know whether she should step it up or whether she can continue as she is. For most of those posters who state they are only “pretty good” more than likely they are referring to specific colleges they are interested in. There are thousands of colleges in the US.
@IBviolamom I wasn’t calling your daughter that! SO Sorry if it sounded like that. I was referring to the numerous CC poster who tend to have similar if not exact (and uninteresting) traits. I’m sure she is phenomenal, I just wanted you to know that it is important for her to stand out over other applicants! Sorry!