There is a strong interest in highly selective schools on cc, yes.
But think about it, critically. Someone aiming at a college with an 80%+ admittance rate doesn’t require much discussion (err, “obsession.”). (Just mail in a transcript and a check.) And that includes the “vast majority of Americans” who attend college.
So the point is, as was noted above, what you are seeing is selection bias. CC serves a small student/parent group. (Didn’t you take a Stats class at Brown???)
@bluebayou I did take stats at Brown and actually worked in admissions for two years after graduating. I disagree about selection bias. In my year, we rejected roughly 25% of applications during the initial screen. These were cases where the reader rejected them after just glancing at the application. The reason wasn’t that these students fell below a cutoff. It is that the applications were so utterly uninspiring that you didn’t want to read any further.
" The reason wasn’t that these students fell below a cutoff. It is that the applications were so utterly uninspiring that you didn’t want to read any further."
so the admission office plays snobby games just like frats looking to reject nerds, geeks and people who do not fit their mold. (at a school like say U of south carolina) but the ivy admissions folks reject “uninspiring” people aka…people they look down on…different criteria perhaps from a frat but same concept!..I am shocked(sarcasm)
@zobroward I wouldn’t call it snobby. I didn’t say we only liked essays about trips to Paris or photo safaris in Zimbabwe. Precisely the opposite in fact. If you look at the entering classes at these universities, they are far from cookie cutter or full of privileged offspring. And in the case of the NE universities, southern applicants got more than their far shake as we did look for diversity in terms of where students came from.
I also find it intriguing that you associate an “inspiring” or “compelling” candidate with snobbishness.
And those smart hopefuls applying to Brown or other competitive schools shouldn’t be worried about creating “utterly uninspiring” applications? And therefore end up on a board like CC seeking help?
I don’t understand your definition of selection bias given that you just outlined a perfect slam dunk example of it while saying you don’t think it applies.
I’m aware ivies look down on people writing about the family trip to aspen. in fact those people are actually frowned upon. that was my point.
“inspiring” in an ivy admission office is a loaded word. just pointing that out.
selection bias is real.
as Blossom stated earlier, we old timers are a self selected group of posters who are still on CC trying to help the newbies, or the naive or the just plain clueless parents and students through the whole college application process, as we were once helped by others on CC.
Its called paying it forward.
nothing wrong with that.
be glad you found us widgetmidget
@ucbalumnus Over half the seats at UM go to OOS students so the ratio isn’t as big as many And they IS kids are much better at self selecting in MI than CA in my experience. Most CA kids and parents I know aren’t that upset about the selectivity of the UCs and have a pretty good idea where they fit. Plus there is a lot of space between UCB/UCLA and UCR. There are a bunch of good CSU schools, some decent privates with FA, and there are great OOS options for the high stat kids like UM if you can afford it or UA if money is an issue. Parents like @CaliDad2020 are more the exception than the rule. In our large competitive HS most kids, whether they were male, female, or gender neutral would never have even wasted the app fee for UCB or UCLA with similar stats. They would have targeted CPSLO, SDSU, or one of the other awesome engineering schools that are available.
@notveryzen - High five for this ^^ (post 27) and thank you for using “SDSU” and “awesome” in the same sentence (Aztec grad and current parent here) 
@menloparkmom There used to be a saying in admissions: “if you are from Scarsdale, a 4.0 GPA and 2350 on the SAT is as much use as a wooden leg in a forest fire”.
I disagree with the comment that bargain hunting is more acceptable now than it used to be (whenever that mythic “used to be” was).
I had stellar classmates- back in the 1970’s- who had the stats for any or most elite school. Smartest girl in my HS class went to nursing school- not a BS program, but a regular old nursing school. She was the only girl in AP Physics that year, and one of two in AP Chem. Off the charts grades and scores. Parents of modest means. She lived at home and commuted.
This was not uncommon (although some of her friends did wonder why she didn’t want to be a “scholarship student” which was what need-based aid recipients were called back then) at one of the “Seven Sisters” colleges which had admitted her. But dozens of kids from my HS just went to the cheapest option.
Fast forward to my own kids generation- and I also know dozens of kids who did the CUNY route- living at home, taking the subway back and forth. Even well to do parents couldn’t see paying for a kid to dorm when he or she had a bedroom at home and an acceptable four year BA/BS program accessible via public transportation. EVEN in the alleged status obsessed northeast… kids go to Hunter, Queens, Brooklyn, Lehman, Baruch, City College. Many of them can afford full freight (but the parents aren’t interested) and some of them would be likely candidates for high merit aid at privates, or some need based aid at an elite.
But they’re not interested. A public U is fine. And kid can keep their HS job which is also fine.
So we are seeing a very small, tip of the iceberg phenomenon. Parents who wonder if Villanova is “worth it”. Parents who worry that UIUC won’t be as good a stepping stone to a CS career as Berkeley even though B will cost twice as much once flights from Illinois are factored in. Kids who obsess that if they take the maximum loans so they can attend their “dream school” but can’t get into an impacted major, is their life over if they major in Econ and not Electrical Engineering. Kids who don’t know what investment banking is but they know they want to go to Wharton undergrad so they can get a job doing it.
Small, small number of people. A neighbor of mine is deliriously happy- her kid went to the local non-flagship state U branch and lived at home. Got a good job in industrial sales and just finished the training program and is now deciding which location and division he wants for his first posting.
Company is a Fortune 100, solid, profitable, well managed corporation. The kid has a lot of grit and focus- which surely helped him land the job, but it’s not a campus where the company recruits, and its not the kind of job which kids from his college typically get (good place for a teaching degree) but he’s off to the races.
Prestige? Elite? Don’t care, never did.
I do think that CC students are a small cog in the college search universe. CC, as mentioned before, was originally started as a site where those interested in top tier schools, especially Ivy League schools could go to share information and even discuss strategy. It has morphed a bit from its earliest days but it’s original intent is still very much an influence. What it does now provide is very good information, especially concerning costs, financial aid and a general strategy to applying to a variety of schools. Are some CC kids pretentious? Probably. but the the benefits to those who are really seeking valuable information is important.
"There used to be a saying in admissions: “if you are from Scarsdale, a 4.0 GPA and 2350 on the SAT is as much use as a wooden leg in a forest fire”.
Perhaps for Brown, but that is not the case for the vast majority of US colleges.
@blossom - I was referring to bargain hunting being discussed in the parents’ forum here at CC. For a sample of the invective that has been seen here in the past when parents wrote about the hunt for merit-based aid, see momfromtexas’ original thread started in 06 http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html
@Zinhead - There was a real 180 in the parents forum about money after the crash. A whole lot of posters went from “money shouldn’t be an object if your kid has a dream” to “well, you do need to consider your family budget”, and some even ended up at “look what a great deal my kid got!” It happened so quickly that I imagine there were rubber marks in a lot of living rooms and guidance counselor’s offices.
It is absolutely true that most families in the US need to seriously consider finances when thinking about their kids educations. That is why nationwide more students live at home and commute to local community colleges and four year institutions, than go to sleep-away-college.
I know; that’s why I’m on CC. I’d rather make as few mistakes as possible with regards to paying for college. I’m fairly sure merit hunters all know that the ivies don’t offer merit aid.
So far everything you’ve posted on here has further convinced me that a lot of people who attend Brown are fairly insufferable. I don’t know if you expected us to bow down to your brilliant bits of wisdom, but I’m certainly not feeling it.
I’m fairly sure merit hunters all know that the ivies don’t offer merit aid.
^^ if only that were the case… 8-|
you are correct, widgemidget. I apologize for the early morning snark.
@menloparkmom , isn’t that one of the first things you find out when you start researching merit aid? It was literally the first thing we figured out once we started doing NPC’s. We were like, well shoot, time for a new game plan. I think my third post on here was like, hey, colleges are wicked expensive! From my perspective, it’s impossible to spend any time on CC and still keep your head in the sand with regards to just what’s really going on with schools today.
Above-average academic performers, especially those from well-to-do families attending CUNY wouldn’t have considered CUNYs during my HS years or earlier(post-1969) unless their parents were extremely overprotective and wanted their kids to commute, the child’s only other acceptance because of choosing too many reaches were local private colleges which they felt weren’t academically any better(I.e. St. John’s U except Pharmacy or Hofstra) or the parents held the flipside to the “Ivies/elites or bust” mentality: “all colleges are the same”.
Even the working-class families in my old NYC neighborhood with kids who were above-academic achievers viewed the CCNY and other 4-year CUNY colleges during the '80s and early-mid-'90s as “13th grade” or “colleges of the absolute last resort”.
What you’re describing seems to be a much more recent phenomenon after the CUNY system enacted reforms to substantially raise admission and academic standards. This included an initiative to move towards no longer directly admitting academically remedial students directly to the 4-year colleges and the founding of programs geared towards academically elite students who were viable contenders for Ivy/elite admissions like the Macaulay Honors college.
All those reforms substantially raised the academic reputation of the 4-year CUNY colleges to the point they became good affirmative choices for academic achieving students, including those who were well-to-do by the mid-'00s. That wasn’t the case just a decade before.
Especially considering one HS teacher who was himself a CCNY graduate(pre-1969) felt the need to spend nearly an hour after classes talking a friend who was a viable elite U candidate by HS GPA/stats/co-curriculars(Math team) OUT OF seriously considering CCNY and another CUNY 4-year colleges over the elite Us and matches he had applied to on the grounds such colleges wouldn’t provide the academic enrichment a student at his level needed and because there were serious safety concerns for highly academically engaged students like himself near those campuses back then. Friend ended up getting admitted to and attended an HYP and is now a math Prof at another elite U.
Not everyone here is interested in super elites. But most are looking at more selective or highly selective schools or for schools where merit money is likely. If a kid is interested in a school that has a 50% or higher acceptance rate, not sure there are as many questions regarding applications etc.