<p>Your son has great stats, and is a legitimate candidate at any school in the country. I think that Starbright is correct: you should consider hiring a GOOD college admissions counselor to help your son develop his list and put together his applications.</p>
<p>It would appear that you can afford it, and it would also appear that despite your high level of education and obvious intelligence you do not really understand the elite college admissions scene. (If you did, no way would he have taken 8 SATIIs. The APs are a different matter.) Don’t feel bad: few do! :)</p>
<p>The key thing will be finding a GOOD one. I would avoid the likes of Ivywise like the plague. You do not need to spend $10K, or probably even $5K. But you don’t want to end up like the Indian father in Texas a few years ago who was calling the newspapers because his son with a super-scored 2400 on the SAT didn’t get into Ivies. He simply did not understand that concentrating on test-taking will not get a kid into those schools. (It WOULD get a kid into a school that was solely numbers-driven, such as an instate public.)</p>
<p>The fact that your son chose to forgo the magnet program in order to continue devoting himself to music, in opposition to the expectations of his family and community, and yet achieved so brilliantly academically, is precisely the sort of storyline that separates him from the drone children of tiger mothers.</p>
<p>As I said above, he needs to be presented as the passionate learner and musician he is. I noticed that he also held an office in student government: that’s great! Was he elected? That’s the kind of thing that H&Y love to see. Generally, they prefer high-achieving movers and shakers to solitary intellectuals. (I don’t know about Princeton in that regard.)</p>
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But I am no Amy Chua - not as smart, not as pretty, and not as crazy.</p>
<p>not as crazy - You cant have everything you know!</p>
<p>I think she was pretending to be crazy because she is too smart. Probably made a few million dollars that way, by writing that book which will become a movie soon.</p>
<p>I was trying to make a point - the same one I tell my daughter everyday. His 150 hours of community service is not going to make him stand out. There are kids with 1,000 plus hours and while they may not have started the hospital, they were there helping to lay bricks, put up tiles or paint walls over their summer breaks or for a semester. What I tell my daughter is that it is not just good enough to volunteer - you need to do something you are passionate about and that needs to come through in your essays. It is not just good to belong to organizations - you need to belong to those that fit your personality and be a leader. There is a name in the admissions community for kids who just take stuff, tests, join clubs and do meaningless volunteer work just to pad their resume - but this is a family forum so I will not say it.
As a alumni interviewer, the admissions officers always tell us to get a “sense of the kid” during the interview. We do not ask for admissions data - the assumption is that they are all fantastic on paper. In this kid’s case I would ask - so, I see you work at a senior’s home. Tell me about your experience and why did you choose this endeavor. I may ask them to tell me about a current event and why does it peak your interest. I always end with asking them to tell me something about themselves that is nowhere in the application they send to Yale.
If this sounds subjective, yes it is. Of course our interviews are not deal breakers - but they do add a different flavor to a candidate. And, I have also had the admissions committee ask for my feel for a kid that was on the fence to see if the impression they were getting on paper was the same as the interviewer was getting.
I am new to this site (my daughter is just finishing the 9th grade) and I will soon be in the same position. My daughter wants to go to Yale - but that is because it is the only school she knows since she goes there with me to reunions and other functions. Based on the high school she goes to, there are other, smaller New England schools that may be a better fit for her. Also, her legacy status is not going to take her far since mommy has not donated millions to the school. Just saying.
Hopes this clears up the point I was trying to make.</p>
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<p>Yeah, that’s fine. I wasn’t questioning what you were saying, I was merely curious.</p>
<p>And believe me, after reading the profiles of some of the kids on this website I would have no trouble believing they were the driving force in establishing a new hospital in an impoverished country. As you say, it would just have to be something they were very passionate about and did for the love of it - not for an application. Because something like that would require almost all of their time. That’s all I was asking.</p>
<p>TPerry - Does nt it all sound kind of sad and rather horrible that we as parents are telling our kids (I do exactly the samething and that is what saddens me) things are not good enough because we are trying to get them to this lofty ideal of what is possible with whichever school they are trying to get into.</p>
<p>It is heartbreaking when they do everything and then that silly admission does nt come through despite all the crap we have dished out to our kids over the years about what will get them in.</p>
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<p>Take Pizzagirl’s advice seriously. You only need to check where the rest of the 100 M&S kids went to understand why. Not going to that school you made a good decision, as your son could rank the 25th there.</p>
<p>I thought a math kid could easily score an 800 in Math II, 12% test takers did. Too many sub-800 scores is not a good thing.</p>
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<p>I don’t want to believe this but I have to. I’ve heard that many HYP students wonder if the adcoms made a mistake admitting them. There must be lots of wonderful kids out there (a few thousands are enough to shut the rest of us out).</p>
<p>The students with “impressive” ECs probably just had their parents hand out a few thousand so their children could travel to those foreign countries. I would be more impressed if I student raised money to travel abroad.</p>
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<p>The student would probably exhaust the math offerings at undergraduate-only schools early, so undergraduate-only schools would not be a good choice.</p>
<p>There is no heartbreak if a kid has list of colleges with numbers of preferences.<br>
When D. did not get into #1 program on her list, she has happily chosen #2. Was perfect place for her by her own admittance. Now she is finally going to her original #1…to Med. School. Looking back, she feels it is much better combo of UG/Med. School than her original preference.<br>
If you celebrate achievements instead of feeling down for something that is not available, it will work out at the end. Kids do not see it that the wide open door is the one to enter, not the locked one.</p>
<p>we will look into more schools. ucbalumnus brought up a good point about math course offerings at some schools. S does want to go deep in math. Hubby and I know how important math is when one gets into PhD program, his is in Engineering and mine in Finance.</p>
<p>Talked to S this morning on the way to school about the advices and reality (some of them brutal but honest, which is exactly what we needed). He didn’t say much in the car, I guess digesting the info. He gave me a big smile when he got off the car and wanted me to wish him good luck in today’s SGA election. I are lucky that he is high achieving, focused, and most importantly happy.</p>
<p>I’m interested in the linkage between his love of music and helping seniors get exposed to music in the course of their stay at a nursing home. There could be a really interesting, compelling story there. And it can be a “small” story - he listened to a woman recalling a story of her childhood in another country, and he went and learned folk songs from that country and played them for her. Of course that’s just an example; there could be many more. My point being, it doesn’t need to be a “change the world” type of story. </p>
<p>Fiveacres, it’s really important to understand that the humanity in a story like that can be FAR more impressive to adcom officers than a whole slew of SAT II’s and music competition awards.</p>
<p>If you are concerned about his exhausting undergrad math offerings, you can still consider superb LACs such as Swarthmore, where I believe students can take courses at U Penn. It is important to be sure that the transportation and scheduling situation makes this realistic. One thing to do would be to ask the math department about whether other students have done so.</p>
<p>Another advantage of Swat would be access to the musical resources of Philadelphia. Of course, Swat is just about as difficult to get into as most of the Ivies. :)</p>
<p>I personally think that at a certain point, difficult is difficult, and it’s hardly “easier” to get into a school with a 15-20% acceptance rate than a 5-10% acceptance rate – either way, it’s a crapshoot as to whether you’ll be selected, no matter how strong your resume, and you need to have major backup plans and be fully prepared to be delighted with those plans, and consider acceptance to these elite schools as icing on the cake, not something you are owed or due.</p>
<p>BTW, if he already has a full ride at Maryland College Park, that is a very fine school for math and related subjects that he should not be disappointed to go to in an academic sense. Most students would be glad to have such a good school in their intended major with a full ride as a safety.</p>
<p>I like the suggestions of hiring a college coach/advisor. Yes, perhaps they can help increase the odds a tad for admission to Ivy. But more importantly they can get to know the student and suggest a list of schools for investigation that would be a great fit. </p>
<p>It seems a worthy investment, especially since parents are new to the game.</p>
<p>I suggest to cool down - this is UG that you consider. It is truly does not matter. More so, very top kids have so many opportunities at every college, state schools are very happy to have them, openning doors for them that are closed to general student body. No matter where talented hard working kid end up going, if he continues on the same hard working path, he will be on top, guarantee, I would not think too hard where to send him for UG. It is not worth one second of worrying. Honestly, as a parent looking back you will not believe why you bothered for 5 minutes, let alone few months. And if you think that there are no challenges or caliber of kids is not the same, I assure you, both assumptions are very wrong.</p>
<p>If there is any interest in Columbia University, there are several fine LACs like Wesleyan that do a 3-2 program awarding dual degrees with columbia.</p>
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<p>It truly DOES matter.</p>
<p>It determines who you will spend the next four years of your life with, who you will share ideas with, who you will explore adult life and grow up with, most likely who will be your longest term friends. It determines the context in which your intellectual perspective is formed and refined: whether it be broad or narrow. It may well determine whether you explore various fields of endeavor. It matters in so many ways that it is difficult to list them all.</p>
<p>The undergraduate education at a transformative school is far more than a work credential or a mere stop on the way to professional school and another work credential. It matters a LOT.</p>
<p>I agree it matters a lot and that’s why it is shortsighted to focus only on a certain group of 8 schools when there are many places that can be transformative. HYP don’t hold the monopoly on transformation.</p>