Or (regardless of perceptions of fairness or not) there is the perception is that Stanford is unattainable, while the UCs and CSUs are attainable, since most high schools will see 0 admits to Stanford (and maybe 0 for as long as anyone can remember), but many high schools will see someone admitted to every desired UC and CSU.
Also, applying to UCs and CSUs does not require support from the high school, since they do not require counselor or teacher recommendations, and do not require transcripts on application (they use self-reported academic records, verified on matriculation with final transcripts), so a student’s application cannot be blocked by counselor or teacher backlog or rationing of recommendations.
@ theloniusmonk. As you know, some majors at top UCs are now viewed as unattainable. During my kid’s HS Senior year, 75 kids applied to Stanford with 1 acceptance; around 170 applied to Berkeley and around 30 acceptances.
As unhealthy as social media is for kids, it becomes even more magnified this time of year. My kids know every fellow student who got accepted to Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, etc., and in their eyes, most of these kids are undeserving. They keep making these announcements to us parents: “So-and-so got into DreamU, he isn’t even that smart!” In their 4 years in HS, I’ve never heard these kids’ names mentioned. My one kid is especially sensitive since her Stanford rejection was received last week.
Involved parents should help their college bound students by making sure they “love their list” (of colleges they’ll apply too) instead of focusing all their energy on a single college. There are just so many options available to them it’s sad that many do not recognize the opportunities.
It can be hard for them to recognize the opportunities at not-super-selective colleges if they have been getting messages for years that attending and graduating super-selective colleges will open many doors to elite or dream career paths that are closed to those attending and graduating non-super-selective colleges (whether or not those messages are accurate for the particular career paths).
That’s where parents come in. I read so many posting by parents describing how devastated their kid is at not getting accepted at . First, to me, that parent probably could have done better at helping their kid navigate the process. The kid should also understand the process (with help of parent) and be on board with the whole reach-match-safety thing. If a kid is smart enough to feel they have a chance at they can surely understand the process and why putting all your eggs in the basket is not a smart strategy. And finally, if they don’t get accepted at let them feel hurt for a while - then move on because they (should) have another handful of options where they will flourish.
Yes indeed. My kids didn’t apply anywhere ED or SCEA. Instead, they applied to a guaranteed admissions and affordability for stats school, and any others on the list that would take an EA app. With D she got that acceptance early, knew it was affordable, and we went to accepted student weekend in the early winter and she learned all about the honors program and saw the dorms and talked to professors in her area of interest and we explored the city and she basically got enthusiastic about attending there if that became the only option. Doing all that was largely due to advice I got here, back then,and it is still very good advice.
Through fall/winter other affordable options came in. The reachy-reaches were in spring when we already knew she had good options, and that softened the blows considerably. She did get into one of them and it was affordable so she didn’t wind up at the early safeties, but she certainly could have, and been very happy and successful there, I believe.
@LMK5 I would not be surprised if my kid was one of those kids mentioned by other kids in his high school who got accepted but who was not even one of the smartest kids in his high school. lol I tell you it was somewhat awkward to come across some parents of the high school kids who had better academic records because I kind of knew what they were thinking. None of the high school parents even offered any congratulatory words to us. But that didn’t stop our kid from proudly wearing Stanford t-shirt to school admittance day.
It can be really awkward. My daughter left HS after sophomore year to attend CC and she’s talked about seeing students who graduated from her HS there as freshman and it’s super awkward for those that graduated because their school was all about getting into an Ivy. The students all can get into fabulous schools without exception because of the caliber of the HS but the financial aid doesn’t come through so they end up at CC. It’s sad that they’ve gotten so pumped up when it really is not a big deal.
I found college’s financial aid estimator pretty helpful. It tells you what you can expect to receive if you input certain data. It only takes 15 minutes. I don’t understand anyone being taken by surprise.
…are two situations where the NPC is about useless. I, for instance, had both situations when my kids were applying to college. No choice but to cast a wide net or stay with guaranteed merit or CC. We chose the first option and it worked out. But FA packages varied by tens of thousands of dollars per year over all acceptances, and by several thousand at “meet full need” schools.
Getting into a “selective” school is a huge deal at our HS. This year there have been some surprises and my S said the kids are really happy for one another . The only time he said kids were like “come on” is a legacy student getting into a premiere college with a less than stellar application. He’s been bragging about his mother and grandfather legacy etc and the students just think it stinks. So is life.
natty1988 “Giving a kid money for a condo or to start a business since they chose the cheaper school is NOT skin in the game…that’s just giving money to a kid to do something with it…”
There have been several comments referencing the post in which I said my son can use the $250K he saved to fund grad school, buy a house or condo, start a business, continue to grow his investments, or whatever else he wants to do with the money. He actually has far more “skin in the game” than just about any other student whose parent is posting here because the money involved IS his money. It’s in a trust set up by his grandparents when he was born, and it includes more than enough to pay the full Ivy COA. Instead he chose to accept a very generous scholarship at an OOS flagship that is ranked in the top 10 for his major. He did not think it was worth paying an extra quarter of a million dollars for the supposed prestige of saying he went to an Ivy when the OOS public is actually higher ranked in his major, has a larger department, much wider choice of courses, and more opportunities for undergrad research.
And despite multiple flippant references to “buying a condo” in this thread (as if that’s the stupidest thing in the world for a 20-something year old), buying a condo to live in during grad school can save tens of thousands of dollars in rent and in most cases it can be resold 6-7 later at a profit, with the gains exempt from CGT. (Some parents even do that for undergrad if the student will be living off-campus all four years, or if they have more than one child at the same school, precisely because it IS a good investment.) Not all kids with Ivy-level stats think an Ivy degree is the be-all and end-all of college and career planning, and some really are financially savvy enough to manage large sums of money responsibly and with long-term goals in mind.
@LMK5 – the elites aren’t accepting students based on “smart”. They are accepted based on the way they fill various needs of the college – if they offer something different, and that difference is something the college values – then their chances of admission are vastly improved. But I’d add that it’s very hard to know how smart and capable other students are – often students are doing things that are entirely off the social radar. The reason you have never heard these kids’ names mentioned over the years may be precisely because of what the kids have been doing outside of or beyond the high school campus and the typical array of EC’s that students participate in.
Yes, and some of the colleges’ needs and wants are not earned by the student – consider legacy preferences at many of the elite private colleges (and note that elite college legacy tends to correlate with other advantages).
I’m a minority on CC in that I don’t really have a problem with considering legacy in admissions. I know two students who are legacies at an elite school. They are also academically gifted, and full pay students. Why not keep them in the mix?
I think that there is a common misconception that if a student is legacy,a minority or athlete that that is the reason the were admitted , that somehow they’re not as smart as other applicants .