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I really enjoy CC, but one issue is that when debates get going judgement seems to creep in. So I get multiple PMs saying the same thing: I don't want to post on the thread but could you give me advice or suggest a counselor? While I'm happy to do that, it would seem so much more productive if we could make people more comfortable posting. It weakens what we all get out of it if we don't feel OK about posting our views.
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<p>I used to say the same thing about being the parent of an average kid at the public HS because the only people talking were the parents of "gifted and talented" making everyone else's child sound completely inferior. It was my contention that if the numbers of gifted and talented were TRULY gifted and talented, the US census bureau would be doing a study wondering what was in the water. Of course my point was that not all their children were even close to gifted and talented but that the school itself aimed it's sight at the MOST common denominator. </p>
<p>Frustrating. Plus, it's all in the delivery. We had a private counselor consult with our oldest daughter mostly to propose a list of schools. She saw her exactly three times. One to have a frank conversation. One to help her comprise a list and one to see where that list ended up after D did her own research. That was the extent of it and D got into 4 of the seven to which she applied. I thought that was a good ROI. I think it was like 350/400 tops.</p>
<p>Point being if you tell your kid you need a private counselor because the school one sucks and he has to get into harvard. Well, that's bad. If you tell the kid you want him to see all kinds of options and the counselor just doesn't have the time to be truly engaged in this kind of process, well, that's another way to put it. I mean.. I do think there has to be rhyme to the reason and it's not a means to justify an end.</p>
<p>My favorite, of the ones I've read, is <em>College Admissions Together: It Takes a Family</em> by
Steven Roy Goodman & Andrea Leiman.</p>
<p>Some of the books are written by those high-priced consultants discussed on this thread, and that's why this seemed like the right place to post the link. These books will generally be of more interest to parents than to students, and a few are directed to admissions professionals.</p>
<p>If there is a better location for the link, perhaps an experienced member will help me to find it.</p>
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Yes, we all get a little grossed-out when reading about the underachieving athletes who go straight from the coach to the admit list (though plenty of good colleges care little about their sports teams) and the legacy candidates whose greatest lifetime achievement is being born to parents who can afford to contribute a new stadium or science lab. When an admissions officer claims to have admitted an otherwise unremarkable candidate because the school orchestra needs an oboe player, according to a "current admissions officer at an Ivy League university," it means, "More likely, Mommy and Daddy just gave a $1 million donation." But don’t get too comfortable, you scions of industry. According to another: "Only about 70 percent of the VIP kids get in, because it can be equally embarrassing if some big celebrity’s son fails out or gets arrested on campus.” (Only 70 percent!)</p>
<p>But a perennial feature of these kinds of pieces is a not-so-subtle class resentment aimed by the very privileged toward those less so (who, by the way, you will never catch me referring to with the charity circuit clich</p>
<p>I had it explained to me by a counselor and former ivy admissions officer this way: These (adcom) are people who make $50K and they don't want to hear about your 17 year old having visited every continent or their sailing adventures on the Vinyard. They want to travel too and send their kids to those programs but they can't.</p>
<p>So help me out here. Is it a better "hook" to be a VIP kid (since 70% get in, all of whom can afford to pay full fare), or a less privileged kid (since elite colleges know that very few of these acceptees can afford the COA)?</p>
<p>And of course having only one kid is the idea. I kept thinging for the third that the tuitions paid for undergrad and grad schools for the first 2 could have been a nice donation!</p>
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So if you come off as just another Asian math genius with no personality, then its going to be tough for you. An admissions officer is not going to push very hard for you
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Facepalm moment. </p>
<p>I hope this isn't an excuse to turn on the auto-pigeonhole device...</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that admissions officers don't pigeonhole is in for a rude surprise. As has been said to me more than once, admissions departments don't admit students, they admit classes. In the case of some schools, they could admit a second class virtually indistinguishable from the first in every way except with a largely different set of students.</p>
<p>"Okay, we've got quite few monomaniacal math geniuses, we need a French horn player, a couple of performance artists, a fanatic on Himalyan kingdoms, and an opera composer...and are there any applicants from Wyoming or North Dakota?"</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe not quite so baldly stated but admissions departments are very aware of the "shape" of a class as they put it together. Which is why many students aren't competing just against all the other applicants but those in their "ecological niche" as well.</p>
<p>Of 20 math geniuses, maybe they'll take 12 and they almost certainly will take only a fraction of the bright, well-rounded young women whose passion is ballet.</p>
<p>Very interesting thread...
Question to hmom5 - having experienced what you decribe here, if given a chance, would you have done things differently? Would you have chosen to live in rural Nebraska or Wyoming, be a bank teller, send your kids to a regular public school albeit with a magnet program?</p>
<p>No. Husband and I, as we prepare for second careers in different environs, have been reminiscing about how much we've enjoyed doing what we do and the lifestyle we chose. In all honesty, my regret is not figuring out the college game sooner, it would have made things much smoother for my 2 older kids. But alas, all's well that ends well, and all 3 are finally where they should be.</p>
<p>How "figuring out the college game sooner" would have helped? Same income, same lifestyle, same location, I bet you still would want the kids in the same good private school... how would you have done it differently?</p>
<p>That's an excellent question for another thread....</p>
<p>Now that you've gone through the college application cycle, how would you have done it differently? What do you know now that you wish you had known before?</p>
<p>That's actually the basis of this thread! I would have hired a college counselor for the first 2 who would have explained to me the games that were being played at the kids' high schools, explained how to better 'position' the kids against the competition, and given thoughts on execution. </p>
<p>I needed brand managers. Look at it this way, Best Buy and Circuit City sell the same stuff. One is going out of business.</p>
<p>It's ever so slightly different. For instance, </p>
<p>1- I would have not listened to the pie-in-the-sky platitudes from the high school college counselor for D1.<br>
2- I would have asked for blunt evaluations and blunt answers to questions...not wishy washy, interpret what you want to hear answers.<br>
3- I wouldn't have thought D1 was awesome when she was just the same everyone else applying to the same schools.<br>
4- I would have realized that ED was primarily for the URMs, athletes and legacies.<br>
5- I would have had her take the SAT a 3rd time even though her scores were very good (they can always be better).
6- I would have learned about the recruiting process and not thought she could do it on her own; not assumed that the colleges coaches would find her.
6- I would have taken her to visit her matches and safeties before application season not her reaches so that she wouldn't fall in love with the reach schools and then be disappointed when the waitlist, deferral and rejections came in.</p>
<p>And many more that I did with D2 who was recently accepted ED because I heeded my own words.</p>