<p>Especially for alumni donors who want the school to maintain the illusion…</p>
<p>No, people study that stuff and the desire to donate starts with one’s own satsisfaction with the education and experience while a student. Not, “Holy Bankroll, Batman, if my alma mater lowers it’s admit rate, I’ll send them a bigger check.”</p>
<p>CC is rife with kids who think they “deserve” HYPSM because, after all, they were Top Dawg in their hs. The fact that some kids do rightly “earn” a H admit doesn’t change the entitlement attitude we do see. And that comes from lack of awareness. A poster or two may excuse it. But it’s not top notch thinking, research or action. </p>
<p>Most of posters here (Parent Forum) have worked at one time or another. A lot of our jobs have unpleasant aspect to them. For some us who had to fire employees due to down turn of economy probably felt worse than some of those adcoms. We knew a lot of those employees and their families would have to do without due to loss of jobs, but most of those rejected applicants will matriculate some where in Sep. Do you know what it is like having a grown person break down and cry in front of you due to loss of job, and there is nothing you could do about it? I personally couldn’t sleep for days before the D day. </p>
<p>Oh please…you are really beating this topic into the ground.</p>
<p>Okay, you got the benefit of the doubt the first time that you compared a college rejection to cancer, but to bring it up again?</p>
<p>Oncologists sit down with people face to face and look them in the eye and tell them that they have a horrible disease and that they very well may not survive even after a brutal battle. College admissions officers look at an application of an anonymous teenager and decide whether or not to recommend them for admission to a college. At competitive colleges one officer never makes the decision to reject someone on their own-it is a group effort and no individual owns the decision. Then an email or letter is sent off the this anonymous teen… Meanwhile the oncologist will spend the next 6 months…a year…maybe less, maybe more, interacting one on one with a patient and family as that person goes through hell, and possibly dies. Seriously…think about the things you are saying.</p>
<p>Many adults have already told you that admissions officers are NOT depressed. If they are they have some issues of their own… The MIT articles may have been a little over dramatized to make for good reading…</p>
<p>My S applied to MIT and if he doesn’t get admitted I sure hope no one in admissions sheds a tear, because he certainly won’t. He already has some admissions in hand and is waiting on many more. He can only attend one college. I think that every admissions officer knows that any kid with an ounce of sense has applied to numerous colleges, and despite an admission offer very well may not choose to attend their school anyway!</p>
<p>That’s a bunch of hooey. These kids are incredibly shrewd!!! All eyes are open going in. Now you want to tell me that this generation of kids, with the world literally at their fingertips are naive to the elite college admissions game? Okay! And YES Virginia, There is a Santa Claus! Lol try to sell that bridge to someone in the pony express days, but not today’s generation. Entitlement runs through their veins.</p>
<p>Right, don’t take the MIT tears wording so literally. </p>
<p>There are always a handful of super candidates, the sorts who give adults satisfaction that the world will keep turning. These are the very few kids who so deeply and broadly “get it,” that a sense of excitement wells. They see and pursue more than success in their little hs boxes. That’s bigger than just that they won a contest or collected some money for the orphans. Or were prez of student govt, etc. Or aced another AP. It’s way different than some think the rush is, when you see a 2400. </p>
<p>It’s how they think, commit and act- and impact. And then, because this is an application-driven process, can reflect back on it. (And yes, some credit also goes to their families, no matter whether they had it smooth or rocky.)</p>
<p>And you can be moved to have encountered those kids. You can remember them for a long time. But, on balance, maybe there isn’t a spot for them at your U. You’re sorry. But, as said, you know they will succeed.</p>
<p>Do you think adcoms cry when a favorite turns them down and matriculates at another U? Of course not. This is the big world. </p>
<p>It’s absurd, even laughable, that alumni donations rise and fall based on the admit rate of the undergraduate admissions. </p>
<p>I’ll bet you that 95% of my schools alumni couldn’t nail down our college’s admit rate within ten percentage points. You know what drives our donation rate? The national economy. How well the stock market (and our 401Ks) is doing. How well the endowment is performing (ours skyrocketed, and saw corresponding decrease in donations).</p>
<p>We don’t give a flip about our college’s “prestige” increasing. And certainly if we did, it’s not measured by the piddily stat called “admit rate”. We can joke about and throw jabs at a Columbia grad or that Harvey Mudd guy or those Dartmouth people – but we a wise enough to know that we all put on our pants one leg at a time. That happiness, immunity from divorce/heartbreak, difficult teenagers, job insecurity, personal health – are not dependent on that dried ink on that dusty diploma hanging on our office wall. So while I get frothed up every year to see if my school will best our rival in football, I know that at the end, it’s just fun. It doesn’t feed a hungry kid a better meal. It doesn’t ease the pain of a suffering patient. It doesn’t help a person get a better job skill in order to provide for her family.</p>
<p>Again, cali, you (like so many others on CC) mistakenly over-emphasize how we graduates of these schools really view our alma maters and our fellow schools. As I said previously, “been there done that”. I’ve worked in NFP and govt work most of my adult life. I’m incredibly proud to have worked for, alongside and supervised TONS of (gasp) non-Ivy degree holding people. People whom I admire and have aspired to be. Thus, we take it in stride that Harvard and Yale will reject maybe 60.000 collective applications this year. It’s “meh” to us because we see that it really doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>VOR66: I share your distaste how some schools are gaming the admit rate – but your “heart breaking” over doing a job that requires you to fill a maximum number of seats is simply bizarre. Do you think the MIT admissions officer job applicants don’t KNOW the admit rate going into the job interview? Do you think the Stanford admissions dean goes in one day HOPING that the school can suddenly accept an additional 400 kids this upcoming year?</p>
<p>“Do admissions officers get depressed over rejecting 1000s of great kids” This is a first world problem if I ever saw one. Sheesh.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this whole thread, so apologies if this has been said.
Um no. They get paid to build a class. And they do their job. They may be given certain parameters (eg “we need another bassoon player, and if they also play the oboe, thats an extra bonus”) but for the mostpart they build a class of interesting students who they think will bring something to their campus. Its not about breaking hearts. They are ruling in- being selective. And if that means ruling out, well so be it.</p>
Well, maybe they don’t “cry”, but after sorting through all those wonderful kids, there must be one or two that catch their fancy or seem like a perfect match for their school. Maybe it just tweaks the committee member’s heart a little if the student ultimately chooses elsewhere. ;-)</p>
<p>CaliCash I think I lit a fire on your thread. I am amazed how a young person like you understood the point of my post and most others did not. I won’t bother to explain my point to those others because like an old dog, you can’t teach them new tricks.</p>
<p>I just don’t understand how so many otherwise intelligent people can be so off on and take my words so literally. For instance when did I ever say that all ADCOM’s had no heart or that only 3.9 GPA and 2300 kids should be allowed to apply to Harvard, but that is apparently what I said from the posts here. </p>
<p>Good for you that you are wiser than most on this site and that you see the lunacy of the college admission process and how this drive to have the lowest admit rates is so wrong on many levels. Best wishes in your college search. </p>
<p>My oldest didn’t get into her top choice early application college. At the time she was pretty unhappy, but looking back a few years later, she says that the admissions committee knew what they were doing. She went to a college that was probably a better fit for her (also offered great merit aid, and she graduated Phi Beta Kappa). I certainly hope those admissions officers didn’t lose any sleep or feel anguish over turning her down – she has done extremely well without their school. I think 18 year olds (and a few parents) have tunnel vision on this – but thinking that only ONE school, or maybe a couple of schools, will allow you to reach your goals in life is lunacy.</p>
<p>@voiceofreason66, and that is why judging a college by its admit rate is stupid.</p>
<p>By quite a few metrics, Cornell is more impressive than some other Ivies.</p>
<p>Likewise, UChicago was an elite academic institution even when its admit rate was relatively high. While driving its admit rate down has improved its rankings and made it rise in prestige in the eyes of the superficial (thus incenting the UofC to take the marketing strategy that it has), I daresay that the quality of the education there hasn’t gotten bettter or worse.</p>
<p>After one has lived for many years, one sees what heart breaking really is. Being denied acceptance to college is small in comparison. </p>
<p>Heart breaking is my coworker whose college freshman dd was killed in a car accident last February. Coworker had just said goodnight to dd at 3am, DD then receives a text from her bf at another college and decides to visit him. While driving on the highway, she hit black ice & flipped over the barrier, into on coming traffic. Dead at 18. Mom receives a knock at the door at 5:30 am. That knock that all parents dread.</p>
<p>Heartbreaking is the mother who comes home and finds her 18 yo son who committed suicide by hanging himself. </p>
<p>Heartbreaking is the grandmother who died last week with her 3 grandsons in a house fire. They found their bodies near the front door. They almost made it out. </p>
<p>I’m sure others can add to the list of what is heartbreaking. It would probably never end. </p>
<p>PurpleTitan I agree with you but unfortunately too many people, the media and many colleges, see low admit rates as a trophy to collect. Cornell is a wonderful school and it gets bashed by many as being the runt of the Ivies, in part because of its high admit rate compared to other Ivies and because in part it is a state school because of the land grant history. You’ve probably heard Ann Coulter say that she went to the real Ivy Cornell compared to Keith Olbermann’s Public Cornell pretend Ivy degree. They went to the same school for crying out loud.</p>
<p>For those who continue with the “heartbreaking” theme, it was intended to be a gross exaggeration. I am sure that there are some students who don’t ever get over their rejection to their top schools, but most carry on with their lives like most have described on this thread and many other threads. Like many have stated, not getting into one’s top choice is nothing in comparison to a “grandmother who died last week with her 3 grandsons in a house fire”. </p>
<p>CaliCash, your question is a fair one. If I was on the admission staff at a top school with ridiculously low admit rates, I would suggest raising the minimum requirements so those with no chance of admittance do not waste their parents hard earned money and these students can better focus their attention to schools that are a better fit for them even if it means that lowering the applicant pool will mean I will have to look for work elsewhere.</p>
<p>ThatOneWeirdGuy That is because Politicians aren’t quite human, but I believe AdComms are. I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few AdComms had difficulty sleeping at nights because of the strain of rejecting so many highly qualified students who in their minds should have been admitted but the admission committee decided to reject.</p>
<p>Sometimes the Admission process at many highly selective schools seems to be as random as a game of chance.</p>
<p>For those who want a laugh about Cornell in Ann Coulter’s world. Here it is. She says everything that is the antithesis of what has been discussed here and many other threads about the admission and quality of students as well as the value of admit rates.</p>
<p>Wut? I have a problem with that type of thinking (just as I would have problems with statements like “Asians aren’t quite human” or “women aren’t quite human”).</p>