This assumes that the admissions officers know you better than you know yourself (or than your parents, teachers, and friends know you). I’m not comfortable with that assumption.
For example, if you’re a good student, you might very well get admitted to some selective large universities. But you may know that you would be happier and more successful at a small college. The admissions officers aren’t going to realize that.
It depends on the experience.
The kid who gets rejected by Harvard and ends up at Cornell learns something.
The kid who gets rejected by Harvard and Cornell and ends up at his state university learns something.
The kid who gets rejected by Harvard and ends up with no college to go to in the fall because he didn’t apply to Cornell or his state university or any other realistic choices is suffering too much. That kid needed guidance on choosing a list of schools to apply to that includes realistic choices and at least one safety school.
“The idea that they were lottery schools, as some have termed them, did not seem true when we looked at who he was as a student.”
I still don’t know how anyone can look at a school with a 5% or 10% or 15% acceptance rate and not think of it as a lottery IN THE SENSE THAT YOU CAN"T COUNT ON ACCEPTANCE.
@momofmusician17 I agree with you. Middle D, while certainly affording herself to many of the amenities of college life, still works like the dickens. Well, I suppose one can cruise through, on our half-dozen trips to her respective residential college, more kids seem more interested in getting library and professor appointment times, than identifying the next house party. I think by and large the vast majority work very hard, and this is especially true for the large portion that are lower-middle class and below, to which the stakes are much higher.
In terms of admissions selectivity, there’s a significant difference. I went to Cornell. I met many Harvard rejects. If I had gone to Harvard (well, it would have been Radcliffe in my time), I doubt I would have met many Cornell rejects.
@Pizzagirl: We just didn’t think anything seemed particularly forboding.
Like I said, it was just fortunate that we hadn’t gotten our heads deep in a swell. His father would have had a heart attack, and I would have simply left it to the school had we thought that reading college admissions viewbooks (we read books, by the way, and some of them old) and library bookstore ranking books were not giving us the information we needed.
In the end, we feel it did. He is happy. Working his butt off, but happy. Now, about the child we are ushering through this time…different child (light bulb vs. wow, you’re smart) and I (not my husband) am really working to make sure I understand and process things that people like @mom2coIIegekids post about. It is a different experience, and, quite frankly, I’m ready to quit.
My daughter (this child) is really more in the mode her brother was and tells me all the time to get off of College Confidential. But why would I do that, now that I know the waters I’m in?
@mom2coIIegekids There are a few things that your post touches on. First, getting in really is the hardest part. Everyones who is accepted into Yale is capable of doing college-level work. Grading systems at elite college are far more transparent than their admissions processes.
That doesn’t mean that classes won’t be challenging. Managing a premed course load is tough, and it may not have been the right path for your friend’s son. And some students may end up getting a little too caught up in the freedom they have in college and become less disciplined. Usually students figure out the latter problem after their first semester. Plus half of Yale’s students are below average, so that half will have mediocre or low GPAs.
“In terms of admissions selectivity, there’s a significant difference.”
Yes, but that’s irrelevant after May of senior year of high school. In any big picture, there’s just no significant difference (other than personal preference).
More likely he’ll end up at the local community college – which is not necessarily a bad thing but can be a big disappointment for a kid who wanted to go away to college.
I have known a few kids over the years who didn’t get accepted to any college, but it pretty much took a perfect storm of obtuseness and self-deception on the part of the kid, parents, and GC to accomplish that. That’s not taking into account financial need. It’s much easier not to be accepted anywhere that the applicant can afford.
Anyway, all this whining about kids not considering their fit with Harvard is a little off the mark. It’s true, Harvard isn’t for everyone, but the vast majority of kids who are somewhat academic could fit in fine there. A huge range of people “fit” at Harvard (and that’s coming from someone who turned down Harvard admissions twice). It doesn’t take any great insight or research to determine you could fit at Harvard. The problem with Harvard is not that people apply there regardless of fit, it’s that Harvard can accept only a small fraction of the applicants who would fit there. And the problem with a lot of the applicants is that they absurdly overvalue the difference, not just between Harvard and Cornell, or between Harvard and Michigan, but between Harvard and practically any significant research university.
“Students are told that showing the college your truest self is what will get you in”
This has come up more than a few times recently. Where did it come from? For heavens sake, smart kids need to have some understanding and filter for what’s relevant. That’s not the same as bending yourself into a pretzel.
Cambridge and Ithaca may seem like incredibly different environments to you, but if you spent 95% of your time on a college campus doing things with other undergraduate college students, they are barely different at all. Sure, they look different, and Ithaca is probably 5 degrees F colder. Life inside the classrooms, libraries, dorms, student hangouts is not so different. And, to the extent it is different (of course there are differences), those differences are relatively trivial, and most people can adapt easily to either for a few months at a time. In Ithaca, you probably go hiking a couple of extra times, and there’s less to spend a lot of money on if you happen to have a lot of money. In Cambridge, maybe you go to hear the BSO once or twice (but probably not), and you can visit Old Ironsides. There are more clubs you won’t get to. Big whoop.
maybe so. I have spent (limited) amounts of time living both places. Environment may impact me more than 95% of folks.
I agree the point of college is to be on campus. Of course, most won’t have such a choice.
Maybe more a factor in the final decision where to accept than where to apply?
Still we are talking about a very small group of students. Very small. But that is the nature of all these threads.
Slightly off topic but while it’s true 1/2 are below (the Yale) average they don’t seem to let the students know that.
Avg GPA in 2008 was a 3.5 http://www.gradeinflation.com/yale.html
I don’t think selectivity is necessarily a big reflection of the quality of the student body. My son went to Carnegie Mellon - the Dean asked the students on the first day of school now many had been rejected by MIT. Practically the entire class raised their hands. Is CMU less selective than MIT? In SCS only marginally if that these days, but the fact is that MIT doesn’t want a class of all the would be CS majors that apply. So some go elsewhere - that doesn’t mean they are less smart. And a lot of MIT’s attraction, besides that it’s been well-known for a long time is it’s location and favorable M/F ratios compared to most tech schools.
I do think the worry about fit is a bit silly. My oldest definitely was looking for a nerdy techie atmosphere. He had a hard time turning down Harvard because he spent the entire accepted students weekend playing with that crowd. He didn’t think they were there, but there were plenty of them. In the end it was CMU’s academics that won him over. My younger son is really a bloom where planted kid (or a complain where planted kid). He felt he could fit in at any reasonably selective college. (I’m talking top 50 or even top 100, not top 10 or 20 BTW.) The main thing about Harvard is that you have to realize there is very little hand-holding. No one is going to notice if you skip your classes, or never go to office hours. If you aren’t a self-starter, you should probably take yourself elsewhere.
I’d suggest the kid who didn’t get in anywhere take a gap year. If the family can afford it, I highly recommend an immersion program learning a language before you get to college. Achieving fluency in a language before you get there can open up all sorts of opportunities (especially for non-STEM kids.)
@mathmom: “The main thing about Harvard is that you have to realize there is very little hand-holding. No one is going to notice if you skip your classes, or never go to office hours.” I found your comment very, I don’t know, eye opening. (My D16 is not ivy material so it really hasn’t been a factor for us) I would have thought that one of the benefits of attending Harvard would be the exact opposite of your statement. For the price and prestige and elitism I would hope that someone would notice if my kid isn’t showing up for class or falling behind, why else pay for the privilege? If you are just going to be to be just another number why not attend a large state flagship for half the price? In the end your job opportunities will be essentially the same.
@jhs: You seem to be saying that one elite is pretty much like any other elite, so it really doesn’t matter where you attend. And therein is one of reasons that there is so much of a problem being accepted to an elite university. I thought last spring when there was so much discussion about student “X” being accepted at all 8 ivies, why the heck did he apply to all 8. They couldn’t have all been a good fit. Why are kids applying to schools they have no intention of attending? If they just took the time to truly look at the “fit”, be it demographics, weather, environment, a senior thesis project that doesn’t sound like something you want to tackle, core liberal arts curriculum when you are really just interested in STEM. There is such thing as a good fit. We have ramped up the admission process so much that kids/parents feel like they have to apply to 8, 10, 12 schools because it is such a crap shoot on which one will actually take you. Fit is important.
@JHS, I disagree strenuously with this statement. Being able to handle the work is entirely different from fitting in “fine”. Having attended Stanford, Harvard and UChicago at various stages of my education, with a cousin and brother who attended Harvard, a sister who attended Brown and MIT, and a wife who attended UPenn, there are profound differences to those different environments, and students who would thrive in some would be misfits in others. Harvard in particular is a great place for highly driven people who do not need much hand holding, and whose interests are aligned with institutional strengths; it is, in my opinion, a terrible place for those who need room to find themselves, who are highly interdisciplinary, or who would benefit most from close mentoring and professorial interaction. All these institutions have different strengths and personalities, and being able to survive in different environments is not the same as “fitting in fine”.
I don’t think that’s entirely true, you can get close mentoring at Harvard, but you have to decide it’s what you want. You probably won’t get it majoring in Econ or Gov or English, but my friends and I in the tiny majors had very different experiences. I majored in Visual and Environmental Studies and had a roommate who majored in Comparative Religion. I had another roommate who made up a major in dance history. I knew all my professors by name and worked closely with two of them on a senior thesis in architectural history.