I am not in VA, but UVA reports the average GPA of its freshman class as 4.23 and that 94% had GPAs over 3.75. That would suggest that a kid with a 3.75 (A-, weighted) would be at the low end of the admitted student profile. I could not find that broken down by in-state vs out of state, but suggests admissions require pretty high stats.
What about a school like U Michigan or Penn State that attract a lot of OOS students. Certainly depends on what you mean by high stats kids.
Don’t many high stats kids, at least on the east coast, prefer the elite privates to state flagship? I am not sure of your point in this line Blossom.
The point was made up thread that the arms race is so bad that parents can’t allow their kids to drop an AP class with a lunatic teacher with tons of homework, or fail to turn in every assignment at the risk of getting a B-- since it’s not only Stanford and Harvard with the ridiculous entrance requirements but also the state flagships and other state colleges.
I’m wondering which states these are. Still wondering. My point was that if the endless rat race is killing your child- or exacting a physical toll- good parenting requires you to intervene. NOT to go argue with the coach- but to drop the sport. If the relentless practicing required to become first chair in cello is sucking the joy out of music for your kid, you don’t go argue with the director of the school orchestra- you tell your kid it’s ok to play for pleasure and to drop orchestra.
But I was told that I’m wrong- it’s not just Harvard and Stanford, it’s the garden variety state U’s as well.
And I don’t see that being played out in my own backyard, (east coast) where plenty of good grades/good scores but not Harvard-type accomplishments are still going to college, every year.
I maintain that it’s a parental responsibility to keep a lid on the pressure your kid is feeling. You’ve got a type A kid who only needs four hours of sleep a night and thrives on the busy/intensity? Great. You’ve got a kid who is burning out at age 15? Dial it back.
And wrt to the teachers giving so much homework that kids are up all night- this doesn’t require helicoptering, this requires saying no. GC wants your kid in AP Euro but the teacher gives insane amounts of homework and projects? Write the GC a note- your child won’t be taking AP Euro but thanks for the kind words.
Why do so many folks on this thread act like insane HS pressure is as inevitable as puberty???
A lot of this is folklore. How does anyone know what impact dropping an EC has had on previous candidates. For my own kids or those I’ve advised, I never let "what looks good for college’ impact on any of my kids’ activities. I urged participation for its own sake and had it not been inherently rewarding I’d have supported (and did support) dropping and/or changing. The 4 years of high school are not just resumes for college. They are 4 very important and defining years for children. It is absurd to structure the 4 high school years to appeal to admissions since college itself is not any longer. Why would you dismiss the importance of the 4 earlier years in favor of the years that come next. That is absurd.
Sometimes I think a major reason so many parents and teachers oppose the Common Core is because those standardized exams will flush out the rampant grade inflation in our schools. It’s also one reason why so many oppose the SAT. All that talk of scores as a function of income is complete hogwash, a classic case of correlation does not equal causation. I was disappointed to see the same fallacy repeated in this book. Liberals just can’t take the fact that some people are simply smarter than others, and that on average smarter people do better on tests. Smarter people also tend to earn more money, and have smarter kids, just like tall people tend to have tall kids, or brown eye people tend to have brown eye kids.
I don’t believe that kids in Florida are dumber than kids in Minnesota (and I’m a liberal, thank you very much). I do believe that pound for pound, there are places that have not invested in K-12 public education to the extent that other places have. Sometimes you have kids whose educational surroundings don’t matter and they excel regardless. Most of the time, a kid in a HS with low standards but high grade inflation is not going to sail through college in the way that a kid from a HS with high standards will- regardless of GPA.
Nevertheless- I’m waiting for evidence that 47 states have followed the Stanford/Harvard mania for high grades, high scores, full on intense academics, plus high achievement outside the classroom (athletic, musical, scientific, artistic) to the extent that the typical high stats kid cannot get admitted to his/her own state colleges. I get that Texas has messed with the numbers at UT Austin. I exempt the state of California; UVA is its own universe.
But that leaves 47 states and a lot of exhausted and burnt out HS kids… who are they?
I think the low graduation rate of UT Austin is a direct result of their guaranteed acceptance of top 10% kids from any high school in the state. As much as UT-Austin’s adcom would like to pretend, not all high schools are created equal.
I think the goal is to have a student who is making adult decisions by the time they go to college. Unfortunately, all the helicoptering is preventing them from doing that. Not only are they not ready, they consistently look to their parents for the inevitable boost. Instead of letting the student learn the process of making decisions and then catching them when they occasionally fall, parents are parading around with their kid standing on their shoulders - all the time. It’s safe, but you don’t get to practice the ups and downs.
The primary reason they are doing this is that they don’t want to accept the responsibility of the occasional “oops”. They have a plan of perfection, usually leading to a college slot that would normally be above the student’s level of attainment, and that plan cannot accept any hiccups. Or, maybe, they are unwilling to face the reality of the kid’s capabilities after 16 years of hoping they are Harvard material.
So, what we have is a much larger number of students masquerading as something they’re not. And, worse yet, they don’t have the emotional wisdom to support the situation they are in. Often, they can be “academically” capable, but academics is not everything in terms of the success we need to support society.
Take the example of homework and not getting enough sleep. Some parents act like it’s a conspiracy or a crime, but the choice to fill that slot was theirs and their child’s and they have to accept the responsibility for the reach as opposed to blaming it on someone or something else. If you find yourself too stressed and harming your health, you really need to drop it down a notch even if it means you can’t apply to HYPSM. This phenomenon is what is fueling the ever decreasing admissions percentages at the top colleges.
Sure high stats kids can get in! The problem is what it now takes to be a high stats kid in some high schools. I looked at the high school GPA requirements for admission to the various schools at our flagship. Pharmacy: 3.9 - 4.3 Engineering: 3.7- 4.2 Business: 3.6 - 4.0 Arts and Science: 3.5 - 4.0 Those are not average GPA’s, even with grade inflation.
I was brought up to believe that one was supposed to do one’s homework, and not blow it off. Perhaps passing along that point of view could be wrong now, in some schools.
Suppose the EC choice is the student’s (and absolutely not the parents–in our case, I didn’t even like it, really), and it’s that + excessive homework that is causing the sleep deficit. Suppose further that the AP’s are no more time consuming than the regular classes, and that they are more interesting and more intellectually worthwhile. The you have the local situation, and I am not even sure what dropping it down would actually correspond to, in this case.
I teach at a non-flagship large, research university. Students with B averages are very rarely admitted here, these days. Not so, a generation ago.
Maybe they are the same students, but now they sport 'A’s.
WaPo sez:
“Helicopter parents are not the only problem. Colleges coddle students, too.”
Actually, that’s a good point, JustOneDad, and I think it is generally true. However, it doesn’t allow for the possibility of a strong student who at some point just says “Phooey” to the homework, and therefore winds up with a 3.0, in the bottom third of the class. (Hypothetical, but that would be the probable outcome.)
I forgot to mention that the local school does not weight grades in AP courses. I did say earlier that it does not have honors designations. Just another pair of peculiarities that play out in various ways.
“No wonder students are paralyzed by the prospect of failure. Most of them have never experienced it.”
One of D’16 hardest hitting failures was being cut from the JV soccer team because she did not meet the time for running a mile. She had been a starting player for every game the year before with numerous goals. She was the best corner kicker on the team. But the coach insisted that the girls had to meet the mile time limit to make the team. She did not prepare and was cut.
There was a “suck it up buttercup” speech from her dad and me. You failed to prepare, not us. Lots of whinning it’s not fair and tears and but I am a good player. “Yeah you are a good player, but apparently not fast enough in coach’s eyes.” She was bitter about it for over a year. But she learned that sometimes just being good isn’t good enough. Failure stinks. But you get over it and move on.
Funny now her senior year, the coach has asked if she would consider trying out again…apparently he discovered that he needs player that play well not just run fast. She had the luxury of telling him Thanks, but no thanks.
As to the last comment, my question would be was she truly not fast enough, or whether she could have run the had she prepared sufficiently? Two very distinct questions…
She got cut from JV for not running fast enough. JV?
Yes, she got cut from JV for not meeting the time. Her school has a freshman soccer team, JV team and varsity team. Freshman team is no cut, JV cuts but guarantees a certain amount of playing time and varsity is no guarantee of any playing time. Freshmen cannot make the Varsity team and all seniors must be placed on varsity if they make the cut. She made JV as a freshman and was cut during try out her sophomore year. Why is it shocking that she was cut from JV?
I think making JV as a freshman went to her head and she thought she was a shoe in…
At my kids school, 100 kids would come out for JV football. 40-50 for JV girls volleyball…not unheard of in my experience.
like @boolaHI it is not unusual for there to be many who don’t make the cut for most sports, except football which has a no cut policy at all levels. D’16’s class started with 680+ kids, down to 577 as a senior.
Lots of opportunity for kids to experience failures at D’16’s school and lots of opportunities for helicopter parents to do their thing.
Honestly, if you had said, they just can’t accommodate all the kids and the commitment to the team is shown in commitment to practice, even for tryouts. But the guaranteed playing time makes me raise an eyebrow. What’s different about football?