But I truly believe that I belong in the Olympics and participating will further my wellbeing! Why do people care so much about qualifiers and such???
Donât you mean Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Occidental?
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If somebody applies to a college, they enter a competition. There are winners, losers, etc.
You donât need to go to college, and you definitely donât need to go to HYPSM to get an education.
I wonder what the capitalized letters in âHYSPlainingâ meanâŠ
Youâve undoubtedly heard of mansplaining? âHYSPlainingâ is similar, only about admissions to HYSP and the like. For example, telling people how they need to think about admissions, or placing things in all caps, as of they were incapable of understanding. You know . . . condescending things.
Added: Using the initials is not a prerequisite for âHYSPlaining.â
Weâre circling back over well-trodden ground, and things are becoming a bit toxic for my taste, so I am bowing out for a while. Good luck to everyone.
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I donât use those initials. Someone must be more obsessed with them than I am. Prerequisite or not, it shows a mindset.
You do, but thanks for the continued condescension.
Bye.
If I tell you that you are misinterpreting what I said, take it as a fact that you have indeed misinterpreted what I said.
In your response you are not understanding the difference between statistical estimates from a sample of a population and the statistics of a full population. In three of the cases I know the results of the full population of award winners, so there is no uncertainty. In the USAMO case, I extrapolated based upon a request. But if you know sampling theory, you realize that there are error bars around that estimate.
Re the prestigious awards list, it existed long before I knew about those four specific awards. And it turned out that those four were correctly ordered and that the likelihood of admission to the most elite colleges increased substantially as you went from levels 7, 8, and 9 for these specific awards. Hence I referred to the list as representing collective wisdom. That doesnât mean everything there is gospel, but I didnât think that needed to be spelled out.
what you said is quoted above, anyone can read it and decide for themselves.
Compete for the Olympics and you too can realize you donât belong, along with 96% of applicants to HYPSM.
While thereâs only one Olympics, there are many ways to get a top flight education or get a job at Google, SpaceX, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs or Harvard Med School (??).
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Reposting part of my message from a few days ago:
As the recent posts have been dominated by a handful of users debating minutiae, I have put the thread on slow mode until morning. My hope is this will allow other users to join the conversation and prompt the more exuberant users to be strategic in postings.
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Is dating a competition? In an ideal world, the college application process should be more like finding a fit between school and student. Thatâs akin to dating, not a zero sum win lose thing.
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Thatâs why some high level club sports contractually preclude players from participating in high school sports(with limited excepetions).
Of the 20 or so players on my sonâs club team, all but 2 are currently headed off to play in college, or are verbally committed to play in college.
I agree that all this talk of math contests, coaching and practice reminds me of competitive club sports.
Do math students verbally commit to schools early?
In my days, there were mutual (often verbal) commitments. However, those days are long gone, at least in the US. Some countries still guarantee to these students spots at their most elite universities (a few of them are even more competitve to be admitted than their US counterparts).
The dating comparison is an [unfortunately] fitting one, especially with the number of college applicants, or their parents, who refuse to believe that someone could (or should) have the right to say âno thanksâ, no matter how wonderful a particular student might be.
I personally do think the college appilcation, and acceptances, are all about fit. Which is one of the reasons I am so surprised by the sheer number of people who hang on to hope way after the nice, âItâs not you, itâs meâ of a waitlist or deferment, and then act as though they were scorned by their lover, as opposed to basically being turned down after asking âthe cute new girl you donât know that wellâ to go to Homecoming.
Does it hurt to be told, âIâm holding out for more optionsâ or âno thank youâ, Yes, it surely can. However, I always wonder why so many people would want to go to a college that isnât excited to accept them, or date someone who âjust isnât all that into youâ.
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Isnât that the default situation for many undergraduates in biological sciences (pre-meds)?
Personally I think the pre-occupation with top 20 (or 30) colleges is ridiculous. Anyone who can do the math should realize that there are too many qualified applicants for available slots (especially when you factor in athletes, legacies, competition winners etc). Therefore, most kids should expect a rejection - not because they are a âloserâ as someone so kindly put it, but because there just arenât enough spots to go around. Every year deserving kids will be rejected - that is just the name of the game. The good news is that there are lots of colleges that offer a great education (in some cases the actual âeducationâ will be the same or better than you can get at an Ivy). Unfortunately, a lot of kids donât want to hear that - maybe because theyâve dedicated their adolescence to trying to shape themselves into the perfect Ivy candidate. When I read these threads Iâm always reminded of an article I read years back by a Harvard alum who shared his experience conducting admissions interviews â he shared that the kids he spoke with were incredibly accomplished, yet over the course of several years NOT ONE was accepted. Instead of lamenting whatâs going on with the super-elite schools, why donât we tell our kids that there are a lot of good choices out there so they arenât devastated when Harvard (or Yale, Stanford etc) doesnât work out.
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I agree with you. But there are some people (much higher percentage of them on this site than in the real world) who are truly devastated by going to (or having kids go to) a non-âeliteâ college. They donât think their dogs should go to non-âeliteâ colleges. And they think #2 is significantly better than #7. In my experience, there isnât anything that can be done for those types of people. I feel sorry for their kids but in terms of bad parenting, its not really high on the list of ills (and totally preventable).
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I couldnât agree more, which is why I say that colleges are doing a major disservice by not revealing information about who gets in and why.
After guiding my kids through the admissions process, I now help others for free, both on CC and in real-life. I have had several students with strong math/science skills(or their parents) reach out to me as to where they should apply. Some I absolutely guide towards the top schools, and follow up with them afterwards to see if my guidance was right (good track record so far). For others I discourage applying to out-of-reach colleges for EA/ED and instead suggest schools where they would best thrive and are likely to get admission.
I am currently helping a relative and there is a major disconnect between the student (who has a pretty good idea about where she is likely to get admitted) and the parents who keep thinking Ivy or bust. Itâs not a good environment for her.
To me, fit is the most important criteria. It should be a place where the student feels welcome, finds their peers, and are challenged to the point where they find out what they are capable of, without being overwhelmed.
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