“The only caveat is that she really wants a football team because she enjoys being a spectator at her HS and loves how it brings the community together, Haverford does not have that.” ~ 4junior
If she’s apparently not interested in Haverford, and it doesn’t offer a football program, which she desires - then why push Haverford at her?
She has numerous excellent possibilities among the following NESCAC (New England Small College Athletic Conference) schools, all of which are academically excellent (all are “Little Ivies”) private LACs in the Northeast with NCAA Divison III football programs:
Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Colby
Hamilton
Middlebury
Trinity
Wesleyan
Williams
citivas, thank you for that thoughtful and informative post. 4junior, this comment: “Laugh and snark if you will but trying to convince a 17 yr old that rating don’t matter can be tough” says a lot to me. How has she fallen victim to the crazy notion that it only counts if you go to a school like Harvard or Yale? Her school, however “furiously competitive” it may be, is doing its students no favors if it is not encouraging them to find the right fit, not the most prestigious institution. (Not that Haverford isn’t prestigious; beyond people who are so ignorant that their knowledge of which schools are the best goes to zero as soon as one leaves the Ivies, it is known as an excellent school.)
My husband and I both have degrees from schools that would probably impress your daughter - including 3 Harvard degrees between us. Nonetheless, when we went to visit Harvard with our son during his college tour, all three of us found it an almost comically poor fit for our son. His high school limited the number of applications it permitted, and you can better believe he didn’t waste one of his valuable slots on a place he found repellent, just because the name impresses people.
Of course, Harvard is just an example; maybe your daughter isn’t interested in that particular school. But it sounds like she is considering only an extremely narrow range of institutions. Well - maybe that will work out well for her; she’ll apply only to “prestigious” schools and one or more will accept her. And she’ll end up happy either because she’s lucky enough to have found a truly good fit, or because she is as snooty as a lot of Ivy-types are, so she’ll fit right in with the snobs who haven’t figured out that prestige isn’t everything.
Sorry if this sounds critical of you as a parent. I don’t intend it that way; in fact it sounds like you are doing your level best to help your daughter realize that she needs to have better considered reasons for choosing a school than merely that it meets the standards of a few inexperienced 17-year-old elitists. I hope you succeed, as she’ll need to put her heart into her college applications and explain why she would truly be a good fit at particular schools, for reasons that go well beyond their snob appeal.
~ Sri Kuncoro, mother of a thriving and thrilled Haverford student, class of 2020.
You have an OP who’s child doesn’t want to visit, has 2 clear other favorites for ED1, wants a football team. The initial questioning about the drop in rankings (which is in the title of the discussion) gathers responses about the issues with the rankings, and the OP responds by saying “don’t tell me about errors or weakness within the rankings, just tell me why it’s falling”.
When asked about ED2 for the “other” of the top choices, the answer is about the competition at their best in class high school?
My guess is that the OP has done multiple regression analysis of their Naviance data, compared that to their daughters’ stats, and made assumptions about an “opportunity” to get into Haverford. Haverford, the LAC that those in the know don’t know?
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT’S WRONG WITH RANKINGS
If I told you that USNews was making a change to their methodology and Haverford would climb to number 2 or 3, would we be having this conversation? Would the daughter want to visit because some of her friends might be impressed? If it was ranked so high, would you have created this thread about Grinnell, or Macalester, or Davidson (as a safety against too many kids applying to a highly ranked school)?
You pick schools because they provide the academic environment that you want to be a part of. In the past week, I’ve had conversations about 3 kids who attended Ivy League schools and were looking for transfer opportunities in the fall of their freshman year. They went for the reputation, and for some reason didn’t like the kids who did the same thing.
Our D14 selected Swarthmore and 6 months later Forbes ranked it number 3 (behind MIT or Cal Tech and Stanford I think…). Every year since it has gone down. It’s now 19. It means nothing.
“Her school, however “furiously competitive” it may be, is doing its students no favors if it is not encouraging them to find the right fit, not the most prestigious institution.”
I don’t know the high school in question but most high schools do repeatedly send the message about fit, not prestige. It’s the students and parents who focus on the latter most of the time. Don’t blame the schools.
@doschicos - there is no doubt that schools, especially private ones revel in the admission of their students to Ivy and highly selective schools, but as you correctly say, it’s up to the parents and students to find where they belong and limit the influence of prestige in selection.
From my personal experience, the private schools I know well want the best for their grads but don’t push for prestige. That is coming from the other quarters I mentioned - peer pressure and family expectations. Most college counselors at selective prep schools spend time trying to get many parents and, to a lesser degree, students to be realistic in their expectations and in crafting a list.
^^This was our experience as well. And to her credit, CC had DS look at a number of schools he loved that neither of his parents would have thought of. I think that the 150 kids in his class ended up at 123 different schools! And only 1 transferred. …
But I feel like they have a headwind from the parents and even the kids. I don’t think many parents appreciate how much more quality there is today. If there was a time when only a handful of schools were excellent, it’s over!
I’m surprised that Haverford has fallen down the rankings because I don’t believe that it has lost its high academic quality so it must be something superficial or unimportant. It is every bit as strong an institution as the other colleges on your DD’s list. That being said, it has a completely different atmosphere than any other school. It does have a very strong sense of community, but you will not find it on a football field. It’s in the Honor Code and the pride that the students feel about their school. They are very enthusiastic about being open and welcoming to everyone and being self-governing. They don’t need a football game to bring them together because they have Plenary (where they vote on the guidelines of the Honor Code). The school is what they decide it will be, and that’s quite unique.
If your daughter is not looking for a new experience and would rather bond over a football game, then Haverford is not for her. It takes a very unique type of student to find the real value of a place like Haverford. It’s not just about the academics, which are stellar by the way, but it’s a feeling within the community that their ideas matter, and how they interact with others is vitally important. They are usually very liberal thinkers and openly discuss their views but never their grades. I would highly recommend she visits Haverford since her counselor is telling her it would be a good fit, and I’d be interested to hear what she thinks.
[SriKuncoro] Hmnnn, I think I may have misrepresented things here, you seem quite upset. My daughter is not applying to any Ivy’s and that makes her an outlier at her school. She visited Brown and was like, meh. Didn’t like the bustle or that people wanted to live off campus Soph year or that nobody made eye contact. She choose Midd over Amherst or Williams for ED1, and clearly within the liberal arts spectrum they are more prestigious (yes based on rankings but rather universally acknowledged). Her CC is not trying to direct her to a school based on prestige, not at all. Yes there are a ton of people at her HS applying to Ivy league schools but at a school where the median SAT score is 1540 I think thats to be expected and somewhat valid. D sees thats not for her. I do think its an open question in my (and her) mind why Haverford is not more well know outside of a small group. I would posit that in this interconnected media-based age a presence in the minds of the public is an asset, and that it does not take nefarious behavior or hubris to claim their rightful respect as an institution. Maybe thats part of its honor code and ethics, to be so self effacing.
[EyeVee] You hit the nail on the head with my thought process of why I want her to look into Haverford!
Regarding if I would be having this thread about Grinnell, Davidson et al… maybe. I do wonder about Bates which seems perpetually under-ranked. Partially I hear its the ‘teachers and preachers’ they graduate that make smaller salaries… but in the void of much information its really pretty hard to tell why the rankings are what they are. We all agree that they are not valid, but on the other hand we all kind of agree that there is SOME validity to the general rank of schools on the lists.
At this point, I just want her to consider Haverford and when she sees it she can draw her own conclusion. I do think it’s, well, a bit harsh to read it all as just about impressing others. She wants to go to the ‘best’ school that fits her criteria. Its pretty hard in a 3 hour visit - with the capricious nature of tour guide personality fit, weather, etc - to really be able to evaluate schools. She went to a class at Vassar and thought it was boring. It happened to be a large lecture class, and she’s not used to that - I am POSITIVE that Vassar has many many engaging classes. The process for choosing schools is really problematic, and reputation certainly comes into play. It’s a beauty contest and those with the best marketing skills (and lunch room and athletic/science facilities) hold sway. Yes, you can tell certain fit/values from info sessions etc but when all you are looking at is northeast small LAC they basically all say about the same thing.
^^I agree with the comments about the difficulty of assessing a school in 3 hours given all the random things that can come into play. Unfortunately, if many high schoolers I’ve talked with are any indication, at many highly competitive schools such as your D’s, classmates also “rate” their classmates based on the schools where they are accepted and choose to matriculate. And THOSE “ratings” are indeed useless. Kids who haven’t been to college, relying on hearsay and rankings-for-profit, deciding who’s a “winner” and who is not.
If this is coming into play for your D or your family, tune it out, difficult as it might be. It isn’t helpful or healthy. Often, how well known a school is depends on who you associate with. In my circles, Haverford has always been associated with excellence. If that’s not the case in your circles, you need to decide whether you think they should make that assessment for you.
gardenstategal You are correct in the peer “ratings” and this is exactly what I am frustrated by. Whats interesting in regards to this thread is that Haverford has neither a positive or negative rating with peers, it is just unknown. Conversely Hamilton, Bates and Colby, which (in her landscape) are usually regarded as schools that would not be a highly desired outcome rank higher than Haverfords non rating.
and if anyone can tell me how to actually make a persons name link in blue I’d appreciate it!
At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s never too soon to learn that while input from others is often helpful, making your own conclusions and seeing the world (and by extension, people ) in a less hierarchical way can really improve one’s quality of life and happiness.
But I would say that if Colby, Bates, and Hamilton are undesirable – rank aside - Haverford is too. These are, imo, schools that offer a very similar experience to similar student bodies that differ mostly in the experience they are seeking.
(If you have a chance, you and your D might enjoy the book Excellent Sheep. She sounds like she may have become part of the excellent herd without having given it much thought.)
@gardenstategal I hear you! I wish children only had the positive qualities we want them to have. Alas sometimes they have ones we wish they didn’t!
Actually she really really likes Bates and has not yet seen Hamilton. She liked things about Colby but felt the community was a bit homogenous.
What I meant is that it is often regarded (in her community of peers) that one attends those schools because one did not get into their first choice school. So, I am surprised that she would not be happy to consider Haverford (or Carleton, which is in the same boat in her peer group) as it is neutral.
I think as parents, we have a right to throw a school or two out there on our kids’ lists and ask them to keep an open mind and go visit it. If she visits it and still doesn’t like it, then let it go. But I would expect my kids to honor my request for a visit and an open mind given my willingness to pay their bills.
@gardenstategal I’d love a nod as to what you feel the different experiences a student would be seeking at these schools. While I hope she gets into one of her ED choices the statistics point to these being her possible options in the spring…
@4junior, our DD’d considered all of these schools and applied to and were accepted at many:
Haverford - neither applied to, although XC/Track got a positive pre-read for ED. Issue was that it felt really small, even for a school with 1,100 students.
Bates - both applied/accepted. Liked feel of campus, but thought it was a little too compact. Much like Hamilton, felt that that it was more diverse than many others they had visited which was a big plus.
Colby - both applied/accepted. Liked feel of campus, but didn’t like that all buildings looked the same; also, no connection with students which they felt were too homogenous.
Hamilton - both applied/accepted/attending. Loved expansiveness of campus and different architectures. Felt that it was more diverse than many others they had visited which was a big plus. Also felt like the students were really caring and wore that on their sleeves.
