How far of a reach is too far?

Parents Forum
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<p>One thing that should be reiterated:</p>

<p>A safety isn't just a school that you can get into and your parents can afford. It is a school that your S would actually like to attend. A lot of kids in our local high school who reach high have as their safety a local state university. But they really don't want to go there. </p>

<p>If you don't want to go there, it isn't a safety. That's why it is so hard to come up with a good safety.</p>

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<p>American University. A third of the student body is in the School of International Service, a quarter in the school of business, with heavy emphasis on international business, and development work. Lots of double majors from one to the other. Virtually everyone does internships in DC, and lots of work and study abroad. They have more languages than either Middlebury or Macalester, and Foreign Affairs Magazine ranks them among the top 10 IR schools in the country.</p>

<p>(My d's dream job is to be finance manager attached to the first international project to rebuild Gaza. She's already gone to Cairo to study intensive Arabic, and is now headed to American, she has plans....)</p>

<p>Earlham is another really good choice, though it lacks the opportunities available in DC.</p>

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<p>I agree with mini. American is a great suggestion for this student.</p>

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<p>Without reaching high, there is no way to find out high high he can get. I say challenge him as hard as you can and under no circumstance try to talk him out of going to a school you can afford only because it may be too hard for him. The lack of belief by your own parents can be devastating or incredibly motivating, depending on the kid, but I would think devastating for most. Going safe will teach him to seek lower standards. And if he finds it too hard, he can always transfer to a less challenging school, but at least he would have discovered his own limits.</p>

<p>On the subject of LACs - try to visit at least one if you can, they are a world of their own, and one that some kids dislike vigorously. After exactly 10 minutes on the Pomona campus D knew she will never ever attend a LAC.</p>

<p>I agree with another poster that without a hook of some sort Tufts is a reach --- the lousy school may actually provide that hook, and so can meaningful and sustained demonstrated interest to the field you describe. Anything in the top 20 on the USNWR list is probably a stretch, but I would ask him to apply to one or at most two if you can afford it, you never know.</p>

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<p>Blossom: Thanks for the excellent post, and the very specific questions. He is willing to go to a teacher for help if he doesn't understand something, especially if it is something that interests him (although he does have a strong desire to impress his teachers and if he were really, really struggling--like near-failing struggling--I think it would be hard for him to seek help from the teacher. He would, though, probably be okay with seeking out a tutor or a TA.). As for Physics, he did try right up until the final exam (his final grade was one point away from an A-). He in the end thought that the B+ was a fair assessment of his mastery of the subject, but he did not just throw in the towel. He studied harder for the AP classes than he has ever studied before, partly because he truly enjoyed learning the material (two history classes) and also because he adored his teachers. Although his high school overall is not strong academically, it does have a handful of teachers who are real gems, and thankfully they teach the AP classes (at least they do when 10 or more students enroll in them, which is not a given in any particular year). And reading is a real strength--he does read on his own, material that I would say is fairly complex (for example, he recently read Freakonomics in one weekend).</p>

<p>DougBetsy: Thanks for the link to the thread. I'll have to read through all of the posts but it seems that people reported a variety of experiences, and I guess the question is, how to tell which kid will rise to what level of challenge. </p>

<p>Interesteddad: The issue of class rank raises an interesting difference between my son's school (or perhaps just me) and many other CC kids schools, in that I have never been told my son's class rank. I don't even know if the school computes class rank before graduation, but if it does, it has never widely distributed that information. I would doubt, though, that my son is at the very top of his class, because the school does not weight any grades. So the As he received in his two AP classes, for example, count the same as the As the other kids receive in word processing or drivers' ed. And his B+ in Physics probably brings him below at least some kids who have 4.0s taking non-college-prep classes.</p>

<p>Earlham: Did take a close look but it does not offer one of the languages son has been studying, so it's off the list. Same for Hendrix, which probably would have been a good match for him. As for American, it's a school that we have not considered, in part because son is pretty drawn to the LAC philosophy and does not want to be in large classes taught by TA's, but the two votes here will cause it to get a look.</p>

<p>I really appreciate all of the comments. I am not trying to be unsupportive of my son's ambitions, but I do want to be realistic about what a very selective college will be like for someone who may well be as smart as the other students but definitely will not have had as rigorous a high school experience as many of the other students.</p>

<p>Edited to add: no traditional hook, like minority or athelete.</p>

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<p>"As for American, it's a school that we have not considered, in part because son is pretty drawn to the LAC philosophy and does not want to be in large classes taught by TA's, but the two votes here will cause it to get a look."</p>

<p>Who told you there were large classes taught by TAs?</p>

<p>But you are correct, that while it has distributional requirements, it does not have a LAC philosophy. (I'm a LAC believer myself, and my older d. went for it; for my younger one, it would be just plain silly.) For the most part, students don't go there for science or math, art and music are indifferent (though they've just built a $75 million music and art center, and can build on what is available in DC), and going there for English or philosophy would strike me as somewhat strange, given other available options.</p>

<p>Students go for IR, languages, international service and int'l biz, communications, to be in DC, to be in a political environment, and for large numbers of internship and work opportunities and connections.</p>

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<p>I'm with the others on adding American to the list despite not being LAC. GW is another possibility, but it is even further from the LAC model than American. Another interesting choice at a great price is Mary Washington, also not far from DC. Don't know if they offer the language. We enjoyed the visit there.</p>

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<p>I don't get it -- your kid has 5's on the AP's he's taken, he's motivated, he is doing well in school.... assuming he can get into whatever reach school he applies to, why should it be a problem? (I'm sending you a PM -- my d. came from a public school, not very academic, 28 ACT, a 5 & 4s on APs... her school requires a lot of hard work, but she hasn't had any problems pulling in strong grades. )</p>

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<p>Mini: I didn't mean to suggest that American has large classes taught by TAs, just that son has been focused on LACs because of the absence of those things. He does have definite career goals at this point but he is also looking forward to taking classes that are not directly related to those goals, like religion and philosophy. And Calmom, it probably is starting to sound a little paranoid that I would think about encouraging him to go to a not-so-selective college. But there is no doubt that he would start at a deficit. For example, he has never written a research paper. He probably has not written anything longer than five pages, ever. He has read a few novels for his English classes, and a few current nonfiction books for History classes, but otherwise the reading for his classes consists solely of a textbook, published probably in the 1980s. He has supplemented his eduction by reading a lot on his own but that is not the same as facing a selective college courseload of who knows how many books a week. And I worry about some of the self-confidence issues Blossom mentioned -- kids who have a long history of thriving in a challenging environment will just be different.</p>

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<p>This year, top 2 kids from our HS (Private with 100% 4 year college placement), both NMF were rejected from Yale. One of them is going to Harvard, another to Middlebury. Last year, my D was top of her class and she decided not waste her time on any top schools, went to state college on huge merit scholarship and is very happy there. It is up to indivudual student, however, my D. avoided a lot of frustration with her decision.</p>

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<p>I think that the main concern is psychological. Will your son be able to accept the fact that he'll be earning a lot of B's at a top school? If not, a top school might not be the best idea. I'm a rising sophomore at Princeton, and I know a few people like your son who attended uncompetitive high schools. One of them had a fabulous first year while another had a lot of trouble adjusting to the increased workload. The kicker is that they had approximately the same GPA.</p>

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<p>Already, the technical elements can be taught (and learned) and top schools do an exceptional job of this. There will be tutors, a learning center, deans of this and that, librarians with teaching experience, who will send your kid off to learn foot-noting and using Lexis/Nexus and how to get a microfiche from the Library of Congress and how to know the difference between Sumerian and Akkadian when you see it on a clay tablet. (How the heck did the kids from Dalton and Stuyvesant and TJ know that as Freshman --although we didn't have computers or the internet thank god since that would have made the gap all that much worse!)</p>

<p>What can't be taught is the willingness to work hard, keep an open mind, accept coaching and feedback from professors, initiative, etc. I think I got an F on my first research paper in college; I was so clueless and I think I also made a nice cover for it. The very senior, tenured faculty member who taught the class and had a reputation for eating undergrads for lunch sent me a note (handwritten, in my campus mailbox and probably hand delivered) asking me to see him during office hours. I went- terrified, and he explained that didn't care if I got an A or an F in his class as long as I learned something, but that he couldn't tell if I was learning anything if all I did on assignments was to recap what he'd told us during lecture and summarized what I had read in the assigned reading.</p>

<p>He handed me a huge manila envelope filled with papers written by his grad students and said, "Finish with this stack and if you need more come and see me". It only took a couple for me to get it.... I think I got a D on the next paper but the professor had written "this is good progress" on the front so I felt very good about it. I met with him weekly for the entire semester- sometimes we'd read an article in some scholarly journal and talk about it, sometimes he'd review a draft of an assignment and tell me (somewhat brusquely- he was not a warm and friendly guy) if I was off on a tangent or if I was trying to prove the unproveable with bad facts, and sometimes I'd just sob for half an hour about how hard college was and he'd sit there stone faced with a box of tissues.</p>

<p>I graduated Magna so I guess those study sessions paid off; my dad took a picture of me with him at commencement which was one of those cringe-worthy moments but I'm so glad he insisted on seeking him out after the procession.</p>

<p>I truly believe that this professor did not care if I got an F as long as I learned something, and there's no question that at my HS "learning something" was equated to "regurgitating what you've read and heard in a grammatical fashion". He was the fastest road from point A to point B, but there were numerous resources I could have accessed to help me get there. </p>

<p>But the key message for you is that your son will get this at whatever college he ends up with IF HE SEEKS IT OUT. He can become an anonymous slouch wherever he ends up. The ranking or degree of competitiveness or the stats of the other students doesn't mean he will or won't get first hand, individualized attention from professors- he will get it if he wants it and if he realizes that this is what you're paying for, whether it's a full-freight school or his local community college.</p>

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<p>"He does have definite career goals at this point but he is also looking forward to taking classes that are not directly related to those goals, like religion and philosophy."</p>

<p>He would be required to take such classes at American; at a significant number of LACs, he wouldn't be.</p>

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<p>Already, the issue isn't what kind of writing your son has done in the past -- but whether he is capable of writing in the future. You say he has 5's on APs -- did that include an AP English exam? What were his English/writing subscores on the ACT? My d's college requires a first-year writing seminar for all students -- and my daughter and her public-school, English major roommate were absolutely appalled at how poorly some of their respective classmates wrote. Meanwhile my d. was getting compliments from the start on the quality of her writing. Like Blossom, she did have to go through some clarification on what was expected on a college paper or exam (though fortunately the lesson was learned with a C rather than an F) -- but once she got the idea that merely parroting back what was taught in class was not sufficient, she never had a problem. </p>

<p>If your son is comfortable expressing himself in writing, it isn't going to be an issue. I'd also take his strong community leadership EC's as a good sign. </p>

<p>Many of the students who attend top private prep schools and go on to top colleges are simply reasonably bright kids who have been shaped by their school environment to have strong credentials. Their strong scores on standardized tests are a reflection of their rigorous educations; their GPAs are a reflection of their ability at the high school level to take in information and give it back in the way the teachers want. But they are not independent thinkers -- and in some cases by the time they get to college they are burnt out from all the years of school and parental pushing, so they do not always adapt well to the less structured atmosphere of college. (Less time spent in class, less supervision and prodding as they go through each course). So not all of them do that well in college. </p>

<p>I honestly don't know if your son has a snowball's chance of getting into an Ivy League school like Yale, but one of the top college admissions counselors in the country told me Middlebury was a "match" for my d. My d. was not interested because she wanted an urban location. My d. also was accepted at the Univ. of Chicago and I did worry about whether that would be too intense an environment for her -- but in hindsight I think she would have done fine there academically as well. I think my d's greatest saving grace is simply that she is very disciplined about her work and studies and proactive -- if she has a task to be done, she does it right away; if she thinks of something that she ought to do, she goes right out and does it right away. So she doesn't fall behind, but she is also unphased when things crop up and she ends up having to do work with a short deadline. She also deliberately avoided getting too caught up in EC's or social activities her first semester and focused on school. </p>

<p>So the real question for your son still comes down to motivation. I think a kid with strong leadership EC's who is aiming high despite parental reservations probably has a lot more drive and inherent motivation than many of the kids who were essentially born and bred to attend the elite schools.</p>

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<p>Or even--gasp--Cs!</p>

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<p>Already, I think you have two separate, but related, issues: 1) The potential disappointment of applying and not getting in and 2) Staying in.</p>

<p>For the first, I'd say have a reasonable list. Two or three focused reaches, even super reaches, are, to me, not only acceptable, but important. You don't want to always wonder if you coulda been a contender.The point is to keep focused and choose reaches that fit in with the character of the other colleges on the list. Versus, for example, the entire ivy league plus MIT!</p>

<p>As far as staying in, I concur with the opinion that once you matriculate at a selective college, especially an LAC, they want to keep you. They want you to succeed. They provide infinite resources and again, in the case of LACs, nudge you to take advantage of them. The professors are all over you. You'd have to really *try *to remain lost and anonymous. </p>

<p>It does make a big difference, however, what your grade aspirations are. You may not get many A's. You may get a C or two. For some this is okay, for others devastating.</p>

<p>My son went to a super-reach academically. Not intellectually -- he was as smart and capable as anyone else -- but he didn't have the finely honed drive of a lot of the students. We and he were worried, but in retrospect, it was the best decision he could have made. The energy and enthusiasm was infectious and being around extremely accomplished, multifaceted kids just moved him to do more and to do it better. </p>

<p>It wasn't exactly competitiveness because grades weren't discussed. It was more an ethic of accomplishment of giving it your best shot. The constant support of the faculty was no small part of the success ratio.</p>

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<p>My son comes from a good but not stellar public school. He'd written papers, but very few long ones. He did well on the APUSH exam, didn't take English had mediocre 7 and 9 SAT essays. His writing is servicable. To my surprise he got an A in the English freshman writing course, and probably would have gotten an A in the history course he took if he'd handed in the papers on time.</p>

<p>My sister in law came from a terrible public school and had a very hard time her first term at Harvard. She had never written a paper with footnotes in her life. She took way too many paper intensive courses all of which were full year courses and in addition took a foreign language not knowing she was dyslexic for languages. She didn't get the help she needed, but took some time off, regrouped and came back and graduated with honors.</p>

<p>Hardly anyone flunks out of Ivy League schools. They want you to succeed and they don't accept you if they don't think you can. If your son wants to apply to a couple of those really reachy schools - there's no reason not to.</p>

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<p>Top schools will have top grad students, adding another dimension to the school, so don't dismiss those schools. Check out those schools that would otherwise interest him, ignoring the TA issue, and see if they feel like a good fit. He may feel that the pros outweigh any cons- an active research dept with TA's may offer more than one without. </p>

<p>Always remember the phrase "good fit"- reach for schools that seem to be a place he would like to be at, not just the ones with the highest reputation or strongest student body. Do have him research the top schools and make lists of pros and cons, he may discover the type of school he thought he would like doesn't match his criteria as well as ones he dismissed for one factor.</p>

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<p>Also, one more thought: Assuming that your son can get into the college of his choice and that you can afford to send him there ---why should the fact that he went to a crappy high school mean that he's denied the opportunity to attend the best possible college he can get into? I don't mean to put down the high school -- I just wanted to suggest that you think of it in those terms. The limitations of his high school should end the day he graduates-- they shouldn't be something that holds him back during the next stage of his life and education as well.</p>

<p>But the bottom line is simply that the college ad coms know what they are doing and they don't take in students who can't do the work.</p>

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<p>Dont discourage him from reaching high in his admission process but insist on a good group of solid safeties too. And be realistic too about safeties. Many of these seem to be far more competetive than they were a few years ago.</p>

<p>But I would like to have you consider something that goes against the conventional wisdom-ie the preferrably of attending a safety. For fin aid consideration our son took this approach and applied to safeties at the time which included Case and RPI. Yep, he got great merit aid offers from both which was nice. But on enrolling at Rensselaer he began to thrive academically too. The course work was such that he graduated in May with high honors, a prof asked him to work with him on a summer research project, he was able to graduate with a dual major(compsci/psych) and a dual minor(philosophy/electronic game development and simulation arts), was chosen for the only internship offered by a game development company in Pasadena, and will attending grad school at USC next month in computer game development located in the epicenter of the industry. Because he was one of the outstanding students in his departments, it was gratifyig to see how his professors interacted with him during the pre-graduation receptions we attended with him. </p>

<p>I do not think that he would have had such a positive undergrad experience had he attended a college that was an academic reach as a hs senior. He certainly would not have been able to pull off the dual major/dual minor program and gradate in 4 years.</p>