<p>Also, I should point out that getting rejected everywhere is hardly the end of the world. You take a year off, do something fun, and then try again next year with a broader net.</p>
<p>I plan on my hypothetical child being too smart to bother with college. (Now I just have to find some genius to marry.)</p>
<p>Yes, do that. I am a firm believer that the mother’s intelligence plays a much bigger part with children…nature and nurture blending together.</p>
<p>Smart men who marry trophy wives often end up with dim kids. LOL</p>
<p>(the hottie women on this board excepted.)</p>
<p>Yep, getting rejected is not reflection on persons’ ability, it is more reflection on incorrect pick of schools and low quality of pre-med advising. If list of schools is compiled with consideration to applicant stats, background, hooks (if any) and close review by knowledgeable and supportive pre-med advisor, there is no reason for 100% rejection. And again, if it happen, yep, take a year or so off and try again (I do not have experience with that though, I did not allow D. to plan on having gap year, since we are getting very old and any way she indicated that she did not have any plans to do so). No experience with any “genius” in a family either. Oh, well, not everybody is up to developing Facebook. As long as life is not mesearable, it is OK, including college experience as part of it.</p>
<p>*Also, I should point out that getting rejected everywhere is hardly the end of the world. You take a year off, do something fun, and then try again next year with a broader net. *</p>
<p>No, it’s not the end of the world, but if it can be avoided by including a true safety then why not?</p>
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It’s probably not a big deal either way, but if you’re really doing a cost-benefit analysis then you can sometimes come out ahead the other way by weighting the probabilities.</p>
<p>More importantly, sometimes you wouldn’t want to go to UC-R until after you’d already taken a second shot at Berkeley and such. In that case, it wouldn’t make any sense to apply there the first time around.</p>
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<p>Agreed. And men who marry trophy wives need to spend too much time on guarding their trophies and end up not having enough time for their kids. LOL. (Well too much time for their kids could become a curse for their kids though.)</p>
<p>More importantly, sometimes you wouldn’t want to go to UC-R until after you’d already taken a second shot at Berkeley and such. In that case, it wouldn’t make any sense to apply there the first time around.</p>
<p>I can see that. But, a student is supposed to choose a safety (or preferably…safties) that he LOVES. He’s not supposed to choose a safety that would feel like a booby prize (not saying that UCR is a booby prize).</p>
<p>This student could have Santa Clara as a safety. Attending SCU should not feel like a “poor me” consolation prize at all. It’s highly ranked and Jesuit. Frankly, it could be a better choice for a pre-med student anyway. It probably has better advising. </p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I can think of 20 schools that would be be fine safeties for this student…several Jesuits, several flagships, a few LACs, etc…not a booby prize in the bunch. :)</p>
<p>And…seriously…many of us parents do NOT want our kids taking gap years after high school. We have a hard enough time getting our kids up before 2 pm when they’re home for breaks and summers. lol Many 18 year olds do not have the maturity and discipline not to waste a good part of a gap year. Some kids do, but many don’t.</p>
<p>Well, I think the idea would be that the kid would actually hold a job during that time.</p>
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<p>And I just meant to suggest: If I want a kid with a 120 IQ and these sorts of things average out, I suppose that means I’m on the market for a 240…</p>
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<p>It ain’t about me – never has been. I always try to make my cc posts general, not relative to my family.</p>
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<p>UC Statfinder, it’s a treasure trove of data on UC’s.</p>
<p><a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/[/url]”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/</a></p>
<p>edited to add: mom2, UC’s give bonus points for overcoming ‘adversity’ in any shape or form. Your niece should write her small essay about overcoming something, anything, such as ‘feeling bad’ about herself in the face of Madison Avenue advertising, or stress brought on by all the mean-spirited boys, or ‘feeling’ overweight…you get the idea. The UC’s eat that stuff up.</p>
<p>The official name for the holistic admissions policy is ‘Comprehensive Review,’ but the cynics call it ‘Compassionate Review.’ :rolleyes:</p>