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<p>Unfortunately, he has attended a local community college for two years on a part time basis under a dual enrollment arrangement. I have gotten the impression that FA is not an issue, even if he goes OOS.</p>
<p>While it makes me sick to think about it, it could have been prevented and shouldn’t have ended up this way. (Which just makes me more sick.)</p>
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<p>Actually, I do not think this is the case (my brother teaches oversea and we do compare notes sometimes). For “elite” universities, the admission is very difficult for everyone - domestic or international - unless you are super-duper underrepresented minority that they are dying to attract.</p>
<p>It think one of the biggest mistake is that kids look into the raw data and do not dig deeper. For example, they look at Princeton and see 10% - so they think, OK, I have a chance since I am in the top 3% of my class. However, they forget that the 28000 applicants are already quite self-selecting. The applicant pools are filled with amazing kids who think they have a solid shot of getting in. Furthermore, they don’t realize that out of that measly 10% accepted students, there are bunch of legacies, kids of local/foreign potentates, etc.</p>
<p>At my kid’s school, we have Naviance which has a graph (X axis = SAT score, Y axis = GPA) plotting the outcome of applicants. Looking at the graphs of the elite schools will really leave you cold. All the applicants are bunched up at the upper left corner (GPA = 4, SAT > 2350) and there are a lot of outright rejections there - it tells you that GPA + SAT is not even remotely close to be enough to be guaranteed a spot.</p>
<p>Lastly, I was told that you really need to be careful with some of the “less elite” school. If they catch a whiff of you taking them as safeties, they will either wait-list or outright reject you. Indeed, I have seen kids with better stats got waitlisted at these universities and their friends with lesser stats got in.</p>
<p>I think part of it is the traditional CC, save money and try again > transfer 4 year route is no longer as viable. The top schools and some state schools won’t take such apps seriously, or credits won’t transfer directly. If from a poor background, getting into these schools as a HS senior can also mean free college, as in cheaper than the CC even. Sure, there is also the stricken ego syndrome, but there’s frankly more to lose these days.</p>
<p>I have to admit that CC really helped me in selecting/applying to colleges. With research, I compiled a safeties/fit/reach list with 2 schools each.</p>
<p>I’m a first generation college student within my ENTIRE immediate family, my mom didn’t go to college (let alone graduate HS), I’m an only child so no siblings to ask advice from, my closest friends couldn’t afford anything but our state flagship, so I had no help but from CC. My guidance counselor did crap.</p>
<p>I think most kids are smart enough to look on the internet for help if they think they are smart enough to even have a chance at Ivy’s.</p>
<p>honestly, there are enough seats in more than enough schools to go around so that no one should ever be denied, unfortunately everybody wants something more than they really are entitled too…</p>
<p>so when someone doesn’t get their choice/pick school and they failed to have a back up plan in place…I can’t cry for them.</p>
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<p>Right. And I think a lot of kids also think, “If HYPXYZ accept less than 10% of their applicants, I will apply to 10 or more schools to ‘improve my odds.’” Which, of course, only makes things worse all around.</p>
<p>I honestly cannot believe people are debating the availability of information online either for domestic OR international students. We are talking about some of the “best and brightest” students here. If they can’t “dig deeper” and do their own research, as furrydog says, maybe they are not as great and bright as they think they are.</p>
<p>The ones that bother me are the “Waah! I didn’t get into Harvard, Princeton or Stanford so now I have to settle for Brown! I’m devastated!” posts. I’d like to throw them into the fire along with the “I have a 6.7 WGPA, hold state records in 4 sports and have cured cancer. Will I ever get into a decent college?” chances threads.</p>
<p>I do think that some kids with stellar stats can have weaknesses in their applications they don’t recognize, and if these kids have adults and peers around them telling them they’re so amazingly talented that they’re shoo-ins for top schools they can fall into the trap of disregarding their safety schools. Big mistake.</p>
<p>I’m also not a big fan of the term “safety school”. It makes it sound like kids who are rejected from these schools, or who have only them as choices in the end, are losers. I much prefer the term “likely schools”. It’s more positive and emphasizes that nothing is guaranteed.</p>
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<p>I think there is a certain sense of invincibility and enthusiasm that come with youth - so I don’t think I will be too hard on them. :o) That is what I find endearing about most young people. What I find somewhat disturbing is some adults engaging in the same game - I would think they should be the cool head that backs the young fire - no?</p>
<p>a lot of students here either don’t know the meaning of education or don’t want to. they think that every opportunity starts from ivies and other top schools. so when they think to apply to universities, think that they are the best in the world and universities are bound to admit them without hesitation. that’s one thing to remember when searching for college. 
. Most of them think colleges want stats. no, colleges want enthusiastic people who have energy left to do something meaningful in college. if these coll kids go through actual result threads, they will understand that, most students who were admitted did very little ECs but had done them with love. that said, most of these cool kids got rejected for artificial passion or artificial love. who the heck knows?</p>
<p>OnlyO1 and yohoyoho - Thanks for the link. I browsed through and it looks very helpful. Hopefully he can achieve at least a 2100. I spoke to his GC last year and she stated they have a math SAT prep course close by for like $200, so if that is still available, I am going to sign him up. I ordered the 500 most used SAT vocab words from amazon, as well as the barons SAT book, 10 old tests in it. Now the hard part - trying to get him to actually open the book over the summer!! Thanks for all your info… CC has helped us so much already!</p>
<p>The same can apply for community college students. Everyone looks down at CC students and believe they were rejected from every college and classify them as “dumbasses.” When in reality, they are the ones who get the last laugh… they are really saving up a lot of money to later invest that for a future business or grad school. While most students who went to private schools are crying, paying back their $200,000 loans. :)</p>
<p>The students that spend 2 years in Community college and then transferred into junior year of a good university are the smartest.</p>
<p>Yeah don’t look down on community college! One of my closest friends, a downright genius any Ivy would kill to have (amazing stats, speaks 6 languages, URM…you get the picture) is going to one. Her sister went to the same CC, transferred to a local state U and was accepted into THE top Ph.D. program in her field and she knows someone who transferred from a CC to Stanford. I’m not going to a CC because I don’t want to stay home but they’re a great option academically.</p>
<p>I almost applied to all reaches (Cornell, UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Boston College), but then I realized that was stupid after doing minimal research.</p>
<p>Why some kids apply to all reaches only to get shut out is beyond me.</p>
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<p>At the same time, these teens who are applying are 17-year-olds, perhaps 18 in some cases. They’re applying to college because they are ready for a new chapter that is a giant leap to adulthood. IMHO, these are kids who should be ready to look life realistically. And realistically will include rejection, disappointment, and all the “what ifs” in the world. I really agree with the statement above – that if these young adults are so ready to take on college life, and are especially smart enough for the elite schools, they should be smart enough to think ahead and look at things realistically. Not to mention, it’s been a pretty basic rule of thumb that people should always have a plan B for big things! Always!</p>
<p>Honestly, from a kid who had NO guidance from anyone but the internet, it does not take a genius to figure out that ANYONE can get a rejection letter, no matter their amazing & impressive stats. I think these kids who only apply to elite schools are probably arrogant in the sense that they believed they could get into every school without a back-up plan (I’m talking about the ones who bothered to research stats but decided to do all reaches anyway). This might reflect on their essay as well, which probably might trend to why they were rejected (nothing scientific, just a hunch, as your personality tends to show through that :p)</p>
<p>It’s hard to feel sympathy for these kids who can pull off a near-perfect stats but can’t pull off some basic internet research. The #1 thing I found through my research was: COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ARE UNPREDICTABLE.</p>
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<p>Exactly! Which is why I have so little sympathy for them.</p>
<p>^ I still would be relectant to call them arrogant- ignorant- may be. Students when applying for schools, look for patterns. Who got admitted to and who didnt from their school. This year, S’s school had a big shock- when thier vailidictorian is not accepted into any of the top choices. This considering the fact that- 30 or so of the other students including my S- has got into at least one of the ivys or smilar school. I know the kid- there is absolutely no reason that he didnt get into any of the schools he applied except for his safety. I am sure none of them at shcool forsaw this, not even his college counselor. I wouldn’t call him arrogant- he is one of the humblest student I have known- he was just unlucky and - yes this was not the best year for him. I hope he will do fine where he ends up and do amazing things in life.</p>
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<p>They’ve been led to believe that it’s just a matter of probability, so they assume that the more reaches they apply to, the better their chance of being accepted to one. Sad.</p>
<p>I’m in the exact opposite situation of the kids you guys are talking about. I applied to ALL safety schools. Schools that I love, but are honestly not at the level I could be at. Admissions stats like 20% acceptance rates terrified me and scared me off of applying to schools I would have loved to go to. I regret not applying to any reaches but intend to send out a few transfer applications eventually. Yes, you need safeties, but I learned you need reaches too.</p>
<p>Don the same happened in my DS school a last year. The valedictorian did not get into any Ivies while more than 40 kids got into them. It happens. She still got into a good school. It is hard for any kid however to go through so much expectation from parents, teachers and let’s face the administration (this is a private school, so they have a lot to gain when the student get well placed) and then they do not get the result they expect.</p>