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remember reading A Hope in the Unseen and wondering whether the protagonist-- an inner-city boy who was admitted to Brown and wanted to triple major in math/science/engineering fields-- would have come closer to achieving his goals at the University of Michigan or UVA or UMd.
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<p>Um, no, I don't think U of M, UVa or UMd are so much "easier" that Jennings would have fared better there.</p>
<p>One thing sobering about his story was the inadequacy of his high school education. He was hardworking, but he did not have the coursework and materials available to him to prepare for college. He especially did not have a chance to learn critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>Fendrock, if you don't think any of those state universities are so much easier that he may have reached his original goal, then go down the rankings to a tier 3 or a tier 4. The whole point is that he <em>was</em> unprepared-- but I suspect that many of the students at lower-tier satellite schools or HBCU are too and many of them are able to finish.</p>
<p>Personally I think his high school education left him so far behind that it would not have been possible for him to triple major in those fields anywhere, certainly not in four years.</p>
<p>After reading this and that globe article, I honestly think we had better start discussing what is the most supportive and understanding thing to say when your kid is unceremoniously rejected. :(</p>
<p>Modadunn- try not to get discouraged! I still think there's plenty of room at these schools for the the more reserved personalities. In articles like this, maybe they think the catchier the better? I think it goes a bit too far.</p>
<p>Off topic a bit, as this is not a reference to the kids in the OP, but back when S1 was applying, he read a bunch of essays that different colleges had published online as exemplary examples. Maybe we're grumpy and negative, but a lot of them gave us the feeling that some students were trying too hard -- almost like hollering "See how different I am?!" He loved the school, but for him it would have been ridiculous to go that route.</p>
<p>What it comes down to, is that you have to have some overriding reason to make the accept list if you are not immediately a first read accept when it comes to the most selective schools. Challenging family situation, first generation college student, are all such reasons. If you are an upper middle class student from nurturing, educated family going to a good school, there really isn't much that is going to up your chances. It will come down to your test scores, grades, difficulty in high school courses, and any hooks you bring with you.</p>
<p>Honestly, these articles come out every year at this time where a reporter is allowed to sit in on the "admissions process". Truth is that the reporter is sitting in on a very short period of time where the adcoms know he/she will be there and probably have loaded the apps in order of interest. The small snipit the reporter writes about means almost nothing. Some year a school might allow a reporter to sit in on the whole process start to finish with the financial aid office involved. Then we will get an interesting story. But that will never happen, so we will always be left to fill in the blanks.</p>
<p>I've read some whole season stories. They do have some new nuggets of info, but overall when you are talking about a highly selective college, there isn't a whole lot that can help most of us who are already well informed.</p>
<p>I have a good student who will have ok test scores. He has interests but they are not at the level that are going to attract a college's attention. His talents are also pretty much average when it comes to the college attending population, and probably below par for those who are at select colleges. There is no way to dress him up as a viable candidate for HPY, though he will be well prepared to go to such school and would do just fine there. Throw him into the category of challenged home life, environment, etc, and he would have a shot of getting in there. Because so few kids from backgrounds would have such a profile. There are hundreds of thousands of kids with my son's profile among upper middle class applicants. Just nothing that stands out there.</p>
<p>I wonder if adcoms wouldn't frame their thinking as seeking students who stand out or excel in the situation they're in. </p>
<p>It's admittedly hard to stand out among students at a well-heeled suburban or private HS, and hard, in a different way, when a student faces other types of challenges. But both types of stand-out student are highly unusual and both add an interesting dimension to the admitted class.</p>
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<p>After reading this and that globe article, I honestly think we had better start discussing what is the most supportive and understanding thing to say when your kid is unceremoniously rejected.<<</p>
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<p>What struck me about the article, which may reflect either the reporter's bias or the admissions committees' decisions on what discussions to let the reporter hear, was that the adcom meetings read like an exercise in social engineering: How can we use college admissions as a vehicle for increasing social mobility in the US?</p>
<p>It seems ironic that many of these same institutions (Amherst no doubt, Tufts not sure) used the same tools (geographic diversity, sports, ECs, recommendations) as a means of reducing social mobility in an earlier era. Then, the admissions process was explicitly used to discriminate against Jews. Now, if one assumes that the article provides an accurate sample of admissions decisions, it is likely that adcoms are discriminating against Asians and Jews. Interesting.</p>
<p>Again, it would not surprise me if these institutions chose to let the reporter in on sessions where they were working extra hard on kids from less fortunate situations as that would provide PR benefits to the institutions and it might also fit with the Globe reporter's own political leanings.</p>
<p>This is why I have become somewhat addicted to CC. It gives constant reality checks and prepares me so I can be MORE supportive regardless of the answers and not equally depressed knowing how disappointed S will be.</p>
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You've been Tufted
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<p>What does this mean exactly? Cuz it just doesn't sound positive in the least.</p>
<p>PS--At college, I met some kids with odd profiles. Putting on unusual identities and adopting exotic hobbies and interests was, to them, the high-achievers' version of the very same teen phenomenon which motivates kids to get piercings or tattoos, dye their hair purple, dress all in black, smoke cigars, etc. This does not necessarily mean that they are, in fact, more interesting people who should be part of a college class over other students who simply felt less need to make themselves stand out. In fact, it may actually mean they are poorly adjusted attention-seekers. Furthermore, their oddities may be no more than thin masks. (Not to mention, they can be quite pretentious since they believe themselves to be superior because they're not like the masses.)</p>
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<p>tufted--rejected because you're too normal<<</p>
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<p>Tufted: to be unceremoniously rejected because you didn't stand out from the BWRK crowd in the opinion of the admissons committee. The illustration in the dictionary would show a 4.0 Girl Scout dancer.</p>
<p>[Don't look in a dictionary for this definition...]</p>
<p>Really, what can you say to someone who is a wonderful human being and whose many accomplishments on the human and educational level are deemed run of the mill by a committee in a room far away who is looking for "something different?" </p>
<p>Back in the old days, Tufts was known to reject applicants that they thought were using them as a safety school.</p>
<p>I think Shawbridge called it. It's probably what the reporter was interested in rather than what admissions focused on.</p>
<p>Dartmouth published parts of essays that caught their eye most last year. While there were stories about a kid who lost his father in Iraq, one about a girl who had been in foster care and was finally adopted and other hardship stories, there was also a kid who was a beekeeper and one who used food/his cooking to influence people during his year in France.</p>
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PS--At college, I met some kids with odd profiles. Putting on unusual identities and adopting exotic hobbies and interests was, to them, the high-achievers' version of the very same teen phenomenon which motivates kids to get piercings or tattoos, dye their hair purple, dress all in black, smoke cigars, etc. This does not necessarily mean that they are, in fact, more interesting people who should be part of a college class over other students who simply felt less need to make themselves stand out. In fact, it may actually mean they are poorly adjusted attention-seekers. Furthermore, their oddities may be no more than thin masks. (Not to mention, they can be quite pretentious since they believe themselves to be superior because they're not like the masses.)
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<p>Wow. I think we've got a winner here - I know people who are exactly like that, and I'm inclined to agree.</p>
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Honestly, these articles come out every year at this time where a reporter is allowed to sit in on the "admissions process". Truth is that the reporter is sitting in on a very short period of time where the adcoms know he/she will be there and probably have loaded the apps in order of interest. The small snipit the reporter writes about means almost nothing. Some year a school might allow a reporter to sit in on the whole process start to finish with the financial aid office involved. Then we will get an interesting story. But that will never happen, so we will always be left to fill in the blanks.
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<p>I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know if this book has been mentioned, but I recently finished reading The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg, a NYTimes reporter who followed a Wesleyan admissions officer through an entire admissions season. I found it fascinating and very eye-opening.</p>