Her HS GC likely has no idea what a successful unhooked applicant looks like at the highly rejective schools.
Had this gal had adequate college counseling (whether thru HS or via an independent counselor) she would have had a balanced list of schools, not written her common app essay on the topic she did…religion, and her essay does nothing to describe who she is today, and why a school must have her on campus (this gal read her common app essay on a tiktok post), nor would she have explained 2 Bs and brought up mental health issues.
Maybe the reporter should write a story on how many, likely most, HS students don’t have access to adequate college counseling.
I’m not sure why, but your statement makes me extraordinarily sad.
I just skimmed this article but it seems to me that this student worked extraordinarily hard at her academics, as do many students that we come across on CC. Many make the inaccurate calculation that extraordinarily hard work results in extraordinarily hard admissions. I agree with @Mwfan1921 that good college counseling is severely lacking in many instances or it comes too late in the game (senior year) for real changes in the attitudes of the applicants; applicants are convinced to add safeties to their list, but consider it a failure if the safety is the only choice.
I find this student extraordinary in that she put in the work to develop extraordinary work ethic and academics that set her up for success when pursuing an undergraduate degree. It’s sad that she (or the author of the article) is not able to see that.
I think “granted an extra 100-200 points on the SAT” is an inaccurate way to describe the admission process at Ivy+ type colleges that use a holistic admission system. Certain hooked groups are given a boost that increases chances of admission, which may help overlook relatively weak points in the application, whether they be SAT or something else.
Suppose a hypothetical college uses a simple admission model with 5 criteria that are weighted equally – GPA/score stats, academics, ECs/awards, LORs, and personal qualities / character. For an uhooked kid to get admitted, he/she typically needs to excel in everything. However, a hooked kid might be able to get in with excelling in most areas, but just being okay in 1-2 categories. For admitted legacies, the 1-2 categories where they are just okay are unlikely to be scores. For admitted URMs, the 1-2 categories where they are just okay are more likely to be scores.
Under the system above, legacies and URMs might be given an equal boost in chance of admission. Yet admitted legacies could average higher scores than unhooked, and admitted URMs could average lower scores than unhooked.
As I think you are suggesting (and others have discussed below), it’s a pretty lightweight piece that doesn’t really withstand much scrutiny. The stats used for support are all over the map, going as far back as 2009 when we all know even 2019 stats are not necessarily valid today. The writer also doesn’t seem interested in a deeper conversation about college counseling - I would guess the GC was asked whether he remembered any students actually being admitted to Ivies and said, “Well, yeah, I remember 2 going to Yale and 1 to Princeton,” and that was dropped into the story without further reflection.
Maybe I am missing something obvious, but why are the 1-2 categories where admitted legacies are merely okay unlikely to be scores?
Are the advantages that legacies tend to have less helpful for ECs, LORs, personal qualities, and “academics” than they are for GPA/test scores? (and what do you mean by “academics”?)
Legacies tend to be wealthy and grow up in a academically well resourced environment, including attending high quality schools. They are more likely to be well prepped for tests and more likely to take advantage of accommodations. They are also more likely to have genetic advantages, as well as other advantages. This results in scores being less likely to be a weak point within their application.
This is not just hypothetical. The Harvard lawsuit analysis found that legacies receive a strong admission boost, on par with URMs, yet in the Harvard freshman survey, matriculating legacies always have slightly higher average scores than matriculating non-legacies. Admitted legacies do not do as well as admitted unhooked kids on average in nearly every other category, but they tend to have good scores.
Yes. But doesn’t growing up in an academically well-resourced environment, including attending high quality schools, and having genetic and other advantages also lead to advantages in the other four categories in your example?
E.g., more likely to have the time/money for intensive/expensive extra-currics?
More likely to have better “academics”? More likely to have training, experience and skills in how to develop relationships with adults, that can lead to better LORs?
How did the test scores of matriculating legacies compare with those of matriculating non-legacies who were also non-URMs?
Generally not to the same extent as test scores, so test scores tend to be a strong point in the application compared to other areas. For example, Harvard’s reader guidelines use comparison to others in their guidelines of assigning ratings to LORs, such as “the best of a career” or " the best this year." Attending a selective private high school with a high concentration of stellar students does not necessarily offer a big advantage in this type of LOR. Similarly while grades are correlated with income, that correlation is far weaker than the correlation between scores and income. Ivy+ type college tend to consider ECs and academics in context of what is available in school. It’s not just a matter of you need to spend a lot to do well.
However, there was one admission rating category that was as a strong a point within application as scores for Harvard legacies on average – athletics. I expect that attending a well resourced high school and having well resourced parents can be helpful for athletics, particularly in less popular, non-revenue sports.
Because “extraordinary” is just that. It’s not “great”, it’s not “amazing”. It’s beyond that.
Exactly - “many students”. She is at the top 10% of her school, and likely the top 5% academically of the graduating seniors of her year. In short, one of 100,000 great or even amazing seniors. “Extraordinary” is more than that. “Extraordinary” are the Davidson Fellows. There have been many great students on CC, but I would only use the title “extraordinary” for a handful.
Being in the top 10% or top 5% from a great high school is a great achievement, and, as a result, she has a well-deserved place at UT Austin, which is a T30 school. She would have been accepted (or was, I don’t know what other applications she had out) at a whole bunch of other colleges as well.
While the plurality (or majority) of students who are accepted to these colleges are within the range of her accomplishments, so are the plurality of applicants, and colleges are rejecting 80% or more of these applicants, and have been for far longer than the past 20 years.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she were accepted to one of these colleges, or even more, but it is even less surprising that none accepted her.
BTW, “extraordinary” is rare, and constitute a small percent of the students at “elite” colleges as well. So no, I’m not by any means claiming that Harvard and other similar colleges are not “full of extraordinary students”. They have more than colleges with similar academic offerings and less money, but there are kids like that in many other colleges, and the majority of the students at “elite” colleges are of the same academic achievements of which there are tens of thousands at state flagships across the country. Places like Harvard also have a good number of the “mediocre kids of the rich and famous” category.
What I wrote wasn’t sad, but this quote is really sad. The girl sacrificed her high school years, including her mental and physical health because she focused on building a high school profile that would “look good” to Ivies and other colleges with acceptance rates of < 5%.
In that, her counselor failed her even more miserably that he failed her in other ways. He seems to have been encouraging her to follow this self-destructive path of sacrificing mental health for “Ivy-worthy” grades. Not having the time to search for colleges which are a fit is understandable. But encouraging a student who already is already struggling with mental health and self-image issues to focus on grades rather than mental health borders on criminal.
She was hospitalized in her sophomore year, so it’s not as though he didn’t know what was going on with her. Moreover, from his comments it seems that he knew her very well.
I agree. It’s another common theme on CC but I’m starting to think that mental health is a little more complicated than striving for an Ivy admission. I can’t comment.
As far as extraordinary, one might not be able to distinguish between extraordinary and simply great if one has never come upon extraordinary. In all my life I have only gotten to know one person who is truly extraordinary according to your definition (and none yet in the US )Lots of great and amazing, yes, but truly extraordinary is rare. It is a matter of definition and degree, however, so I would not withhold this description for the student in question.
Someone upstream mentioned that it was a frivolous piece of journalism, and I agree. I wish this student all the best and hope that her mental health struggles are in the past.
I think that many parents on College Confidential dramatically overestimate the degree to which guidance counselors at average public high schools are involved with academically well-performing students, both in general and in the college application process. Many of D’s classmates at her average public HS never had a one-on-one meeting with their guidance counselor in their entire high school experience.
They are too busy helping students who are dealing with severe problems that pose serious threats to their well-being (teen pregnancy, addiction, abuse, etc.) and/or are in danger of not graduating. I am aware the article on the student explained she had mental health issues that resulted in her joining an outpatient program for two months, but given that she was placed into the program independently of her school and she was towards the top of her class, she likely was not considered high-risk by the school (that would not have been considered high-risk by my D’s public high school standards, and this was a somewhat above-average public high school, with roughly 55% of students attending four-year colleges immediately after graduation and 20% of students attending community colleges, and 40% of students on the free or reduced lunch program).
At my D’s public high school, the students would be entirely on their own for the college search, and for the guidance counselor letter of recommendation, they would fill out a recommendation letter request asking questions about your academic performance, test scores, personality traits (with anecdotes), extracurricular involvement, and extenuating personal circumstances which the guidance counselor would use to create a formulaic letter of recommendation.
@Mwfan1921 is correct in saying that, under this expectation of “adequate college counseling”, the overwhelming majority of the nation’s public high school students do not have access to “adequate” counselors.
Absolutely. She should be celebrating the fact that she achieved an auto-admission to one of the top universities in the country, rather than feeling bad that she was not accepted to a bunch of Ivies.
The GC seemed to be pretty familiar with this student. I am absolutely certain that the CGS at your kid’s school knew the kids who were in the top 3% pretty well. A kid who is focused on getting into an Ivy or a similar college will be meeting with their GC pretty often. BTW, her counselor is actually a pretty serious - a PhD, multiple publications, very active professionally, etc. So a person who definitely has some serious professional credentials and who should have been much more aware of the situation than he was. He also should have been more aware of college admissions reality than he was. The man has published peer-reviewed articles on the subject, for heaven’s sake:
Normally I would agree with you. However, in this particular case, when we are talking about a “star student” and a counselor who is a specialist in college admissions for gifted kids. So I feel that this counselor was familiar enough and involved enough with this student that they should have realized, over the four years that the kid was attending the school, that the student had anxiety and depression issues. Moreover, the entire K-12 system is part of a single school district, and this kid was well known in the system:
So I am not inclined to let the counselor off the hook.
PS. I forgot to thank @nyc10023 for posting the story, which is behind a paywall.
If your personal AGI is $500k you’re likely giving far too much of your money to your friendly government. As a W2 employee you’re limited in what you can do (unless you’re the majority shareholder in the company). As an investor (particularly in real estate) or business owner, there are many ways to mitigate personal tax liability. Tax law can be complex, but it’s worth having professional advice as taxes are most people’s largest expense.
As W2 employees, there’s nothing you can do. We’re a double income family in a very high cost of living area. We are wage earners. The only things we can really write off are mortgage interest and charitable contributions. I don’t think our accountant is screwing up… the system is stacked against people who earn paychecks, even if they’re ample paychecks.
You’re correct, W2 wage earners do get the short end of the stick under the current tax system, particularly in times of high inflation. That joke wasn’t meant to be offensive btw.
When you’re paying out a third of your income on taxes, then a third of what’s left of college and private school tuition for four kids you can’t write off, it can be a sore subject. No offense taken.
What educational institutions have been allowed to get away with at the expense of American families is a national travesty, and it ought to be addressed. But that is a whole different rabbit hole!
Current high school and college students and others newly entering the labor market or planning to do so in a few years should consider making financial plans to be able to move into the capitalist class as quickly as possible by living substantially below one’s means and minimizing debt (for college or anything else). The current income tax structure and economy substantially favors capital over labor, and that advantage for capital is likely to increase in the future as many markets become more consolidated in oligopolies. Changes in available job types can also make being in the labor class risky, since switching to different job types can be time consuming and expensive because of increasing education, training, and credential requirements for many jobs.
This is all true. We have no debt, but it’s not easy to pay what we pay in taxes, then cover our kids college 100%. We joke that if we didn’t have so many kids, we could have a vacation home. I wouldn’t change it, but here we are. We both have graduate degrees and are well compensated, but we are not entrepreneurs, we earn paychecks.
)Lots of great and amazing, yes, but truly extraordinary is rare. It is a matter of definition and degree, however, so I would not withhold this description for the student in question.