<p>I think that’s horrible and you should complain! There is no reason to be forced to rank your choices before May 1 unless you apply ED. I also think that there is no reason to fall in love with a school before they accept you.</p>
<p>D has been accepted to 2 top choices EA and has two more pending regular decision. That’s it. After the EA acceptances, she only applied to schools that had the potential to be her top choice. She’s not “collecting scalps”. Now she gets to do her due diligence carefully and decide which one she best suits her needs. I expect time for a lot of soul searching now that the intensity of application season is over. I really have no idea which school she is going to pick.</p>
<p>*I hear that the GCs at our kiddo’s school will require kiddo to withdraw apps from other schools when the highest ranked (by student) is accepted–as the GCs say “we do not allow students to collect scalps”
*</p>
<p>YouDon’tSay quote: *Unless GC plans to pay for my children’s college, I would not be taking any school off the table until all aid decisions are in. *</p>
<p>I completely agree. That policy WAY oversteps their bounds. That is not within their purview. How do they know whether the “top choice” is affordable to the family??? (BTW…how do they even know which school is each child’s top choice? Kids change their minds all the time about which school is their “top choice.” What’s to stop a kid from saying, that’s not my top choice anymore? )</p>
<p>What if you haven’t even visited the school (or your other schools) yet??? </p>
<p>Is this a public or private school?</p>
<p>Either way, I would contact each of my child’s schools and let them know that only MY CHILD will be withdrawing apps - not his school. And, I would warn the school that I would sue them if they attempted to withdraw my child’s apps ANYWHERE. This isn’t an ED issue.</p>
<p>We are lucky to have a decent flagship which offers generous merit $$, and both my kids believed they could make it work for them. The flagship loves kids from the programs they both attended, so we knew that short of a major GPA meltdown, they would get in. </p>
<p>We didn’t look at match/reach/safety so much as identifying schools where each kid would be an attractive candidate.</p>
<p>I found Naviance extremely helpful in assessing my kids’ chances. Each of their high schools have ten years of Naviance data and are excellent at hounding students into providing their results. I was able to compare one program (a math/science) vs. the other (IB on steroids) and see that there were some commonalities to the acceptance patterns at both. We had reason to believe MIT was a real possibility given the acceptance history at S1’s school. Caltech would look at S1’s GPA and hesitate no matter what else he brought to the table (which is why we weren’t surprised by the waitlist). Harvard would look at him and (correctly) say “MIT.” Chicago accepted almost all kids with a 2250+ from both programs. Georgetown is an extremely tough admit for kids in the DC area. “Niche” schools liked these kids. Certain schools liked the IB a LOT. There were some excellent schools that took virtually every applicant from the program. Willingness to apply to excellent, geographically diverse schools was a big plus. And, some schools don’t take kids from these programs no matter how amazing the kids are.</p>
How can they “require” students to withdraw applications? It’s the student who submits and withdraws applications, not the GC. And presumably by the time a student gets the word that they’re admitted to the #1 choice, the school has already provided the other schools with whatever they need–so what leverage do they really have? What are they going to do, send de-recommendations to the other schools? Not let the kid graduate?</p>
<p>This sounds like not only an obnoxious requirement, but a toothless one.</p>
<p>Both my kids withdrew several apps after getting excellent EA acceptances at schools which were at/near the tops of their lists.<br>
However, I’m appalled that the HS would require students to withdraw apps! No wya, no how. Kids should have choices, esp. when families need to consider merit/FA, and because frankly, 17 yos (and parents) can change their minds between November and May 1st about what works best for them.</p>
<p>More than one way to skin a cat: I’d just tell my kid to keep “changing his mind” about his no. 1 school. But, really, that school is way overstepping.</p>
<p>It is none of the GC’s business or concern where my kids apply, or how many places they apply. Given that I’m the one with more broad knowledge of selective colleges in the first place, given that it’s my money / time / effort going into schlepping them around the country to visit places, and given that we’re a typical public high school where her knowledge of my kids is limited to meeting a few times a year, it’s not her place to tell me what I can and cannot do (aside from things such as inadvertently applying ED to several colleges). Any more than it’s the bank’s place to tell me how much money I should withdraw and what I should spend it on.</p>
<p>I’d feel differently if I felt that there was anything remotedly resembling service from the GC’s. Not that I expect them to be at my beck and call – not in the least. But they aren’t set up to do anything for students who aren’t going down the well-traveled path of the state schools. So they don’t get to add little value and then try to make those calls for me. As far as I am concerned, their role is to be the ATM that provides transcripts on request – the same way that I might call the College Board and ask them to provide scores on request.</p>
<p>Good idea to apply for an early app to a safety–for those sanity reasons ;o)</p>
<p>and yeah–I didn’t like the GC’s comment at the seminar given for parents…have wondered for a couple of yrs (he uses some of the same stories and handouts at the frosh, soph parent seminars ) …and how to deal with that…</p>
<p>fogfog: my D had her app into her safety in July and had acceptance in hand by August. That felt great! Especially since it has ended up being her #1 choice. My house is having a very stressless college process this year; I really think all the preplanning last year helped with that.</p>
<p>Having said that, I made her complete the other 4 apps that she’d decided on over the summer; I’ve seen too many stories on here and in real life where kids are adamant that they’re committed to College A only to realize in April that they want something completely different. Since #1 is a state flagship, I was happy that she submitted 2 apps to LACs as well as a mid sized private uni. Come April, if the winds of change blow through her room, at least I know she has choices. Which is why your GC dept. mandate is so appalling. I mean these are 17 year olds we’re talking about! I’d say ignore the requirement; I mean what can they do if you don’t withdraw the apps…and how would they know if you had received an acceptance. It’s not like they let the school know directly.</p>
<p>I’m a little amused at some of the anger directed at the GCs who tell kids to withdraw applications after they have been accepted at a higher choice. Of course, all of you are right that, especially if financial aid is a key concern, that may not be appropriate – and I’m sure the GCs would agree with that, too. And of course all of you are right that teenagers can change their minds. </p>
<p>But here’s the funny part: Many of you, both at private and at public schools, are proud of your schools’ college admissions records. Many of you chose a school in part on that basis. When you do that, it’s a little hypocritical to complain about GC practices that doubtless enhance their relationships with desirably colleges and contribute to their and the school’s – and perhaps your child’s – success in admissions. At a lot of schools that provide good college counseling and that provide value added on college applications, part of the winning strategy is an implicit (maybe explicit) promise to college admissions staff from the school counseling staff that they will not let kids who are not seriously considering a college keep their applications alive there. They also often exercise a lot of pressure to make certain that one student doesn’t become the top applicant from the school at a dozen desirable colleges. </p>
<p>All of that clearly benefits the community as a whole over time, although it may shave some goodies from a particular student in particular circumstances. If you happen to be that student in those circumstances, I’m not all that sympathetic when you want to trash the practices that help everyone be successful. So maybe you don’t get to keep 14 options open for another two months; maybe you have to be satisfied with picking four or five to keep open. You already cut a whole bunch of options off by not applying at all, and you will be whittling your options down to one in a matter of weeks. It won’t matter if you change your mind in February about a college you didn’t apply to at all, or if you change your mind in May about a college you turned down in April. If you have to jettison some more options in February, it’s not a tragedy.</p>
<p>I disagree 100% JHS. I wonder if this policy is prominent in the school’s literature before you apply or do they spring it you senior year after you’ve paid over $100K for the privilege. </p>
<p>Our public school has a great college admissions record without these abhorrent practices. Our GCs are just too busy and frankly don’t have the right to tell kids to withdraw applications. Everyone knows the rules: apply where you want, and run the risk that you don’t get into a school because someone else got in who won’t go there. I don’t think it’s prudent to have a fixed rank on 10 schools. Kids grow between the fall and spring of senior year. I think the best strategy is to make sure that you have several good choices in April.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad, I don’t disagree with you at all, except perhaps in nuance. (I don’t think you need to keep 10 choices open for two more months. At that point fewer would be OK. Kids grow between spring and summer of their senior years, too, and we don’t wring our hands about their having to make decisions before THAT growth occurs. For most of the world, whose children are not developmentally different from our children, our hyper-choice system seems bizarre.)</p>
<p>However, I surmise that the poster who raised this was talking about a private school, and I see that all the time. People are attracted to the school in part because of its college admissions record, and the school does in fact deliver excellent results, but parents whine quite a bit when they find out that their kids won’t be able to do everything they want. And I think some suburban publics behave the same way.</p>
<p>Having not been to the first 1-on-1 mtg with a GC yet–We don’t know what all of the policies are…
but given that families must make a decision about finances etc, it seems premature to ask kids to pull apps if some of the schools only offer RD…because then even if the student got in say an EA school, perhaps and RD school will be more desirable finanically.</p>
<p>I am expecting we will have the list whittled down significantly before we even have that first mtg–a 3 day weekend is coming and beyond SAT prep, I see college research in kiddos future ;o)</p>
<p>The college counselor at our high school asks students to consider withdrawing other applications once they are sure of their decision. This is requested as a consideration to their fellow students who were either deferred EA/ED or applied RD and are awaiting their results. She said most students are happy to comply.</p>
<p>This approach seems reasonable and fair to me. If finances are a consideration – which they typically are not at this high school – there is no pressure to withdraw.</p>
<p>As a student, I recall being admitted to a small women’s college…and had received an invitation to a tea with an alum…When I received my admit from a larger state U–I chose that one instead…and called the alum right away to tell her …
Pretty sure that all of this happened in the late spring when all of the results were in hand…</p>
<p>And also–back in the day–we applied to only 5 schools, typed it all, and everything went via snail mail.</p>
<p>Don’t you think the high number of apps everywhere is in large part due to the common app and also state programs helping to fund tuition for in-state kids…and also with such a high number of great candidates applying to the top schools, no one can know for sure…until the accpetance is in hand…</p>
<p>Wait - these are the same colleges that accept 10% EA, and defer 80%, and then come April have a waiting 10 times the number of students it will ever accept from the list? And WE should be rushed to tell THEM as soon as we make a decision? I don’t see the colleges doing anything that isn’t in their best interests. They want all the applicants when it is time to compute their selectivity, but just before it is time to compute yield, they want the less interested ones to go away?</p>