Note that applicants’ essays and recommendations can be a big factor, but only the admission readers at the college can see them in comparison to those of other applicants. The applicants and most people who could advise them have no idea how the applicants’ essays in combination with other applicant characteristics compare to the rest of the applicant pool. Recommendations are even more opaque to the applicant, and add the variable of the recommender quality into the application.
In theory, these should be easy to find for high-stats applicants who qualify for a greater percentage of automatic admission and scholarship listings. But high-stats applicants may see such colleges as “beneath” them.
CS and nursing have a reliable ROI. If you become a nurse, your family WILL enter the middle class. You WILL be able to provide for your children, your elderly parents, and often your sibs. CS is the same way. History, especially at non-elite schools, frequently has a negative ROI. My own kid may major in history. This is ok, because he has a huge safety net. This safety net was created by me accessing an elite undergrad education (through Pell grants and other sources of aid), and from there I looked at ROI and went into the healthcare field.
Just want to stress Linda’s point that this doesn’t mean apply to all T20s and one directional U. If a school has a sub 20% acceptance rate, it is NOT a safety no matter if the student’s stats are above the 75th percentile.
CS is subject to industry ups and downs. Twenty years ago was a really bad time to graduate in CS. Of course, that was more than a lifetime ago for today’s high school seniors.
Nursing does not necessarily have the best working conditions and job satisfaction, though. This is indicated by how common unions are at most large hospitals and medical offices. Plus, the educational paths are highly selective.
Most people know that history does not lead to a lot of high pay major-related jobs. But this does not seem to be as well known for biology (perhaps because most of the prospective biology majors assume that they will get into a medical school).
We are all living in the Covid world where nurses are in short supply and making six figures if they are willing to travel.
I am not too old to remember a nursing glut. Congress changed the immigration path for nurses to address a shortage- which created a glut. Much gnashing of teeth that well trained nurses were being “demoted” at their hospitals (you can keep your job, but your supervisory responsibilities are going away and your comp is adjusting downward).
I was recruiting in tech in 1999 where we were desperate for talent. And then companies were firing CS talent left and right in 2001. So it goes.
So I look at “ROI” with the jaundiced eye of someone who has been hiring for decades and knows that today’s hot major (remember Petroleum engineering and geology until the bottom fell out of energy?) is tomorrow’s glut.
This is a little unfair. If anything, this is the place to get 1,000 answers to any question you might ask. In fact, this place is FULL of people who will answer literally any question about attending college that you might think of, and then go on and answer questions you didn’t even think to ask and engage in pages of conversation with posters offering guidance and opinion.
It’s so full of guidance that sometimes I see it overwhelm people. Sure, if someone gets on the site and asks about their college list and it’s completely unrealistic, when the rejections roll in a few people may give out an “I told you so.” But that’s pretty much life.
So I stick to my post. Sitting around whining about the schools sending marketing materials and removing supplemental essays and doing other things to make it easier for kids to apply seems like barking at the wind to me. You’re free to think otherwise. Again, nobody is forcing anybody to do anything here, just like the great and talented designer at Ethan Allen didn’t put me in a choke hold until I agreed to buy furniture. They certainly made it tempting, but it was my choice in the end.
I agree that this is a great place to come for help, and I am super grateful for all the amazing advice I received; people have been so generous with their time.
But I just can’t help but think the system is broken. It’s bizarre to me that kids have to be coached on how to package themselves. Bizarre that the real cost vs the sticker price of schools is so opaque. Bizarre that we have to warn 17 year olds that selective schools are sending them mail only to use them. There are just so many ways to go wrong, and not just for people aiming at “elite” schools. The whole thing is so dysfunctional. I feel there are a lot of people on here who imply it isn’t dysfunctional…and then give a long list of which subsections of the CDS to query in order not to screw up. Or tell you to be happy with your state flagship (when it kind of sucks for what you are interested in, but still costs $30,000/yr.)
But they don’t HAVE to be coached. They choose to be because they insist on applying to elite colleges, which the vast majority of them have no real chance of getting into.
I totally agree with you though that the actual costs of attendance are opaque. There is much more colleges could do to make COA clearer.
Oh, trust me, it’s known if you’re on here. I had some poster lecturing me on why my kid shouldn’t major in biology, regardless of his wanting to do so. She had a few majors that in her words were “a waste of money and time”. I guess the kids not interested in CS, engineering, finance or nursing should just not even bother
Sometimes, usually even, but not always. I am thinking about that poor kid on another thread, son of Vietnamese immigrants. Sky high stats. Didn’t get into any elite schools. Did apply to and get into a number of state schools, but unaffordable in the end. People are telling him he probably needs to rework his essays, repackage himself, try again vs last minute applications to state schools where high stats=money, as if this poor family should have known. It makes me so sad and almost sick.
Ok, that’s a fair point. I retract my statement. There definitely are some amazing applicants that are applying to elite schools because they know they can get the FA they need. And those kids could benefit from coaching, no question.
As it’s germane to this conversation, I will link Scholar Match here. People can volunteer to help low SES, first gen, and URM students with the college process. https://scholarmatch.org/
I agree. That’s why I like to put colleges in buckets. Your guaranteed schools. Your 80-99% acceptance ones. 60-79%, 40-59%, 20-39%, and less than 20%. Odds are that you’re probably going to get into most of the 60-79% and most or all of the 80-99% range. Then you have the toss-ups, the borderline ones. It could go either way. Then as the chances of admission fall, that means those are probably nos, but might turn out in your favor. If you have schools across the spectrum, or predominantly in the 60% or more likelihood category (for which there are also good private schools that have acceptance rates like that), then there’s less uncertainty. The more schools are balanced on the unlikely end, the more uncertainty there is and the chance for a shutout.
100% yes. It’s possible, but so unlikely, that applicants should assume they’re nos and then be happily surprised if they get a yes.
True, but you also need to know that this forum exists. Forums as a form of social media are on the decline. I learned about CC from a forum on finances. If someone isn’t lucky enough to find this place, then an amazing resource is missed. People don’t know what they don’t know.
I would not have phrased it this way before today, but you’ve made some excellent points about the opacity of the system and the problems within it. When described this way, I have to agree with you.
It is not that someone shouldn’t major in biology, but that someone who wants to major in biology should be aware of the job and career implications associated with that (versus other majors). Someone with frugal spending habits has the option to major in biology and live comfortably on a relatively low income. Someone with expensive spending habits may find that to be more difficult.
Yes, if the parents know. But most parents don’t. Because the acceptance rate at these schools have dropped by an order of magnitude since they were in college. And their kid gets repeat mailings from UChicago et al saying “Imagine your future starting here” or some such crap that makes you think you stand a chance.
My dad went to MIT. One of his fraternity brothers was put on academic probation and told he had to get his GPA up somewhere else in order to continue at MIT. He went to Princeton. Times have changed!
I have wondered about how many posters this year feel like it’s wildly different when imho, it’s just the same train barreling down the same track.
But one thing that definitely was different was that parents had less in person contact with each other during the application process and missed out on a lot of the info that is shared that way. As the parent of a sophomore or junior, overhearing/having those sideline conversations about what is going on with the older students and their applications was missed. The casual conversations post presentation by the college counseling office didn’t happen. The discussions about college visits with other parents didn’t happen.
For me, these were really helpful with perspective. I heard about kids who I knew were impressive getting deferred and rejected at schools I would have thought would love to have them. It was just the right context for all the official info that came from college counseling.
It’s hard to place your own kid’s accomplishments in context without this, and it’s hard to know how colleges do this without it too. My hunch is that the covid bubble made it harder than usual to appreciate the whole process and where your kid might fit into it. Or that maybe you needed to do more research.
Remember – a good student can extract phenomenal value from any school. And schools outside T50 have tons of teaching talent and a wealth of opportunities. If it didn’t turn out the way you hoped, it may not have turned out badly.
I was one of those people! I thought for sure my son could go anywhere in the country with his stats, and I had him all ready to apply to UChicago and other schools like it, and then, luckily, I came on here and realized my mistake! I do think most parents don’t realize there is a resource like this they can go to, and if I hadn’t used it, we would have had one disappointed son (most likely). Or even worse, been on the hook for A LOT of money. And I consider myself an educated person, I have a doctorate degree, and so does my husband.
