<p>I often read about athletic recruits who say they chose “XYZ University over [insert a list of top schools here].” While they may have been recruited by coaches at those schools, they were never admitted to them, so I think it is disingenuous to state that those schools were a “choice” they passed over. There is a very good chance they would not have gotten in.</p>
<p>Also common on this website, is parents asserting that their child “could have gone to HYPS, etc., but chose not to apply.”</p>
<p>emilybee – I didn’t have to do anything. The Superintendent, who had already prepared a press release featuring the MIT/Princeton “acceptances,” was not amused. I doubt we’ll have a repeat performance this admissions cycle.</p>
<p>Kids, like adults, who feel inadequate in some way often lie about any number of things to improve their social status among their peers. Why should college acceptances be any different?</p>
<p>At DD’s prep school, they were allowed to wear a sweatshirt from any school where they were accepted, instead of the uniform shirt. They had to bring in the letter to prove it. Solves a lot of problems.</p>
<p>At the local public school, a mom told me in February that (big mouth girl) had been accepted to both Harvard and Duke. This was a few years ago when Harvard did not have early admission and Duke’s was binding. I knew it could not be possible, but I just kept my mouth shut. Some people just have to spin stories. She was also one of the kids who said that she was recruited by Duke. She also refused to attend graduation when she was informed she was not valedictorian; she had put the card in her announcements that she was valedictorian because at the beginning of senior year she was ranked number one.</p>
<p>Bay–it could be true that they were recruited and admitted by “top school”, assuming you mean Ivy, and chose to go elsewhere because Ivy’s don’t give athletic scholarships and the money didn’t work out.</p>
<p>Better to fake admission then confront students who were accepted, and scream “how dare you!”. What I find interesting is the number of students DS’ school’s Navigance results post as “accepted” at Top-20 schools yet far fewer actually attend. Are a handful of students “skewing the curve” by posting multiple acceptances for a handful of students?</p>
<p>I would guess that most students who apply and are accepted to top twenty schools, often apply to more than one as you suggest, higgins. Naviance is still helpful for students who are applying to the more competitive schools.</p>
<p>We had this last year at my son’s HS-two kids applied to Harvard-he was rejected and she announced her acceptance during class.</p>
<p>He was so upset by the whole episode-he couldn’t understand how they would take her and not him! He even looked into if there was any way he could contest the results! No one at the school could figure it out either but just figured she had some connection no one knew about. </p>
<p>She confessed to him this year she was lying. He told her he figured as much-she asked him if he wouldn’t tell anyone. He only told me-he is a very gracious young man.</p>
<p>I am so glad to have this in the rear view mirror. :)</p>
<p>Athletes sign NLI’s on set dates which precede the regular admissions cycle. It is impossible for an athlete to sign more than one NLI. While s/he may have also received an Ivy likely letter, it would be very rare to receive more than one, and even that likely letter is a <em>contingent</em> admission, (with FA information included), not a guarantee of admission. The articles I referred to included claims of choosing one college over a <em>list</em> of others, not just one Ivy.</p>
<p>Didn’t know anyone at my urban public magnet who LIED about their acceptances…but others spread rumors about colleges/universities others were accepted/rejected from. People did spread rumors and/or assumed some people were applying/admitted to schools that later proved false. This was the case of one girl who was rumored to have been admitted to Oberlin…which I later found to be false at a reunion as she never even applied there because the school was “too out there” for her. </p>
<p>The level of elite university/LAC or bust mentality at my high school was such that several of my friends went the opposite way and said they’re going to a lower-level SUNY/CUNY, community college, or dropping out from society to be a beach bum in California after graduation even though they actually already received acceptances to schools like Cornell, Hampshire, Wesleyan, URochester, Reed, etc. It was their way of rebelling against the prevailing high school culture.</p>
<p>There have also been kids who lied about being recruited athletes for big college sports teams, and even a few publicized cases where kids went so far as to sign fake letters of intent for the local news cameras. Sad.</p>
<p>I feel likewise, though my kids were raised in rural Vermont. The more I have read CC over the years (over 9 years) and anecdotes from people who live in communities around the country, the more I am glad that my kids did not attend a high school with this sort of atmosphere. It was not competitive and talk of colleges was quite minimal. I don’t think my kids’ peers knew where they applied to college even. It mostly came up after April of senior year when people said their plans for the coming year. Their friends were not “competing” for the same colleges. The whole college “race” is soooooooo NOT the culture here. This kind of lying to impress others also just is not the case as this kind of talk about colleges is not too prevalent in the first place in our school and community. There really is no “keeping up with the Joneses” type stuff at all. When I see and hear what it is like in certain types of communities and schools, I am very grateful my kids were raised here and went to a rural public high school where this stuff just is quite foreign from their experience.</p>
<p>PS, if anything, there is a tendency NOT to brag. I have witnessed when my D was in college at Brown and home for a break and someone asked where she went to college, I’d hear her reply “in Rhode Island!” or when she went to grad school at MIT, I’d hear her simply say, “I go to school in Boston.” The schools she attended were uncommon in our community.</p>
Yes, our parent crew is abit like that also. It feels alittle gauche to use the actual names…more often you’ll here from the parent “so and so” loves Vermont (at Dartmouth) or so and so is doing well and loves Southern California…Kangamom is incorrect on that one…it’s not a prevailing culture everywhere.</p>
<p>They can still be recruited by a school and not even get to the application process having ruled out that school before then for various reasons. Athletes sing on NLI day because they have made their final choice on that day, there are several of those days throughout the year, today being one of them. There was also one last fall, both of which were before any Ivy acceptances have gone out so it isn’t usual to “sign” at those schools on those days.</p>
<p>Our DD is being “recruited” by many schools, however she is a junior, and hasn’t completed her junior season so coaches can’t contact her off campus yet. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know who she is, what she is capable of doing and don’t have her on their “list” of people they will be calling ASAP. We know of at least 5 programs that are very interested in her from other sources.</p>
<p>^ I concur about Cobrat. I’m going to offer it as a suggestion for my DD when it’s her time. LOL</p>
<p>While not pervasive, some of the josting occurs at her school.</p>
<p>She’s already mortified that people at her school will find out that I’m the representative in our school district for my HYP alma mater and will try to cozy up to her.</p>
<p>I knew a guy who claimed that he ditched MIT to go to a local third-tier state university just because of the money. Because there is nothing between that and MIT. I also met another guy at community college while I was dual enrolled there that he didn’t go to MIT because of the cost but instead was already admitted there for grad school and was going to go there after going to our middling state flagship. What is it with people and lying about getting into MIT?</p>