<p>^ or born into an impoverished war zone, where no one has educational opportunities.</p>
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I’m a Yale alum with two kids who have been admitted SCEA, so I approach this topic with some trepidation–but if you go to the Yale board here on CC and look at the results threads for this year and past years, you will see some of the legacies who have been admitted, and those who have been deferred. Those who were admitted, as well as those who were deferred do not, in my opinion, meet the descriptions above of unworthy people. They are very well qualified. Perhaps this is different for people who can donate vast sums of money, but I have just not seen much evidence that non-developmental legacies are getting in with significantly lower stats that a lot of unhooked kids who also get admitted. I would say that legacy is perhaps as helpful as, maybe, being from Idaho, but certainly not as helpful as being a recruited football player.
I will also echo the fact that people in the school often don’t know the whole story about what a kid has accomplished. My son was fairly low-key in terms of academics in high school–his friends were stupefied when they learned what his SAT score was. Also, people didn’t really know that much about what he was accomplishing outside the school, which can also make a difference.</p>
<p>There will always be people who don’t “get” that day in and day out people get into colleges, get jobs, get promoted, win elections, make sports teams, etc. who some will perceive as “not deserving.” One person’s merit is not always the same as another person’s perception of merit. The single most important criteria any college in this country looks is is whether that particular kid has the capabilities to succeed…everything else is secondary. Adults whining and moaning and hand wringing probably won’t change anything and it certainly doesn’t teach kids how to move on from things that didn’t turn out the way they expected.</p>
<p>Anyone read Jean Halff Korelitz’s novel “Admissions”, set at Princeton? Worth read.</p>
<p>Most student applicants to Princeton are reasonably qualified to succeed academically at Princeton, just like other applicants at the other Ivy-caliber schools. Now there’s a Hogwarts-style “sorting hat” process that weeds through applicants to cherry-pluck the special students to compose the intended “well-rounded student body” class goal. </p>
<p>Princeton no longer maintains country-club standards, and the range of educational quality does vary from big city public school student (Michele Obama, for instance) to prep school honor roll legacy student. Michele Obama’s senior thesis, published during the last election cycle, still reflected the persistent weakness of her Chicago public school educational history.</p>
<p>". For her fellow seniors, this is evidence, or further evidence if they have been paying attention to the news,"</p>
<p>The plural of anecdote is not evidence.</p>
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<p>No, advantages are unfair only when other people have them. Any advantages we might have ourselves are, by definition, fully deserved.</p>
<p>“Its not what you know, its who you know.” - age-old English proverb.</p>
<p>Don’t they teach this in school anymore?</p>
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<p>It’s not who you know, it’s whom you know.</p>
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It probably wasn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Who led them to believe that?
They will succeed elsewhere.
Oh the suffering.</p>
<p>Perspective, people. Perspective.</p>
<p>Princeton is not in the business of admitting students who it believes will not be academically successful there. These students, no matter what their high school classmates believe of them, must meet Princeton’s minimum standard for admission. Since they are not development admits, I’d bet that they are one or two notches above the rock-bottom minimum.</p>
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<p>The reason why you might not want to do it is that it’s the wrong college for your child.</p>
<p>Yet the pressure to accept admission to the college where the parent works can be enormous because of the tuition break. If the only choices are (1) prestige U where the parent works, (2) other selective private schools for which the family would have to go into debt, or (3) much less prestigious state university, guess where the student is going to end up?</p>
<p>But what if it’s not the right choice for the student?</p>
<p>Earlier this year, an MIT student who was the son of an MIT faculty member committed suicide. I have wondered whether this student might have been poorly suited for MIT but was pressured to attend that school because of the tuition discount for faculty children. MIT is a wonderful place for the right student, but it could be an appalling place for the wrong one. Maybe this kid was the wrong one.</p>
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<p>I would like to know what constitutes an academically unimpressive student? Are we talking about a student with a 2100, 3.75 gpa being accepted over someone with a 2400/4.33 gpa or are we talking about someone being admitted with a 1200/2.5 gpa?</p>
<p>At the end of the day, Princeton is not going to admit anyone who they feel cannot do the work. The student may not finish with a 4.0 (but you never know with the right selection of scourses, they just might). As long as the student finishes with a 2.0, s/he will still have a degree from Princeton.</p>
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<p>Big deal. They’ll get over it; that is, if the adults in their lives let them.</p>
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<p>And if they did “appreciate the damage they do,” would they really care? I doubt it. You can’t please everyone.</p>
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<p>Fact:
One does not have to go to an Ivy League school to be fabulously successful in one’s professional, social, and personal life.</p>
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<p>Another fact: attending an Ivy League school does not guarantee that one will be fabulously successful in one’s professional, social, and personal life. Some of the most *<strong><em>ed-up people I’ve known in my life went to Harvard. When my father (one of those *</em></strong>ed-up people) attended Harvard, he lived down the hall from the Unabomber!</p>
<p>“I will also echo the fact that people in the school often don’t know the whole story about what a kid has accomplished.”</p>
<p>No kidding.</p>
<p>I went to a tiny private school (~72 per class). I was there for 6 years, 7th through 12th grades. My closest friends knew that I was flunking out junior and senior years. Due to the way news travels in a school that size, I assumed that everyone knew – but they didn’t. I’ve reconnected with people years later who had no clue and who assumed that I was #1 in the class because of my brainiac reputation (I always talked a lot in class). You don’t know which silent kid is actually turning in genius papers and vice versa. You really, really don’t know which kids won the teachers’ hearts and are getting the game-changer recommendations.</p>
<p>Also, there are many occasions where legacies with great, excellent qualifications do NOT get admitted at the legacy school, and, often they DO get into another great school, even IVY!
On this very board, several posters have told stories of this.</p>
<p>I do feel for the applicants who do not get in. I acknowledge that it is hard when what they know about acceptees makes them feel the acceptees are inferior or that were accepted only because of a hook. Perception is not reality.
And life is not fair and does not always make sense.</p>
<p>Good luck on the rest of your apps!</p>
<p>“at the end of the Early Decision admissions period in December, it becomes obvious that a disproportionate number of those admitted were faculty children, legacies, or URMs”</p>
<p>yes that IS when those type of students[ including recruited athletes, which was not mentioned] ARE admitted. Which means there will FAR fewer, IF ANY, faculty children, legacies, or recruited athletes competing for the majority of slots that are still available in the RD round. </p>
<p>The game of admissions is not over yet.</p>
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<p>I think the two quotes above are quite interesting. I think there is a systemic issue in this country that has led to having a generation of youth that are entitled and want everything handed to them…everyone gets a trophy, teacher don’t grade in red pens anymore because it’s too abrassive, they all think they should be admitted to X college because they got straight A’s (just like the other 20% of the people in their class), etc. I see it everyday in the workplace with most of the college hires in the past 5 years (this includes my class); they all come in thinking they are underpaid even though they make > $100K at age 22…they all think they should be general managers or vice presidents or directors, etc. There is no appreciation for the fact that you are in a good paying job, at a top F50 company, with great visibility to senior management, etc. They don’t want to work (meaning both working hard and learning to play the game of connections / politics) They’re always complaining when someone gets promoted and they don’t. It sickens me. That’s probably why there are so many books out there about how to be a manager of these kinds of people. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a third world country where connections / money played a huge role in everything (from who gets on the sports teams to who gets into top colleges, etc.) which made me understand that most things in this world are not based on merit but I think our educational system and the coddling that parents do in this country is detrimental and is breeding a generation of whiney, self-entitled, brats. </p>
<p>the following article captures exactly what i’ve experienced with this generation of kids.
[The</a> ‘Trophy Kids’ Go to Work - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html]The”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html)</p>
<p>whartongrad, I guess I disagree with you, and maybe I am seeing a different slice of population. </p>
<p>D1 and her friends (from high school and college) are at work 7am and most of them do not get home past midnight sometimes. </p>
<p>A good friend of hers, went to Princeton and father is the CEO of a major bank, she works just as hard as anyone, never asks for any special favors. </p>
<p>I am the one who complained that D1 had to work the day after Thanksgiving. D1 told me she had to pay her dues. </p>
<p>A young man from Chicago(in her analyst program) wasn´t told until the Tue before Thanksgiving that he could have the Fri off, and by then it was too late to purchase a ticket home. Of course, as part of a spoiled generation, his parents flew in on Fri to surprise him.</p>
<p>I think this generation is more competitive. They went through the rigor of applying to colleges, and they know it takes hard work to find a job and to keep a job.</p>