<p>I agree, lookingforward. Everytime I read the line, ‘my kid just does such-and-such’, my jaw drops. These kids are doing incredible things. It’s funny how these kinds of things are minimized.</p>
<p><a href=“b”>quote</a> it does not recognize that non-conventional activities may be just as challenging and mind-broadening as those usually listed at CC. (E.g.: My older son has lately developed an intense interest in medieval Irish history. He is researching it on his own – and regaling me with all the stuff he’s learning. This is NOT part of his home-school curriculum; it’s jut an interest that engages him at the moment. But I guarantee it would not impress most adcomms or scholarship committees.)
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<p>Nonsense. Of course it would. I have a son like this - who develops intense interests and researches them on his own time. Aren’t you realizing that adcoms are sick of the “typical” interests?</p>
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<p>So true. And equally true that most of our children actually care a lot less than we do ourselves. </p>
<p>I care so much that I am still reading and posting in a year, when for the first time in a really long time, none of mine are applying anyplace :eek:
I haven’t really recovered from childbirth either… and definitely not from toilet training.</p>
<p>And I apologize for being ugly and unconstructive. :(</p>
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<p>Exactly. Spare me from all the “why do kids have to do this?” They don’t HAVE to. There’s no law that says that only the top 20 or so schools are worth going to.</p>
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<p>OK–let’s do a thought experiment. There are 26,477 students in last year’s graduating class who scored in the top 1% of all test-takers on the ACT. Now, I imagine that the majority of these students also had excellent GPAs. If all these students ended up applying to one college, how would you decide among them, assuming that you can only admit 2600 of them?</p>
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<p>My suburban kids couldn’t drive to school activities either - they, being underprivileged, didn’t have their own car. (Gasp!) I think you’re missing the point. This isn’t about hours being put in – it’s about what makes the kid interesting in some fashion.</p>
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<p>What’s the point of this kind of snark? This girl and her family have said no such thing.</p>
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<p>That already happens in the midwest with the Big 10 schools, in the southeast with some of the SEC schools, and in California with the UC’s beyond UCLA and Berkeley. Done and done. It’s already changed, but people looking through their own region-colored glasses don’t see that.</p>
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<p>This is very true. I have one D who’s going to attend a high level nat’l univ. out west. but the other a Freshman in h.s. seriously wants to consider the big publics. Kansas, or Michigan, maybe Missou. Many of the kids in these states really aspire to these schools, and depending upon the major, can get a great, if not the best education in that major. There are honors programs etc. D 2 will be just as happy as D1. Depends on the kid.</p>
<p>And here in east coast public school territory, this happens quite a bit as well. Public school (uncoached) students with top stats are known to apply to Pitt and PSU, and, increasingly, Temple, and then walk away from the process. (The adventurous might consider OOS flagships offering merit money.) </p>
<p>Even those who go further in the application process sometimes end up in the public universities, for various reasons that are not always financial. (Hint: Some students “on the cusp” end up in Ivies because they did not get into Schreyer, or did not get the Chancellor’s scholarship at Pitt…) If every student in the top 10% with 2250 plus SAT’s, etc., applied to twenty elite schools, imagine how much further the applicant pool would swell!</p>
<p>That said, I do think the applicant pool to elite schools is growing as many of these schools have expanded financial aid eligibility and parents fear the effects of cutbacks to state flagships.</p>
<p>Common app is also to blame. What the heck, take a shot at Harvard. Just check another box and write another essay.</p>
<p>I think it’s rather interesting that some parents on here are saying “But you should look at / want my kid too, even though he isn’t a 2400 SAT/4.0 GPA/founder and president of every club at school, and sometimes just hangs around the house and rides his bike and enjoys life” … In other words, look not just at the super-stars who have it all, look below the super-stars, they can be just as worthy. Yet how many of those parents are looking beyond the collective super-stars of the Ivies and similar schools? </p>
<p>Maybe just as you want your kid to “get noticed” even if he’s not Eddie-Haskell-perfect, maybe some of these great schools should get noticed even if they aren’t members of the Ivy League. Isn’t that just a smarter, better strategy overall? </p>
<p>Just as you want the schools to cast a broader net over who are “worthy” students, shouldn’t you cast your net wider as to what are “worthy” schools?</p>
<p><a href=“b”>quote</a> it does not recognize that non-conventional activities may be just as challenging and mind-broadening as those usually listed at CC. (E.g.: My older son has lately developed an intense interest in medieval Irish history. He is researching it on his own – and regaling me with all the stuff he’s learning. This is NOT part of his home-school curriculum; it’s jut an interest that engages him at the moment. But I guarantee it would not impress most adcomms or scholarship committees.)
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<p>False. There was a kid in my year who, IMO, was one of the more fascinating people I have met: eccentric, but thoughtful and intelligent, and I was always eager to hear his opinion on an issue. He had a passion for history that was real and deep. But he wasn’t one of those omnipresent go-getters with their fingers in every pie; the things that made him impressive were not things that lent themselves well to lines on a resume. He didn’t do a whole lot of traditional ECs–he was on academic bowl (our team was respectable but thoroughly unspectacular) and in a couple other clubs. That was it.</p>
<p>That kid? He’s at Amherst now.</p>
<p>IMO, this process is a lot less predictable and rigid than people seem to think it is. I spent the summer and fall of my senior year all twisted up about this exact issue. I was convinced that I was doomed (ha!) to the state flagship, and I blamed myself for not doing more in highschool, for not “taking advantage of opportunities.” To some extent, it was a fair criticism–I hadn’t applied myself as much as I could have–but I was also just an introvert whose primary passion (writing) was solitary. (And the nature of that writing meant I couldn’t easily submit it to contests, either.) Maybe I could have been more active. Maybe I could have been more social. Maybe I could have run for secretary of Leadership Club or whatever meaningless position. Do you see what I mean? I was wishing that I was a different person.</p>
<p>But the great lesson of college admissions, for me, was that I was valued and desired just for being myself–there was never any need to start a nonprofit. No, I didn’t get into Harvard, but neither did a whole host of more conventionally impressive kids I know–and I did land the one school I really wanted. I was exactly the kid conventional wisdom says will fail when it comes to common apps, and yet the process was incredibly good to me. You don’t always have to save the world.</p>
<p>(Personally, I think it was the essays.)</p>
<p>I am looking at the ridiculous, often single digit acceptance rates of the “top” schools, and hearing anguished comments from kids who put all their college love in the Ivy basket and wonder why?</p>
<p>Why not focus on those schools that show you the love? Fantastic schools all across the country which may be amazing…but don’t even get so much as a look-see, because they aren’t as “prestigious”.</p>
<p>It’s sad.</p>
<p>I have a junior daughter who might apply to an Ivy, and has a good shot of getting in based on stats and grades and athletics and exceptionally interesting kid, but she knows enough to not think that this is the only route to an amazing education. </p>
<p>There are so many schools to consider. </p>
<p>I don’t understand anyone’s fascination with Ferguson’s book. It’s entertainment. </p>
<p>I also think there are some amazing homeschooled kids across the country that do get looked at and accepted at all kinds of colleges, including the Ivies. I would venture to say that some homeschooled kids have more time and opportunity to cultivate their interests (based on the kids I know), with less busy BS work than a typical student in a public or private high school. I am sure this may differ based on location and access to transportation. </p>
<p>My kid takes 6 academic classes a day and often has homework in nearly all of them daily. She has two practices a day and stays up until the assignments are complete. It’s a hamster wheel, and she just keeps spinning. There is very little choice about what classes to take - you want foreign language, it will be Spanish, because French is being eliminated. You want to take science four years, you know the sequence it will be because there are only so many classes available. If you do well in this math, you will end up with that teacher, the next year. </p>
<p>She dreams of the opportunity to actually spend time researching a subject that fascinates her beyond her current academic and athletic workload. But she doesn’t have that much time in the day to do it. We admire those that do. It’s her choice to live like she does with too little sleep and too much work, because she loves her sport and is bright and highly disciplined.</p>
<p>I know that my D will apply to a range of schools that will challenge her academically, be a good match for her and that will offer her amazing opportunities to grow as a person. I hope in a year that having a realistic list will give her the power to choose among good choices and ones that our family can afford. There will be public schools, out of state publics, privates of several tiers and ones that offer good merit aid. </p>
<p>I guess what I am getting at is, when it comes to the system of college admissions, I can’t think of one that would ever be equally fair to everyone. Someone will be happy. Someone will be sad. </p>
<p>Kind of like in life.</p>
<p>Its not really the school that you attend, but what you learn about yourself while you are there that counts. From a pragmatic standpoint, I suppose that more prestigious colleges give your kid a leg up in life and that is why people bend themselves into pretzels to get there.</p>
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<p>yes, the irony is getting thick in here.</p>
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<p>No, I don’t believe in a mystical “it” factor. Nor do I believe that “picking people for roles in a musical” is a very appropriate analogy. It’s a brilliant one for describing the class-crafting process at some colleges. However, doing creative work in mathematics, physics, or the social sciences is not very much like acting in a play. Problem solving, knowledge discovery and transmission, sometimes in teams but often in pairs or alone, is at the core of what universities do. Therefore, I’d prefer to keep academic problem-solving front and center in driving the selection process. </p>
<p>Making the SAT test more challenging across a wider band would be one step toward improving this process. A longer-term solution would include reducing HS grade inflation and developing national curriculum standards. The Oxbridge interview questions, the University of Chicago essay topics, the Cooper Union take-home exams, the American Mathematics Competition tests … or some of the Microsoft Corporation interview questions … are examples of relatively rigorous and creative selection mechanisms. They better reflect the nature of creative academic work than lists of EC accomplishments or random personal taglines. Or, for that matter, the current SAT test.</p>
<p>TK- but someone on these campuses have to be tutoring local kids in math (to preserve town/gown relationships); volunteering as docents at the art museum and historical society (named for the founder of the college and funded by his/her descendants); running bone marrow drives for a beloved custodian who has leukemia; etc. If the Academy were stuck in a 17th century construct of what it means to be a university, then sure- go choose a selection mechanism that focuses on problem-solving. But whether you are Harvard, Notre Dame, or the Underwater University of Basket weaving, there are multiple constituencies, multiple stakeholders, and very complicated relationships to maintain.</p>
<p>That’s why colleges need to pluck and prune to make sure that the bases are covered in their incoming class (and why we always joke about the kid who plays bassoon.) Colleges are not recruiting future Nobel Laureates. They also need the poets and the urban planners and the next Deputy Assistant at DOE or NASA and the women’s health care advocate and the person who lobbies Congress to eliminate carcinogens from soda-pop.</p>
<p>^ Hmm. Blossom, it’s interesting that you characterize what I’m describing as a 17th century construct. Here I thought I was describing the very model of a modern college admission process. Merit-based, scientific, and progressive :)</p>
<p>Yes, I acknowledge your points. But I think you can get all that anyway with a reformed process. Do you think students at geeky places like CalTech or Olin don’t do any of those things? </p>
<p>None of the Ivies make the top 10 for PhD production. But look at Peace Corps participation rates, too. Only Dartmouth makes the top 10; Harvard ranks 121st; Princeton ranks 206th. Pale, geeky Chicago and Reed are 3rd among universities and 2nd among LACs, respectively.</p>
<p>All this proves you can massage data in umpteen thousand ways.</p>
<p>I still say, holistic admissions is a blessing. It allows the whole kid to be considered. </p>
<p>Who do you want your kids’ roommates to be? Their dates? When your kid is up for a research opp on campus, do you want the profs to pick the kid with the highest gpa? Even if he or she is less interested in that project than your kid? Even if your kid already has some experience in that realm? </p>
<p>I like the date question. When sonny brings home his intended, do you hope she is he best and brightest, with high stats? Or someone you can relate to, who loves him as much as you do? Do I want my girls to marry a freakin’ genius? Or someone who will be a great husband and father?</p>
<p>Do you love your kids for their stats? Or for their whole?</p>
<p>But the kids do the same thing.</p>
<p>“Fit, fit, fit, fit, fit.”</p>
<p>So, let’s say you have that kid who got accepted to all the Ivies, cuz there is always one, and we’ll call THAT kid Harvard. Now, Harvard is going to visit campuses, sit in on classes, and the Eli gang is going to come out and make this amazing day for him, and so is every other campus on visiting campus day…and then he is going to go home and try to figure out, based on that day or two on campus, which school “felt” most like him.</p>
<p>You’re going to get the admission committee together–mom, dad, Harvard, and you’re going to go over his stats: FA, grad school placements, etc…job prospects, and past a certain point ALL of these schools are going to be within .ooo type decimal points, and finally, the kid is going to sit there and recall the “essay” and decide where he felt more at home. End of story.</p>
<p>It’s a two way street.</p>
<p>Whether it’s Harvard, or somebody else, each kid is going to have a selection of schools within a certain range. And yeah, every once in a while Harvard’s going to choose the one with the really low stats, cuz he NEEDS to be near the ocean, or in the mountains, or play in the marching band or be on stage in a show…</p>
<p>It’s the same thing for everyone, the selection goes both ways.</p>