Parent of Worried Daughter with Relatively Interesting Stats--Please Help!

Parents Forum
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<p>Yanimated, you should not be surprised that some get in with scores in the 500s. These schools want good football teams afterall. I think it's important to keep in mind that at these schools nearly half of every class is comprised of "hooked" applicants: recruited athletes, URMs, legacies (most of who apply ED at Penn) the rich and famous, etc. Unhooked white and asian candidates tend to have stats at the upper end of the accepted candidates.</p>

<p>The other thing I'll note is that you can't have it both ways. It will be hard to tell Penn that Chinese is not the language spoken at home and that you have to help your mom because of her lack of english.</p>

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<p>Suze: "I'm actually surprised (and at the same time, not) that some kids with 500s (or less) got accepted."</p>

<p>We speak a different dialect of Chinese. So technically, it's Chinese. But it's very different from Mandarin and frankly, it probably damages her Mandarin more than helps it.</p>

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<p>yanimated</p>

<p>Your daughter sounds like a wonderful young woman. You can be very proud. And her stats and ECs are very good. I think we're all trying to say (but I'll speak for myself) that the "top" 20, 30 or more of UG schools are no sure bet for any of our great students. And if we need merit aid, this is only more true. However, there are hundreds of excellent colleges and Universities in the US, and if we widen our nets, our kids will all have a choice of some super-good ones, and they can be affordable too.</p>

<p>Though my son has very good stats, he is choosing to apply mostly to schools no one in the NE has heard of, because they're in the Midwest or on the West coast. It's hard sometimes when people say, "Where is THAT?", but he's going for a good fit and trying not to care.</p>

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<p>I would second LurkNessMonster's advice to look at the stats of the kids from your D's high school on where they have been accepted and rejected as helpful indicators. For our high school, for instance, the GPA for virtually all of those who get accepted at our state flagship is well above the published average at the school. A 4.4 GPA (weighted) was rejected out of last year's class. I don't remember the SAT, but it was consistent with the high GPA. My S, who luckily was accepted, reports that the vast majority of students at college were serious athletes in high school (as he was), so that might have been the missing element in the rejected student's application. I don't know. Given the relatively high percentage of in-state applicants who get accepted at UVA, it appears relatively "easy" to get into, but a lot of stellar looking applicants get waitlisted every year just the same.</p>

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<p>Yanimated: My daughter with "life altering SAT scores" who is now a freshman at Harvard did not get into UPenn - and that's with a well-crafted application which reflected her two day overnight experience there. She was waitlisted at Wash U in St. Louis - did not stay on the wait list but a wait list there is fairly akin to a rejection.</p>

<p>The University of Pennsylvania is a very difficult school to get into. Don't kid yourself.</p>

<p>As an aside, Tufts is not easy to get into either. </p>

<p>You would be wise to listen to the collective wisdom of the people on this site. Have her apply wherever she wants and follow her dreams, but be sure that she has a host of good safeties that she'd be happy to attend too.</p>

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<p>" My girl's pretty moderate (rare in Seattle, it seems like everyone at her school is very liberal), but I personally don't think she would be able to survive in those kinds of environment. Plus, there still is some racism in the South. "</p>

<p>Your D right now plans to apply mainly to colleges very far from Washington state. All of those colleges would be very different environments than she now lives in. It is a big culture shock for most students to go to college even when they are simply going away to another part of their state.</p>

<p>Has your D ever spent a significant amount of time in any of the out of state areas where she's planning to apply to college? All are very different from Seattle with perhaps the exception of Portland. This includes differences in weather, politics, what the people regard as courteous behavior, etc. In addition, once one leaves places like Seattle and California, Asians are small minorities in the U.S. (although on some college campuses, they may be a quarter to a third of the students, the surrounding communities may be only 5% or so Asian.)</p>

<p>We see some students posting on CC now who are extremely homesick and feel isolated after going far away to colleges which seemed to be good fits on paper, but that aren't good fits once the student has to live in that area.
I'm black and lived in about 10 states including in the NE, California, Midwest and South, and don't think that the South is more racist now than is the rest of the country. Indeed, about 20 years ago, one of my black friends had such a bad experience with the Seattle police -- who pulled him over for doing nothing wrong -- that his article about it ended up on the editorial pages of the Seattle Times. </p>

<p>So, I wouldn't suggest ruling out any region because of fears of racism. Fit, however is a reason to consider ruling places out. The top colleges where your D would have the best chances of getting accepted are ones like Vanderbilt and Grinnell which have low proportions of Asian students. Would she be happy living in those areas with so few Asian students around? Another thing to consider is whether your D would be comfortable living going to a college in a small, isolated town. For many big city people, such experiences are stiffling.</p>

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<p>"Her mom and I hold a Masters and Ph. D respectively."</p>

<p>Those degrees will count against your D in college admission because colleges expect a lot from students whose parents are highly educated. If you're in academia, that also will count against her as the colleges will assume that your D is more sophisticated than many in knowing how to put together her college app, including knowing how to include activities that may look good on paper, but were arranged with lots of help from parents or parents' connections.</p>

<p>If you happen to be well off, that too will count against her.</p>

<p>You say that your D enjoyed Middlebury when she visited this fall. I am guessing that she saw Middlebury at the height of its fall beauty. As one who grew up in the NE and went to college in New England, I know that the winters are long, hard and dreary. It also is hard to get away from the places like Middlebury that are in small towns and cities with little to do off campus. Consequently, her loving Middlebury in Sept. or October doesn't mean she'd love Middlebury in Jan. or Feb. She might find it very claustrophobic.</p>

<p>I hope that you've paid the $14.95 to get access to the US News college site because being able to see detailed info about admission stats to colleges your D is considering will help you and her a lot as she compiles her list.</p>

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<p>Is she planning to apply ED? Does Reed have regular ED/RD admissions only? Is there any possibilibty that she might find out about Reed early? Ekitty, you are familiar with Reed?
I'm with everyone else, her list is very reach heavy, and I hope she truly likes her safeties (I don't mean that in a threatening way - what I mean is that often kids aren't really content with their safeties, they only tolerate them).
It is always a leg up to apply to colleges where you have somethin the college wants - in the South and deep Midwest, perhaps even Texas, her home state would be a plus.</p>

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<p>* why I thought she might be URM)</p>

<p>I was making a couple assumptions
One was I posted the scattergram from my D school- who also attends Garfield for the scores/stats for people accepted to Reed/UW as reasons why since her scores/stats were below the median- why those should not be considered safties ( besides the point that she didn't want to attend west coast anyway)
Someone made the comment that different school scattergrams would look quite different- which I don't have experience with- but the only other school in Seattle- that had the OneWorldNow program that his daughter was in- that could be considered an innercity school was Cleveland & Cleveland only has 8% Caucasians, so I was assuming that since there wasn't any comment about being Caucasian in a predominantly minority school, that if she went to Cleveland she was minority :) </p>

<p>But since she goes to Garfield- the more competitive schools are very aware of Garfield & many have visited the school already this year-
But- like I pointed out inanother thread- the admission officers that come to present the colleges * want* as many people to apply as they can get, because then they have more to pick from.
My daughter thought I was a spoilsport, because I told her it wasn't worth applying to Princeton or Brown after she was encouraged to apply by the admission reps</p>

<p>@@
Your daughter sounds like a good student, but at least half the students at Garfield are good students, and some are amazing students- its a great school, and there are some great programs-that provide a lot of opportunities- so many opportunities in fact that when I was reading your daughters course schedule I was thinking * what? isn't she in jazz band or orchestra? and what about GTA? or the gospel group? or Messenger & volleyball!*
;)</p>

<p>If she doesn't care about rural- I think she should look at Colgate-
It reportedly has a beautiful campus- it is a tad larger than most LACs, has some very good programs & I think it would qualify on the prestigous end- if not as prestigous as Ivy schools.( Colgate is also more middle of the road politically than say Reed)</p>

<p>Garfield does rank- it should be on the bottom of their year end grades that came last spring.
However they don't weight- thats how they ended up with 44 valdictorians last year.( or the year before)</p>

<p>Ranking also comes in handy because some scholarships will ask- my oldest attended SAAS who doesn't weight- and it was a pain to get them to figure out the ranking.</p>

<p>It also is nice because then I can compare my younger D to her friends who were in APP and are now taking lots of AP courses- plus playing in the orchestra- plus playing on sports teams= she is doing well- and since they don't weight- she ranks higher than she would if they did.</p>

<p>I think the other posts have some very good points- and I guess I am still not clear on the "prestige" and east coast factor.
I worry that once she realizes that getting into her dream school- isn't enough if she hasn't carefully considered more important day to day criteria- that she will be disappointed and even regretful.</p>

<p>None of my Ds friends chose a college purely on prestige, but there were several who decided that what they thought would be a great place- was still a great place- but not for them.</p>

<p>In fact I think the Wall st journal had an article about transferring today-but that seems like a big consumption of energy to put toward transferring, rather than to get more invested in your school.
I would rather students plan more carefully before they apply- then hopefully- they will have enough confidence in their choice to ride out the little bumps that will occur.</p>

<p>I am familiar w Reed- they do have ED- but our D didn't apply ED- as aid was important & even though they * said* returning students and ED applicants get first dibs on money- we didn't believe them ;) because most schools don't feel the need to give ED students very good packages necessarily
( One of Ds friends is also the asst director of admissions for Reed- I could perhaps get more updated info- since my youngest is not interested in Reed- she doesnt want to work nearly that hard- I don't have any thing to lose by being inquistive)</p>

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<p>


Yes, this is the crazy-making part of this process. It is impossible to predict what the admissions outcomes will be. An applicant like your daughter, with so much to offer, will get the prediction from some that she will get in anywhere! The next person will say she is doomed if she doesn't have 800/800/800 SATs. The next person will say "she won't get in everywhere, but she is wonderful so if she applies to 8, she'll surely get into half of them." And so on and so forth, with a different prediction from every person who comments. </p>

<p>So, there is no predicting for <em>some</em> schools. The only protection is to select schools for application which ARE predictable. That is what we are all saying. She should definitely keep those reach schools on her list and do the best job possible on her applications. If she gets into UPenn ED, well then we are all fools and will celebrate our foolishness with you as we share your joy in that acceptance :).</p>

<p>But if she <em>doesn't</em> get into UPenn ED, then she needs to add some predictable schools to the list. Schools she will like. Dickinson might be one, depending on her newest SAT scores.</p>

<p>Once you have those scores in hand, you can help her find predictable schools she will like. Those schools should be geographically where she wants to go, the size she wants and with the majors she wants. They should be schools where her SAT scores are in the top 25% of their range and schools which accept 50% or more of her applicants. Those are her "predictable" and safe schools. Schools where her SAT scores are at the high end of the 25-75% range are her 50/50 or match schools. Any other school is a reach school. She has plenty of the reaches; she needs the match and safety.</p>

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<p>Im also wondering- that even though she isn't interested in west coast schools- although she is apparently planning on applying to two- why she isn't applying to say Whitman instead?
Whitman is "higher" ranked on teh USNEWS list and some people really love it It is a very good school and I think they even have merit aid? ( don't quote me on that)</p>

<p>on ED</p>

<p>
[quote]
Colin S. Diver, president of Reed College, which has a binding early decision program, said he wasn’t convinced that such programs did the damage seen by their critics. Reed studies the economic backgrounds of those admitted early and through the regular program and they are quite similar, he said.</p>

<p>He also noted that Reed’s early decision program accounts only for about a third of each class of new students, and that colleges can — as Reed does — not let early decision get to the levels it has reached at Princeton and elsewhere. Likewise, he said that because Reed does not award merit aid, and doesn’t negotiate on aid packages, an applicant early knows that he or she will get the best aid package the college could offer — regardless of when they are applying.</p>

<p>Diver acknowledged that early decision is a useful tool from the college’s perspective, in planning for a class. But he also said it could be very helpful to applicants. He noted that Reed — an Oregon liberal arts college with a reputation for attracting deeply intellectual students — has a clear identity. “We’re a distinctive school and we market ourselves that way,” he said. For high school seniors who have figured out that they want a place like Reed, early admission can “decrease the stress and frenzy” everyone says they are trying to decrease by eliminating early admissions.</p>

<p>For those wanting to reform admissions, he said that they would be better off taking on the rankings industry. Reed is one of the few colleges that refuses to cooperate with U.S. News and World Report’s rankings operation. “That’s what’s really pernicious in this,” Diver said.</p>

<p>One expert on early admissions, however, said that it wasn’t surprising that officials like Massa and Diver were skeptical of the idea of abandoning early decision. Liberal arts colleges rely on early decision much more than larger universities because small miscalculations about class size can have much more serious consequences than at larger institutions, said Christopher Avery, a professor of public policy at Harvard University and co-author of The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite.

[/quote]
</p>

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<p>Yanimated, I agree with the other posters that Reed cannot be viewed as a safety now, though I don't know why UW wouldn't be. My daughter was accepted at UW as an out-of-stater with stats that are weaker than your daughter's, and we viewed it as a safety. I'm not familiar with UW standards for its own residents, but I do see people on these boards erroneously telling California students that the UC's are a reach, when the students have stats that give them guaranteed admissions. </p>

<p>My daughter is at Barnard. Her unweighted GPA is probably about the same as your daughter's, her SATs were about 1210. She submitted ACTS (28 composite) rather than SATs, but the colleges were aware of her SATs from her high school transcript. My d. was also accepted at NYU and Chicago; I would note that my d. applied to NYU-Gallatin both because it was was a better fit and because we felt that admissions would be less focused on test scores, more on individual factors. </p>

<p>While Barnard is highly selective, as a Barnard parent I can tell you that your daughter would be very attractive to Barnard. Everything about her -- the interest in studying multiple languages, the active community involvement and leadership entailed in her work and the classes she teaches, the musical training, the dance group -- is quintessentially Barnard. Even the fact that she has been working essentially in partnership with her Mom fits within Barnard's "woman power" philosophy. It is pretty clear to me from the level of involvement that this is a partnership, not simply case of a parent creating opportunities and opening all the doors for a kid. </p>

<p>My daughter also would not consider a women's college, but Barnard doesn't count. Any student majoring in foreign languages or studying foreign languages intensively is going to be spending a lot of time on the Columbia campus -- my daughter has classes at Columbia 5 days a week. Columbia's foreign language offerings are awesome -- in fact, many NYU students come to Columbia to take languages not offered at NYU. (There is an exchange between the universities to enable this). </p>

<p>Barnard women graduate with a degree from Columbia University and there is a 5-year, combined Bachelor's/Masters program with Columbia's SIPA (School of International and Public Affairs) that Barnard women can apply for in their Junior year. </p>

<p>I believe that the other parents here who have advised you are well-meaning, but I don't think they see the big picture with your daughter, and I think people are much too obsessed with test scores. Your daughter is the kind of busy, dynamic, involved person that is very attractive to many very selective colleges. </p>

<p>I think what people miss when they give you the horror stories of valedictorians with high test scores who get rejected from all their top choices is that those students have activity and EC's that, in the eyes of an admission committee, are boring. It isn't that those students haven't been involved -- it's that they are all involved in the same sort of things -- they don't stand out. </p>

<p>My daughter was accepted at her reach colleges because she did things to differentiate herself. Along the way, she undercut her ability to have the stellar academic record that most kids strive for -- she spent a semester abroad that made it difficult for her to schedule APs and advanced level high school courses when she returned, so sacrifices had to be made. </p>

<p>I can assure you, your daughter also has the kind of record that stands out. This will be important to some schools, not important to others. My daughter was waitlisted at schools that are less selective than the colleges which accepted her, probably because those schools were more focused on the "stats" than on the person. So it is important to target well. I agree with those who felt that some of the schools on your daughter's list didn't seem to fit with each other.</p>

<p>I don't mean to say that Barnard could be a sure thing or safety for anyone. It is one of those schools that is a reach for everyone. I just mean that I am very certain that your daughter would have good chances of being admitted, and if she weren't admitted, it probably wouldn't be because of her test scores. I think your daughter would be much happier at Barnard, in an urban setting, than a school like Middlebury -- which simply is small, remote, and would seem very isolated to a young woman who comes from an urban setting and is used to a high level of involvement in community affairs. In fact, Middlebury is the college that most seems like it doesn't belong (in my view) -- it seems to be a favorite among college admissions counselors for kids interested in studying foreign languages, but the LACs simply cannot compete with language offerings at larger colleges and universities. If a kid wants to study less-common foreign languages, LACs are not going to be the best place -- even if the language is offered, it will be hard to find a core number of serious students and good speakers to practice with. When I looked into schools like Middlebury and Dickinson and compared their course offerings with those of larger universities, including many state publics, they just coudn't compete -- no matter what their brochures say. I was looking for specific data: counting up the number of faculty, available course offerings at an advanced level, etc. </p>

<p>Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. I do think that your daughter's list seems to be top heavy, but then so was my own daughter's -- and out of 12 colleges she applied to, only one (an Ivy) outright rejected her.... and that is with those dismal test scores. She didn't even have an SAT II to offer in her target language (Russian), as none is given. I think some kids have an internal drive and dynamism that is going to take them very far, and the one criticism I got from my daughter at the end of the process is that she wished I had been more supportive and less pessimistic all along. </p>

<p>The "andison" thread has another side of the story: after being rejected by all colleges, the kid had an incredible gap year, during which he performed internationally as a concert pianist, and now is at MIT. Maybe if your own daughter doesn't get into her desired colleges, she should consider a gap year studying in China. It's up to you -- but maybe for a kid with her goals and aspirations, a gap year is a preferable alternative to a safety college that falls short of what she is looking for. (Though I also feel that she should stop thinking about "prestige" and start looking at course catalogs to see what the colleges actually offer).</p>

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<p>I think you will have trouble with the language fluency part of the application. I'm pretty sure a 770 SAT II Chinese will not qualify your daughter, or if it does it is not very impressive. The curve on Chinese SAT II is brutal (my 760 put me at the 30th percentile). Also what was her score on the HSK? The Chinese government gives out those summer study scholarships like candy.</p>

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<p>I do hope that the OP is taking the time to read the CC archives especially looking at the stats, race and ECs of students who were accepted and rejected at various colleges that the OP's D is considering.</p>

<p>Relatively low scores are just one thing that may hurt the D. Her ECs are not as strong as some here think they are. Why? She's Asian and many Asian students applying to top colleges have similar ECs -- music, Chinese school (including leadership), traveling to Asia to do various things. At the same time, many such applicants have much higher scores, and still may not get into those top colleges, which wish to diversity their student bodies, which already may be 1/4-1/3 Asian and have a lot of students who, like her,come from highly educated homes. </p>

<p>If she insists on going to college away from the West Coast, her odds of admission are better at places that get fewer Asian applicants: Brandeis, Macalester, Bowdoin, Bates, Vanderbilt, Rice, Grinnell, Oberlin, Notre Dame, Middlebury, Davidson, Wake Forest. The big question is, however, would she be happy going to such places? With her very strong interest in China and Chinese culture, she may be far happier in a location where there are a large number of Asians -- particularly Chinese -- in the local population.</p>

<p>I, too, am wondering why she's not considering Whitman since it's a good school in her state. I also am wondering why she's not looking at more West Coast colleges in areas where there are many Asians and consequently she could easily continue to pursue the kind of Chinese-related ECs that she appears to love.</p>

<p>I agree with Calmom about Barnard.</p>

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<p>calmom - I don't know if anyone said UW isn't safe for her in terms of likely admission. I know that I and others said it does not qualify as a "safety" in that she has stated that she does not want the west coast nor a public school. Hence it fails the criterion of a "school she could love" and looks a lot like a kid who spent no time finding a safety which fits, but instead threw in the in-state public for no good reason other than that it is there.</p>

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<p>I will admit that my D in applying to 5 schools - applied to 2 that she didn't want to attend- and one that she would have attended but wouldn't have been thrilled about it-( it was totally my fault- I was just worried about her only applying to 2 or 3 schools, when some kids were applying to 7)
She had two schools that she would have equally been happy with- and one school that she had applied to the year before- and been admitted to ( she took a gap year- for growth reasons)
I was negative on UW because it is a school that gets thrown in there without much thought
Thats what happened for my niece who also had a very top heavy list ( but who is caucasian) even though I think she was NMS from an IB school, she only had Colgate and UW as choices- but she ended up going to Colgate-because she was also only considering east coast schools.
You might as well have a safety that you are interested in. If you think your safety position is taken up with a school that you will only go to as a last resort- you may be really unhappy-</p>

<p>I agree with Barnard
but if your D changes her mind & still wants to apply to Reed- ( which I do have great fondness for- as they took a chance with my D- however- that was with Koblik as president- and it is my general feeling that Diver- coming from UPenn is more interested in "numbers-i.e. scores" at least from recent comments in teh NYTs)
PM me- as one of Ds friends majored @ Reed in Chinese ( she is Japanese however) and is currently living and working in China.</p>

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<p>My daughter was also adamant that she wanted to get out of California, but very comfortable with her safeties of UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz. She would have been happy to go there if that was her only choice -- and it may well have been financially, a fact that she was aware of from day 1. Of course she would have been disappointed briefly, but at any UC campus she would have had a built-in network of friends from her home community, and as soon as she got to campus would have found an array of opportunities. </p>

<p>Just because a safety college doesn't fall within stated preferences doesn't mean that it's not a good safety. Many kids (and adults) are quite able to accept the reality that they don't always get their way. Given the history of working with her mom and community involvement, I don't get the sense that Yanimated's daughter is the type to wallow in self-pity or spend too much time feeling sorry for herself. </p>

<p>I understand the wisdom of the admonition "love thy safety" -- but the reality is that is hard to reconcile with one's dreams when a kid has high aspirations. In terms of offerings in Chinese and Arabic, UW is probably much, much better than some of the "safeties" people might suggest. UW has very strong foreign language offerings. Again, this is very hard for smaller colleges and LACs to match.</p>

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<p>n terms of offerings in Chinese and Arabic, UW is probably much, much better than some of the "safeties" people might suggest.</p>

<p>well that is true too.
UW is a very diverse school- and I think it is a much different environment attending university even in your own city as a student living in a dorm/on your own, than living at home and going to high school.</p>

<p>My D friend who went to Barnard- was one who found that Barnard while a great place in a great city- wasn't for her- and she was very happy to come back to Seattle and go to UW.
( and it certainly frees up a lot of money for grad school :) )</p>

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<p>If your daughter doesn't want to go to UW or Reed, she really has no business applying to those schools. She needs to find "safeties" that she really wants to attend (and I would note that UW and Reed are safeties for no one, especially in light of UW's new "holistic" admissions policy--which no one has seen in action yet). Or she needs to apply to a school she likes that has non-binding EA so that she can risk her all on the rest of her applications.</p>

<p>Since my D is at Reed, I will note that the number of applicants to Reed and the number of rejections are both steadily climbing. I will also note that Reed is not for the half-way-interested. It is a demanding school that expects a great deal of its students. It is also nothing like UW--and I am quite familiar with UW, since the majority of my son's high school classmates are students there. Reed is a small, intimate school--smaller than your daughter's high school--in the suburbs of Portland; UW is a huge urban campus.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
If your daughter doesn't want to go to UW or Reed, she really has no business applying to those schools.

[/quote]
By those standards, no one would ever apply to their safeties!</p>

<p>Why is everyone so hostile to Yanimated?? I sure am glad that I didn't ask people here what they thought about my daughter's stats and her course list last year ... I'll bet I would have gotten an earful. </p>

<p>Read is probably quirky enough that it lacks "safety" appeal, but flagship state universities always have been and always will be, safeties that students apply to for reasons of finances as well as likelihood of admission.</p>