So what happens if the school a kid really likes doesn’t offer ED? They have to choose - and potentially attend - an ED school?
I don’t want to be contentious, but please, just a gentle plea that this thread is supposed to be for everybody, and a place where we can be proud of ALL of our kids. How you see things is a matter of where you’re standing, but please be careful about stating relative judgements as if they are universally -accepted facts.
Dickinson is probably not an elite school, especially on this thread. But, Dickinson IS a selective school. My D might choose it IF she gets in. She may still choose it (or Wooster, or Denison) if she gets into some schools more selective but less of a social fit and less nurturing. I cherish her lovely kindness and sensitivity and don’t want these crushed in a school with an exclusionary or too-competitive social vibe.
Months ago I proposed starting a thread for parents whose stats were above the 3.0-3.4 GPA range but not on a level of competitiveness (or desire) to apply to highly elite schools. I had really enjoyed the camaradarie of the 3.0-3,4 threads of prior years. I noticed a lot of people joined whose kids had considerably higher stats than that because they felt uncomfortable or even intimidated by the regular thread. But I sometimes wondered how the 3.0-3,4 parents felt when more and more parents of 3.8/1350-type kids joined in. Everyone was really nice but I imagined some of the genuine 3.0-3.4 discussions were diluted for those families. Or that maybe they were feeling pushed out of their own thread to some extent.
When I mentioned starting an “average very good student” thread (as a play on Linda Gaff’s “average excellent” term people here were against subdividing everyone even more. People said, no, we should celebrate ALL our kids’ journeys here. But I do think most of the people that voiced this have children aspiring to some extremely competitive schools. PLEASE try to be tactful, then. Please realize that when you talk about a school that, in your opinion gets the really lazy or dumb students…that school may be a shining-star top aspiration for some folks here (or lurking here for information). Call me oversensitive. I know. I’ve been a bleeding heart all my life.
In the meantime, my D’s test scores have gone up more than I thought they would, which opens up some possibilities that are reachier than I previously assumed. But, honestly, it kind of hurts my heart to hear that Dickinson is not a selective school. I read this pronouncement through the eyes of my child who would be so excited to go there. I’ve been telling her what a good school it really is. And you know, in the scheme of things, (3000 colleges and universities, tens of thousands of high schools, most of which don’t have all the bells and whistles that an affluent community can buy) any LAC or University in the T-100 (at least) is not just a selective school, but a school offering an elite education.
@inthegarden i meant no offense with the Dickinson comment. Put into context, I was only saying that for our S19, it was a safe option for him. My point was that acceptances via EA can tell the student that their app is a good one even if that app wasn’t a SCEA app to a top ten school. Dickinson is a great school and would not have been on his list if it wasn’t. Maybe I used the wrong words. I just meant it’s not “elite” and I think that’s a fair assessment.
D21 certainly isn’t applying to any elite schools. I don’t get upset when someone comments that the schools she’s curious about aren’t elite enough. I don’t think this thread is just for the tippy top students at all.
@homerdog I agree with your post.
However as the poster mentions, elite is in the eye of the beholder to some degree.
In the big scheme of things, I personally think your Ds list is filled with elite schools. Tulane Wake Forest Villanova Washington and Lee. These are all dream schools with top students. and elite facilities. They would appear to be unattainable for the 80 percent plus who are denied. Or can’t afford them.
Is there a tiny group of schools that are at the margins slightly more difficult to gain acceptance. Sure.
The top 10 percent of students at all of these schools are the same level as the other slightly more selective schools. Take as an example say UMD UIUC UT UF or UCLA. Their top 10 percent is bigger than a lac incoming class and represent powerhouse students.
I just think the elite schools are a larger group with a global perspective and a sense of the mathematics involved.
These include most schools in the usnwr top 50 unis or Forbes top 50 combined lac and uni rankings and top 10 flagships. Top 20 LACs. At least. In certain programs and honors programs it’s even a wider list.
Overall they represent a fraction of the grads each year and certainly on a global scale.
@inthegarden I visited Wooster, Dickinson, and Denison with my D17, who was a high stats student but in no way did she or I feel that she was “settling.” They were lovely schools with much to admire. She ended up applying to two of them, along with some other similarly ranked LACs.
D21’s HS is a fairly competitive one, but the counselors are really good at emphasizing that there are many ways to measure fit and quality beyond selectivity. I agree that it’s important to maintain a sense of balance.
On a side note, the 3.0-3.4 thread for the HS class of 2017 was a great group. I hung out on both.
I’d consider Wake and Richmond pretty elite. Not Duke or Vandy elite, but still. As I said, it depends on where you’re standing. But the way you describe your school district and the kinds of colleges and Universities that scores of students get into, (and feel ashamed if they don’t get into, it seems) it really is a VERY different world than my world or that ofmost students in this country.
In my community, I have to “lay low.” I don’t even mention a school like Dickinson except to a tiny few for fear they’d think I’m a bragging snob, if they even know what Dickinson is. I’ve had a group of parents looking angry with me when one asked why I won’t send my child to the local school where my husband teaches, where she can go for free (as if, why isn’t “our” school good enough for her, and are you that rich that you can just throw money away?)
Maybe I’m just having a hard sort of day and feeling tender about a lot of things. And maybe I am just too, too acutely aware of things. The original snowflake.
Years ago I was leading a nutrition class outdoors in a village in South America. Women were boiling water and cooking on fires nearby. It’s the kind of place where chickens and pigs roam around, if you can picture that. Suddenly a girl accidently spilled some boiling water from a big pot onto a pig. The pig ran around screaming and the group of women burst out laughing. I started begging them to stop laughing at the pig. “How can you laugh at the poor thing??? The women burst into huge gales of laughter at that. “But chica,” they said The pig doesn’t know we’re laughing at him!” And they were right… but in a different way, so was I.
Just saying this for context. Because that’s just kind of how I am. and it’s not to everyone’s tastes.
So you can take what I say with a grain of salt. Guess I’m feeling sad about the world a bit today, that’s all. I just want everybody to be proud and happy. And this college anxiety these kids are experiencing, and how it affects their self-esteem is getting to me.
@inthegarden I have seen some of your other posts and am lurking in the other thread you started and I feel you. We are looking at T50-150 schools, mostly because we are full pay on paper but can’t afford it and need merit, but also because D21 has declared she wants big, and diversity (Mixed race) is very important. I get a little sad every time I see someone’s list of schools that’s out of (financial) reach for us. In my head I’ve tried to decide that fit for D21 is most important, not keeping up with the Jones or her HS cohort, but it’s tough.
Maybe our Ds can hang out at Wooster together. D21 liked it on paper. 
@inthegarden I said that I didn’t mean any offense and I meant it. Just like you come from your perspective, so do I. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. I’ve been a poster here for a long time and I’ve never been accused of that.
I don’t understand your story about the pig. Am I the one laughing at the poor burned pig? Yikes. I’ve never been amused by someone being hurt and I’m not laughing at kids looking at any types of schools. You got that impression from one word in one of my posts?
Not for a second did I think that my calling Dickinson “not selective” would be an issue. As @privatebanker points out, it’s all relative. Again, in the post where I mentioned Dickinson, I was talking about S19 and his list of acceptances. For him, Dickinson was a safety. I should have called it that instead of “not selective”. It had the highest acceptance rate of the schools on his list so it is “less selective” than the other schools he applied to.
And, yes, I live in a school district where the better students are bummed if they go to their safeties. That’s not an easy world to live in either and to say it’s wrong or shouldn’t be that way isn’t understanding how it is here. Not a whole bowl of fun. Reasonable parents can talk until they are blue in the face about fit and not rank but the atmosphere of the school is very influential on the kids. Of course I preached fit for S19 and he understood intellectually but there’s a lot of peer pressure to get into certain types of schools. That’s where I’m coming from and it’s a real thing. He also didn’t want to be a big fish and preferred a school where he was surrounded by peers. That’s also part of finding fit.
I’m sorry if you feel like my comment was insensitive. Like I said, I’ve posted here a long time and I’ve never been accused of being elitist.
Yep, that’s me. S21 is solidly in the 3.0-3.4 GPA range, and that’s his actual GPA. He’s in all CP courses, no APs so no “weighted” GPA for him. He has a mild LD and test anxiety. His PSAT scores are low, even with accommodations. He hasn’t even taken the SAT/ACTs yet but I’m fully expecting that we will be focusing on test optional schools. I don’t usually participate on this particular thread as a result, though I do follow along.
I used to feel I had something to contribute on the 3.0-3.4 thread but have noticed that in many cases, people are joining that thread whose kids have GPAs either at the high end of that range, or they are actually their unweighted GPAs and actually sometimes have much higher weighted GPAs. In addition, their test scores are in the 1300-1400 range. But as noted, b/c they aren’t looking at T20 schools, they feel more comfortable in that thread. At this point, I don’t really see myself (well my son) even fitting in to that thread anymore. I suppose that’s the CC reality-parents of “average kids” aren’t coming to CC. I probably wouldn’t be here either if I hadn’t found it when D17 was in the college search.
That said, I don’t let the labels of “not as selective” or “not elite” or whatever bother me. I understand where you are coming from @inthegarden but I can’t let myself get caught up in that. I just focus on what is right for my own kid and not worry about what someone else’s opinion of any particular school might be. Everyone’s search and focus is different. I’ll be doing this again in two years with D23 for the fourth and final time. It’s funny how completely different the searches have been and will be for all four of my kids.
I hang out both here and in the 3.0-3.4 thread. My S21’s gpa is slightly higher but he’s not a super high stat kid in testing not are we targeting elite schools so I kind of feel like I fit in both threads. He’s a great, solid B+ student and I’m fine with that!
If it wasn’t for this group and CC in general I honestly wouldn’t have heard of or known about 90% of the schools mentioned lol. My college knowledge has been limited to Texas publics and it’s immediate surroundings (and of course recognition of Ivy League). All these NE and Midwest LAC’s sound so foreign to me but I love hearing about them from y’all!
Yes, I never heard of most the schools mentioned here, I previously stated most students in our area are going to Instate public, once in a while you read in the local paper that 1 or two students are going to an Ivy. Our school is 87% Minority, mostly Latino kids and just going away to College at UT or A&M is a big deal around here.
I do enjoy reading about all the different paths kids are taking and how they decide which schools to apply and the different perspective everyone brings to the conversation. Thank you all for sharing your experiences and knowledge.
@homerdog, thanks. No, I didn’t mean to make a connection between YOU and the pig story, though now I can see that that was confusing and I’m sorry. That little anecdote flashed in my head (probably hadn’t thought of it in years) to say that I have always been very, very sensitive (some would say over-senstive) in ways that the average person might find absurd. I guess I was saying that the other women’s reaction was the “normal” one and mine the socially-perceived “off” one, but that being who I am I still find it hard not to respond. Basically a longwinded way to say YMMV.
I still feel really good about Dickinson. I’m not actually hurt or offended personally, it was more of a “principle” of the thing for me (plus a hard day yesterday …everything seemed to make me sad somehow) and maybe I shouldn’t have been so heavy-handed about it. And honestly, I know where you’re coming from in the context of the conversation you were in and the conversation was fine. I wouldn’t have reacted if you had said that Dickinson (or any other school) was a safety for your son because obviously. reaches, matches and safeties are relative to each student (I have said that certain schools may be safeties for my daughter). I think it was that you said flat-out that Dickinson is not a selective school, and I think that’s just flat-out incorrect. it IS a selective school, and it gets that designation in the FISK guide and I’m sure elsewhere. I’t just does not get the designation “most selective”. I understand that in your mind and maybe most people here on CC a school can only be seen as selective if it rejects the great majority of applicants but I’m just advocating for a little awareness on a thread that is supposed to be welcoming and comfortable for everybody. I also can’t help thinking about the thousands of people who are not registered and just come here to read for information and I feel a responsibility not to diss schools that might not be right for my child but perfect for another. Even if my child might say that a particular school is only for the dumb or lazy kids (she doesn’t) I would be personally very hesitant to word it like that here. There are a good number of absolutely wonderful, historic LACs in this country who are now struggling in the fight to stay afloat and attract students, while on the other hand the most prestigious become more and moreso as everyone pulls out applications from the perceieved “loser” schools and pour apps into the single-digit schools. I’d hate for my words to add to that dynamic in any way or cause anyone to feel ashamed of their school.
think we have a crisis of anxiety in this country (and perhaps the world) of people who feel not-good-enough unless they are at the front of every race and it’s hurting our kids who are being wound tighter and tighter and seeing their peers less as friends but as people to keep up with. I read things that made a lot of sense to me: that all the frantic activites our children feel compelled to do are hurting their ability to absorb information deeply and to synthesize it creatively because the brain needs a good deal of down-time for reflection and “staring at the clouds” so to speak, in order to develop in the most deep, creative and meaningful ways. If every moment is compartmentalized, our children may becoming efficient doers and thinkers on a shallow level, yes, but the ability to synthesize ideas across disciplines or to put information into meanigful contexts is impared by the rushing about. I think the drive to get into elite schools and jobs just exacerbates this.
Maybe this hits a nerve with me and I personalize it too much. I transferred after my freshman year from my little East Tennessee home to Miami of Ohio and I can’t tell you how proud I was of the place compared to the tiny regional school I came from. I really thought I had hit the big-time. (Many years later got a masters at Tulane, which I also loved). My husband, on the other hand, graduated from the famed Bronx School of Science, MIT, and earned a PhD from UCSB. H’s sister and her husband are Cornell, Princeton, etc and now adjunct teaching at Princeton (for fun outside of presigious day jobs) and their kids were at Princeton too. My H is the humblest man alive and hated the pressures of that world. UCSB was great for him but he said he would have traded MIT for a less rarified environment. he felt everyone was, on some level, miserable at MIT (I can’t believe that’s true) unless they lived to work obsessively 24/7. It was his decision to live a more balanced life teaching at a directional college where many of his students’ families can barely rub two nickels together and many kids need remedial help. I can’t tell you how many Thankgiving dinners at his sister’s house were dominated by the sense that my H had ruined his life throwing away his opportunities, (and perhaps marrying down a bit), that my schools or my profession were not very good ones, of self-congratulatory talk about multi-million-dollar research grants, that the smartest students are always math students, that any research in the social sciences must necessarily be flawed, that they’ve got to get their artsy six-year old into the math track because only the dumb kids don’t get in, that anything I say is vaguely tolerated but essentially pronounced invalid because of my lack of creditials or double-blind tested evidence to back up my opinions on everyday things average people might chit-chat about at the dinner table, yada yada. My H and I made an unpopular decision that this was not the environment we wanted for our family (much less our child to grow up in) and we haven’t been back in years, much to the anger of his family. Don’t really know why they wanted us bottom-feeders there, anyway. So, yeah, I guess I’ve got issues with this whole thing and I’m reacting viscerally when I hear (again) that my alma mater or any other school that another person might treasure is where the dumb or lazy kids go.
It’s really more about me. I think I’d just better get off the forum for a few days (or longer) to gain some balance.
Thank you for injecting some perspective here. My H also is employed at a non-selective public U. I know of many wonderful students who have graduated from there. I also am familiar with the blank looks -" why would your family not take the employee benefit and pay for an undergrad degree elsewhere?" And I have heard the “your kid is so accomplished, why is your kid applying to St Olaf or Ohio University or Denison and not to Ivy League schools?” Many professors send their kids to the school where they work, others send their kids to T-20 schools or something in-between. Whatever you choose, there will be somebody to judge that choice.
My D21 attends a school that has a top tier of ambitious high achievers and a great middle of solid students, most of whom choose in-state publics or schools with little name recognition. Sometimes classmates can be unthinking or unkind as they question each other’s college choices or compare test scores. Why should a kid who gets a 90% test score on the SAT think it’s “bad”?
On line communities can be complicated. I learn a lot here about schools I’ve never heard about or considered. I like cheering other folks on and celebrating their kids’ successes. Please don’t stay away too long. I like hearing what you have to stay.
I think @inthegarden is extrapolating quite a bit from my one comment about Dickinson being not “selective” and I hope those who “know” me know I didn’t mean anything by that comment. I have never said anything about schools where kids are “lazy”. In an online community, very few of us know each other in real life and I think one needs to take what they will from open forums and not take things too personally. I’m not thinking about a particular crowd when I comment. I just write my reality and where I’m coming from. And I use CC mostly to gain knowledge to help my kids’ searches. I’ve learned a ton and I’ve felt annoyed sometimes but never offended. Everyone has their own story and I respect that.
@homerdog Just for the record, my post was not meant to criticize you. I was reacting to some of the broader observations in @inthegarden 's long post (#2795), that come from her face-to-face community that I have also experienced. In particular, the concerns about the stress culture that so many kids feel these days. Many don’t give themselves permission for down time or pastimes that don’t “count” on college apps. That bothers me a lot. And also for the record, I haven’t been all that successful in getting my own kids to do less. Over scheduling is very pervasive - it’s hard to avoid.
@inthegarden I love what you said because I, too, feel like I belong in a thread somewhere between the 3.0-3.4 group and this thread, where there are more tippy top students with stats more aligned with my D17. I wish S21 would look at Dickinson as I think he has a very good shot of getting in based on Naviance and students from his school go there every year and are happy. It’s just too small for him and not urban. And I also agree that it is important to recognize that one person’s safety is another person’s match or reach. Temple is definitely a safety for S21, and he is really only interested in applying there (although I will encourage him apply to Pitt, UDel and maybe Drexel, just in case he changes his mind). So what if Naviance says he might be able to get into Lehigh or Lafayette with his stats? What a wonderful thing to love your safety/match school! Anyway, in the meantime, I will keep reading both threads.
Don’t apply to any school ED. It’s not a requirement to apply someplace ED.
I think the reason more schools don’t have restrictive EA is that only a very few, tippy top schools can get kids to agree to that and aren’t also concerned at all about yield protection. Schools even slightly lower ranked (for whatever that’s worth), want the absolute early commitments to fill a portion of the class and yield protect.
I don’t think ED is inherently a bad thing. If there are families who are able and willing to pay $75 k, or whatever the amount is come May anyway, or for those who are relying on FA and aren’t bound if the amount isn’t sufficient, if their student knows which school they really want early on, it can give the student an admissions boost, sometimes significant. We know kids who did that and are very happy. RD is much more difficult the higher up those rankings you go! There are single digit admissions.
I wish all schools had EA, though. It really helps your child feel good to know he/she has somewhere to go early on. We took full advantage of EA with our older son. Takes a lot of pressure off!
Good Luck to all the ACT test takers tomorrow; hope everyone hits their goal score!