Totally off topic but I my D24 is a big musical theater / choir vocalist and at public school. She’s an A student in honors classes. No APs assigned this year. I don’t know what major will interest her but possibly graphic art, English, or architecture. Certainly not medical and probably not STEM. So far we haven’t had much guidance from the school, but there is a meeting upcoming with the counselor where they will lay out the plan and explain the tracks.
Just wondering if anyone has any general advice about navigating class choices for a theater arts kid. If she continues to have 3-4/8 classes per year (block system) taken up by her audition based electives I worry that it might be hard to fit classes in that we need for selective schools even if she does summer community college. I’m told with the block system you can actually fit in more classes so it works out. If you have input please private message me.
I wish universities would read the tea leaves from the huge influx in applications and release decisions as soon as possible. It’s going to be a mad scramble for these kids to go visit schools that they have never been over Spring Break. Some of these schools announce after many scheduled spring breaks, so that’s a bummer for planning.
It would also be kinder to those who have been deferred to open up spots sooner vs later.
Despite the May 1 ‘decide date’, I feel like many decisions may not be made until summer because of the uncertainty & vast amount of apps that went out which will dilute real decisions. Lots to shake out…lots of uncertainty.
D21 just got a letter – a real life letter! – from Carnegie Mellon telling her that they are still missing her ACT reports. Is this weird? Why wouldn’t they just email her or send her a message through her portal?
It’s a bummer, definitely. Last year, a number of schools extended their decision dates to June 1, either automatically or by request. Maybe that might happen this year, as well, to allow for more time to decide.
The problem with that will be that my guess is there is extensive waitlist use this year. So it backs that up even more.
The whole system is a mess this year. I don’t think there is a good way to do it. We are only talking degrees of less bad. Very fitting for a season of anything happening mid-COVID.
Thanks for this. You called it! Makes sense that lack of test scores is one less data point so current grades is one more. The existential question here is if they will give the kids any grace with GPAs given the current situation. Lots of kids are slipping in my Ds cohort.
I would imagine they would look at and notice patterns at the school. It’s such a hard time right now for so many students. I also think they will look at sophomore year in its entirety and junior year first semester very closely and notice if there is a huge deviation from those grades. It is probably the reverse as well - B students who are suddenly straight A students this fall might not make sense, just as A students who are suddenly B students this fall might not make sense.
Also, if the 1st semester grades don’t come out until late February, seems like the decision will be made without them in most cases.
Some high ranked public High Schools have very tough grading and extremely high standards. Sometimes the Honors courses are harder or equivalent to the AP classes. The middle 50% kids would may be the valedictorians in other school districts. While I think this may put the kids there overall at a disadvantage for college admissions in normal situations, the school prestige may help when there is some ambiguity during times like these. Opinions on this would be welcome.
Talking to admissions deans over last several weeks, seems what’s pulling them back to testing post-pandemic is the test as a governor on apps. Yes, the huge jump in app numbers make for good press but they can’t figure out how to add more days to the reading calendar.
(Presumably post-pandemic = high school class of 2023-ish.) Would be interesting to know which schools.
Chances are the ‘other school districts’ you are referring to have less resources, vulnerable populations, and fewer opportunities. Universities compare kids from similar schools to account for this. So while the higher standard may seem unfair, the foundational problem of lower quality of education is also deeply unfair.
Agree about the unfairness and inequality of the school systems. The point was on whether school prestige (includes a history of successful students from the school enrolled in the college) would be a factor that is given even more weightage given all of the ambiguity this year.
There are other things colleges can do to keep apps down, while remaining TO…e.g, they can require more essays (and hard ones, like UChicago), and/or raise the application price.
They can also hire more external readers if they don’t want to suppress applications but stay TO…they are typically paid $15-$25/hour, so at least for schools that charge an app fee there’s plenty of $ to pay as many extra readers as they need.
I think it is a factor. Super selective schools are known to have ‘feeder’ high schools that they trust to send them highly qualified (and well packaged) applicants. It seems like in uncertain times they would rely on that more than ever.
I wonder if the twit ter comment about reading time doesn’t tell the whole truth, that perhaps the real reason is that they haven’t quite figured out how to evaluate TO apps yet (which would be understandable, albeit disconcerting), or alternatively, that they valued scores more than they want to admit publicly.
T20s are already doing that on a regular basis, domestically but especially internationally. A T5 AO said on reddit that, for internationals, the #1 thing you can do to boost your chances is to enroll in a feeder school. He said that they almost never accept kids from schools they are unfamiliar with, in a country that is not the US.
I’m not a big believer in school reputations because colleges limit how many admissions they take from each school, so IMO it’s better to be Top 2 in an average school than #15 in a far more difficult school.
I do not see how these schools with giant increases are going to deal. Even if they’ve hired readers in the past, they will need so many more and how to decide who to admit if wayyyyyyy too many kids are the type of kids they would have admitted in the past?
I’d love to hear the strategies from these schools on how they are making decisions.
Interesting discussion. I have first hand experience with 2 very different high schools to offer some perspective. We live in an ‘elite’ school district and all that entails as previously discussed. Yes- it can be harder to get in to T 20 schools due to everyone being high stats. Many students are prepped from early ages with extracurricular activities, tutors etc. I have actually heard discussion about how much better it might be to go to a ‘lesser’ school to stand out.
In my career I had an opportunity to work in a district that was the complete opposite. Majority of kids are children of immigrants. The administration worked hard and provided amazing resources. They made sure that they went after grants and programs (how I ended up there) to benefit their students and families. They had their own ‘college prep’ and I was amazed at how many kids not only went to college but the number that got in to Ivy and T20. These are kids that had to balance extracurricular participation with their part time jobs that were necessary to help pay the rent and utilities. Very interesting to see how this worked. They worked with scholarship organizations and made sure there was support throughout the promising students careers.