Between the two accepted ones, there are some stark differences, as the more academic one (where his scores are still at the top of the range) is less fun and is cold. More fun school has some portion of less serious students (he is way over 75th perc there) and much better weather. Significant difference in ranking. Though, hard to say that recruiting is necessarily better at the more academic one - lots of pave-your-own-way there. More engaged alumni at the more fun, less academic school. Both good choices, just different.
I love it! I asked my S last night if he wants an excel spreadsheet or if we posterboard this. Covid changes things upâŠwe started urban/large and S wanted to make sure we looked at something smaller too. A feeling of warmth/support has been really important to him. He had some âfunâ criteria like great library and Quidditch team. Heâs a fun loving intellectual.
My contribution to the spreadsheet is to map out costs. My kidâs will be to do the kind of deep diving that @momofboiler1 recommends for her top 3-4 picks- clubs, activities, majors and minors, distribution requirements, location/neighborhood, food!, how easy or difficult is it to get there, what was the COVID plan like this year and what are plans for the fall, diversity on campus, internships, community service opportunities, career counseling and outcomes, etc.
Also from my first kidâs experience, I recommend that you all search for student-authored blogs from your kidâs target schools. They can be really helpful in getting a sense of the campus community.
Looks like we all woke up thinking the same thing. Today will be âNo Thank You Dayâ at our house. Cutting down the list and letting schools know. Then following the advice above and taking deep dives and asking questions. Happy No Thank You Day!
I think you are being more paranoid than necessary. I donât think any schools have any sort of automatic affirmative action programs that students quality for simply based on a check box. And schools that are looking to diversify their incoming class by looking comprehensively at the âwhole studentâ will have a wealth of information on each application to examine. Students who are truly high achievers from underprivileged Black or Hispanic backgrounds will a wealth of information supporting their background from the schools they attend, neighborhoods they live in, clubs they belong to, projects they have done, teacher recommendations, etc. etc. You might be able to lie about one thing, but not an entire lifetime of experience.
I have taught a lot of high achieving Black and Hispanic students over the years and written lots of recommendation letters. The top ones all have huge resumes of clubs, volunteer organizations, church activities, Black and Hispanic service organizations, scholarship awards, community awards, etc. etc. from the Black and Hispanic communities. They are often community leaders themselves. There isnât any faking all of that.
Have you watched the movie about Frank Abagnaleâs life âCatch Me If You Canâ? Or more recently, Rachael Dolezal. Never underestimate a pathological liar.
I think itâs harder for a kid to lie about their life unless they have help from adults and the school.
I canât remember the article, but someone applied to Princeton and checked Hispanic and the AO commented that the rest of the app didnât have anything indicating Hispanic.
But of course⊠who would think that? As to you having met high achieving black and hispanic kids⊠I mean, I live in a minority-majority town in the suburb of NYC, so Iâve met a few myself. I think you are reading whatâs not said nor implied.
Love this idea! Too late for us to do this kind of spreadsheet, as ours is really only on the applications with a ton of stuff, but if I had a 5th kid, I would totally do something like this. My son thankfully has looked up a lot of stuff which has been helpful, but this does give me an idea to start tracking all the virtual crap that they are doing. UVA has really started to turn on the heat and marketing like crazy. Probably because RD came out last week. There was some stuff after EA but now they are showing a lot of love. One nice thing about declining an admit though is the incessant emails finally stop.
One thing we have been doing though is printing out the checklist of course requirements at each school as well as the AP lists to see what classes he will receive credit for and what he needs on the upcoming AP tests to get out of some other courses.
Someone mentioned foreign language and that too for mine is the kiss of death and he does not want to take it. At UVA he would only have to take 5 classes outside Engineering which is really appealing and I think Michigan there are not many either. UM course checklist for CS though is only through summer of 2021 so it will be interesting to see what changes in degree requirements there may be starting in Fall of 2021. If he ends up there, I told him to reach out to an advisor on that. Or, listen to one of the virtual sessions as those emails now are starting.
Ugh. Speaking of, is there a UM Class of 2025 parent FB group? Iâm already in the UVA one and ready to leave the Purdue one.
This. Also, many kids just put what they identify as and donât read into the implications of what it may mean (a boost, etc). this sort of thing is really only prevalent in our college admissions bubble
Paranoid about what? When you have a major University with 40k students attending and over 70k applications, it is very easy to check a box for a race and have high achievements and still not be that race or be that race.
I know many African Americans that donât look it and I know Japanese Americans that look caucasian and probably prefer to check on the box. No one is saying there are not hundreds or thousands of well qualified diverse students, but there are also plenty of students gaming the system that are not minorities but using it to their advantage. It just is what it is. People will cheat in every facet of life. Itâs not just to get into college, itâs to get jobs, lying about their past experiences, where they went to college, graduate school, etc. We see and hear about it all the time. I am sure there are thousands of parents that still financially support there kids more than 50% of the time but decided to scam the system and not claim their kids for 2020 and say their kid is now suddenly an independent so their kid can get the extra $1,800 in stimulus money from last year. I see people asking about this regularly on FB and in my kids college facebook groups, even though these kids are the dependents. Just another way for people to game a system because they can. Thatâs the fact of life.
I just think there is a lot of unwarranted paranoia here about white kids getting a leg up in the admissions process by lying about race. Does that mean it NEVER happens? No, of course not. But I expect the AOs of highly competitive institutions know what they are doing. People here are tossing out one-off anecdotal examples of kids who may or may not have lied or embellished application essays and such. With no proof that any of it actually affected their admissions success. In reality, the admissions offices of selective schools get tens of thousands of applications each year that they cross compare and parse using all kinds of sophisticated criteria. They tend to know what they are doing. They arenât going to be fooled by some kid from upscale white bread suburbia checking off the Hispanic box on the common app when they likely have hundreds of other applicants with hugely more extensive profiles that point to Hispanic identity
If you want to get upset, get upset about all the slacker rich kids who skate into selective institutions on the backs of private admissions counselors, SAT tutors, and the resources of their elite private schools who curate and micro-manage every aspect of their HS experiences and admissions portfolios.
Ya know people can be annoyed or bothered about more than one thing at a time. Itâs annoying that some people can buy ridiculous levels of help at every step to ensure their kid goes where they want (probably not illegal though). Itâs annoying that dishonest people succeed via their dishonesty (certainly unethical). I brought this up originally with a specific case of a girl I know who wrote her essay about being discriminated against for being Cherokee. This isnât an abstract idea, this is someone doing something unethical and dishonest that could negatively affect her fellow students (since they like to compare kids from the same high school). I really do hope admissions people can see through this, though supposedly she was deferred from Harvard (not rejected; test optional, mediocre rigor).
@pelomom@mamaedefamilia Congratulations on Smith and BMC. Iâm a fan of both schools, and a Haverford alum so more familiar with BMC. If the consortia are an important factor in your Dâs decision, I recommend investigating how many Smith students take advantage of it (pre-Covid) and how integrated the schools are. The Haverford/BMC consortium is practically seamless. I went to Haverford and took almost half my classes at BMC. My roommate majored at BMC, but took half her classes at HC. The connection with Swarthmore is much stronger than when I attended, but itâs farther away, so it can be trickier to take classes there although many students do.
I found this excellent description by @dustyfeathers in a Haverford vs. Swarthmore thread from 2020 that might be helpful. âH and BMC share values about how tests are taken, how they purposefully reduce tensions through communal governance, and so on. The schedules of BMC and H are meshed so that the students can take classes more easily between campuses. Buses run continuallyâalthough this year will be more challenging b/c COVID and they are only allowing few students per bus. They might use more buses during busy times. They share facilities, such that BMC students go to Haverford for art, and H students to to BMC for geology, the pool, etc. They agree on for example how to handle COVID issues and other major policy decisions that affect both campuses. They are practically two colleges for the price of one. Swat in contrast is just a little further out and itâs set where even finding the gate is challenging. And that seems to reflect somewhat a different culture. At H if you decide that you want to take classes at Swat, you can do so. Thatâs not an issue. You can also take classes at UPenn.â
All this said, I am a big fan of Smith, the Pioneer Valley, and Northampton in particularâsuch a great place to go to college.
I reported what I read on Reddit â correctly, as anecdotes. There is no data so how do you know my concerns are just me being paranoid?
I am upset when kids lie about their race in order to cheat the system. And I am upset that money plays such a big part in college admissions. I donât have to pick one, I can be upset at two things at once.
There is also a difference between institutions collecting race and ethnicity data for statistical reasons (because the government requires it) and for admissions reasons. My daughterâs public HS also collects this information because it is required for them to do so. Not because it has any affect on her ability to enroll in her local public school. Here in Washington they still collect race and ethnicity information when you apply and enroll to public universities, but they explicitly do not use it for any admissions purpose.
Covid changes things upâŠwe started urban/large and S wanted to make sure we looked at something smaller too. A feeling of warmth/support has been really important to him. He had some âfunâ criteria like great library and Quidditch team. Heâs a fun loving intellectual. 
