Exactly- it’s hard to watch because they should be ecstatic that they have the slam dunk. They are failing to recognize/acknowledge/understand that this is a great gift for being a top 6% in state kid that others would love to have. Also, because of lack of parent involvement in the process and lack of counseling from the school, they didn’t go in with realistic expectations. I don’t think this is unique to our high school, I’m pretty sure this is happening in lots of places. Sorry for posting to begin with. I guess I need to read the rules on what is and what isn’t appropriate to post.
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We are in CA and I think we are a solid public school. It’s ranked well per US News&Review (I found out there is a ranking!). We aren’t Lowell High School (but TBH, I’ve not been that impressed with the people who have gone there over the years. Not that I’m anti them, but they’re just like any other high school kid caliber).
I think we had more successes at Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and UCI. We will have likely 2-3 kids attend UCLA, which makes me so happy. In the past, kids who have gotten in have gone to other UCs or for profit BSMD (WTH) schools and I was always afraid they would stop accepting students from our school. I want my D24 to have a chance! Berkeley had average acceptances for our school. Interestingly, only one APA kid got in for EECS at Berkeley and one pre-CS and one at UCLA for Civ E. Everyone else really shut out at the top two UCs for engr. A ton got into UCI and handful into UCSD. I believe all the top 5% kids who applied to Cal Poly SLO were rejected or waitlisted.
I think the parents assume they can all get into Berkeley and UCLA so are disappointed but I honestly think we are lucky in CA since many of our UCs are probably too 35-40 US schools! Many of the top 20 kids applied to MIT, Ivies, USC. I think 4 got into USC, which is great for us. Likely none will attend. And my son, I believe, is the lone Ivy lottery winner.
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I wish my grandma had received this. She was admitted to the hospital Christmas night with Covid pneumonia and died 5 days later. So traumatizing (we said goodbye through Zoom), and just 30 days shy of being eligible for the Covid vaccine.
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Where will the four USC admittees attend? UCs?
Yes, my daughter joined the official Pitt FB page and it was full of “glamor” shots of girls in party dresses and bikinis. The sad thing is that those girls are the ones that are getting all the “likes” and comments, the “normal” girls not so much. She was very cast down – she thought that this kind of thing would have died out by college. I feel so lucky not to have this kind of pressure growing up.
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Sorry to tell you but the second shot has to be at 16 or older for the men b. Many kids get it just before they leave for college as it is almost always required for dorm living.
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I just jumped through some crazy hoops to get my D 21 a shirt in time for decision day. Apparently there is a backorder situation created by … COVID! Its like the gift that keeps on giving. The colleges B and N book shop was VERY low on sizes and selection and said they were waiting on a large order that was way behind. Apparently an issue at a number of schools. I would just grab the t-shirt if you can for any of the choices.
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T shirt for School A arrived today because I ordered it last weekend (lol) and it’s hiding in the bag still. But, I don’t have a shirt for school B. Looks like he’s leaning toward School A, at least today. We’ll see if tomorrow is any different.
Not that I have any clue about the waitlists yet. Maybe I can convince him to withdraw from one or both of those (oh wait, there’s three). I can’t even imagine the level of indecision that would ensue if a call came.
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@tristatecoog UCLA, Berkeley, UCDavis (NMF scholarship still not enough for them, which is understandable since she got $ from Davis), and the other one still negotiating aid but I think may choose UCI
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Well California has a lot of strong public universities. Lots of years of high government funding
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Today I saw a few celebrations online for UCDavis and Berkeley transfers. It made me so happy that these kids put in the work at the CC and got the transfer. I found it inspirational and I hope kids who didn’t get in to their ideal college this cycle have a path to get there via CC. The joy of the transferees just as powerful and wonderful!
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I haven’t even mentioned the FB page for the university my son plans to attend, and fortunately he won’t go looking for it. Most of the boys have “glamor” shots as well, and I worry he would think everyone going there is like that. I didn’t see many engineering students posting, though, in the few days I was observing.
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Boys doing that there? So strange. My son fortunately had luck with the UM “roommate finder” tool. The end result was similar to how girls go about finding roommates where they texted first then FaceTimed and talked to one another to see what they agree about or not on. The only difference was no pictures first and that nonsense. He had talked to another kid earlier this week and both of them had said they were talking to a few others. I guess he knows what he likes lol. Same thought process no doubt goes into dating apps to some degree.
Also very happy he didn’t go random even though of course this could always not work out he at least knows he is not getting someone completely opposite of him and his beliefs.
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I have been tracking similarly at my sons school. I don’t have hard statistics but mainly word of mouth. There is no doubt that this 2021 class took a hit in UC/CSU admissions as compared to years past. They typically graduate 520-550 kids a year. Of those, roughly 40 are admitted to a UC school with roughly 3-5 acceptances to Berkeley and UCLA. There are usually 2-4 T20 admits (Stanford, MIT, Ivies, etc) Another 3+ to Cal Poly. Many kids, perhaps another 10-20 are admitted to San Diego State (we are in SD county).
In round numbers the top 10% of the class typically attends a UC, Cal Poly or other T20 school. It’s still shaking out but Id bet this year is closer to 5%, way down over years past. In particular I’ve only heard of one Cal Poly admit with many 3.8- 4.0 UW kids flat rejected, a few waitlists my son among those. UC acceptances are way down a handful of Davis, Santa Barbara and Irvine, just one to Berkeley.
There were a ton more waitlists as well; that’s kind of the wild card in all of this. Maybe after May 1st we will see numbers get closer to years past but hard to say.
Conversely, many more acceptances this year to good OOS schools (Washington and Michigan) and many more kids going to LACs (Claremont Colleges, Occidental, SCU, etc)
In short this class is still attending good schools but they are not the same schools, going farther from home and generally paying more for their education.
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I’ve been watching the ‘25 student IG for Cal Poly and nearly all of the engineering kids are OOS. I’m not sure how they changed their point system this year but results do seem to just be different.
My kid got in off the wait list for Cal Poly a week or so ago.
Sorry to the non CA parents here, with all of the CSU and UC talk!
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Your last sentence nailed it. I think this year may be costing a lot of people more $$.
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@nucities Not sure if the top 20 boys at our school planned this but they all got into UIUC for CS/Engr and Purdue. That was a bright spot as I know engr and CS are so hard to get into, it seems. I was surprised with Harvard and Duke because usually someone at our school gets a spot there. I have a friend who is a wizard at informal surveys and focuses a bit more on APAs and felt that in the district we live in and the private schools (his kids are in private schools), not many Asian kids with CS/Engr got into the top UC or T20 schools. His son actually has stacked resume with research, ECs, national competition, awards, 36ACT, course rigor. I read it and I thought, “Surely, this kid will and deserve to get into all the schools!” But didn’t get into any of the T20 private schools he applied to, which shocked me. He did get into UCLA and Berkeley. It’s the wild, Wild West, as my friend says with the UCs and just a lottery among T20.
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It’s funny, and I may have forgotten the troubles of some of the folks here, but unless I’m mistaken, it seems only the Texans and Californians have all the complaints this year. 
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My boys go to a high performing small HS in the Bay Area, graduating class of just over 200. (They do not rank.) My anecdotal tracking which includes word of mouth and a Class of 2021 Instagram page suggests there was much more waitlisting at the UCs and Ivies than usual. I have heard of many more waitlists for UCLA and Berkeley than I would expect. I have only heard of one kid so far who will attend Berkeley. A kid who got into both will go to Penn. Often kids who get into either of those two from our school go elsewhere. There seems to be a further push on the exodus out of state to University of Oregon, University of WA, University of AZ, Boulder. I have even heard of three kids going to University of Hawaii which is unprecedented; these are kids who may have gone to UCSC in previous years. Many were accepted to Cal Poly SLO. I wonder if the fact that so many of our kids attend is a factor. Last year, 13 went. Oh, and as usual, many going to various LACs. I am quite curious to see what happens after May 1.
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Private school on the east coast: usually 35-40% matriculate at T30 uni/T15 LACs, for the past 6 yrs or so that I have data…this year many have not committed yet but 2021 is still under 30% going to that group of schools. Ivies and similar tippy-top matriculation is 5-6% over the same years; currently, 2021s are at 4.5%.
So, maybe with WL movement the numbers will be up, but it seems to have been a moderately harder year as it stands right now.
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