Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 2)

Totally agree about needing data by program. Some schools have a highly competitive nursing program with higher stats than the rest of the school.

In latest common data, BU accepted 19% of males and females and yielded 27% of each.

The Ohio State has 53% female enrollment. They accept 71% of females vs 66% of males. Females yield 26% and males yield 25%.

Skidmore has 59% female enrollment. They accept 34% of females vs 30% of males. Females yield 20% and males yield 24%.

Females are better candidates? They overrepresent in our HS’s top students.

@srparent15 I warned my son not to say he’s premed. He knows it’s not an actual concentration in college. But even saying pre-anything is presumptive since for things like med school, about 60-75% of the kids saying they are going to med school will drop that ambition. Say it when you get that GPA and the 515+ on the MCAT is my reco to him.

I also agree with you on spending $ on a college counselor. I’d find a few good friends who are good at editing and have the kids listen to Inside Yale Admissions and Just Admit It.

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I think a student can call themselves a “premed,” if that’s your intention and mindset, until they’re not. To me it’s visualization of a goal. Everyone is different of course. So they can do as they please.

As long as you’re taking the required premed courses, and your intention is to apply to med school, then call yourself “pre-med,” whatever your major is. I have no problem with that.

D21 will entering Cal Poly SLO as an Animal Science major and her “area of study” will be “Pre-Veterinary Medicine.” I’ll call her “pre-vet,” if someone asks me, until she’s not, if and when that happens.

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Your son sounds like he has a great head on his shouders and no doubt will be successful no matter what road he goes down whether it’s the medical track of something else! It is too bad there aren’t more parents who are as direct with their kids and honest as opposed to building them up for not knowing what reality may be. It’s ok if our kids aren’t perfect. None of us are!

That’s different. There are people though that when you ask their major they say “pre-med” or “pre-vet” when most people know that is not a major. Your daughter’s major is Animal Science with the intent to go to Veterinary School. Her major isn’t “pre-vet”.

My daughter hates saying her major when people ask because the major is Canfield Business Honors Program (CBHP). It annoys her that it has to be construed as something elite and can’t just be Business, so she does just say Business. We were on vacation last year pre-covid and there was another family with a kid from UT and when we started talking to them the kid was also in McCombs she said just tell them I’m in McCombs too don’t say BHP. I get it because she’s more humble and doesn’t want to look like it’s bragging even though as parents we’re proud. Maybe she’ll get over it one day but it’s her hard work that got her into that program and the recognition of it is not something she should shy away from, just as those kids who do manage to go to medical school, no matter where they go many will have an MD after their names, and only people like my MIL will actually care that they went to xxx over yyy if they came highly recommended at some point in time.

Her major isn’t, but if you go to the Cal Poly website, an Animal Science student will pick from eight (8) “areas of study.” One of which is pre-veterinary medicine. There’s a specific track for it. She’s aware of the difficulty of the path to Veterinary school. But she can call herself whatever she wants. If someone asks me, I’ll say she’s pre-vet. To me, it’s a big deal over nothing.

Visualization of a goal.

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An advisor in BU’s engineering college recently answered the male/female ration question by saying that for the university as a whole, it’s around 39%/61%. But for the College of Engineering, it’s more like 68%/32%, which is not as equal as the colleges which plan for 50/50, but is better than most engineering programs.

I remember reading somewhere here on CC that based on number of male vs. female applicants, the hardest colleges for males to get in to are Olin College of Engineering and Cornell, both of which plan for a 50/50 split. In prior years, the chances for a male applicant were in low single digits. My son likes both of those so he applied anyway. The closest he got to admittance was a waitlist for Olin’s Candidate’s Weekend, which I doubt moved much if at all. It will be interesting to see those numbers for this year!

From reading this forum seems like the best chances for a male applicant to any top college lie in choosing a major that isn’t CS, engineering, or pre-med! My son has always liked making things and math, so he didn’t consider other majors beyond engineering. He just committed to BU.

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Yes but again even if you’re interested in going to med school, you can major in humanities and apply to any program in that at a top school and still take the same courses you need to go to medical school since there’s a specific set of requirements and graduate with a math degree, philosophy degree, accounting degree or whatever you want really! A lot of it is just doing the research but also knowing that to go to medical school someone doesn’t need to go to a tippy top undergrad. For some the whole cut throat of it all may ultimately blow them out of the water and that career is done. Or they can just go somewhere and be the big fish in a small pond at a great school not tippy top and then get into a great medical school.

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Reminds me of the Ivy type grads I’ve met that don’t say where they went to college but just refer to back East, Northeast, Boston area. I love colleges so I usually nail them down and talk about it. A couple from church went through those shenanigans and then nailed it down to MIT. Then I learned a lot about each of them. Same with a Yale grad from work. I said just tell me you went to Yale, not that northeast junk.

At the copier, I had a c-suite guy from work tell me his son turned down Vandy for UT business. I thought about asking “but was it BHP?” However, that would be rubbing it in because it probably wasn’t. Sounds a bit much when someone says my kid goes to such and such honors program, presidential scholar, etc. Nice on the resume for sure but so are the grades and internships for that first job and grad school.

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I think it is different when people who went to Ivies say Boston etc. Everyone knows what that means and it is a humble brag vs. actual humility.

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There are so many schools around there that one really needs to just say it. Around here most people will not know the school, even if the big H!

Except there are so many schools in Boston (and great ones) that you can be talking about any number of schools in Boston not just Harvard (or MIT) for that matter.

@Aguadecoco I am guilty of that one too. I admit when someone asks me where my kids go to school I have realized I almost never say the Ivy school first and rarely do I name it unless someone very specifically asks the school. I won’t even say Ivy. I just say the state. I’m so proud of my kids but I don’t feel that there is anything more special about having a kid at an Ivy than ones who aren’t. My non-Ivy chose her program over Ivies because it was better. Since you’re from Texas, you understand, many don’t. I’ve also noticed that many people who have gone to Ivies, are grateful for the education they’ve received, loved the schools they went to, but rarely shove it in anyone’s faces and are more humbled by those opportunities than anything. I guess that’s sort of how I feel. Humbled my daughter has had the opportunity but can’t say I feel she was any more deserving than someone else perhaps. Just as I don’t feel bitter that my son who maybe in any pre-covid year might have gotten in, didn’t. I really feel everything happens for a reason and you have a big part in making your own successes and your future and need to know when to take an opportunity and use it to better yourself or you can be bitter to the end and do no one (including yourself) any good.

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The only time people don’t name the school seems to be when it was an Ivy.

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But can’t say I’ve met a Tufts grad in Texas.

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We have them here in CA. :grinning:

Which is weird, because there are many schools better than, and “ranked” above some of, the Ivies. People are so obsessed with this athletic conference it’s crazy.

Speaking of which, our D21 finally made her decision, turning down one of these (not one that people use the state/city for; I’ve really only heard that for Yale, as in “I went to school in New Haven.”) She’s headed to Barnard!

And now we’ll have 3 in college on the east coast (from which we fled), Durham, Richmond, and NYC!

And most importantly, we are done with this process forever!!

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Is it all Ivy plus where people don’t want the “oh wow” response? Probably in certain company too.

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@havenoidea Congrats!! Barnard is a great school! Is it linked to the other school in NY, tho? :joy: Columbia/Ivy? :slight_smile:

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My cousin is the same way. She actually has a Masters/PhD from Cornell and MD from Harvard med. She said the only time it matters is when she’s talking fellowship discussion in academia and in that specific setting. I think her white coat or research publication has a sh1t ton of labels like PhD, MD, etc. I think she only refers to herself as a doctor when she’s working in the context of being a doctor. I know people who introduce themselves as doctors. Some of them are a little extra about it.

But the Boston area has so many great schools. Schools that I have only thought about this year with the application cycle. I was tracking DH and S21 when they went for the campus tour last weekend and when they landed in Boston, I texted the map to my cousin and exclaimed, “Boston U, Boston College, Tufts
and slightly up here MIT and Harvard!!” So much brain power in such a concentrated area. I think I missed a couple of colleges on my list, too. I never realized they were just all clumped together!

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Totally disagree. Saying my kid goes to school in NY doesn’t seem to mean she goes to an Ivy. Just as saying my kid goes to school in Texas, Michigan or California implies anything either. Anyone who assumes that is the issue not my kids or me. If someone wants to assume that by hearing a state then that’s their problem not mine. Not once in my life did I ever assume someone went to an Ivy based on the state they said the school was in. Or any school for that matter. I actually find that an odd comment that anyone would make that assumption at all.