Just catching up on all the posts here. We are not nearly as organized as many of you in terms of making lists! My son isn’t sure about a major (has many interests) or what he is looking for in a college experience. As soon as AP tests are done, I will be pushing some conversations so we can start making a list. He got dragged to several campus tours with our Class of 2019 S, so he has a little bit of an idea on how campuses can vary. He did get some good news today - the school day April SAT scores came out, and he went from a 1400 to a 1510 - he is feeling good about that. I had written earlier about concern about taking the SAT essay - he ended up having no choice because our state requires it for assessment, and as expected did quite poorly (with no prep). Since it’s not required any more, or even considered at most schools, hopefully that part of the score won’t matter. Best of luck to everyone’s students in the throes of AP tests!
Now that May 1 has come and gone, how did kids at your local HS do? At our HS results were about the same as usual (20 or so kids to top 20s - including 7 Ivy- and another 30-40 to top 50 schools – from a class of 400±) and I was very surprised to see that after reading (and hearing from some friends with seniors) about what a tough year it was. Hope that means 2022 will be ok – of course since my own kiddo isn’t looking at tippy top schools it isn’t really an issue for us, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that kids from our school ended up more or less where they always do.
The results at our HS also seem to be in line with those of recent years, which surprised me since the feeling on this forum is that competition was stiffer for this year’s HS class. Our HS is considered to be one of the strongest public high schools in the state.
That was my reaction, exactly. After all I’d read (and heard from a few friends with kiddos at private school) I expected that the number of kids going to top schools would drop, but it didn’t (honestly, this year was probably slightly better than the last two years). Maybe a lot of the drama was overstated in the end.
I don’t know many kids/parents who share the schools they applied to and were accepted to. I know where some are going, and those schools look about the same as other years. But other than U Michigan we don’t have a lot applying to very selective schools (that I know of anyway).
I don’t have the full picture yet, but plenty of anecdotes indicate that many of our Seniors were shut out of the reach and mid range University of California campuses with the exception of our local mid range UC. It seems that this year many of our accomplished Seniors had fewer UC choices. The common thread is they are either going out of state or attending our local UC campus. There were many surprising rejections. So many kids with competitive GPAs, stats, extracurriculars, etc were denied from places that would have admitted them before.
That’s been our experience too. Our school hasn’t put up the scattermap of where all the students have chosen yet, but the phrase “blood bath” has been a common one when talking about the UCs. And lots of speculation about why - gap years, test blind, an increase in out of state acceptances to make up some $ lost due to the pandemic… who knows.
I can speak a little to the out of state phenomenon as this year a fair number of kids from our LPS (in MA) are going to UC schools including 4 to UCLA, 2 UCSB, 1 UCSD, 1 UCI and 1 UC Davis. That is far more than usual - in a typical year there might be one or two kids going to UCB but that is typically it for the UCs. Not sure what that means (if anything) but it definitely caught my eye.
The kids who got an acceptance into our local UC were the lucky ones. Many didn’t get into any of the UCs. The feeling of shock still lingers. I am afraid that this doesn’t bode well for the class of 22 either.
Our senior class acceptances started rolling in on Instagram and looks like we had a very good year as a school. I could see Stanford, Harvard, Vandy, Emory acceptances. I don’t think I saw these many top colleges acceptances last year. We are one of the best public schools in state, so I guess COVID was not a factor this year for the school. So hopefully the trend will continue for my D22 next year (fingers crossed!!!)
Actually Covid may have been a positive factor for your school! One hypothesis was that with the missing test information, adcoms might rely a little more on the high schools they know and like. Would bode well for you!
This is a good possibility, I have not thought about how “known” the school is! Still, was a little surprised on how well kids did this year with acceptances based on feedback I got from watching Class 2021 thread. I am still nervous about next admission cycle, we are shooting for top 50 (and not top 10), so hard to predict how kids who usually shoot for Ivies decide to change the game and apply maybe to “top 50” as their safety. While my D22 could be in the same ballpark as “Ivy” kids as far as stats, increase in competition can be really unpredictable then.
I have a '21 in addition to my '22 and share your same question about how bad was this year really. I think it looked bad because of all the extra apps (which will make the acceptance rates look even scarier) but for the set of people I know and discuss this with the results were really good.
I think there is a group of people maybe first timers? - who were surprised their kids didn’t get into highly selective schools but that happens every year. And then I think there were a set of kids disadvantaged by the Covid year -maybe the ones with the lesser known high schools and some others - maybe someone analyzing it will find those patterns. But I don’t know how big that group is. There were many like you and I have observed that have done fine.
The takeaway I have after this last year is make sure your D creates a compelling and authentic story in her app package that fits that school. Some kids are floored they applied to 25 schools and only got into safeties but those apps probably suffered in quality because it is hard to focus well on 25.
Well, we had some discussions about college list making over the weekend. I don’t know that any progress was made. He has no preferences it seems. He’s pretty easy going in a lot of ways so I guess I’m not completely surprised. But when asked something like “city or rural” he says he doesn’t know because he has only lived in a suburb, and not a big one. That’s true, but we’ve vacationed places and he’s enjoyed both NYC and National Parks. Lol. So I guess I see why he doesn’t have a big preference.
The only things he’s done is eliminated the 2 schools that are within about 30 minutes of home. It’s a start for sure. He does want to “go away”, but says Arizona, Ohio, Ann Arbor would all be fine for distances, so long as he doesn’t have to drive home from Arizona (to Michigan).
He says he’d like very little if any debt and while going some place like MIT would be awesome, he doesn’t want to pay $50k/year and end up in debt for that experience.
This leaves a lot of places still on the table! Lol. I hope we can find a way to narrow it down a bit before sending in applications.
We were exactly at the same spot at the beginning of this school year. My D22 was the same way. I created a list of a few very different schools that had the major she was interested in and drove there (fortunately enough we were able to do it with all COVID precautions in place as well). It helped her at least narrow down what she does not want 
and we went from there.
Interesting, my S22 is the same. So, I made him a deal. I would make a list of ten (10) schools that my wife and I thought would work for him (and meet budgetary concerns). We would then look at it as a family. He could then veto any school he wanted, but he had to apply to five (5). Our list is at six (6). The other rule is that he must decide on where he is going to college because we will not make that decision for him. His reasons for vetoing were…interesting. He vetoed Mississippi State because it was in Mississippi. He vetoed Tennessee because he wanted to leave home (it is still six hours away). He vetoed Purdue and Georgia Tech because he didn’t want to go to an uber-competitive university. Okay…his choices. So, six remain. That’s where he is applying.
Glad it’s not just us :). I’m hoping MIchigan and Michigan State start doing tours soon because I’d drag him there. I want to tour with the hope he figures out something, but he says he doesn’t see the point in looking at buildings, lol.
@Peruna1998 how did you come up with the 10 schools? I’m trying to do that as well and am having trouble narrowing it down. I feel like I need a few opposite styles in case he actually forms an opinion. Also, he did veto U of Nebraska because it’s in Nebraska!
AP testing today. He has back to back AP tests. He’ll finish one, wolf down a sandwich, then sprint to the next. Thankfully, the proctor of the second test will wait for him before they start.
Last night we had our sports banquet and S22 found out that there will only be one senior and one junior captain. Not him. He did an essay an video to be included in coach’s decision set. Coach mentioned one rising junior he’d liked to have been a captain but he’ll be playing football next year. Coach also said for those that aren’t chosen as captains to not let up and be quitters.
I’ve seen that sports captains do quite well at holistic reviews at UT-Austin in non-engr/business admissions. Club/sport leadership is a key. DS got most improved athlete so that’s a bonus.
I talked with another parent whose older son just finished his freshman year at Purdue where my son would like to apply as an engineering major. The Purdue frosh (CS major) had a great year and has a remote summer internship in coding. Got it at the famed job fair. He took MV Calc as a senior in HS. My son will take Calc AB. We’ll see…
Two in one day sounds rough! Good luck to him!