I agree with almost everything here…except perhaps the, “We should know better,” part. If a parent comes on here in spring of junior year or fall of senior year, then they will certainly hear about what the realities of college really looks like. For those families, I agree with you, the parents should know better and are leading their kids into a lot of potentially avoidable disappointment.
But for families who trust their high schools (most of which have very limited resources for college advising), or their recollection of what the college application process was like for them 20-30+ years back, or who didn’t attend college and just don’t know what they don’t know (and may well not have the time to find out, particularly if they’re working multiple jobs), it’s a different case. If you see that a school’s SAT range is 1500-1550 and your kid has a 1580 and a 4.0 UW GPA, then you think that odds are, your kid is going to get in, even if the admission rate is 5%. After all, how many kids have stats like yours? But most people don’t realize that when you start thinking about all of the high schools in this country times the number of top students and great ECs and high test scores that the pool ends up being very big for a very small number of slots. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the realization that there is a large number of families in the top 1% who are willing and able to fill large numbers of the slots at these schools that all “meet need” and don’t advertise the part that they’re need aware.
@roycroftmom recently shared an article about Brown’s applicant pool and how it compares to other Ivies. I think that if more families (adults and students) saw graphs like these, they might have a better sense of their chances.
