I will add something else to what you are saying. Part of the “personal touch” that the college counseling at these schools offer is helping a student develop a well crafted list including reaches where they have a realistic chance (by that I mean they are competitive in any which way) - and for the most part they have a good pulse on what that means. That in itself ensures a greater chance of success.
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Absolutely. I would in fact agree this is as close to a universal benefit as possible (not quite, because I am seeing a few families maybe not accepting the good counsel they are getting, but most do).
I’d add it seems pretty clear to me that part of this process involves not having kids compete unnecessarily. Like OK, if four kids are all legitimate prospects for Harvard, and have good reasons to have Harvard as a top choice, great, go for it. But if a kid really is kinda meh on Harvard, then even if they theoretically could compete for Harvard, they will be steered not to.
And this need not be coercive, it is more a matter of finding schools they love, and then just basically encouraging them to only apply to the schools they love. And voila, the four kids who really love Harvard are not facing competition from a fifth who doesn’t even really want it.
And then Harvard knows the kids from this high school are not just shotgunning them, they really want to go to Harvard specifically. In essence, the high school is doing a little pre-screening for fit. And if they trust that process at that high school, then that might help the people who do apply.
And meanwhile others are getting a similar effect at Yale. Or MIT. Or Williams. Or Berkeley. And again, it all adds up.
@NiceUnparticularMan To your point about niche sports my daughter’s school has a pool and phenomenal swim team, there is also a crew team(no squash team); girls from her class of 24 have committed to Brown for swimming and USC for rowing. This gives an advantage to certain kids in the school and disadvantages the non athletes like my D.
The privates also have an advantage in that they are self selecting and the entirety of the school is college bound whereas my LPS(which is highly regarded in the state and country) has very good college matriculation, they also have kids going to community college and no college. The top colleges know that girls from our school and several other privates in the area are going to have well prepared students in spades. This isn’t any different than the reason the top I Banks and consulting firms actively recruit Ivies, they know their hit rate will be higher than it will be at UMD.
The real question/answer is how is the playing field leveled by increasing preparedness and access to less resourced schools and bringing them up to the level of privates. There should not be an us against them mentality in schools.
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McGill’s (and most other Canadian schools) admit rate cannot be compared to admit rates for most US because McGill publishes its cut-offs each year to allow students to determine if they should apply or not. There is no “holistic” evaluation. Canadian students check the numbers, and if they are above or very close to the threshold, they apply. If they’re not, they don’t. Thus the majority of applicants meet the actual standard and are not applying on a wish and a prayer.
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Can I ask y’all: how many classes are standard at your kids’ schools? My kids’ school is on a block schedule; 4 classes a semester for a total of 8 a year. It never really occurred to me that other places might be different.
I ask because C24 decided they’re going to apply to Stanford (whhyyyyyyy?) and they say kids are supposed to take 5 classes a semester in high school. That’s not possible where we are within the normal school day. C24 doesn’t have any free period or study hall; they never have – literally, there’s no time in the school day for additional classes. Were they meant to take 2 DE courses/year outside of school hours?
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We have seven class periods, but 99% of students have a free period during one of those slots. All seven classes meet three days a week, and two days are block days where they go to either three or four of their classes.
We also have an elective slot that meets once a week. This can be another class for elective credit, or a community service opportunity, etc.
Stanford will understand that a block schedule is different so don’t worry about that!
My D’s HS was on a “regular schedule” - 8 periods/day, including lunch. It was standard for most students to take 7 classes/semester but one of those was a mandatory theology class.
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At our HS, kids typically take 5 core classes plus 2 electives per semester. Most classes are full year but electives are typically 1/2 year (some electives are academic). As an example, S24’s schedule this year is: AP Bio, AP Calc, AP Lit, AP Psychology, Honors Senior Capstone and Honors Spanish film (he completed AP Spanish last year). He will also take 1/2 year of physical education. As AP classes are capped at 4, this is considered a very aggressive schedule for our school.
D24’s first day started today with senior sunrise gathering early morning. She has completed the general section of the Common App and ready to start working on college specific questions. She is close to finalizing her college list.
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We’re on trimester. Normal course load is 5 classes, and sometimes kids take 6 (my kids split this about 60/40 6/5).
Today is D24’s first day of school.
Allow me a moment for a rant…
She had quite a bit of summer work to do to prepare for her AP classes. The calc and physics work was straightforward enough, but IMO, the Bio work is designed to scare kids off/weed them out before the semester starts. D24 was still working on it last night and has been unable to finish one part (the work is due tomorrow, also the same day as they will have a graded assessment on the readings they were assigned). H and I both tried to help her with it and it has us stumped. I am a right-brain person (but not dense by any measure), so maybe it tracks that I can’t make sense of how to complete the task, but my H is the highly intelligent science guy and it is throwing him, too. The whole thing just has D24 completely frazzled and regretting registering for the course, before it has even begun. IMO, this is a crappy way to run a course.
Keeping my fingers crossed this isn’t the tone for the entire year 
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As others are saying, Stanford and the like do NOT expect you to go outside your school’s normal schedule.
I believe our type of schedule is called a rotating drop schedule. We rotate through 8 “days”, and sometimes there are 6 periods in a day, sometimes 7. Not every class meets every day (the drop part), and there are open periods. We have three terms. Some classes are year-long, some just a term. We have a separate athletic requirement that is not part of that schedule.
Minimum enrollment is 5 classes a term, and you are not supposed to take more than 6 without permission. People sometimes add a summer course, but there are limits on how much you can do.
OK, so for us, it makes sense for a college to be saying we should be taking 5 classes a term, and we self-impose that rule as well.
But that’s who they are thinking of, not a school like yours. You’ll be fine doing what is doable in your school.
Kids at S24’s independent school take either 7 or 8 courses each semester. He switched there in his sophomore year from a school where kids took 5 or 6. Seemed like a lot, but he’s been able to manage it.
We have 7 blocks. Each meets 4 times a week for the same amount of time. 5 classes are required. Most kids take 6, a few take 7.
Regardless, no one gets penalized for not taking something that is not available to them. You kid will be fine as long as they have rigor in the context of their school.
We are on the same block schedule. Check with your school, ours is broken up into 4 semesters, with every class being two semesters long. So four classes the first half of the year, but two graded semesters for each class. Then an entirely new schedule the second half of the year with another two graded semesters.
At the end of the day, your child took 8 year long classes with the block system, that should be enough for any school.
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My daughter’s school had Senior Sunrise Tuesday as well for first day of school. They went to the National Mall and monuments to see the sunrise. Pretty good tradition in my eyes.
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I feel ya. Our S24 had that last year with Physics. It was utterly baffling to him. After a few weeks of frustration, we got a tutor who helped him enormously.
We have 8 periods, most kids take 6-7 academic classes a year.
Our excitement for the first day of class is that there is a new AP Physics C teacher who was concerned how to deal with the kids who are taking calculus concurrently with the class (including my S). This should not be our issue to solve!
We are seeing a lot of this “weeding out” tactics in our public school in AP and honors classes, especially in math and science classes.
It makes the teachers job a lot easier, but is so destructive for the long term education of our kids. Unreasonable expectations destroys kids confidence making them give up altogether sometimes.
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“Weeding out” during Senior year seems a bit cruel. Schools should try to minimize the stress levels of already stressed out kids.
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