Same here. He just sent me a picture of his room with Christmas decorations. I’m starting to hate TikTok and Amazon. He has underclassmen friends taking dibs on his stuff for their rooms. I have no intention of shipping this stuff halfway across the country.
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So I would just note a couple things. First, those stories were specific to MIT. Second, I actually don’t really consider them counterexamples. It is of course possible you would not have had those specific opportunities if you had attended different colleges, but you don’t know what other different opportunities you would have had. And I am personally very confident if those paths worked for you, a variety of alternative paths would also have worked for you.
And for all we really know, you might well have liked some of those other paths even better. I don’t believe in spending a lot of time thinking about such alternative universes, but just because this one worked out well doesn’t mean it is the best of all possible universes.
Anyway, nothing I wrote was intended to discourage people from preferring colleges like MIT, if they specifically make sense for those people. But as soon as you, say, are talking about the infamous HYPSM, or T10, or T20, or whatever . . . that’s not really the same thing anymore. Indeed, it is lumping together a lot of colleges that are mostly very much unlike MIT.
Generally, what I would say is every family and every kid should focus on balanced healthy development. This includes all of physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development. And then if college seems like a possible next step, they can also do that within the framework of a college prep track–but not at the cost of balanced healthy development. If they then are nearing the end of a balanced healthy college prep track and it looks like some very selective colleges are realistically attainable, and good fits for what the kid is looking for in a college, and comfortably affordable–great, apply to those colleges (among others).
But what I really don’t think should ever happen is treating some arbitrary short list of colleges as such an overriding goal that you would sacrifice the kid’s balanced healthy development, or put the family into severe financial stress. And I really don’t think anecdotal success stories that start at those colleges show otherwise.
Including because there are a whole bunch of other stories that start at those colleges and are not so happy, but for obvious reasons people tend not to share those stories widely on the Internet.
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No ED2 strategy for us, as her top 4 schools do not offer it. If ED doesn’t work out, we will just hunker down for the RD round, which I don’t think is a bad idea at all, but she is not wanting to do those other 5 apps !
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I’m mildly jealous because my S24 has colleges on his RD list (I think they are still on the list) that do not offer ED II, but his current second-favorite (after his REA college) does.
If it was the opposite, then to me it would be similarly easy to just ignore it.
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Yup we have some of these “exceptions which prove rules” schools on our lists. There’s always a reason, or several, though they’re not necessarily obvious to the casual observer.
BTW it’s very clear what time of year it is. You blink and there are 40 more responses on this thread.
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D24 is submitting one more college app and a scholarship app tonight. She is then taking a break until she hears from her ED school. She is completely burned out and I don’t think she’d be particularly productive if she tackled more apps without a break. If she doesn’t get in to her ED, she said doing the RD apps will help keep her from mopping about it. Knowing her, she will be fired up and wanting to prove her ED school that they made the wrong call by getting into an equally strong school.
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Good on her!
Love this attitude!
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I do not envy that choice - especially in this era of so many college apps and the schools that give extra ED/ ED2 boosts. I am sure you have weighed all of those things; we found Naviance to be helpful in whittling down D24’s school app choices; of course, our Naviance doesn’t show ED2, but maybe yours does?
Even if D24’s second choice was an ED2 school, I think it would be hard to pull the trigger on that (for us) - probably because I think that there is still a decent chance of getting into our ED1 choice in RD (this is partially based on Naviance, which isn’t the greatest predictor, of course!), and also because her other choices are fairly “clustered” together in terms of how much she likes them.
I feel like the ED2 pressure cooker is unfair - if you’ve been rejected by ED1, your kid could be “afraid” they won’t get in to other schools, and may feel pressure to give themselves an ED2 boost at a school that isn’t the number one choice. If it is a ED2 is a CLEAR far & away number 2 and ED1 is a “lotto” school with not a lot of kids going from your HS, that is another factor…
Here’s to hoping they all get in ED1 !
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I think that is an excellent idea! I hope my D24 is the same way!
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100% agree. I was really more responding to the sentiment that it is unreasonable for someone to apply to all the Ivies or to the top 10 schools. That strategy is not a good fit for my kids. But I could definitely see that it might be a good fit for some people.
I feel like some people on CC like to say that prestige doesn’t matter. The truth is, it does have value and if you are in a position to go after it, it is worth weighing the potential trade-offs and then pursuing it if you feel like they are worth it. Just like money doesn’t guarantee happiness, but if you look at the data, on average, people with more money are happier. Prestige isn’t everything, but on average, if you have it, you have more options and flexibility than if you don’t. So, if you are able to pursue it without sacrificing other things that you value more, it’s a reasonable thing to do. Solely for the benefit of the prestige, without having to justify it by saying, “I really feel like I would fit in with the vibe at Yale“ or, “I think I’d find my people at Penn.”
Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed, but I feel like people here overly downplay the potential benefits of big name schools. Maybe that is because they are trying to be a counter to the pressure so many students (most of whom statistically will not be able to go to one of those schools!) feel that only these schools have value. I just feel like what I have seen is that a student in the bottom quarter of a big name school like Harvard or Yale or MIT gets a lot more opportunities for the same amount of work post-college than somebody at even the 75th percentile of a lower ranked school.
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D24 has had some of the same thought processes, and at some point I encouraged her to just apply, if there was any scenario in which she could see herself choosing that school. She could turn her selectivity dial from everything is awesome to nothing is good enough, and the fine tuning of that is something I am not sure can really be done until she knows what her other real options are (spring admitted student visits may be critical for her as well since she at potentially 6/10 unvisited).
Is one year of a crappy shared dorm room really a deal breaker? Maybe. Could there be a workaround for a suboptimal food situation? Also maybe.
I just wanted to make sure she didn’t talk herself out of everything, so as long as she ended up with enough solid applications in for EA, I am good with her making some perhaps arbitrary cuts on her RD reaches.
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Oh my this page has moved so quickly in the last couple of days and I have been so busy at work and home that I cant keep up. Super happy that my DS submitted his last 2 applications this week. One more essay to write for a scholarship through my husbands job. Unfortunately the topic that he choose for his common app essay didnt align with this one so he has to start over - ugh!
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We use SCOIR, and actually it does break out ED II.
There are 8 ED II in the database. 5 were denied, all with considerably lower numbers. 3 were accepted, 2 with somewhat lower numbers and 1 comparable. So . . . not sure what that says.
RD, 73 total, 19 accepted, 32 denied, 22 waitlisted:outcome unknown. Of the denials, all but one had materially lower GPAs, test scores, or both. There was also one waitlisted:unknown who had a higher test score, lower GPA, but not too much lower.
Looking at it the other way around, 7 out of the 9 closest to him in numbers were accepted, 6 out of those 7 RD, 1 ED II (previously mentioned). But one of those RD admits was waitlisted first. So, long story short, closest to him ED II was 1 for 1, RD was 5 out of 8 straight admit, another waitlist to admit, another waitlist:unknown, and the last actually denied.
So personally, I am like–if you get deferred, forget ED II! Your odds seem plenty good to me with just normal RD.
But for sure I am influenced by the fact I like a lot of his other RD options which have similar (or better) patterns for kids with his numbers. I like his ED II school too, I just think he would be fine at any of these colleges. In that sense, I am “clustered” on his behalf in the sense you mentioned.
But he is going to college, not me. And if he would feel bummed about not going to this particular college versus one of those other RD colleges, and he is worried about those kids who did not get admitted straight from RD . . . well, this is his life, right?
I will say if his REA school is going to reject him in the end, it sure would be nice if they would do that now, not defer him first. I understand if they legit want more context, but I really hope there is no soft-denial nonsense in his future.
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Our school doesn’t give students or parents access to Naviance or SCOIR or any program like that. In many ways, I find I am grateful to not have that level of information and for my kids to have made their application decisions without that level of information granularity available… Even though I find it fascinating when others on CC share the information they’ve gathered from those types of programs.
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Maybe getting cold feet about the college list is normal at this stage of the game? S24, who was planning to apply almost exclusively to small LACs, just came home and said that he felt the need to add a big rah rah sports school to his list! His final list is due early next week. This is why I very much dislike that college admissions happen so early in the year, especially with ED. Many of these kids are still growing and changing so much, and college may not even feel real a year or more before graduation.
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Completely relate to this. Now that we look back, we made the decision to visit Vanderbilt’s open house mainly because they had ED 2.
“Lets go visit. If you like it, we can apply ED 2”. FOMO is so strong.
I wish they had a T Shirt that said “I visited Vanderbilt and all I got was this cowboy hat”.
(Although the Vanderbilt cowboy hat was probably the best giveaway on any of our visits. D wore it to school on “western day”).
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I feel the same way. A deferral would be a true mind-****
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I thought it interesting that UVA decided to not defer anyone this cycle. Early decisions will be the same as RD ’ Accept, WL, Deny
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So this will take us far afield, but I will just say my two cents is while college choice might matter in some cases, almost inevitably “prestige” is not a good term for whatever causal mechanism is in place. Like, some colleges might have better advising in certain areas. Some might have better opportunities for developing relevant professor relationships, or support for relevant internships. Some might have enough well-qualified and interested students to attract certain recruiters. Some next-step gatekeepers might go deeper into the class on the theory the internal competition was harder. And on and on.
But calling any of that “prestige” strikes me as suggesting two misleading ideas: (a) that any of that is a matter of popular perception; and (b) that any of that automatically benefits every person who enrolls. Instead, I think it is always very specific paths operating by their own specific rules, and further I think it is basically always the case you need to actually successfully make use of those opportunities, sometimes in competition with fellow students with similar ambitions.
And I do think that points away from the “shotgun” approach to highly selective college applications. Like, OK, if you have a possible next-step interest and a particular college seems to place well in that sort of next-step, that is something worth considering–but not in any generic sense. Moreover, you really need to understand that at best that is an opportunity, and you will likely need to do a lot to make real use of that opportunity, and not infrequently a majority of people at that college will try and fail (at least when it comes to the opportunities that get most frequently discussed).
So . . . yeah, I am one of those people who wishes we could banish the word “prestige” from these discussions. I again think an informed and nuanced discussion of college choice is fine, but I don’t think the word “prestige” as such ever helps that happen.
So there are actual studies of this and as far as anyone can tell, the kind of people who are anywhere in the vast middle of outcomes for Ivy and Ivy+ college graduates would have statistically indistinguishable outcomes, at least in terms of things like career earnings and such, if they attended something like a flagship public instead. The important caveat here is this is controlling for their other characteristics. But if you look at people with similar entrance qualifications, similar family backgrounds, and so on, then it appears not to matter in terms of these outcomes where they end up.
Recently there has been some evidence that this statistical equivalence breaks down in what are sometimes called left tail outcomes. Meaning if you look at sufficiently rare outcomes–things like really high wealth outcomes, above the normal professional class level–while both of those outcomes can happen for comparable Ivy+ and flagship graduates, they happen at somewhat higher rate for Ivy+ graduates.
So, OK, if you are an outlier success coming out of an Ivy+, sometimes (although not always) you might have ended up with more opportunities than you would have had with a different college choice.
But for all the Ivy+ graduates who were just normally successful Ivy+ graduates, and not outliers–nope, no statistically significant difference.
That said, it isn’t possible to measure everything easily, career earnings and such are a rather narrow way of measuring success anyway, and so on. So maybe there are other benefits to people in the middle that are more subtle and being missed.
Which I actually believe. Sometimes. In some cases. If it is a good fit. And you don’t run up a bunch of debt. And so on.
I just don’t think the data supports the idea shotgunning Ivy+ colleges is actually a good generic strategy for the vast majority of people.
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