There is a big difference between “I wish I’d started earlier” and “my parents engineered my education (and EC’s) from middle school”. You can try to convince everyone here that your way is the best, but best to accept the high probability that most will agree with blossom.
Of course Stanford is a great school. But only 5% of applicants (or perhaps less) will get in. So widen the scope.
In short, no, this student doesn’t have a good chance at a Top 20:
1° Too many AP’s. The “every Ap but the kitchen sink” approach to APs is actually counterproductive with top colleges.
2° No foreign language (College classes in Spanish is a nice touch, very good if 200-level or equivalent… but not “foreign”. College Spanish + 3 college quarters of a language foreign to him would be excellent.)
3° “typical ECs” - Top 20s want kids who do things they love and get excellent at it, but also do things that aren’t competitive and are clearly “just for fun”. EC’s have the same weight as the school record.
OK. OP is an immigrant. That explains a lot. Is it worth trying to explain to her/him just how flexible the American education system is, and how opportunities here aren’t necessarily linked to a handful of ‘elite’ schools?
Naaah. I think this is all about ensuring OP’s parental bragging rights.
My brother knows somebody who engineered her kid to Harvard with full financial aid, but I don’t even want that. While I have a roadmap for 4 years of high school but that’s just a roadmap. It could be changed depends on the kids interest. I prefer my kid to engineer it. They become better engineer for their future.
But what do I know, my husband and I both recipients of TTT education and proud of it. No Stanford.
@katliamom and the “immigrant” thing might be an excuse for why a new poster would be confused, but when one’s made countless threads and posts about the same topic, it just becomes like talking to a brick wall.
I feel bad for the kids. They’re the real losers in all of this 
OP doth protest too much.
Is this really about a 14 year old boy?
The fact that the description of a 14 year old boy who is “social, easy-going, funny” merited a frowny emoji from the OP is pathetic. That poor kid.
I can totally picture this scenario: a pushed and prodded 14 year old gets into an elite school, graduates, and decides that his idea of success is being a waiter while trying to make it as an actor. Or a painter. Or – mercy! – becoming an elementary school teacher.
All that prodding and all that money – for “nothing!” A path he could have taken through a CC! The horror, the horror.
^It’s especially sad because if OP follows this plan, it’ll actually be counterproductive for admission to Top 25 universities and LACs. It may work for universities ranked in the 40s-50s but not for top universities/LACs.
Californiaaa, when you’re an international applying to Stanford, it helps a lot to have attended one of your nation’s top schools. But when you’re an American kid, that’s not the way it works. Each year, Stanford will choose students for its graduate school and it’ll select them from a wide variety of colleges accross the nation. It will WANT to have one hundred or more colleges represented. Sure, students from Top 25 will be more numerous than students from top 50-60 who will be more numerous than students from Top 125. But there’ll be students from each type of school at Stanford.
In addition, PHD programs frown on admitting students from their own undergraduate programs, because they want to increase networking opportunities and provide a greater variety of perspectives/approaches/projects.
Grad school name is MUCH more important than undergraduate name.
I’d think Pomona-> Stanford or Whitman -> UCB would be a better goal than Stanford-> UCLA or UCB->UCSD
(Note that Kalamazoo has an excellent record in terms of PHD admissions)
To get back to your “roadmap”:
9th grade is fine (add a foreign language and art)
10th: cut stats and macro
11th: cut APES, AP Psych
12th: cut AP Lit (double duty with AP lang from 10th)
Total: 9 Aps, already above the recommended number (which tops out at 8) but still within the “reasonable” category
Add College Spanish at the sophomore and junior levels (intermediate classes and above)
Let 9th grade be to determine what he likes or what he’s strong at. Let him try lots of things: circus, standup comedy, charity, youth senate, media/communications…
Over the summer, summer camp dedicated to whatever he likes to do in his free time.
Make sure he does one competitive activity (science fair, for example) and one non competitive activity (diabolo, knitting…)
What I find so appalling is the notion that a parent “wins” when her/his kid gets into HYPSM, which by definition means that all parents whose children don’t go to those 5 schools are “losers.”
Take a look at the thread on teenage suicide for some perspective. My goal is to raise my children to be productive, fully functioning, healthy adults who contribute to society. My goal has nothing at all to do with the name of the college on the diploma.
To each his own.
“The likelihood of financial success is higher after Stanford than after community college.”
utterly completely false premise.
the likelihood of financial success is higher after COMPLETING an UG degree AT ANY 4 year ACCREDITED COLLEGE , rather than stopping after 2 years of CC.
I agree with post #90, it’s utterly rubbish. British word for garbage.
Out of curiosity Californiaaa did you study in IIT? (BS in biophysics ,MS/PHD at Stanford working in the legal field.) I Get the impression English is your 2nd language based on your style of writing. I am trying to understand the mindset or culture you are coming from. The student needs to be able to think independently. Parents can guide a child but the kid has to be the one taking the lead on this. Lots of kids get straight A’s in middle school. That is no indication of how they will perform in high school. A child can be coached and packaged but the main effort comes from internal motivation. When they complete their college applications their individuality comes through in their essays. You can try to plan out classes for high school but expect to keep adjusting and reassessing each year based on performance and exploring different interests. Genuine interest comes across in an application. Admission officers can tell if the application has been padded. As far as standardized tests, you can prepare for them and even go for private tutoring but that does not guarantee a top score. Some kids have that natural test taking ability and some don’t. You can try to impose academic goals on a child but that doesn’t work really well if the motivation to meet that expectation is not there. That would be a child that is trying to meet a parent’s expectation and not their own passions or goals. If the child is forced to do something they are not going to do well. Realize that there will be many students applying with similar stats. What makes this child different. I don’t think you can fake genuine passion. Good luck. I hope this child is able to maintain a well balanced high school experience without getting burnt out.
Also parents should be looking into cost of attendance. If the child works so hard to get in and the parents determine that they can’t afford it that would be a bummer.
“I did graduate school at Stanford”
californiaaa,
GRADUATE schools have COMPLETELY different admissions parameters from US UG schools.
In Graduate school, there is NO pressure on admissions offices to have a balanced class- either ethnically, geographically, internationally, and they can also ignore the need to have as close to a 50% male, 50% female ratio, % of pell grant vrs full pay, etc, etc.
They can accept who they or their professors want to based on their own criteria and can ignore many factors that go into UG admissions decisions.
Oh and BTW- DS who went to a UG U that was NOT considered to be anywhere near the top 20, is now completing his PhD at Caltech- rated above Stanford among most academics.
I mention that only to show that WHERE a student in the US goes to UG school is NOT as important as the qualifications of the student himself. And there are hundreds of US colleges that fully prepare their students for top Graduate schools.
Post #92, See this thread
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1552486-why-learn-second-language-in-college.html
My son was a lot like blossom’s MIT was on his radar early on because of Open Sourceware, Media Lab and other stuff a computer nerd is bound to bump into. We also used to joke that even though he was a legacy at Harvard he’d probably be better off at the place down the river. Well the place down the river deferred and then ultimately rejected him. But life went on - I think he may have ended up happier at Carnegie Mellon (#24 on the list!) than at MIT. He’s in his dream job. He did it by getting good grades and good scores and doing the usual ECs plus a pretty impressive set of activities all related to computer programming. (Job, volunteer, helping with research.) We helped him find some of these opportunities, some fell in his lap, others he went after. My only wish for him was to end up someplace where there were a lot of kids who were smarter than him. He got that in spades. Oh and he still has to be reminded to send thank you notes to grandma, but he does do it.
Other kid was much more happy go lucky. He liked history best, but didn’t want to be a historian. He ended up in IR but wanted to be at a school with many good departments. And what made him stand out from the crowd? He started doing origami so he wouldn’t fall asleep in class. He started making earrings so he wouldn’t have to spend money giving birthday presents to friends who were girls. He started selling them because a gallery admired them. He taught a class at the senior center because I said he need to give back to the community. He spun the whole story into a funny essay. There was never a plan for this, just one thing led to another. He graduated a year ago, had two internships, one turned into a job, but he’s actually got something else in mind for the future. It’s something both his education and hobbies have prepared him well for. We’ll see if he makes it happen. Oh and his school wasn’t a top 20 either - though he got into one that was in the top 10 at the time.
Most of my friends have college age kids. I haven’t met a parent who doesn’t say their child is special. If I think of one kid that truly made an impression in my mind it would be my friends son. He graduated from a STEM Magnet school. He got into top ten schools. He decided to attend the state school with a full four year scholarship for college. Father said are you sure? The elder son had gone to University of Pennsylvania majoring in Biophysics. He said yes dad I will be successful here. He graduated with top honors with a degree in Electrical engineering. Senior year he decides that he wants to go to med school. Elder brother attend NYU med school after graduating from Penn. He is now attending Tufts for medicine. Both sons were truly MIT/Standford caliber kids. Will they be successful. Definitely.
These kids were going to be successful no matter what school they went to for undergrad. They just were cream of the crop kids and though their parents were interested in their education the students were go getters. They had the motivation and the ability to succeed. Elder one is going into General Surgery. There are lots of super smart kids at state schools who don’t have the ability to finance a top school. Not everyone is ready to take out college loans.
I don’t see anything odd about planning out a high school program. We were asked to make such a plan by our 8th grade counselor. They want people to be aware of the offerings and to make sure that everyone has a plan which meets graduation requirements. In fact, I think it would be strange for people to enter high school without a 4 year plan. Before everyone jumps on me (because people like to take what other ssay to logical absurdity on this site), it’s a plan. A plan is not a legal contract. It’s also helpful in seeing what the workload might be, in ensuring that prerequisites are taken in time, that possible scheduling conflicts are minimized, and in making a student think seriously about their future and prioritize what is important to them.
“If you think that his plan needs improvement, where should he improve?” Yes, his plan desperately needs improvement. He needs to start thinking for himself, set his priorities, and define his interests both in school and outside. His parents need to back off and stop pressuring this kid so much or he may be the next stressed out high school student to jump in front of a train.
Once again, it is not the PLAN that is strange. I think most people agree that at least having a framework for 4 years is desirable. It is the top 20 or bust and “How can he get into X category of school?” in 9th grade that has people’s fur raised.