You or your son may want to explore how it is actually possible to graduate from that department at Cornell in 2.5. I’m guessing it includes classes during those 2 summers which removes the option of internships that help get the post-graduation jobs that you are counting on. Cornell - I believe across the board - limits AP and credits from other schools (separate from transfer) to 12 credits, just shy of a single average semester. That gets you pretty easily to 3.5 if you take even just one heavy semester (meaning 18 or 19 credits instead of the “normal” 15). Getting the additional 30 credits to bring it down to 2.5 from 3.5 will likely not be that easy. Worth checking if he’s really planning on that route.
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Understood. I am simply stating that a school is not obligated to accept a student because they have reached the statistical threshold for acceptance. And I am also extending “fit” on the schools’ part to include whether or not the applicant fits into their yield management and/or protection practices. If the school decides an applicant is unlikely to enroll, regardless of what is driving that decision, it should be able to make the choice to instead pursue an applicant that those same practices lead them to believe will enroll.
My friend’s son went to a Google internship after sophomore year at Cornell. They told him he can come back full time if he can finish Cornell the following year. He has been at Google for a few years now. He finished Cornell in 3 years. He was unplanned going in. The department rep that spoke to us told us that if we planned, my son could finish in 2.5. This was not a selling point to us. He didn’t apply to Cornell.
I know two kids who graduated from NEU - both their coops led to employment with Morgan Stanley (he’s now with Goldman) and Amazon, respectively (I would consider those “top” employers for what that is worth). No, NEU is not for everybody (and I have zero affiliation with the school nor did my S22 apply) but the kids I know that went there have had very, very good career success and excellent placement. You don’t need to denigrate NEU if it isn’t your cup of tea.
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Wow - I can’t disagree more but it’s not keeping with the subject of yield protection.
Companies want experience. Period. Co op > better than internship because you can delve deeper, get into deeper projects.
But yes, most just get internships.
And regardless of what people think, colleges - even “top” ones don’t get their kids internships. They might have better contacts to expose to more opportunities - including on campus recruiting - but ultimately kids get internships.
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I am just saying that if it takes a school 5 years in some shape or form to turn out employable kids, we need to think carefully whether we even want to go there. When there are other schools that are managing the same thing in 4
Neela, I think you might be missing the point on coops. It is not whether “Google really care(s) that you had a coop at a local company for six months”, it is that you had a coop working for Google and that led to a job with them after graduation. And yes, employers do care that you have meaningful work experience with well known, reputable companies.
Kettering - formerly General Motors Institute - is a good case study. It is not highly ranked, or terribly selective, and it is in beautiful, scenic Flint, but it has great outcomes for its engineering students due almost entirely to its coop program. Students graduate in five years with two full years of work experience, usually within the automotive industry. The CEO of GM and much of the company’s senior management are Kettering alumni. The dean of Harvard Business school said that they consider Kettering a feeder program.
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This is factually incorrect. There are many employers that don’t care about coops. In fact there are employers that want to employ you from day 1. Because you are not exposed to a different culture that they would then have to get you to unlearn.
Let’s move on from debating the value of co-ops, please.
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Your daughter sounds amazing and as if she would thrive everywhere and anywhere. I hope she is rewarded for all her hard work and gets into her top choice in RD with whatever aid is needed. But even if she doesn’t, it sounds like life will work out well for her. This process is stressful and anxiety provoking for kids and parents alike. Give yourself a break, do something fun together, and pat yourself on the back. Regardless of the subjective judgment of a bunch of AOs, you’ve raised a winner and should be proud of yourself and of her.
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Thank you and that is very nice of you to say .))
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Norik, your D sounds amazing but as others have pointed out- she has not been rejected by ALL of the top 50 colleges- and in fact, doesn’t sound like she’s been rejected anywhere- a deferral is not a rejection.
I’m sure she’ll end up somewhere fabulous.
I just want to point out from the peanut gallery that I was “that kid” (allegedly MUCH lower stats, didn’t “deserve” to get admitted to the college I attended when so many “better” students from HS got rejected.) My guidance counselor called an Adcom when I got a “Likely Letter” (I was not an athlete) and an invitation to a special weekend for “likelies”. GC was sure it was a mistake and the invitation was meant for one of the higher ranked students at my HS.
I just don’t know that a classmates parent would have known enough about me to decide that I didn’t “deserve” my admission. Maybe the adcom’s wanted a normal middle class kid to put in a freshman dorm with a bunch of intimidating prep school kids whose families came over on the Mayflower or at least “summered” in Nantucket? Who knows.
But I got in, went, did well (magna cum laude, back in the day when it meant something), won departmental awards for research, blah blah blah. So at no point did I think “Gee, this was a mistake”, I just felt lucky.
But I do react when I hear parents complaining that some “lower ranked kid” got in somewhere and their kid was rejected. One doesn’t know.
But unless the college practices “Rack and Stack” admissions where they start at the top and continue downward in stats until the class is filled, it’s mean to assume that the kids who got in were “lesser”. I was not as highly ranked as kids who were rejected- that’s a fact. But I have always had off-beat academic interests, and my college was certainly a terrific fit in providing opportunities for those interests. And I’ve done my best to “pay it forward” because they took a risk on me.
Your D will end up somewhere fabulous- which McGill CERTAINLY is! And accepted to all her safeties with honors and merit? She’s doing great!
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At our high school, no one who takes art or music can be valedictorian because those courses are not weighted. Students who want to be top ranked must only choose courses that are weighted. And as norik95 said, students (like my kid) who take art are seen as “less qualified academically” and have taken “less rigorous classes” and have a “lower GPA.”
If schools wanted to base their decisions solely on courses completed, grades earned, and standardized tests, then that would be all they would ask for in the application. But they also ask for essays and letters of recommendations, and there is no way for parents to know how to compare these components of the application. And I don’t believe that students with the highest GPAs taking the most rigorous classes will always have the best essays and the best recommendations.
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“You think you know…ie they had less this or that. But you don’t really know.”
The kids know a lot about how their classmates stack up, they really do. The kids in a class know without a doubt who the top students are and who aren’t. They know the kids that most likely will get into say MIT or Cal Tech or Stanford or Harvard and apply accordingly, meaning ED to a college where they don’t have to compete with those students.
You are totally misunderstanding how co-op programs work and worse, you are basically saying people that graduate in 5 years are somehow deficient in their skills and experiences.
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Colleges almost certainly predict yield on an individual basis for any applicant or admit. An admit estimated to have a 3% chance of matriculating therefore counts as 0.03 student added to the incoming class, while an admit estimated to have a 50% chance of matriculating counts as 0.5 student added to the incoming class. In general, colleges should know that stronger applicants are less likely to matriculate if admitted, because they are more likely to have other attractive competing admissions (or scholarships).
Colleges that only care about predicting yield (which they generally do), rather than pushing it upward, will admit “overqualified” applicants but count each one as a very small addition to the expected matriculating class. But colleges that want to push it upward are likely to waitlist or reject “overqualified” applicants unless they show an increased chance of matriculating by hitting the “level of interest” indicators.
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Great discussion. Funny. Back in the day, NEU was a commuter
night school and we were warned to not to go south of Fenway.
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