Re: Stanford admissions
A while back, @Data10 claimed to have gone through a Stanford decision thread and made the following observation:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16289290#Comment_16289290
Also, this comment:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16061272#Comment_16061272
If the latter is accurate, then the high school academic “arms race” can certainly reach the point of diminishing returns. But one still has to do well in the EC “arms race”.
It didn’t hurt HER because I’m a SAHM who has the time, smarts, and sufficient awareness to know how to advocate. It’s not about my kids! 2/3 have already finished the race. But what I know about how these districts operate comes through years of personal experience, so what I can share is what I saw with my kids. If we are really concerned about national achievement, we have to look at why entire groups of students, not just in poor urban schools but IN TOP DISTRICTS, are falling behind. It’s too simple an analysis to say that only Asian students are smart and motivated enough to take rigorous classes and learn advanced math and science. Too many parents trust the school, and they shouldn’t, I agree. But our public school education used to be adequate and parents are slow to adjust to the understanding that it isn’t. Even so, IMO we shouldn’t settle for a system that entails our children be slaves to workbooks and outside prep classes beginning at age 4.
“But she got into the elite school you were craving. So how did it hurt her?”
She is pointing out that sometimes schools get it wrong, and that that may harm some students.
That is true, but all most of us can do is take care of our own kids. We can’t change the process. We can only understand it, try to guide our own kids through it, and help them find the path that is best for them.
"Stanford actually shouldn’t be the case study to use as its stats are a little lower than HYPM, Chicago, Columbia, Vanderbilt, and WUSTL for example. They are more in the Duke, Penn, JHU range of incoming statistics despite getting higher application volume than those schools. "
Oh good lord. Angels dancing on the head of a pin. These are all equivalent schools with equivalent stats.
“What I have been trying to communicate is that in a district where kids are now taking AP Calc BC in 7th grade or earlier, the student who takes Calc BC as a sophomore or junior is only AVERAGE. Before long, AP Calc will have to be taken in 5th grade to stay ahead. That’s where the stress is coming from.”
Fwiw, my kids got into elite schools with Calc BC as seniors. So clearly elite schools aren’t ALL saying “oh yea, I want to see Calc BC as early as possible.” Can you think of the possibility that elite school adcons see a world bigger than just your high school? Do you think they are unaware of the over-prepped and over- pushed kid?
My kids are younger than yours, PG, and such is the case for their peers (as you have spoken). I have a feeling this poster is talking about the way things are shaping up right now.
Just because someone else may be ahead of you does not mean that you are behind reasonable expectations of something like college-readiness.
Indeed, if you actually do go to a super-selective college, there is a greater chance that you will find yourself in a position of being behind many or the majority of other students than if you go to some college that is not quite as selective. But that does not make you an academic slacker or anything like that.
Admissions decisions are relative to the school the student attended, as you all know. If the “most rigorous” curriculum entails taking calculus in middle school (which it does, since our curriculum goes 4 levels beyond), and science placement is dependent on math placement (which it is here), then your D would not have been in even the second or third most rigorous track, PG. Maybe a unique EC would have done the trick, but I don’t think the top schools are dropping that far down in class rank.
“But as the number of Asians increase, it’s harder for students to be able to “win” just by working hard and engaging in the Saturday and summer school routine, because all the other Asians are doing the same thing. So more and more is required to succeed, and thus the stress level rises.”
That’s because you defined “winning” as Ivy Leavue/equivalent. Don’t you see that? That was your choice.
And you keep on deliberately missing the point. I suspect that your D, though very bright, would not have even been in the top third of the class at WWP if we assume she had taken the same curriculum. I really wonder how good her admissions results would have been if she had been a student there.
Then she might have gone to a school ranked 30 instead of one ranked 5 (or whatever). And the world would have still rotated on its axis.
You can say that only because you’re not Asian, lol.
Calculus as a regularly offered middle school class is hard to believe. To offer calculus in middle school, that would mean that there have to be significant numbers of students who are at or near prodigy level in math. Even the most aggressively tiger parented kids are not likely to get there, unless they are true near prodigy students in math who would get there anyway without the aggressive tiger parenting.
Note that offering four post-calculus math courses does not necessarily mean that students have to have taken calculus in middle school to take all four, since post-calculus math courses do not have a linear prerequisite sequence. Multivariable calculus and differential equations can be taken independently of each other after calculus, and linear algebra and discrete math actually do not require calculus at all (although they are typically mainly recommended for students who have completed calculus).
Wait, so now American kids AREN’T falling behind, ucbalumnus? Hmm, those with American culture seem to be having trouble in our district even making the honor roll, and less than 10% of the NMF and Commended Scholard are non-Asian. And nationally, even including our top kids of every ethnicity, we are behind.
American = Asian kids who are born here, too.
All these policies vary by district. The simplest things for parents to do may be to move to another district. Colleges read applications “in context,” with the local opportunities in mind. It is possible to opt out of the “rat race,” without deciding a decade before college applications are due, “oh, well, there’s always community college.”
As a taxpayer, I am not happy at reports of students sorted into “accelerated” tracks on the basis of instruction not available to other students. In such cases, school districts are knowingly creating a high-pressure school culture, segregated along income lines. The districts may feel they need to do it to appeal to high-scoring subpopulations.
The sort of over-the-top rat race described in many newspapers, magazine think pieces, and online chat rooms is highly concentrated. It may also explain many of the sour grapes complaints which show up on this site every spring. “They overlooked my child, and took those who took fewer APs/had a lower class rank/etc.” I do think college admissions people look for candidates who are more well-rounded than students who never stop studying.
There is a level of “adequate” preparation for any college, anywhere–and the sort of high-pressure childhood described on this thread (if not hyperbole) is a recipe for creating “crispies” and “teacups.” http://www.wendymogel.com/articles/item/the_dark_side_of_parental_devotion_how_camp_can_let_the_sun_shine/
Newton is another town affected by a high-stress high school culture. This Boston Globe article reports on the third suicide in a cluster of three in 2014: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/02/newton-mobilizing-after-suicides-teens/ddoqf9XlrCPhEl6fbd2KYI/story.html.
An informed parent’s view of the situation in Newton:
“As a taxpayer, I am not happy at reports of students sorted into “accelerated” tracks on the basis of instruction not available to other students. In such cases, school districts are knowingly creating a high-pressure school culture, segregated along income lines. The districts may feel they need to do it to appeal to high-scoring subpopulations.”
Well, this is not exactly new. This was my school experience a hundred years ago. And we were separated by test scores, not income. The kids in the “regular” classes hated us, were mean to us, and threatened to beat our asterisks all the time.
For the record, I agree things should not be done this way.
From Stanford’s Common Data Set:
Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class: 96
Let me repeat. If a student is at an academic ratrace school, that student will not be going to Stanford unless they compete in the ratrace or they are a recruited athlete.
If a school has a sizeable cohort of students who are advanced enough to study calculus in middle school, those students shouldn’t be studying calculus in middle school. They should be branching off into other interesting fields of mathematics.
I wonder if schools don’t care much about rank and it’s just a coincidence that the kids they want also tend to have a high class rank. I think this is probably the case - rank is correlated but not a cause, of admission to elite schools.
I realize some say they do care - via their CDS answers - and some don’t. My kids is at an elite college now and is one of few that weren’t top 10% rank.
Of course about half of schools don’t report rank at all.