Ridiculous

Parents Forum
141

<p>I hope the OP is not still reading this thread. I don’t want to pile it on him, but I don’t think it’s the least bit surprising he didn’t get in. </p>

<p>His ECs are weak by Ivy standards. The name of the game is “out of school recognition.” Being prez of the chess club–how many members?–doesn’t matter all that much. It’s your ranking as a chess player that does. Chess players ARE ranked. So, if you are highly ranked that info should be in your application. If you’re not highly ranked, being pres of your high school club isn’t going to help much. Being prez of the business club is much the same. There are contests and national organizations in this field too. Did he make and market a great product? Did he place highly in the Federal Reserve Challenge? </p>

<p>The general approach is that you can’t be “fungible.” There is no indication in what this kid has told us about himself to suggest that he does any single thing well enough to make a real contribution doing it at a top school. He isn’t a recruited athlete; he doesn’t seem to be a top ranked chess player, etc. There’s no dearth of kids interested in econ and business at Dartmouth–the most business oriented of the Ivies–or at Brown, where the quasi-business concentration is one of the most popular on campus. </p>

<p>Now, that doesn’t mean that he really IS fungible. It just means that he hasn’t demonstrated that if a college doesn’t accept him there won’t be dozens of other folks in the applicant pile who will contribute the things he might contribute just as well as he would if he were admitted.</p>

<p>It’s not always ECs that make the applicant stand out. Harvard used to publish application essays. Some of them blew me away. (Not all did, frankly. Just some.) I remember one a girl wrote about the death of her father. Now, ordinarily death is a topic a young writer shouldn’t touch. But this essay was amazing. It started with the girl wearing an old Irish knit sweater while pacing the sidelines of her younger sister’s soccer game. Only gradually does the reader realize that the sweater was her father’s and he wore it while pacing the sidelines at her soccer games. She has refused to wash it because it has the scent of her father on it and the scent brings her comfort. She is trying to help her sister with soccer the way her dad helped her and she feels overwhelmed by the task. She doesn’t write any of it that directly. It was an extraordinary essay. It wasn’t the least bit surprising that the author was admitted to Harvard. </p>

<p>I also think the OP shot himself in the foot. “Founding an organization” which raised $1500 sounds pretentious to me. Is there a real organization that will continue to exist after the OP goes off to college? If not, he did not “found” an organization. It’s nice to raise $1500 for charity, but it probably would have been better to write that he “organized a fund raiser which raised $1500.” ( My kid had a classmate who did fund a charitable organization which raised over $1 million while he was in high school and that was a while back. It was a real organization , one which had achieved 503(c) status–if that’s the right number --and which had chapters all over the country by the time he finished high school. He delegated things to make sure he trained successors who would carry on his work. That’s founding an organization.) </p>

<p>Writing about his speech impediment probably wasn’t a great idea either. It’s the sort of thing that could have been better handled in the GC’s rec. </p>

<p>And for all we know, he blew it in the interview too by creating the impression that he viewed admission to Brown or Dartmouth as a consolation prize or a “sure thing.”</p>

<p>Now, I think the OP is entitled to lick his wounds. He’s a kid. It’s natural that he’s disappointed. He has the right to be. I’m sure he could do the work at any of these schools. But, based solely on what he wrote in this thread, he hasn’t convinced me that he differs in any substantive way from the hundreds of chess club, business club, and high school athletes who applied to the same colleges. </p>

<p>Almost all of them are great kids. There simply isn’t room for all of them. Most will go elsewhere and do just fine…in college and in real life.</p>

142

<p>You make some very good points, Jonri.</p>

<p>Still, I think the OP was a very viable candidate for Cornell, and when I saw his stats, I was a little surprised that he wasn’t admitted. But Cornell says that admission was more selective than usual this year because of a bigger-than-usual applicant pool. That may account for it.</p>

<p>Fortunately, Carnegie Mellon is a terrific school, and so are the top state schools that admitted the OP, so not having Cornell among his choices is no great loss.</p>

143

<p>Actually my son wasn’t “burned” in the admission process. He is a freshman at a top private university and was also accepted at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Rice, and Cornell. He was wait listed at Johns Hopkins and rejected from 2 ivys. His comment after the decisions last year was that if he wanted to go to either of them, he should have worked harder on his golf game and less on coursework. I think there’s something wrong with that.</p>

144

<p>FWIW, the OP seems to have finished licking his or her wounds around post #127. </p>

<p>As for this:</p>

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<p>Your son doesn’t know this and neither do you. I presume he’s moved on and is making the most of the opportunities at the top private university he is attending.</p>

145

<p>I’m still shocked at how bitter adults are over something as ‘silly’ as college admissions. I really do believe it to be a silly thing. Now, if the college you attended ultimately determined your fate in life, then I probably would not call it silly. But it doesn’t determine your fate and to get all bent out of shape about it for more than, say a day or two, is just plain silly.</p>

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<p>Case in point, seniormom. Your s didnt get into some of the schools that were perhaps higher on his list (eg “burned” by some) and he was probably disappointed, but overall he did well in the admissions process and is happy where he landed. Exactly the same outcome for this OP. So it was proably a bit much to some for him to to claim “ridiculous” or wonder where he failed the adcomms, and there is no need for you to to call some posters who happened to comment in this thread " some idiot comes back with a bashing response ".</p>

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<p>Yup. And it is assumed that the same words, tone, and approach used to vent on an internet message board are copied directly from the student’s essays.</p>

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<p>…and not know-it-all parents on CC whose kids were admitted to college X donkey’s years ago, either!</p>

<p>rd2012: don’t let anyone tell you that you are not allowed to be disappointed your hopes were not realized. That said, you’ve gotten in at some great schools. Good luck to you.</p>

148

<p>Based on your stats, It’s not a huge surprise you didn’t get into all of the ivies. Get a reality check; stop being pretentious and look at what other people do on chance threads.</p>

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<p>^^ and wasn’t THAT helpful!</p>

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<p>Geez! You guys are so vicious and quick to criticize! Of course he doesn’t KNOW if that would have gotten him in. I’m just saying that was his takeaway from the process since in his school, besides urms, that was who was accepted at any of the ivys.<br>
Sorry I ever posted on this forum. I really was only trying to support rd2015 as I find him to be an exceptional kid who was being told his accomplishments were insignificant
by a bunch of critical, bullying parents that need to get a life.
Don’t bother to respond to me bc I won’t be back to read it.</p>

151

<p>Have you read the thread, hpyscm? The OP has thanked everyone for the feedback and indicated his or her intention to “move on, and do the best [he or she] can at the colleges [he or she] got accepted to.” Your comments are neither helpful, as MomofWildChild points out, nor classy.</p>

152

<p>abs, it is only because I read your post did I stop myself from telling another poster not to let the door hit her on the way out…but I, too will try to be more helpful and classy :)</p>

<p>Seriously, I don’t think most of the adults on here were being nasty. Realistic, yes.</p>

153

<p>seniormom,
Your post #128 seems unduly baiting and confrontational. Calling posters names (e.g “idiots”), making some general insulting comments (e.g. hooked students will struggle) and twice talking about being prepared to be bashed because of them. Posters have responded and now you are acting all surprised? Really?</p>

154

<p>When my daughter went through the admissions process a couple of years ago I was surprised to see that admission to the top schools wasn’t all about academics like it was 30 years ago when I applied.</p>

<p>One day I realized why should it be all about academics? All applicants should clear some academic threshold but beyond that why can’t admission be based on other qualifications?</p>

<p>There are so many great schools. Admission to the top schools doesn’t need to be the be all and end all anyways.</p>

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<p>I never thought the OPs accomplishments were insignificant. He may have really benefited from and cared about the activities he participated in. In that case I consider them very significant and the best way he could have spent his time.</p>

<p>I would much rather see him do things he has a calling for than activities he doesn’t care about but thinks will get him into Harvard.</p>

156

<p>Again, if it’s only about academics there will be no vibrant life on campus. Some departments will die limiting the range of the school and many posts in ECs will go unstaffed. It was never just about academics for the Ivies and their friends.</p>

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<p>

I understand it feels that way to a lot of people but I believe it is a romanticized memory of the past.</p>

<p>The main driver of the increased difficulty in getting accepted to top schools is the increased number of applications from top students. You and I are pretty similar ages … since we applied … there are twice as many seniors per year … students applying to top schools apply to more schools.</p>

<p>Within the top schools themselves they have become increasingly meritocratic over time. When we applied 30 years ago the percentage of kids from prep schools was much higher, the % of students from high income families was higher, the % of legacy admits was higher … while … the % of minority students was lower and the % of first generation students was lower.</p>

<p>I’d recommend reading “The Chosen” (the book describes Yale admissions over a 75? year time range). Many see the book as an indictment of Yale’s admissions policies … I read it exactly the opposite that over time that admission have become increasingly merit based. The change has been slow and and there is still room to improve but the movement has been pretty one directional.</p>

<p>(For me the two topics that were the most fascinating were … 1) the discussion on the politics when Yale reduced legacy admissions … and 2) the issues faced when they started accepting women)</p>

158

<p>Even a million years ago when I applied to Harvard - serious applicants had plenty of accomplishments besides academics. I’d done the equivalent of the Gold Award for Girl Scouts which involved organizing all the scouts (Boy and Girl) in the city to clean up the C and O Canal, including inviting a Supreme Court Justice to kick off the day for publicity. Thanks to the school I’d also had internships on Capital Hill and had a bunch of volunteer stuff as well as the usual ECs.</p>

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<p>“The great thing is that we, as humans, don’t need to peak at 17 to do well in life. Ivy is not necessary for success, nor is it a guarantee for the future. Valuing education and making the most of every circumstance is essential.”</p>

<p>Love this, MizzBee!</p>

160

<p>I think the following scenario is bound to happen once in a while in an Ivy League college’s admissions department. An exhausted, bored admissions counselor picks up Student A’s application and thinks, “High SAT, high GPA, 5s on 12 AP exams, president of five school clubs, three-sport athlete, founder of program that feeds starving children, blah blah blah”. Eyes rolling, he/she puts the application down and reaches for Student B’s application. “Spent a year busking with a steel drum band in New York. Cool! Hey, this guy sounds interesting!”</p>

<p>Applicants like Student A are probably a dime a dozen. However, Student B really stands out from the start.</p>