Suggested I post here

Parent Cafe
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<p>I completely agree with Marite’s observation about the OP’s reaction to some input from this board. I was going to write a pretty detailed input/advice, and when I saw him behaving rudely, I decided not to waste my time on a kid who is getting amazingly valuable advice and input from parents who collectively bring more value than a dozen exorbitantly priced private college search counselors, but instead of showing appreciation and humility, chose to respond rudely with a sense of entitlement. </p>

<p>By the way, given the statement that s/he thought the marketing materials were surefire invitation to their school as an admitted student, the “unsophisticated” is the right word. It’s obvious that s/he has no understanding how the whole college application/admission process works, and kind strangers were trying to educate him free of charge! When I was looking for advice as a parent of a kid going through this, many kind people on this board helped, and I couldn’t be more grateful for their kindness.</p>

<p>If s/he did not mean it, s/he needs to learn how to communicate in such a way not to elicit negative sentiments from people. If my kid behaved this way, I would be really wondering what it is that I did or did not teach them at home.</p>

<p>I hope s/he learns something from this exchange: when s/he goes out to the big world, this is the kind stuff more important on the long run than a college s/he attends. One of the things I drilled into both of my sons’ head is never to take other people good will for granted and to know how to turn well meaning people into “committed allies” by “rewarding” their helping hands with properly expressed appreciation and humility. </p>

<p>I have always played a role of a mentor to most of the young folks who worked for me, but the moment I notice this “entitlement” mentality, s/he never gets back on my “mentee” list.</p>

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<p>Here’s a tip to any students who might want to ask questions here: try reading a bunch of old threads first. For example, there are many threads about the meaning of mailings from colleges.</p>

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<p>Agreed about college mailings. DD got a TON of them from Wash U St. Louis. Believe me…she would NOT have gotten accepted there. Most said “you are just the type of person we want in our student body”, and the like. I cryptically told her she should bundle up all (probably 20 or more mailings from them) together with an application and a cover letter saying “Enclosed is my application to your school. It supports what you have said to me in these many attached letters. I would be a terrific student at your school.” She didn’t do it…but I often wondered what the adcoms would have thought if she had. Oh…and many of these mailings looked like personal letters to DD. She started receiving them in NINTH grade…well before she had ever taken a PSAT or SAT test.</p>

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<p>“I have always played a role of a mentor to most of the young folks who worked for me, but the moment I notice this “entitlement” mentality, s/he never gets back on my “mentee” list.”</p>

<p>No second chance after a mistake? Summarily rejected? No chance to learn? Yikes.</p>

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<p>I’ve posted before about how I offended a woman on our mission trip last February by tactfully telling her that the college marketing materials her daughter was getting based on her (not that great) PSAT score were NOT offers of admission. She was saying “SMU really wants her to come there” and “Baylor thinks she is a perfect fit”. Unsophisticated…yep.</p>

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<p>Agree with all posters above who think your fallbacks are really reaches. D got into Rice with SATs in the 2200s, but her GPA was pristine. I’m sure that your under 3.0 GPA is going to give many an admissions committee member pause. For example, of the students enrolled at Colgate (who sent your such an encouraging letter), only 5% had a high school GPA between 2.5-3.0 (from the College Board site). That would make it harder to get into than Harvard!</p>

<p>You’ll need a very good essay explaining what went wrong and probably your other essays are going to have to knock their socks off to where they say, “We got to have this kid here”. You have to convince one person on the committee to go to bat for you. But if you have the English ability, you have a better chance than most in your situation.</p>

<p>I would definitely look at LACs in the midwest–there are great schools in the midwest that would be much more selective if they were located on the East Coast. One of my good friends was a classics major at St. Olaf, for example–great program there. If you do well for two years at your college, you might think of transferring to one of your first choice schools. Not to say that transferring is easy, but Barack Obama transferred from Oxy to Columbia–I’m guessing that he had some flies on his high school transcript.</p>

<p>So I think the best use of your time would be to find a safety school (or two) that you would love to attend–then apply to as many schools that accept less than 30% of its applicants as you want to and hope for a lucky break. </p>

<p>(BTW, I didn’t take the use of “unsophisticated” in a bad way in the context of this conversation. )</p>

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<p>PennLover- Another thing that always gives me pause is when a student member of this forum, such as yourself, chooses a screenname that ties him/her to one particular school. Have you visited Penn? Spent much time in Philadelphia? It may not be the place for you at all!</p>

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<p>Penn Lover: With all due respect, you didn’t understand the concept of a simple mailing list, and extrapolated it to mean that these schools truly cared about you and that you could use those schools as fallbacks. Not to recognize that these colleges, like any company / business / organization that has something to sell, simply buys direct-marketing lists and mails away to anyone who might remotedly be a prospect, EXACTLY LIKE any other junk mailings you or your family may receive – that IS naive, that IS unsophisticated. That has nothing to do with Missouri or rural or pigs or anything else.</p>

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<p>Schools Like Wash U have turned their direct mail marketing into a huge money maker while also changing the perception of the school over the last ten or so years. </p>

<p>It drove up applications at $55 per head, which in turn made their “selectivity” profile better which in turn made their ranking at USNWR higher, which in turn caused more people to become interested in the school etc, etc…</p>

<p>It was a no-brainer for Wash U (and others) and sends a message of false hope to far too many who don’t understand the marketing for what it really is.</p>

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<p>Here is an article explaining a bit about these messages sent out by colleges:</p>

<p>[Reed</a> College Admission Office](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html]Reed”>http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html)</p>

<p>The actual title of the article is “Admissions Messages vs. Admissions Realities.”</p>

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<p>“No second chance after a mistake? Summarily rejected? No chance to learn? Yikes.”</p>

<p>The person who said they dump mentees when mentees start acting entitled acts the way many kind people act. Most people don’t bother to spend the time and energy that it takes to mentor. Many of the people who do mentor will stop immediately if the mentee seems to feel ungrateful or entitled. </p>

<p>The mentors were doing others a favor. It makes lots of sense to stop the favor if the recipients act unappreciative and entitled. The mentor can always help some of the many appreciative people who would be glad to have mentors, but haven’t been fortunate enough to attract one.</p>

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<p>Hmmm. Okay. I guess I would give a mentee a second chance after a single moment of error.</p>

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<p>From Reed:</p>

<p>“Up to the judgment day of the decision letter, we seem to smile at each and every applicant. Then we turn on the frown and cease all contact with most of our applicants (perhaps even 90 percent of them)…”</p>

<p>Oh, so true!!</p>

54

<p>Vossoron,</p>

<p>Acting “entitled” is not a one simple mistake - like blurting out an impolitic word in a meeting one time. It’s really a cumulative expression of an underlying attitude. </p>

<p>There was a woman who I literally walked thorough the Wharton MBA application/admission process, heavily editing her personal statements to writing a glowing recommendation letter as a supervising executive and an alum. She did ALL the right thing with me, showing appreciation, etc. But the moment she got the admission letter, she completely dropped ALL pretenses, and simply never sent a word of appreciation, and left work to Philly for school without so much a good bye other than the routine office greetings for everybody.</p>

<p>Then, she contacted me again after a year at Wharton, clearly trying to get my input and advice on her summer internship. I did not bother to even respond and acknowledge her email, and YES, she is forever out of my mentee list.</p>

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<p>Okay, fair enough. I was reacting, perhaps incorrectly, to your “… but the moment I notice …” which didn’t sound cumulative, but I understand how it can apply to the case above.</p>

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<p>This is a very common mistake. Those letters are sent in far larger numbers than there are freshman slots so that many students will apply while only a select few will be admitted. That is how schools like Harvard can claim a 7% admit rate.</p>

<p>The letters (& appliations, look books, etc.) are sent based on PSAT, ACT or SAT scores alone. They know nothing else about you, including your GPA.</p>

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<p>I do not think you are unsophistacted because of your question. I think you are unsophisticated because of what you wrote here.</p>

<p>The fact is that every year there are young men and women from poor, rural areas who work on farms who exceed every score you’ve posted and who will get into Rice, Duke and UPenn. </p>

<p>My own father-in-law, no doubt a figure worth of mocking to you, went from the farm to Harvard, with lifelong friends from both. </p>

<p>Now I’m done with this thread.</p>

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<p>Dear PennLover,<br>
American and Tulane might well take your high scores and overlook your gpa… both are in fabulous urban locations. Both are interested in students who will help them improve their rankings. You should be aware that many schools don’t consider the Writing portion of the SAT (which will hurt your score considerably).</p>

<p>My son will be a freshman at American in less than two weeks. He, as an amazing test taker, received HUNDREDS of college letters telling him he was just “their kind” of student… (his SATs were 800m, 750v, 750w, he was also a National AP Scholar at the end of 11th grade, a National Merit Finalist now scholar, TASP participant, Peace essay winner, etc). His GPA was a 3.6. </p>

<p>Harvard sent a three page letter, Yale sent a view package, WashU deluged him with mail… And Penn wrote to him as well. When he applied, he had astonishingly fabulous reccomendations (“in my 30 years of teaching, the single most gifted, intellegent student I have ever encountered”, type of thing), several national awards and had volunteered, over the course of 6 years, thousands of hours at a single agency, raising in excess of 20k and starting a continueing youth support organization with members from 5 different local high schools.</p>

<p>In the end, Yale and Penn rejected him, Harvard waitlisted (then rejected) him and WashU accepted him. The cold, hard reality is that there are thousands and thousands of simply outstanding, amazing students out there. The super-selective schools mostly select students that are outstanding in EVERY AREA. The few that have weaknesses (like a sub 3.9 GPA) are usually recruited athletes or development admits.</p>

<p>In the end, my son chose to attend the least selective school he applied to (American) because of their top ten program in his specific area, the huge merit award and the great DC location. It was a school he was completely unaware of at the beginning of his search, that he applied to as a “safety”, but which gradually grew on him…By the time he was forced to make a decision, American was his number one choice, beating out WashU, University of Chicago, UVA, Brandeis and NYU.</p>

<p>Although it is kind of fun to brag about my brilliant offspring, I write this to let you know that it is important to:
a)Look widely, read all the mail that comes and consider schools you don’t yet know anything about
b)Understand that you are a very weak candidate to the top schools
c) Think hard about what is really important to you-- a location, a particular program and try to look for schools that satisfy those most important things and that you have a reasonable chance of admittance to.</p>

<p>Unless you have a truly unusual reason for your poor performance in 9th and 10th grade (like the death of a parent or a major, major illness which kept you out of school for huge chunks of time), your chances of admission at Penn are virtually nil, but your chances at Tulane or American are very good. You may even automatically qualify for the honors college at American based on SAT scores (not sure, but I read that anything over 1450 m+v was acceptable).</p>

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<p>I would be embarrassed if my kids didn’t have the common sense to get that these letters are from a mailing list. How can someone not figure that out? My goodness, from the moment they’ve taken standardized testing, they’ve gotten tons of mail from colleges from East Bumble Dogpatch State U halfway across the country to Harvard and everywhere in between. It’s called junk mail. It’s absolutely no different from the other junk mail that we all receive. Why would they think that East Bumble Dogpatch State U “cares” about them? And why would they think that Harvard “cares” about them? I’m sorry, my kids are typical sheltered and somewhat naive high school students, but that’s a whole new level of naivete that is quite scary. And I don’t buy that otherwise intelligent kids really think that these are personal, the-college-cares-about-you letters.</p>

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<p>PizzaGirl, I think you are being a bit unfair. Many of these letters are quite “personalized” and go to great lengths to imply that the student was specially selected for the letter because of their accomplishments.</p>