The excessively disappointing Nature of "Ivy Day"

It always surprises me just how extraordinary most of the kids of CC posters must be. It seems that for the most part they never succumb to peer pressure and never get caught up in the college rat race. They are seemingly immune to the spell of the societal and marketing cues that portray an elite education as the key to happiness and success. They would never dare become emotionally invested in their college search, or disappointed in the results. They all somehow manage to keep it all at arms length.

And the parents/posters may even be more impressive. They carefully and successfully raised their children to only and always pursue what they truly love and never for the purposes of building an application or keeping up with everyone else. They’ve managed to get their kids to internalize “Applying Sideways” from a very early age, and so they never really need to give admissions much thought at all. As for their admissions (often to elite schools), well they are all a product of realistic grasp of how the process works, and a refusal to ever compromise their passions. It was their passion which lead them APUSH and BC Calc in ninth grade, not the desire to pursue the most rigorous curriculum for college admission purposes. Pretty impressive sense of self for 13 year olds! And as for everyone else? Well they and there parents made poor choices.

I must live on another planet, because where I live, it isn’t nearly so simple. For example, it takes much more than being “ambitious” to get into the state’s flagship, and the neither those accepted nor denied would “laugh hysterically at the notion that the college admissions system is ‘broken.’” They’ve seen too many talented, hardworking, and “ambitious” kids who are rejected despite stellar qualifications. The introspective ones realize that however it worked out for them personally, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to why, and that they could just as easily be on the outside looking in, or vice versa. That doesn’t mean they are all suicidal, or that they won’t shake it off and get on with it, but even ones who end up where they want realize that the process is flawed, and that what the required personal and emotional investment is huge and the potential payoff slim.

And of course it is a “choice” as to whether to pursue a supposedly “elite” education. But there are layers and layers of pressures (internal and external) influencing those choices. Parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, coaches, peers, flashy marketing material, popular media, relatives, role models, rankings, profiles, test scores, aptitudes, college visits, tours, work ethic, ambition, competitiveness, etc. all have a hand on the scale, and almost all are hinting that the right “choice” is to strive for a supposedly “elite" education. It is asking a lot to expect kids to see through all this and keep the process in the proper perspective.

And of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it does apply to a significant segment of society that pursue the dream of an elite education, often despite their best efforts to avoid getting caught up in it for the wrong reasons.

ETA: I meant this to be a reply to the thread, not @Cascadiaparent in particular.

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EA and ED limit the number that apply across the spectrum. If that was removed, you would see a larger population get accepted to many high reach schools.

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I guess I just cannot imagine a kid (or parents) who are so emotionally crushed with an Ivy rejection that they are suicidal had never looked at acceptance rates or cost of attendance. Those kids who are Ivy obsessed know its a long shot. Those parents and kids are often on social media asking “what can my middle schooler do to get into T20s?”

Do I think too many kids are obsessed with Ivies? Yes. Do I think kids are blindsided with a rejection? Not really. I don’t think kids are gutted with a rejection because they lacked the facts of admission rates. They are simply sad that they didn’t win the lottery and feel they aren’t living up to what is often familial pressure or naivety that they are the “best of the best.”

I dont think there is a cure for the “assymetric information” in college admissions because many applications are looked at more holistically. Knowing that a kid with a 3.7 GPA got into Harvard doesn’t help rejected kids feel better thus making knowing the average gpa or average test scores irrelevant.

Test scores and GPA are long since not the only deciding factors in college admissions. And due to privacy concerns, they shouldnt have to tell you what personal factors or life experiences or hardships they discussed helped them get admitted.

I know kids obsessed with getting the latest iphone. Apple does amazing marketing. But if a kid throws a fit because they dont get one is it Apples fault? I find it real easy to avoid the hype. Parents should help their kids do the same.

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Maybe think about this from the kid’s perspective. Suppose the kid’s parents, grandparents, and family are from cultures which highly value “elite” education, and, from the time the kid is very young, the family has shaped their lives around doing whatever it takes to get the kid qualified for a T20, including sacrificing their time and money for EC’s, tutoring, better schooling, and the kid does everything they can, gets great grades, test, scores, EC’s., etc.

Can you really not imagine how the kid will be “emotionally crushed” if they are rejected to all the T20’s to which they applied? Imagine doing everything asked of you and still feeling like you let down your family.

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You made my point, its from the family, not the fact that 8 schools happen to release acceptances on the same day. And those families know the admit rates thus they push insane standards.

Parents need to do better.

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How can you not feel for these kids. But, where does the responsibility lie? Certainly not with the kid, IMO, who is just for the most part trying to please parents and family. But I don’t think it lies with the school either. I really think, in the final analysis that the responsibility lies with the parents. Why would a parent place all that weight on their own kid?

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MTMind-
“I must live on another planet, because where I live, it isn’t nearly so simple. For example, it takes much more than being “ambitious” to get into the state’s flagship”.

You don’t live on another planet, but I’m guessing you live in Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Maryland or California.

Do you think there are “college prepared” kids in Wyoming or Rhode Island or New Hampshire or any of the 45 states without a “Michigan-like” public U who need to sweat their EC’s to get into their own State U? No- a kid can’t skate through HS with a D average and get into U Mass. But you don’t need to be a superstar, and you don’t need a laundry list of competitive EC’s either. Who are these kids with the “stellar” qualifications who are getting shut out- and if they aren’t getting in to their top choice (which happens- that’s why it’s often called a reach) are you suggesting that the kids end up shelving dog food at Walmart instead of going to college at all?

There are many influential admission factors beyond balancing a class or random factors, like if an essay happens to resonate with a particular reader, but these may not be visible to the average student, which can make decisions feel random.

For example, the Harvard lawsuit went in extensive detail about the system used to evaluate and admit kids at Harvard, and for the most part found that decisions were not random and were not about balancing a class (beyond admission of certain hook groups). Instead decisions were reasonably predictable from statistical admissions models based on applicant information, even though the models didn’t consider balancing the class and didn’t consider essays.

However, the lawsuit analyses did find that admission was not a simple everyone is about the same after passing a basic threshold, and after that point it’s a lottery. Instead a small portion of applicants were given higher ratings than the vast majority of applicants in different categories, and those higher ratings were associated with increased chance of admission. The better the evaluation on a combined large number of criteria, the greater the chance of admission, up to near certain admission for some applicants.

For example, LORs were one of the more influential evaluated criteria. The reader guidelines list the following for the highest LOR rating. Having LORs talking about being the “best in a career” certainly isn’t a requirement for admission, but the few applicants that have such LORs are more likely to be admitted than they would without them

Strikingly unusual support. "The best of a career,” “one of the best in many years,”
truly over the top.

Similarly personal qualities was also especially influential. The highest guidelines list the following for highest personal qualities rating: An average of less than 10 applicants per year received this rating, which was associated with a high chance of admission, although not as a high as 1 on academic or ECs (possible due to lack of precision with small sample size). However, the most common admit category was getting above average ratings compared to applicant pool in many evaluated criteria, but none at the maximum – what the admission director has called “all-arounders.”

Truly outstanding qualities of character; student may display enormous courage in the
face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in life. Student may demonstrate a
singular ability to lead or inspire those around them. Student may exhibit
extraordinary concern or compassion for others. Student receives unqualified and
unwavering support from their recommenders.

I agree that different colleges consider and weight admission criteria differently, have different applicant pools, and have different admission goals. It is certainly not expected that if Harvard admits a student, then that student will be admitted to all colleges that are less selective than Harvard.

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Thank you so much for this lucid explanation. It’s really helpful. Admission to the Ivies and other “top schools” is clearly not a lottery.

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Blaming the families doesn’t really address the emotional harm done to the kids, does it?


I’m not talking about college prepared kids in Wyoming who want to go to college in Laramie. As I said, these issues don’t exist everywhere or for all college bound kids, but they do exist nonetheless.

And it’s simple for outsiders to say that kids with 1580 SATs, 4.0 UW, rigorous curriculum, impressive EC’s, etc. should be thrilled with their safeties and it would be great if they were thrilled, but that is not the culture within which they were raised.

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Actually, that’s kind of what I’m saying. For me, I place the blame primarily on the parents.

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That seems to be one way some are looking at it.

Indeed, some of the Ivies are now not publishing their admit rates. Why might that be? Does that enhance better information in the hands and minds of consumers (e.g., student applicants and their families)? I am very confused by this latest announcement by these Ivies, to be honest and in all seriousness.

For regular folks on CC, we know to go to the CDS and can compute it from there. For 99% of other families, much like me until a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have a clue what CDS meant (until I came here), much less the information it conveyed or where it could be located. I had never heard of ED, ED2, REA, SCEA, or whatever, and what those meant. That’s just for starters.

“Asymmetry of information”, in quotes or not, exists. I would NEVER have even thought to look elsewhere except what the schools published or a few books analyzing the data (if I had the time and money to obtain them).

Getting back to the issue of coordination on a decision date by eight ostensibly independent schools, why in h*** do they need to play games like this except to protect the “Ivy League” brand? There is a stated reason, and there is a more plausible reason. I choose to believe the more plausible reason: because they can and because it promotes the “Ivy League” brand and the constituent schools.

Like you said, you have your opinion, and I have mine. But to put the blame on the parents is the absolution of a principal culprit, namely the schools (not just the Ivies, but all “top schools”).

Goodnight all, lest I debate today! Peace.

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Administrators at Ivy League schools look at rhe world differently than you. They wonder what possible difference it would make to anyone if the admit rate is announced as 3.14 or 2.98 percent, other than to send kids into a tizzy yet again. And it is even fair to announce the overall 2.98 rate, when the rate for unhooked applicants was less than half that? Would anyone be willing, short of a court order, to release admit rates by race?
There is some merit in just leaving it publicly as admit rates are always very low, typically below 5%, and not saying anything more

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You’ve mentioned this many times. If we concede that you’re right, does it matter? Are they not allowed to market their brand?

And regarding more information in the hands of the consumer, if the last two years have taught us anything, it is that people will act in completely divergent ways when presented with the same information. The schools don’t owe us anything, including changing Ivy Day.

Even further, if the acceptance rate was flipped (95% acceptance rate, 5% rejection rate), and the perfect student is rejected, the student still needs coping skills to deal with it and move on. Not society’s problem. If a student feels over pressured by family, they can fix it the next generation.

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Let me try to put it another way . . . how does placing the blame primarily on the parents address the emotional harm done to the kids?

It’s easy enough to say it is the families’ fault, and that they should act differently, but that changes nothing.

Indeed, @roycroftmom, you are PERHAPS making my points. The stated rate, to date, has been misleading, whether intentionally or whether by happenstance.

As another lawyer, I do totally agree with you that it is best to not publish these, especially if I were representing one of these schools.

But as a parent on CC, I know better. And if weren’t a parent on CC, I wouldn’t even know what to make of this! That’s my fundamental point about asymmetric information.

Thanks very much for your insight. It’s helpful. I didn’t know what to make of this. I wonder if this is in anticipation of the SCOTUS Harvard and UNC cases, which I state PURELY as speculation and with no basis whatsoever.

It’s just curious to me.

I am slapping my wrist as I promised not to post. But your post was very intriguing, to say the least!

They can do WHATEVER they want. My point is why?

If you’re saying students and their families shouldn’t have more information…well, ok. Let’s just say we disagree…vehemently but friendly!

Goodnight! I have an extremely early call tomorrow, so bye for now.

I am truly sorry if anyone thought I was suggesting it was easy. I started my post crediting the advice and wisdom of our school’s GC - not my own as a parent. But we did try to take this advice and I think it helped. So I shared it in case it helps others. Our kids are under tremendous pressure. So we are we, frankly, as the ones who love and cherish them and want nothing but the best for them. So let’s be kind to ourselves as we all imperfectly make our way through this.

I can assure you there were plenty of tears shed during this application process. My child did not get into his “dream” school. He’s now choosing between his 2nd and 3rd choices and that is really a great place to be, especially given how this admissions season played out for so many others. He is lucky. He knows that. But he was certainly disappointed not to get into his first choice. It had nothing to do with prestige - he had to grieve the fact that some of the experiences he was looking forward to at that particular school weren’t going to happen for him. But he didn’t internalize it as a rejection of him or his credentials. He understood that he qualified for the school. He had a very strong application as evidenced by the fact that he got into equivalently picky schools. But they just didn’t have room for this student, this year. Disappointing - yes. Devastating - no. I don’t blame any parent with kids going through this process and struggling. It is a toxic process if smart, hard working kids leave it feeling “less than”. But that is what we are all dealing with at the moment. I offered advice that our GC offered us to help prepare our kid. I think it helped…if it helps others, great. If it doesn’t, I’m sure your will find the path through this that works best for your kids. I wish all of you and your kiddos nothing but the happiness and success they greatly deserve.

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Much of the discussion on this thread has basically been about assessing blame for “extreme disappointment”. I simply don’t think it lies with the schools, or on how they admit, or when they announce their admissions.

I think most kids do just fine with how admissions are rolled out, some may feel bad for a day or two much like they would if girl/boy friend left them. They get over it, it’s a growth opportunity.

Would it be any better if there was no information asymmetry? I don’t think so. Some kids have a tougher time dealing with rejection - and that a family affair.

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This is me still not debating. Good night.

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Ditto for me too!! Goodnight!