My husband says the same thing. Was accepted to 3 Ivy League’s for college and says no way would he get into them now. Also accepted to Stanford and Uof Chicago for law school and not sure he could get into those now either, even after graduating from an Ivy. Who knows? So much has changed. He was from a lower middle class family and honestly I have no idea how they afforded any of it or what loans he had. He’s an only child and they lived in a 1 bedroom apartment. His parents gave him the bedroom and they slept in the living/family room.
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Nope, the “all that’s going on” was the reason given for getting a C, and the suggestion was to explain it in special circumstances.
Hopefully OP took my follow-up reply that it would be a bad idea.
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I don’t think having fun as a teen is out of their reach. It’s more that the context has changed. Fewer APs, if any, were offered to us, now my old hs offers 25+. Hs kids didn’t generally have internships or research, access to college classes, etc. Sports wasn’t the industry it is now. Same with all the enrichment programs and contests. Overall, the competition for a slot at a top college was far less fierce.
I do see plenty of kids who have fun. Their friends, downtime things, family, side interests, etc, do show up in their apps/supps. They balance. And many parents, who themselves strove to accomplish, encourage their kids to learn to manage. It’s not all bad.
But this brings me to another piece of suspect advice: “just be yourself.” In general, that’s great. But IF you’re aiming for a super selective goal, you do have to be mindful of the requirements and expectations. Otherwise, pick an easier set of targets.
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@lookingforward I didn’t say they can’t have any fun, I was commenting on the crazy high expectations these days. I have 3 kids, 2 in college and 1 a senior in HS, they have plenty of fun in their lives but I think there is a level of stress that this generation carries also. My oldest suffered from frequent migraines throughout high school. They all but disappeared once he was in college. His explanation? “It’s less stressful than high school” Ugh.
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I’m surprised by some of these posts. I thought this would be a common sense, non-controversial point: If you’re applying to be a Student–at any School–it’s better, on balance, if you can answer the fundamental admission question: “Hey, you’re applying to be a Student at our School where we study things. What do you think you want to study here and why? That is, why did you send us all this stuff to read about you? What is your goal?”
I’m not sure why there’s any resistance to this idea. Or why some think it’s an elite college thing. Boston College is #35 with a 27% acceptance rate. That’s still tough IMO. Do we really think it’s a toss up at BC when they’re considering an undecided major with no coherent academic vision vs. a student who applies with a thoughtful academic plan? I know professors and admins. there well: they want to ideally admit students who are fired-up about an academic discipline or two and have some idea of how they want to “set the world aflame.”
Some of you seem to be saying that at some schools you don’t Need this. Sure. Agree. But it’s still preferable IMO.
@GKUnion: Are students applying to a school with a 70% acceptance rate looking for advice on a site like this? I’d guess not. But if so, why doesn’t it apply? The admins and smart college profs. at 70% school don’t prefer the thoughtful student who articulates why they want to attend?
I also don’t totally get the complaint about this site being too focused on top schools. In my years working with parents and kids–they All want to apply (and think they have a shot) at top schools. And I really don’t see why the advice that applies for Stanford or Harvard doesn’t apply to UCLA or BC. (Do a YouTube search for UCLA Admissions Officer. Guy is talking about loving “well-lopsided” candidates. Just one small example.)
Maybe this notion of checking some “undecided box” is throwing some people. To be clear, the Common App. doesn’t even have a Majors box. It has a Future Plans box–where you indicate a possible career. (My advice, FWIW, is for students to check “Other” and then use the space to offer a creative, concise sentence on what they want to study and why. Excellent way to stand out. I’m sure many will disagree.)
So my advice is more about the substantive issue of how you are … “packaging” or “branding” or “presenting” yourself. I don’t like any of those ideas but I know people use them. Because it’s more straightforward than packaging: It’s all about writing about what you want to study and why–less about checking some box.
My take FWIW: it’s Nuts to apply to Any college and not have the focal point of your writing be what you want to study and why. You’re applying to an Academic University where Professors study Ideas–not the Peace Corp. or Army or Seminary. I can’t think of what else you would give priority to above the Ideas you most care about. That is, what you think you want to study and why.
–MCS
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My problem with this advice – which, I agree is excellent advice for some kids – is that many, many kids don’t really have a clue what they want to major in. Maybe they have a favorite class, and they are considering majoring in that. But they just have that one class! And a very weak attachment to it. Or, maybe they know they hate math, which eliminates a bunch of majors, but beyond that have no idea. My issue is with taking a kid like this and artificially trying to construct a narrative about what they want to study. Let them be undecided! If it means they won’t get onto Stanford that’s OK!
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@cinnamon1212 I think we agree. Read the last 2/3 paragraphs of my opening post. I’m encouraging students to use the college admission process to do this hard work of putting together the most thoughtful plan they can for now. (And I have no attachment to Stanford; it’s just my admissions background. There are Lots of Excellent schools.)
–MCS
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Too many people seem to treat colleges as places for a general education (effectively as extensions of high schools), rather than places for a highly specialized education. Only a very small portion of college graduates go on to graduate schools, so for most, specialized knowledge and/or skills are learned as undergrad (even if you go on to graduate school, you’ll need a lot of foundational knowledge from your undergraduate studies in your specialty, unless you’re willing to take extra time to learn it in graduate school).
Sure, college graduates can succeed with mostly general knowledges (HS graduates can, too). However, they have to compete with much larger number of similar graduates for those positions that only require general knowledge. As a country, we don’t produce nearly enough specialists. Ever wonder why graduate schools are full of foreign-born/educated students? In STEM, they’re the majority.
LACs are popular on CC. They’re great for SOME students who are truly undecided, but they’re really college versions of “boarding schools”. They aren’t representative because they’re only a tiny part of the higher education landscape.
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Many of the 70% or so admission rate colleges admit most or all students by stats-only. It is true that many of them do require applicants to select a major, and the major may result in different admission thresholds (either predetermined or competitively determined). But it is not like they have admissions readers reading thoughtful student essays about why they want to attend or study that major.
Here on these forums, such admission processes are derisively called “rack and stack” by some posters, as if colleges doing that are “beneath” discussion compared to highly selective colleges using subjective holistic admission processes.
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Although that sentiment (or related ones) is sometimes expressed on these forums, most bachelor’s degree granting colleges require that students focus on some specialty (a major) to complete a bachelor’s degree. This is not mutually exclusive to the college having general education requirements (which vary from none to extensive).
As a practical matter, most students are looking for at least somewhat specialized pre-professional preparation – note that more bachelor’s degrees are completed in overtly pre-professional majors than in liberal arts majors. Only a very small percentage are completed in “general studies” or some such.
That is because a US citizen or permanent resident with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, math, or statistics can usually get hired right away (although job prospects are weaker in biology and chemistry). Internationals need to qualify and compete for work visas to work in the US; earning a master’s or doctorate degree at a US university can be helpful toward that goal compared to trying to do it with a bachelor’s degree (especially a non-US one). So there is much more incentive for internationals to seek graduate degrees in the US compared to US citizens or permanent residents.
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Of course, a student would have to choose a “major” in college to graduate. However, some of these “majors” aren’t much of a specialization. What they require are cursory at best.
That the US graduates have less need for graduate schools in certain disciplines is certainly part of it, but not all of it. In STEM for example, many US graduates are simply unequipped to study at many top graduate schools. For college admissions, US students have an overwhelming advantage over their international counterparts because of undergraduate admission policies at almost all colleges. However, that advantage mostly goes away for graduate admissions.
Many bachelor’s degree graduates (US or otherwise, STEM or otherwise) are not really “graduate school material”. And many who are decide that graduate school is not their preferred route. However, internationals may find US graduate school to be a necessary stepping stone that is not required for US bachelor’s degree graduates.
I continue to be surprised at those US upper middle class parents who do not bat an eyelid at requiring their high school kids, in addition to just going to school, and, you know, learning and doing homework and taking exams and doing well there, to train a sport for three hours every day, do internships in companies, original research with professors, lead ECs, play instruments, sing in musicals, found a charity, run an online business, prepare at least 8, if not 20 or more pieces of creative writing, but balk at having a 17 or 18 year old put some thought into what they want to study at college and maybe aspire to for the next ten years or so of their lives. It’s not that hard. Millions of teenagers across the globe are required to do it, some at 15 (in British or British inspired school systems, and some, gasp, actually leave school at that age and start training or working) and, believe it or not, unlike US teenagers, they are actually held to their choices, and need to completely change course, in most cases reapply and start over if they change their minds.
Call it what it is - a luxury. Not a need.
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@ucbalumnus You’ve made some sweeping statements about how colleges operate, how admissions people operate, what most students are looking for, etc. What are these statements based on? I’m curious where your information comes from. If you are speculating then acknowledge that, rather than stating your own generalizations as fact. I’m not saying your opinions aren’t interesting or worthy, but they are opinions, not facts. (Also, I don’t think INJParent was literally talking about people majoring in general education, the point was about students majoring in non-applied gen-ed types of disciplines. At least that’s how I understood it.)
@Tigerle You are assuming that parents require all of these things of their kids and that’s why kids do them, which is not always the case (kids get involved in all kinds of things, especially school-related activities, on their own and not just because someone is forcing them). Plus, keep in mind that the kids doing internships, research, starting a business, etc., are probably not the ones who are undecided when they apply. If you prefer the British approach of 15 year-olds deciding on their career, leaving school, or whatever, that’s great. There are certainly pros and cons to different approaches.
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With respect to STEM (as well as some other) disciplines, however, LACs may offer broader curricula than some universities. For example, some LACs would be excellent for fields such as physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer science, while also offering geosciences/geology, an array not universally available at even much larger schools. With respect to being undecided, an LAC can make a great choice for a student who has decided to pursue one of these fields.
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As a parent who has 4 kids all who have a strong preference for the stem field, I agree with this. LACs are not for everyone. My youngest applying for CS specifically ruled out schools where CS is in the Liberal Arts school instead of Engineering. This will may make it more difficult to get into some schools because of that. For instance U-Michigan has CS in either Engineering or LSA. He just has no interest in all those LSA classes and much prefers the science/math curriculum that Engineering brings. Even upon researching it wouldn’t be difficult to transfer from LSA to Engineering there he said no. Other schools, like Duke it’s not even an option as CS is only in Liberal Arts there, so he passed completely.
So while LACs offer more curricula in terms of the humanities types of areas, they are definitely not for everyone. One thing kids do need to realize, is almost all schools will require some breadth of Liberal Arts (Gen Ed) requirements and sometimes just by taking those courses they find something they realize they really like. The one nice thing about a large college is choice. There are so many different courses and the choice for taking those classes. I find my one student at the larger school does seem to have much bigger variety in choosing courses than the other at a school half her size (which is still fairly large).
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet - a number of schools have freshman year programs specifically designed for undecided students. The programs provide additional counseling, workshops and exposure to a variety of majors and careers.
My nephew has an interest in stem but has no real life exposure to careers. He has no burning passions. He’s taken a number of online and in school “career interest tests.” Things like “finance,” “bioinformatics” and “engineering” sound interesting but he has no idea what the day-to-day reality is like - and no practical way to find out. (A video online is not the answer.) He lives in a small town and is a first generation college student. He wants money, easy access to jobs and doesn’t want to be bored.
While I agree that, when possible, students should apply with a career/major in mind, its naive to think that all (or even most) students have the ability to research and decide on a major or career before they apply to college. Many colleges are aware of this and make a point of encouraging undecided students to apply - and then support them when they arrive.
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LACs are indeed good (in some cases, even great) choices for some students. An LAC education can help build a solid foundation for further studies in specialized fields if a student so chooses (however, graduate-level studies are almost essential in many of the liberal arts disciplines). For the vast majority of students, their formal education ends with an undergraduate degree. In today’s world (and in the future), students need both breadth (with critical thinking skills) and depth in knowledge to have the best chance of success. Some generalists will surely succeed, but many won’t (at least relative to their expectations).
Agree with you. Sadly this is true for a lot of LAC majors. How many kids major in something like History, Sociology, Communications, or Anthropology and then get jobs in those fields that they can support themselves? Many don’t even wind up in those fields at all, or as you just said, go back for grad school to get their law degree, masters in social work, teaching degree, or whatever they decide. I have often wondered if going to college at 18 right from high school is not the right track for kids. If instead they should be required to go out in the world for 2 years or so and work and then come to college when they have a sense and some experience maybe of what they would want to do.