<p>Well currently I am a second year student who get screwed pretty bad, anyways, you can message me. I don’t want to pollute this topic, I am not privileged enough to do so apparently.</p>
<p>Anyways, I am working on making a new topic, which you guys can hopefully comment on.</p>
<p>Re: post 33:
I appreciate your perspective, but nowhere does unimpresseddad suggest that his D went to an inner-city school where she would need to dodge bullets.
In our high school, circulars are sent home in several languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Kreyol, and Chinese, but students come from many other countries and their parents often have limited or no English at all. As I posted, a large proportion of students are on F/R lunch, which means they are from low income families. I would think that our high school is not all that different from the one unimpresseddad’s D attended. Most years, it manages to send students to Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown and various top LACs. Some of these students may be legacies, but most are not, and many are children of immigrants. They are by no means privileged.</p>
<p>Tech…you’re not polluting the topic. I’m sorry you got screwed. Truly. I’m glad you’re sticking with it, though. A lot of things have changed over the years and more will change as time goes by, and people like you, who stick it out, if you still care by then, will be able to change even more. Read the power of privledge, if you can…then read his book about Oxford…it’s got some really interesting information in it, and facts, and suggestions for change.</p>
<p>Good luck to you. I put myself through a state university and ended up getting to go to a top five for grad school. AND they paid ME! It’s doable, if stressful.</p>
<p>Well not being racist or anything here but immigrant (especially Asian ones) know HOW to control their kids.</p>
<p>The school I went to and the school the kid I talk to currently attends, well most of the kids in his school are “ghetto”.</p>
<p>Get my point?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And lots of those people never get into places like H, Y, P. Because on their heels are an awful lot of people who have little or NOTHING (apparently you like caps), but manage to rock academically and overachieve due to sheer determination. Many such students have seats in the various Elites even as we speak.</p>
<p>“Lack of social skills” I find much less appalling than sheer ignorance. The material about admissions is abundant; the facts are there, beginning with CC but certainly not limited to it. Not to mention, anyone who considers a score to be a ticket to an Ivy League U is himself or herself quite lacking in social skills.</p>
<p>Actually, the majority of immigrants in our high school are from Haiti or Latin America. You should not make unwarranted assumptions.</p>
<p>I understand how proud the OP is of his kids and hopeful of their futures, if they continue to earn them. My best wishes go with them.
IMO, admissions offices at the elites (often Eastern) have a lot to answer for.
They will almost NEVER discourage ANYONE from applying. They will not intimate that for applicants who are not legacies, sports recruits, URMs, politicos’ or celebrities’ kids, professors’ or administrators’ kids, being well above the median of the entering class on the numbers will likely earn you a rejection.<br>
Your daughter doesn’t understand that? Works for them, not for her.</p>
<p>"There are two books to read, one, “The Power of Priveledge,” written by an author who also wrote another book about the end of this same practice for Oxford in England, the other “The Price of Admission,” written by a Pulitzer winning reporter. Both of these books provide irrefutable proof that the system is rigged. It’s rigged.</p>
<p>So what? </p>
<p>What, in life, is not rigged?"</p>
<p>Exactly. Believe it or not-I respect their rigging-I know sounds crazy but hear me out- they are private institutions or…businesses. They only have to answer to their board and shareholders…not the citizenry at large (the huddled masses -okay my roots are showing here lol)! I just don’t like it when they PRETEND to be meritocracies with them at the top. It is not an educational system with them at top-it’s a marketplace. This process has simply reconfirmed this for me. It only bothers me when people can’t see that it is NOT a level playing field and there IS an advantage to paying 40k a year for prep school. But it’s only helpful for a very small segment of America. Public schools get a fraction of that to work with. The vast majority of Americans (including college grads) couldn’t even name the Ivies past Yale and Harvard so I’m saying it’s inside poker-a game you can choose to play or not-but it dominates the educational discussion in America.
Malcolm Gladwell has it right in his book "Outliers- worth a read.
All the kids here are “smart enough” as he would say-the rest isn’t signifigant.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what kind of a war the OP wants to wage, nor those who are sharing his coattails, but I find the whole concept of setting up artificial equations between what is supposedly genuine and what is (by arbitrary definition or implication) fake, ersatz, etc. – to be quite offensive, not to mention inaccurate.</p>
<p>Some of us here have S’s and D’s who just graduated from various Elite U’s, wherein we had a far more intimate opportunity to view the very quality of student the OP, from across the country, criticizes. Sir, you’re not in a position to know the character of the individual or collective classes at H, Y, P, or any other 'Top" Private U in this country. That’s for starters. Some of us are in a better position because we’ve met those students and have spent considerable time with them. Every instititution has its share of boors and jerks; I’m sure UW has a few as well. My illustrious public Alma Mater has a few also. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to acknowledge that the education in a public U can equal – or even surpass-- that in a private, but that depends entirely on the combination of student + environment. Some of our S’s and D’s had the choice of several excellent publics & privates; many chose privates not for the reasons you and your supporters here assume, but for extremely practical reasons. (My first post referenced that, but you deliberately ignored it, preferring instead to trash the Elites for not accepting your D. Had she been accepted, would MIT suddenly be filled with upright, deserving students? You bet.)</p>
<p>Over time, I have become a fan of Marite. But if the high school she is referring to is Boston Latin, it is an anomaly vis a vis Harvard admissions. A favorite for a long, long time. Similar students elsewhere shouldn’t count on the same treatment.</p>
<p>“Actually, the majority of immigrants in our high school are from Haiti or Latin America. You should not make unwarranted assumptions.”</p>
<p>Were those kids by any chance lets say “ghetto”. Because the kids at the high school I am talking about have parents who are in jail for doing crack.</p>
<p>Seems like Ivy league students are gods on this section.</p>
<p>unimpresseddad: You keep claiming that there is an advantage to paying $40k for prep school. I would not dispute that. Some prep schools provide a truly impressive education (and also financial aid to an increasingly diverse student population). There is indeed an advantage to being from an affluent background. But, still, the majority of students at top schools did not attend prep schools. A majority of students at H receive some kind of financial aid. In other words, they do not come from affluent backgrounds. There is a big overlap among students admitted to HYPS. They cannot possibly have legacy status or other kinds of hooks in all these schools.</p>
<p>“IMO, admissions offices at the elites (often Eastern) have a lot to answer for.
They will almost NEVER discourage ANYONE from applying. They will not intimate that for applicants who are not legacies, sports recruits, URMs, politicos’ or celebrities’ kids, professors’ or administrators’ kids, being well above the median of the entering class on the numbers will likely earn you a rejection.
Your daughter doesn’t understand that? Works for them, not for her.” </p>
<p>Funny part is-she DID understand it-far better than me-because she has many friends with similar stats the past few years who were not accepted either. I was thinking-well maybe they had a bad essay… or a bad interview… or… but she knew-and in retrospect I should have too. I was actually giving them the benefit of the doubt-but she ran the numbers and saw the reality beforehand and applied anyway to see. 
I now know it’s more lottery than selection past a certain point. Those who get in think they are worthy and those who don’t -everyone thinks-must have had a bad essay… bad interview… or…
I appreciate your patience tonight kind reader as I needed to get some of this noise out of my head and onto “paper” so I can clear it out.:)</p>
<p>Majority of the kids at the Ivies certainly did not attend top notch prep schools but I can guarantee they attend public schools in stable settings, a majority. I am sure you had a kid from an NYC public school located in Queensbridge who probably made it to Harvard.</p>
<p>danas:</p>
<p>No, the high school is definitely NOT Boston Latin. Anyway, my S also got into Stanford where he did not have any hook. Not sure the Stanford adcom have ever heard of his school, though one of his classmates decided to matriculate there instead of at Harvard. Other classmates got into Yale, MIT, Brown, Tufts, etc… though a larger number went to UMass-Amherst or UMass-Boston. As I said, the school is very diverse.</p>
<p>Techerdz:</p>
<p>Is this the kind of school you attended? I can understand your feelings in that case. And I agree that you need a stable environment in order to achieve academically. My heart goes out to you. All I can say is hang in there, seek out help if you need it, try to do the best you can. That’s all one can ask.
But let me repeat that unimpresseddad did not claim that his D attended such a school. Instead, she seems to have been well prepared to attend a top college. She had a choice of attending a very well-regarded state university or trying for two schools that are reaches for everyone. That was a very understandable strategy and she will do well at UW. But to claim that schools that have an admit rate of 6.9% and 9.7% respectively only admit kids from affluent backgrounds who went to prep schools and played expensive sports is delusional.</p>
<p>Post 53:
You said it yourself: Noise. That’s all it sounds like to me.</p>
<p>You call 'em as you see 'em, and most certainly so do I.</p>
<p>For at least the last 8 years, Elite admissions has been about achievement beyond the classroom. Scores have ceased to make a stand-alone difference (without that “considerably beyond” factor) for ages now. The admissions literature about it is abundant. OTOH, those admitted without special-category hooks have stats, in the composite sense, that can easily rival your D’s. No need to look upon her as if she’s some undeserving victim.</p>
<p>marite, I want to ask you a question, the school you are talking about, do kids learn stuff there or do you have kids who always disrupt the class and make it tough for others to learn things?</p>
<p>Because at the school I visited, two girls were talking, the teacher said to the girls “excuse me, we are trying to have class here, pay attention”, one of the girls cussed the teacher out and called her a prostitute (of course she used a different word).</p>
<p>^ We get it.</p>
<p>Okay, I am a fan of unimpresseddad.
The system worked for two of my kids. I am grateful to their institutions for the opportunities they were able to provide them, which I couldn’t. It is the schools’ money (largely provided by alums). My kids passed some kind of hurdle to make it all possible.
The problem is just how opaque the admissions process is, and how often the interests of the admission office are at odds with those of the applicants.
Happily we live in America where there are resources in print to figure this out. But many people don’t find or digest the information out there.</p>
<p>“Some of us here have S’s and D’s who just graduated from various Elite U’s, wherein we had a far more intimate opportunity to view the very quality of student the OP, from across the country, criticizes. Sir, you’re not in a position to know the character of the individual or collective classes at H, Y, P, or any other 'Top” Private U in this country. That’s for starters. Some of us are in a better position because we’ve met those students and have spent considerable time with them. Every instititution has its share of boors and jerks; I’m sure UW has a few as well. My illustrious public Alma Mater has a few also. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to acknowledge that the education in a public U can equal – or even surpass-- that in a private, but that depends entirely on the combination of student + environment. Some of our S’s and D’s had the choice of several excellent publics & privates; many chose privates not for the reasons you and your supporters here assume, but for extremely practical reasons. (My first post referenced that, but you deliberately ignored it, preferring instead to trash the Elites for not accepting your D. Had she been accepted, would MIT suddenly be filled with upright, deserving students? You bet.)"</p>
<p>Hmm-I actually think-I hope I can clarify again-that I think the quality-academics etc… of the STUDENTS at all of these schools is excellent. That’s my point, really-they are all good enough. I think that Harvard and MIT will definitely be filled with upright, deserving students whether my precious pup attends or not! They should be, no? they get 30k qualified “competing” for 2k spots (less at MIT) Of course they get a smart, deserving talented student body. Duke has a pretty good B-ball team too-it should. I have never said one bad thing about the students at all… I am amazed by them really. You should be proud.</p>