<p>This one doesn't apply specifically to MT, but it's certainly relevant. It's by the dean of admissions & financial aid at Kenyon College. In essence, she's apologizing for having to reject so many superbly qualified young women because of the realities of admissions demographics. </p>
<p>In saying what I'm going to say next, I mean to take NOTHING away from the wonderfully smart, qualified, talented boys who have earned their MT acceptances. Nor do I mean to make MT girls nervously awaiting letters even more nervous. But...if the situation is as bad as this dean says it is for college in general...well, just think about what it's like for MT! As if we didn't already know....</p>
<p>What it all adds up to: You kids are all gutsy beyond words!</p>
<p>artsymom, thanks for posting that. I don't think the article is discouraging as much as it is a reality check. The ranks of those applying to colleges are full of bright, hardworking young people -- especially female people! :) Many of my peers (I am in the middle 40s) have commented that if they were applying to college today, they would likely never get into the college they attended. In fact, I heard that straight from the mouth of a woman who is now a professional college counselor and educational psychologist/author of some renown. She was bemoaning the trend that she sees where parents feel that their children <em>have</em> to attend a "name brand," prestigious college -- an Ivy if at all possible. She worried about the intense pressure this was placing on the kids, who then felt like failures if they didn't get into the Holy Trinity of Harvard, Princeton and Yale. :) Something for us to consider as our children go through this journey.
L</p>
<p>I guess I DO find that assessment a bit discouraging. Every day I see around me young women who are over committed, taking too many courses, doing too many extracurricular things, becoming over stressed, and all because this is what they think they have to do to get into college. I guess they are correct, but at what cost? I abhor the message that girls are getting that to be acceptable to college one has to be such a superior overachiever. I think society in general loses in this game.</p>
<p>I think a lot of the MT Forum readers just tend to read this forum on CC but not the other ones. Thus, I will share a link that was discussed on the Parent Forum recently. Ben Jones, an admissions officer at MIT, a highly selective university, sometimes posts on CC. He keeps a blog online discussing being an admissions officer. An MIT parent recently posted on the Parent Forum a link to Ben's blog, an entry he recently wrote just as admissions decisions were being mailed out. MIT turns away many highly qualified applicants, as is the case at most elite colleges, and so MT BFA candidates also are in a similar position. I think his blog entry is wonderfully written and expresses that it is very difficult for admissions officers who have come to know some outstanding candidates and their "stories" and can't admit them all. Here is the link to that blog entry:
<a href="http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/03/its_more_than_a.html%5B/url%5D">http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/03/its_more_than_a.html</a></p>
<p>I would also recommend parents read "The Gatekeepers" by Jacques Steinberg. It was published a few years ago, but gives a very up-close-and-personal look into what college admissions officers go through when deciding who is in and who is out. I frankly found the book both fascinating and somewhat disturbing, as it (imo) revealed just how subjective admissions to a selective college such as Wesleyan is. The book follows one admissions officer through a year, and several students from various schools in the country who are applying.</p>
<p>NotMamaRose, I could not agree with you more. The Gatekeepers is fascinating and yet disconcerting in many ways. It is truly an eye opener into the elite college admissions process. I read it at the start of my oldest D's junior year and really recommend this book to those entering the elite college admissions process.</p>
<p>Artsymom, yes, Ben's blog entry is wonderful. I commented on it on the thread in the Parents Forum devoted to it several days ago.</p>
<p>Although I knew about this terrible truth, it still makes me tear a little. After 4 years of spreading myself thin with too many extra cir. (track, volleyball, gymnastics, yearbook photog, newspaper editor in cheif, NHS, octagon club, forensics, spanish club, W club, girls state rep, being a member of the top choir, church youth group and mission trip, relay for life, model un,elementary tutor, and, of course, being in every high school show+ones around my community) with reallly good grades and a pretty darn good ACT, I still wasn't very confident with my chances at schools that weren't audition. I commend every student on here (and the parents of those students that support them, which you all obviously do) for not only all of the hard work they do at auditions, but all of the other stuff that they do to get the school interested in other ways also. In the winter of my senior year it was SO hard to balance all of my activities with practicing for my audtions, on top of the fact that all my friends already knew where they were going months before! It is a VERY difficult and stresssful time. It just goes to show how driven young ladies are...and how driven they have to be to succeed. Hey, since most schools have a higher percentage of females at there schools, maybe this whole system will change when more women are at the top...I hope something can be done!</p>
<p>... women start writing plays about women. Even now, 40-50 years into the women's rights movement, there are not enough scripts which feature women characters. There's nothing we can do about the fact that we have 2500 years worth of plays about men. We can't ask Sophocles or Shakespeare or Shaw to double the number of female characters in their plays. But we can encourage young women to tell the stories of their mothers and grandmothers and sisters and friends.</p>
<p>There's a market out there. Every high school director, every college theatre department, would pay real money for good scripts for women. Any entrepreneurs ready to jump on this opportunity?</p>
<p>ckp, the only thing I can say it congratulations for holding down a schedule so jam packed with activities that my head is reeling even reading it! I can only hope you did all of those things because YOU WANTED TO and NOT because you wanted to look good to a college admissions officer and team (what you call getting the school "interested" in you.) I do notice among high schoolers what to me is a disturbing trend of living their lives to create an attractive resume for college, rather than living the life they want to live. That would be unhealthy in the extreme; high school (and youth) ought to be a time when a teenager can explore various interests without having to think "Gosh, I just need some down time to read and think. But being in student government will look good on my college resume, so I better do that."
In my humble opinion, living always for the future (college) means missing out on some very important learning and livin' in high school. High school is a journey in and of itself, and not just something you have to get through to get to the right college. All the pressure on today's kids makes me grateful that I grew up in a less intense time, when many of us didn't start thinking or talking about college until late junior year, when we sent away for a few brochures. My bottom line point is: it's great to have a good resume, but don't live life according to what might look good to some college admissions people in three years. Live the life you want to live.
Sorry to get so impassioned,
Lisa</p>
<p>The article you posted, Artsymom, of course speaks to me as the mom of one of those girls running on that treadmill of accomplishments with no time to sleep. The situation is appalling for these girls. I'm also the mom of a son who is an underachiever. My husband and I have too many friends and acquaintances with sons who are underachievers. I'm not talking about the high achieving boys who post on CC (or whose parents post here), but the very many boys who have had advantages and yet still wind up not achieving, at least during the traditional college years, at the level to which they ought to achieve. Why aren't the boys being rejected in those numbers by the colleges? Why are so many more girls achieving at the level to apply to these colleges? When I taught college, every year I seemed to have fewer guys in my classes. There were fewer male students on campus and walking down the hall. </p>
<p>I was glad to see Doctorjohn's comment about the need for plays with female characters. When my daughter started with the drama department at her high school, the drama teacher told her something similar--to aspire to write plays in which she herself could act.</p>
<p>with doctorjohn and mtmommy. This topic really hits a nerve as I've got one of those overachieving girls too!!! About a month ago I had the very same talk with my daughter and advised her if she wanted more performance opportunities, she'd better start writing the plays and songs herself! For too many years there have been very few women writing plays, composing and writing lyrics.<br>
As far as admission to MT programs I've been told (anecdotally) that auditioning girls outnumber auditioning boys usually 4 or 5 to one (and oftentimes for less spots in the program). Wonder if THAT'S true (hope not)!!</p>
<p>BIGismama, when we did the audition circuit, there were FAR more girls than boys attending which then makes the odds for girls with regard to admission for a BFA in MT much more difficult (good time to be a boy!). Further, when we went to the CMU audition, we were told by a student leading the tour of the dept. that they planned to admit more boys than girls because "there is more work in the field for men." I honestly wasn't so aware of that fact but all I could think of was, geez...not only are there far more girls at this audition but their odds just got even worse and the boys' odds even better because there were more slots in the program for guys. Indeed, for MT at least, last year, they did take more boys than girls. I believe they only took three girls and eight boys. :eek:
Susan</p>
<p>I can't answer for UM but the reason was given at CMU and in my naivety, I truly wasn't aware that there were more roles/work for men in the field (their reason). </p>
<p>I don't have the numbers for CAP but I don't think it is more boys there.</p>
<p>Well there is without a doubt more work in the field for men. It is NOT fair at all but it's the truth...let's hope some playwrights take Dr. John's advice and turn out some amazing new plays with LOTS of female characters...!</p>
<p>
[quote]
I come home each night and tell my wife over dinner how lucky I am, because I never seem to pick boring applications out of the pile. In fact, I tell her, I'm inspired enough by the stories I read to think that the world might actually turn out to be okay after all.</p>
<p>In March I go into committee with my colleagues, having narrowed down my top picks to a few hundred people. My colleagues have all done the same. Then the numbers come in: this year's admit rate will be 13%. For every student you admit, you need to let go of seven others
[/quote]
a couple pieces of a great entry ... </p>
<p>The first paragraph highlights how great the applicants are; an experience I can validate in a small way as an interviewer; as I met so many terrific candidates (that made me look at the younger generation not with fear but with awe)</p>
<p>The second hits on the reallity that tons of applicants would be great fits at the school but there isn't close to enough room for all the qualified kids ... a rejection does not necessarily mean you're not qualified but that most likely they didn't have room; another experience my interviewing replicated in a small way.</p>