<p>Being foreign and new to the whoel college application system, i've learnt a lot about the hell American kids and their parents go through from PSATs to the "I'm off the wait-list" moment from reading all your posts on cc. I am simply appalled. It seems to me that the whole system needs overhauling in a major way. it seems to me that this business of feeilng suicidal because you didn't get in to one of the biggies shows a massive misapprehension of what college should mean. Correct me if Iget this wrong, but isn't how well you do in college more important than where you do it? Aren't extra bright kids from small colleges or state universities able to go to the best grad schools or even transfer as sophomores or juniors if their professors feel that they are not sufficiently challenged?
Moreover, why do the "best" students apply to so many colleges? When I see that many have been accepted in nine to twelve places, thus placing even more kids on wait-lists, and then read that most of the places they applied to didn't interest them, I am more than bemused. Since more kids are being turned down or wait-listed because of this, and people are tearing their hair out at how competitive even minor schools have become, it's easy to predict that next year's batch will apply to even more schools and so on....
Apparently, many colleges send out mail to entice students they obviously don't really intend to take. This should be illegal. My opinion is that if HS counselors did their job properly and if college admissions were more honest, no student should have to send in more than 5 applications (2 reaches and 2 matches, with maybe a safety). I'd love some feedback on this. Maybe i've got it all wrong...
I had always been told that unlike the French system where a student has to be at his/her most competitive at 19-20, in the US, college allowed kids to grow up, to find themselves and their passions without being force-fed like battery chickens. Well, after reading about APs, ECs, community service, summer jobs and internships, how much time do they have left for themselves. I may be wrong as so many of you seem to have brillant kids who manage to shine at everything and stay nice, normal people to boot, but do none of you think that this has gone much too far?</p>
<p>You are following internet boards, like this one, that are heavily visited by a small percentage of students who are high and overachievers and are manic about admissions to the highest rank schools. The vast majority of US students applying to college apply to one to four colleges each, most of which are in their home state or nearby, usually including one or two of their state's public universities, do not even consider places like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., and do not get hung up in the mania that you see on these boards. What you don't see is things like stories we see here in Illinois where area papers often publish annually lists of valedectorians and salutatorians from local high schools and where they are going to college and see that most of them applied to only a couple of colleges, are going to attend at places like Illinois, Wisconsin, DePaul, Loyola, Bradley, and those small number who actually applied to and were admitted to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, often choose Northwestern, Univ of Chicago or Illinois instead. In other words, you are assuming far too much from the little you see.</p>
<p>I agree with drusba. As well, I think the huge range of choices available to Americans is an advantage, but one that carries a downside, namely the anxiety associated with choice. It's easy to make a decision where there is no choice involved.
Additionally, the importance of fit at US universities has to do with the fact that American colleges are real communities, unlike French ones that are little more than classrooms (sometimes overcrowded classrooms). One friend of mine, a prof at EPHSS, commutes to Paris to teach a class once every two weeks. This would not be allowed in an American college where profs are expected to hold classes several times a week.
Another advantage: American students are allowed to change their minds about their futures without penalty. I'm sure that you, like me, have relatives who had to start from square one when they failed to make it into their program of choice (such as medicine) or changed their minds. My niece started thinking she wanted to be a pediatrician and has ended up as a corporate lawyer. But it took several years of re-tooling to do so. In the US, it would not have been necessary.
And finally, a lot more American students attend college than in Europe; hence, the pressure and the necessity for multiple applications.</p>
<p>At some schools, the counseling office will send transcripts to no more than 8 colleges. They include a letter telling the school that the student is limited to 8, so they can consider that student to be sincere about applying/attending their school. I think more high schools should have a cap on how many applications they will support.</p>
<p>The thing that most puzzles me about the post on this board is references to HS counselors. Some even imply that HS counselors help steer students toward choice of colleges. Our public HS counselors were somewhat confused on what classes were required for graduation from the high school, much less what was required to get into a particular university. Do HS counselors at public schools somewhere actually help with the college application process? Do they have advice on what classes to take? Do they know what order to take the SAT, SATII, ACT or AP tests? Do they even know the dates around those test? The answer to those questions at our local high school is no, no, no, and no.</p>
<p>UCD - Our public school GC's do a good job with the items you question. They each have a heavy load of students and only meet formally with them 3 times in 4 years, but they seem to understand the process quite well.</p>
<p>Like so many others, our GC's have been thrown a curveball these past 2 years. They are just now starting to advise our high achieving kids that there is no such thing as a "match" school. Consider all schools with a <30% admissions rate to be potential reaches. Woulda' been nice to have heard this last year - my S was waitlisted at all of his "matches".</p>
<p>UCDalum:
Our school has 12 GCs for about 2,800 students.
S1's Gc worked hard to get S1 into a class with the person she thought was the best AP-USH teacher (we'd wondered whether S1 should have a different schedule to get into some other class). She also reminded all students about PSATs, SATs, etc... We also met with her to discuss the college application process and she suggested a list of schools which S1 should consider after ascertaining criteria such as size and location. 3 reaches, 3 matches and one safety. Her predictions were absolutely spot on.
GC for S2 worked like a trojan to construct a schedule that would be appropriate for him as he had unusual requirements. Sometimes, S2 had to meet daily with him to go over the schedule. S2, however, knew which colleges he wanted to apply to, so needed no guidance from the GC.</p>
<p>Our high school knows the answers to all those questions. They meet with the students a number of times, both in groups and individually and every student is encouraged to meet with the counselor with their parents in the spring of jr. year and the fall of sr. year. They have lots of handouts and do a couple of presentations to the parents via PTA and other meetings. Our GC didn't make predictions, she suggested a range of schools, her suggestions were reasonable, though ultimately we put together a slightly more techie list. Probably half the kids in our school end up at one of the state universities. Even the top kids didn't seem too crazed.</p>