<p>Article from the Lower Hudson, Westchester online newspaper:</p>
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With record numbers of applications flooding the nation's colleges, it's become tougher than ever for students to get into their top schools or even the ones they thought were a sure bet.</p>
<p>"I took that word 'safety' out of my vocabulary a long time ago," said Henry Cafaro, director of guidance and counseling at White Plains High School. "To me, there's no such thing...."
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<p>A friend of mine just returned from a college-visiting trip with her junior. All the colleges were boasting of their increased numbers of applicants and lower admission rates. I guess they thought that was something to be proud of and showed their increased selectivity. Meanwhile, her kid was quaking in her seat, growing more panicked about the application process and wondering if she would get in anywhere.</p>
<ol>
<li>A lot of this is hype.</li>
<li>Don't worry about things you have no control over.</li>
</ol>
<p>70% of students still get into their first choice college, and national admission rates are still around 70%, and there are still some pretty decent colleges begging for any warm bodies that will pay the bill. </p>
<p>The White Plains' High School GC and others, collectively, are in the middle of a quandary caused by their own making. Good ol' tragedy of the commons. By encouraging more and more students to apply to more and more reaches in the hopes of "hitting one", there are more and more rejections, and the schools actually become less selective, as the chance of their actually enrolling those students who most likely to take advantage of what in particular they have to offer actually goes down.</p>
<p>I am not sure why you would blame the GCs. We don't live in White Plains, but pretty close. My D's GCs did not encourage applying to reaches, nor did they encourage applying to large numbers of schools. In fact they did not provide much encouragement or information. They seemed to bog down handling paperwork for the average student who applied to 3-5 local colleges.</p>
<p>Sorry - I didn't write that correctly. It is GCs, at the behest of the parents, of course.</p>
<p>Actually, I think most of the push comes from the kids - often for the wrong reasons of competition and prestige. I did not see much pushing from parents. Many were like my W and I, hoping that the kids would "settle" for a low cost State school. The GCs resisted the whole process and certainly did not encourage a large number of applications or applications to private schools that might require extra work.</p>
<p>The kids wouldn't know anything about this stuff if it wasn't for the surrounding culture, starting with their parents. And 95% of students report they are happy about where they end up, once they are in school.</p>
<p>All the same, I'm glad this process is over with for both my sons.</p>
<p>As many of you know, I'm no fan of HS GCs. But I don't think this problem can be laid at their doorstep. In many public HS's (like the one where my niece is a GC) very little time is devoted to college guidance. In the CC community it's common to map out a college application strategy. But not every student is in the 99th percentile academically (or even the 98th!).</p>
<p>I certainly agree. If HS GCs were indeed pushing for more and more applications to the elite schools, I suspect the Ivies and other elites would see several times the current number of applications. I live in suburban neighborhood where close to 90% of the kids go to college. Most seemed unconcerned until senior year and for most the application process was pretty simple. The vast majority go to local State or private colleges with 70% acceptance rates. Only a very small percentage seemed to push for reach colleges and the results showed. Of about 650 HS graduates only 1 was accepted to Yale and about 5 to Cornell. Cornell is popular because of the reduced tuition for NYS residents. The rest were going to schools with high acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Going back to my anecdote (the student who kept hearing colleges boast about their higher numbers) -- she only visited one selective school. The others she visited have acceptance rates above 45%. Yet she is still spooked -- and more so now because of the message she got from the admissions offices. This had nothing to do with GCs, either.</p>
<p>My daughter reported that the admissions officer in her info session at Yale essentially said "well, you can apply, but you know, we take such a small percentage..."
I've got an idea why Yale was the only Ivy to experience a significant drop in applications.</p>
<p>I agree with mini that it IS the surrounding culture - but I don't agree that the influence always starts with the parents. The high school environment is key. We live in a status driven area where 25+ students from our local high school go to Ivy every year. If you're a excellent student with good scores - it's pretty much assumed that you're going for Ivy or top 20. The pressure is huge. Our respected State U honors program is thought of as a deep safety for the top kids. Kids sign up for tutors if their grades are in the low 90s. Many kids have personal sports coaches. It's pretty insane. Perhaps we made the mistake of moving to the wrong school district. On the bright side, our son came out well prepared for the demands of college (solid writing and advance math skills help). The teachers at the HS were excellent. Still - too much pressure - and it didn't come from us. If we had another chance, we'd move out where the houses are cheaper, the schools produce less NMFinalists (35 here last year - yikes) and the kids/other parents are a bit more relaxed about this whole thing .</p>
<p>I agree with toneranger: a high school culture where the mark of status & worth is acceptance to the most selective colleges. I can argue for fit all I want; I'm battling forces & mouths more influential than my own, and none of those contrary forces are adult. Both the elite private h.s.'s and high-rent publics are like this. I'm not doubting that some of those parents are status-driven, but I'm not sure how many of those are calling the shots.</p>
<p>epiphany and toneranger-
It used to be that people moved into certain school districts to enable their children to attend the best public high schools possible. It was thought that these schools offered the best education. Now, if they move into these districts, their kids are likely to have a miserable, robotic high school experience, and, having survived that in some form, be disadvantaged in the college application process, where they will be pitted against each other in applying to the same elite schools. It looks to me that the only solution may be to move to a rural area where there is likely to be less stress and more of an opportunity to find one's own way and maybe even excel in a more humane way. Of course, the level of coursework may be lower, but no one seems to care about that anymore.</p>
<p>markr - well, I wouldn't call it miserable and robotic - but the stress to achieve was excessive. And I agree that these kids (including my son) are disadvantaged in the admissions process. My son visited Penn and really liked it - put it on his list as a reach. Then he came home one day last fall - very discouraged. Said he decided NOT to apply since over 25 kids had applied from his school - ED! GC told him he didn't have much of a shot (this is a straight A kid with tons of APs, high SATs, and a few select ECs he loves). Turns out he didn't have much luck at his other reaches either. Yes, we wish we were a few districts out - in what's considered a more rural and relaxed area. But we moved here so many years ago - who could have guessed it would come to this?? It all ended up fine - my son is happy where he is. But all that stress and focus on prestige and status- we all could have done without it...</p>
<p>nothing robotic here, either. But the expectations (of other students, who drive the campus culture) are excessively high, unrealistic, & burden anyone who marches to the beat of a different drummer, even if that's just a different emphasis, not a different level of achievement, ability, talent.</p>
<p>I think it was to my son's advantage to be from a public HS in VT with only a few AP classes. It's still a little nutsy here, because so many kids--and parents--think only the same 10 or 20 Northeast schools are good enough. Think again--and check out the Midwest and the rest of the country. There are great schools out there that want your kids. Open your minds to the possibilities.</p>
<p>good point, Bethie - it is so important to keep an open mind. Competition and that stress to achieve mentality is alive and well in certain regions and Westchester definitely fits that bill. College admissions becomes a mini search for the Holy Grail and reach colleges all too often wind up becoming magical dream schools. Rejection is tough and stings but the whole admissions process becomes even tougher if the problem of choice is linked to the emotional investment - realistic or unrealistic- that students and parents are apt to make in certain school or schools. This is bound to happen once the admissions cycle gets into full swing, whether a school becomes a dream because of status, prestige or "best fit". This year is a hard year for so many students and parents alike - and just like past years, it is tough for those who received multiple acceptances just as for those that received multiple rejections, and spots on wait lists. </p>
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"A lot of people put so much stock into their first choice and they're not letting themselves be open to different colleges."
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<p>Sadly, I know a few parents who at this point feel embarrassed because they think they have failed to achieve some kind of critical milestone because their child did not get into his/her first choice. Unfortunately, this mind set makes the whole admissions process into a much bigger process than it ought to be. As the OP article points out, too many students feel needlessly stymied as the May 1 deadline approaches and they have to send in a deposit to just one - and only one - school:</p>
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Savannah O'Malley, a Haldane High School senior, has been on a wait list at three of the six schools she applied to....</p>
<p>In the meantime, she must send a $500 deposit to one of the schools she got into.</p>
<p>If she ends up getting into Muhlenberg and accepting, she will lose it. Many students send deposits to more than one school, she said. "It's this whole big process," said O'Malley, 17.
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