Menlo park- there is nothing wrong with dreams. I am giving an example of a child who had realistic expectations. In this case it was very realistic to aim high as well as to some sure things.
My point is that there are folks here who have children who won the lottery ( to use your analogy) who are referring to kids like mine ( and lots of others in the same position) as thinking they are special. That’s not the case.
I don’t think the term is applied to every kid that aims for a super-elite college and ends up disappointed. As I understand it, the term is used regarding the children of parents who feel that their child deserved to get into the college of their dreams and therefore the system must be broken because their child was rejected.,despite what is always described as high grades, hard curriculum, hard work, great ECs, wonderful recommendations and the best essay ever. The realistic parents recognize that while their child is certainly special to their family, there are plenty of other kids that are just as qualified and not all of them are going to get into HYPS and the others.
^i get what you mean, but I think IME there are far more parents who are realistic than not. I would like to get rid of the " special snowflake " being used so much on cc.
On reading post # 641, I sense a sort of condescension. " what is always described" comes across to me as if you do not quite believe that many of these kids really do have top stats. I can not give specific information regarding my own child with out compromising privacy, but I can assure you the qualifications were there.
Your point of view can depend on whether or not your child won this lottery. But no need to put down the ones who didn’t.
Of course those kids have top stats. But so do many of the other kids that applied. There are parts of an application that are much more subjective: what are great ECs, especially when compared to the overall applicant pool. How does one know that one’s kid has the best recommendation or essay? How does the parent know that the HS classmate that got in had a much less impressive application? Or (and I have had people do this in real life), presume that if their kid did not get in and another kid did, the admitted kid has some unfair advantage. All of these, in one form or another, have been stated or implied in CC posts over the years.
Most people understand and empathize with a hard-working, smart kid that wanted to go to a top school and did not get in. Just not as much sympathy for those that seem to believe that they are entitled to a seat as their particular child is so much better than all others. I also don’t think anyone said that most parents and kids are not realistic. Why do you think the “special snowflake” is directed towards all kids?
I really was just trying to explain the term as I understand it. The post above said 80-95% of the applicants, including the special snowflakes, will be rejected. I read that to state that virtually all are rejected, and that includes (but is not limited to) special snowflakes.
Fallgirl,
I think you are being too sensitive and are looking for insults that aren’t meant, toward either you or your child.
There have been over the years many CC posters [ not you] who engage in what we call “magical thinking”. They feel that their child “deserves” to be accepted and therefore they “will” be accepted at highly competitive colleges , and end up in arms when the fat envelope does not arrive.
Mom2and has a healthy understanding of the statistical chances of ANY great student being accepted at highly competitive colleges these days.
@Fallgirl the put downs on this site are not just reserved for the lottery losers. Mine was also designated special snowflake by a poster on this site and while she didn’t win every lottery (nor did we expect her to), she won quite a few and we were happy with the outcome. It is true that spaces for well qualified, perfectly competitive applicants are limited, and so I think the advice often given on this forum to pick, say, 3 reaches, is not that well thought out, considering how limited seats are at these schools.
Folks I am not under some kind of rock.(I’m in NoVA , lol) I am a long time poster, I did my research and I KNOW what the odds are for getting into top schools. But it seems as if it is some sort of crime to admit that your child was disappointed.
I re-read my origianl post and I clearly stated that we were well aware of the odds.
And don’t throw the "over sensitive " label on me either, menlo park mom. Your other post was rather harsh.
Thank you for saying this mom2. This is very rarely stated here.
I am merely asking that cut the labeling of kids.
It’s also worth noting that “snowflake” (as applied to students) has a long and sometimes contentious history. Simply saying it’s out of place here, whether it is or isn’t, is not going to make it go away.
“Your other post was rather harsh”
and I apologized that it might seem harsh. Or did you miss that?
you dont like posts by some CC’ers? you can choose to “ignore” them in your profile.
Then you wont get your feelings hurt so easily.
sheesh…
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First, colleges complain that there are too many smart kids in USA and they don’t have sports to accommodate the smartest.
Second, colleges admit students, who need remedial math and English. And reject students with perfect AP scores 
Only in USA.
Well, Californiaa, if you dislike the system so, don’t have your kid apply. Problem solved.
I think a big part of the reason parents have such different expectations is the vast increase in educational opportunities for kids in our day and age. Even factoring in the re-centering of the SAT, my score is quite a bit higher than either of my parents. I think this is fairly typical, mostly because of expanded parental role in a child’s education and better teaching methods. Since I have a better SAT and GPA than my parents did when they applied, they think my application will really stand out from peers even in a highly competitive admissions pool, when truly I am not any more qualified compared to others around me. They also still believe that Cornell and U Penn are the “back door” to the Ivies for kids who are decently smart but not good enough for HYP.
I wonder how much SAT score increases across generations. Have other posters had a similar discrepancy between the older generation and the younger one?
Do you and they realize that the SAT was recentered in 1995, so that today’s scores are equivalent to (usually) lower scores from before the recentering?
http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/equivalence
I don’t know about SAT scores, but the analogous [Flynn effect](Flynn effect - Wikipedia) for IQ scores is pretty well documented.
Also, @ucbalumnus #653, @Studious99 #652 explicitly said the claim was made having taken into account recentering.
Reinforcing that point, most pre-1995 SAT scores after rescaling tended to increase. One exception to this, however, was if one’s pre-1995 math score was above 750 or something as the 1995 recentering would actually cause those scores to decrease.
Recalled seeing that on an SAT recentering conversion chart in my HS’s college advisory office and witnessing many stunned and even angry reactions from classmates who found their high pre-1995 math scores decrease after recentering.
Meh, another attempt to limit the number of Asian students without saying so. They must be getting a lot of whiny complaints.
I’m not Asian, BTW, and I passed five AP exams nearly fifty years ago, and it was no big deal.
@elephantboy, I made this observation back on page 2 of this thread. Here’s the language I was noting:
There is a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue here, though. It may well be that Ivies are seeing a lot of applicants who appear to be “slavish adherents to soulless scripts,” that is, people who spend huge amounts of time on schoolwork, exam prep, and certain specific ECs, as opposed to a broader range of ECs that show (or seem to show) “genuine passions.” And, although this is controversial, it is my belief that a lot of the kids that fit this pattern are Asians, for cultural reasons. What should selective colleges do about this situation? From their point of view, the answer certainly isn’t just to give up and take more of these overly-programmed kids. On the other hand, the answer shouldn’t be to simply take fewer Asians. In my view, the solution is to persuade Asian parents (especially those living in the United States) to reconsider educational tactics. In my observation, those who do so have better college admission results.
This is so cool. Not knowing of Harvard’s report when I wrote this, the timing ends up being great (if some changes have a positive effect on the process, and more importantly, our kids). I’d written a piece about music students a while ago, and had been urged to write a piece about college admissions in general (I have been through it all three times at this point). one example in the piece actually involves a very cool Harvard admissions councilor back in 2010. Hope it helps you relax a bit and laugh a bit.
http://justponderin.com/2016/01/21/on-your-kid-applying-to-college-pssst-breathe/
Are there others who think “slavish adherents” is code for Asian? That may or may not be the intent of the schools in using that term. It’s disheartening to think this proposal is a guise for limiting Asian admissions. The reality is that a great number of slavish adherents are non-Asian. The hiring of private tutors and coaches/counselors/consultants and the identifying of special summer camps and designer community service projects – these practices were not introduced by Asian immigrants.
These were inventions of the upper middle class. Some of us are Asian. Many more are not. Should this new proposal take off, all of us will have to reconsider our education tactics to get better admissions results. That’s not a bad thing. I do have an issue if admissions officers use surnames as a way to profile applicants as “slavish adherent” — e.g. “Chan” vs. “Smith” are not treated the same even though both are equally slavish.