<p>I’m going to search for that “25 New Ivies” list. That would be fun to peruse.</p>
<p>[America’s</a> 25 New Elite ‘Ivies’ | Newsweek Best High Schools | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/39401]America’s”>America's 25 New Elite 'Ivies' - Newsweek)</p>
<p>DH was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, too!</p>
<p>S2 contemplated Syracuse and Rochester – once he saw URoch, Syracuse was out the window. Syracuse would have been a safety, but did not have the vibe he wanted.</p>
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<p>FotB - thanks for the suggestions. But, I have to point out Cooper Union has under 10% admit rate, making it harder to get in than many of the Ivies.</p>
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<p>Free tuition will do that.</p>
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<p>Acceptance percentage does not tell the whole story as to how hard a place is to get into. Cooper Union’s 75% test scores are around 700 CR and 770 MAth. A smaller percentage of applicants get in than for many Ivy’s but the pool of applicants is almost certainly not as competitive.</p>
<p>I think Cal Poly SLO has a lower acceptance rate than Berkeley, but I’m pretty sure almost anybody who gets into Berkeley can get into Cal Poly SLO.</p>
<p>Again from the NY Times - Q. and A.: College Admissions.</p>
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<p>This is how I read the Yale response for our kids - we are not going to accept you, but send in the app anyway. Pomona, otoh, gave a more encouraging response. It is interesting that most of the colleges on the panel did not answer this question. There are also other interesting Q&A’s.</p>
<p>[Q</a>. and A.: College Admissions](<a href=“Q. and A.: College Admissions - The New York Times”>Q. and A.: College Admissions - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Cooper Union has a large art and architecture school and administers a home test (of drawing) in addition to looking at scores. In general art and architecture students have lower scores, which means the engineering scores are probably just as high as the bigger names.</p>
<p>^ I agree with mathmom. Even back in the 80’s, Cooper Union was very hard to get in. It has an extremely bright and competitive class of aspiring engineers.</p>
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<p>So your contention is that Cooper Union is as competitive as Harvard, Yale or Princeton?
I guess it could be, although I personally find it sort of hard to believe.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure in general that engineering students necessarily have much higher CR scores than other students. I know that’s not true for the GRE, where verbal scores at elite engineering schools are not much higher or even lower than the scores for other fields.</p>
<p>But what you put here sort of underscores my original point. You can’t just look at the acceptance percentage and say X school is harder than Y. You have to look at the pool of applicants.</p>
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<p>I read it differently. To me Poch is saying the politically correct adcom mantra to encourage all comers. Brenzel is saying don’t bother.</p>
<p>^ “Don’t bother” is the conclusion we should arrive at for Yale, but to keep the admit rate down, he still wants apps. I’d rather think Poch was more than just being politically correct. He could have just stopped at “holistic view”, but he went further. However, his last sentence brings in the cold reality again.</p>
<p>I hear Yale saying, “Why should we take an exceptional person with a transcript glitch when we have oodles of exceptional persons applying without a transcript glitch? If you can’t come up with an answer to that question, we won’t be able to either.”</p>
<p>I hear Pomona saying, “We can overlook a transcript glitch but not a transcript mess.”</p>
<p>In any case, I’m giving up on Yale, unless my son still wants to give “Skill and Bones” a try. I kid you not; it is one of the reasons for his interest in Yale :).</p>
<p>Back around pages 36-38, we talked about how a great essay from our kids may raise red flag with the adcoms. Here is an interesting article from Boston Globe on this topic.</p>
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<p>[College</a> applications can be too good](<a href=“http://www.suekayton.com/MIT/Admissions%20essays.pdf]College”>http://www.suekayton.com/MIT/Admissions%20essays.pdf)</p>
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<p>So, let’s see…he would have a 1-in-11 chance of getting into a school where he would have a 1-in-1000 chance of being chosen…that’s a 0.009% net chance of joining Skull and Bones. I wish him luck. At least it’s better odds than hitting the jackpot on a slot machine.</p>
<p>New sub-topic. In the book “What colleges don’t tell you”, by Wissner-Gross, the author recommends advocating for your child with high school teachers from day one. In other words, the first time homework comes back with a B instead of an A, ask for a conference to discuss what the problem seems to be. The theory being that teachers try to give a certain number of A’s, B’s, etc., and if your child is borderline, but you make it clear you will be there to talk over every B, she is more likely to give your child the A and another borderline, whose parents don’t complain, will get the B.</p>
<p>I was one of those parents who stayed out of it, and told D that she would work for lots of difficult people in her lifetime, part of what she had to learn was how to give the teachers what they wanted. Looking back I can see how the above theory was probably at work in some of her B’s. </p>
<p>So, were you a parent who left teacher relations to your child, or one who “hovered”? I am guessing most on this thread were not the complainers, and super-involved mothers, rather than better students, account for some of the difference between the 3.6 student and the 4.0. If that is the case, adcom’s would be much better off choosing our independent darlings over the hothouse flowers!</p>
<p>That is obnoxious, but I do know parents like that.</p>
<p>No, I occasionally tried to get my kids to go ask their teachers for how they could improve their work, but they refused. “It wouldn’t do any good.” “She just hates all freshmen.” “He’s never any help.” So they got some B’s and they stayed B’s. I stopped talking to teachers after middle school.</p>
<p>I am so tired of dealing with teachers over important issues, that it would never occur to me to fight a B. Heck, I’ve not fought the occasional F either.</p>
<p>…but now I’m thinking maybe I should do that for D2. LOL!</p>